Wednesday, March 27, 2013

NOOOOOOOOOO!!

I am getting transferred today! :( I love this area so much and the people that I have met. I wasn't happy to come here and now I don't want to leave. I am going back to Clermont! I was in Minneola which is in clermont and that was English work. Now I am going to be in Clermont still but doing Spanish work. We will live in the same complex that I lived in in Minneola haha. My companion is elder Jimenez de Mexico. He moved here though when he was 8. He is pretty cool. I would be upset to go there, but I learned my lesson last transfer. The Lord knows best. So I am happy to go sad to leave. Bittersweet is the lifestyle on the mission for sure! Today we have to switch houses with the sisters because their house is huge and ours is small and there are a new set of elders coming in and well I would be living with them but I am getting transferred. So I get one night there. There is a jacuzzi bath tub in the master bedroom. I was looking forward to that haha. But I guess I will have to test it out tonight lol. It is seriously so big! There are a lot of new areas in the mission. It is crazy. I think that is the hardest thing for President Hall. Is to get housing for all the missionaries.

This week we had a great Sunday. We had some investigators come to church! Lalo came. He should be baptized here pretty soon. The 20th. We had Maria like always! She is doing good. Then we had the girl named Brenda from Argentina come. She is pretty cool. She just moved here and so no english. And her spanish... well... its different. I will call her on the phone and be like "Hola, como esta?" And then all I hear is, "kdjafljdklajklfdjiefei voz che djkfjsdkl como estas? Ask Donny what that means. But she uses a lot of different words than the other spanish countries. So it is pretty funny to talk to with her. And she has a different tone of voice and accent. instead of saying playa (beach) like ply-ya she says it like ply- sha and she says aysha instead of ay-ya.. it is spelled ella. which means her. So sometimes I have to think for a while to understand her haha. and she talks fast. She should be baptized sometime soon too! It is crazy to work with her because she is argentinian, her member friend is Puerto rican, and her other friends that we teach are from Ecuador. So we got all types of spanish going on including our gringo spanish. Good times.
 
We definitely saw some miracles this week. Especially at church. I had a question that I brought to church and the answer came to me as I was sitting there in sacrament meeting. Our gospel principles class had like 20+ people in it! full of investigators/Less Actives/recent converts, us and the teacher, WML and 2nd counselor of stake presidency. It was a real peaceful drive home. I love days like those. Where you just feel the peace and love of the gospel. The Lord is blessing us so much. The branch works really hard here! They are amazing. It is a blessing to be here!
 
I love you all and miss you!
Elder Christiansen

Monday, March 18, 2013

Hola

Here I am writing again! These weeks go by way to fast. And a lot of times, I sit down and I can't even remember too much because everything is just going by so fast! This week was another good one. As President Hall's time is counting down he is pushing us more than ever. I love it. Right now we are focusing on teaching everyone we see and asking them if we could share a message with them and if we aren't teaching someone we are finding. And there is no down time never. It's really hard because people love to talk about sports, life, etc. but we are being told to basically get down to business, get out asap, and go find someone else to teach. I like it. I feel like it will change our mission. It is really getting us fired up. A lot of us work hard, but insanely hard is the next step I guess haha and I am excited for it!
 
Well a really cool investigator just moved to P.R. for two months. She is the one that always feels the spirit really strongly. We took her on a church tour this week and she walked in the chapel and it was like a brick wall of the spirit hit her right in the face. Yup, best believe. She loved it! And we had two hermanas their from our branch and it went really well. It is kind of good she moved though because she goes to a church here, but it isn't in P.R.! But ours is. So she will probably get baptized in P.R. She is loving the BofM! It is really amazing to work with her and just adds to my testimony as well as the truth to the BofM.
We also were tracting the other day, met a lady from Ecuador! She was older and pretty lonely. We asked if we could say a prayer with her. She said yes. We asked her what she needed in her life and then prayed accordingly. She started crying during the prayer and then we taught her the restoration right after it on her porch. It was a really great experience. There is no better feeling than truely blessing others.
We have another investigator named Carlos from P.R. He is a tough one! The spirit is definitely working on him though. Chipping away at him little by little. We taught him the Plan of Salvation and it made a lot of sense to him. And he really liked it. And to my surprise we actually set a baptismal date with him haha. It was definitely a miracle. IDK how it happened but he is doing really well and his heart is being more and more softened.
I fixed my bike this week finally. It was a pain in the neck! It has been out of order for like 2 months haha and we are running out of miles, so I had to fix it. I learned a great lesson though. Take care of your stuff and if something little breaks, fix it because in the future something big will break. And then the other one is: if you don't know what you are doing, take it to someone who does know what they are doing. I truly have learned a lot from my bike hahahaha. And it is a testimony of how we learn more through trials and afflictions than through easy riding ;)....
Love you all, miss you! Keep praying for those miracles! I love them
Elder Christiansen

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Holaaaa


Well we had a pretty good week! Last week I think I told you all about a lady that we talked to and she felt the spirit and said she would come to church but didn't... And so this week we would call her, visit her and had no luck.. So we thought we lost her :(.. But one day we knocked her door and still no answer, so we walked down the street to another house and no answer as well, so we returned back towards the car and her brother came out of the garage. We told asked him if he would get his sister for us haha, as he opened the door she was right there and she saw us so she hurried up and ducked out of the way, he came back and said that she was sick. So we asked him to ask her if we could give her a blessing. He went back in and she actually accepted it by some miracle! haha.. So we talked with her, gave her a blessing and she told us how a friend had told her some "anti" garbage etc. And so we talked some more and she said she felt so peaceful and she knew it was the spirit. And so we just testified of it and at that moment no one in the room had a doubt that our message wasn't true. It was an amazing experience. The internet can lie, but the Spirit can't. And so she was going to come to church again but got sick.. This missionary business is a #headache... but a rewarding and happy one haha.
 
I just have to tell you about how awesome of a member that Ivelissee Rodriguez-Ortiz is! So she is ALWAYS looking for opportunities to share the gospel. She is a convert of about 5 years and she really has put the gospel first in her life. And she is so happy because she has done that. She has a powerful testimony as well. Last night one of our investigators called us and said she needed a ride to Orlando (about 45 minutes away) for her daughter's doctor appointment who is learning how to walk again after being in a full leg cast. The investigator's husband has a car, but he has to work far away, so we called Ivelissee last night to see if she could help out the investigator and without knowing when or what she said yes to help. We have a lot of members in our branch that are like that and it has been such a blessing to serve her. They have taught me soooo much and I really would not rather be in any other part of the world right now.

We are happy and safe
 
Love and miss you all, thank you for your prayers, they mean the world to us
 
Elder Christiansen

Monday, March 4, 2013

Teach people not lessons

This last week was another good week. Our numbers for teaching lessons were down, but I am okay with that because we taught more people. We had Zone Conference last week and that is something that I learned about. Is that we are constantly teaching. Why we eat, sit, email, find, teach, etc... We are teaching. And we should be teaching people and to their needs instead of just teaching what we study. We saw some miracles with that (later in letter).. We also learned about the power of testimonies. President Hall told a story that he heard about his friend's son that served in Hong Kong... One night he was on exchanges and 9 o clock was approaching to go home, but they decided to talk to one more person. They walked and found a person and started talking to him. The guy said that he traveled a lot, knew Mormons, knew the message, and wasn't interested but thanked them and kind of started to walk away. The missionary felt impressed to bear his testimony, so asked the guy if he could and he said yes and he shared it with him and then they left in separate directions. That guy then went on vacation and the missionary had no knowing about him and the guy said that his testimony just stuck in his mind and kept coming back. So as he was gone, he decided to take the lessons and him and his family got baptized.. Cool right? Well then the guy came back to Hong Kong and went to church and the same missionary was still in that area and so the guy went up to him and asked if he remembered him, he said he knew the face, but didn't know where, so the guy told him and told him that him and his family got baptized. He told them that next week he would bringing some more family to church and he wanted the missionary to teach them. So the next Sunday he brought 36 family members to church that were from mainland China! And the missionary taught them and a couple weeks later there were 36 baptisms in that ward... Cool right? Well that was a HUGE number and really not common haha. So the Area Authority came to the mission and interviewed the missionaries to make sure they weren't being disobedient and going over to the mainland because the church is very protective of that. They told him the story and then even Elder Holland came over to interview them! And they told their story and all was OKAY haha... Cool right? So then with in another month 100 more people came from mainland China and got baptized as well in that ward!!! Cool right? So 136 total baptisms in about 2 months from 1 simple testimony. The other miracle is that the 3rd branch I think? in mainland China was started from that. Sooo... I am going to share my testimony with others a lot more! And I hope you do too.
Saturday we were STRUGGGLING. We had like 6 lessons set up at one point and the first five canceled haha. So as we were walking down the street, I looked at a house and saw a "casita" (a decoration Spanish people always have that is just a little house by the door usually.)... And I had the thought to knock it. I was sooo just frustrated that I had no idea how the spirit was with me haha, but anyways we knocked the door and a guy comes out and tells us his name before we could talk, starts talking a lot, and invites us in, but I could tell he was handicap or something wasn't quite right, so I said.... "well... Umm.. we just want to pray with you right here outside." haha and he looked really confused, but I just did not have a good feeling about going inside, so I was thinking to myself, "Elder Christiansen, you are horrible at following the Spirit" haha.. So then all of a sudden a car pulls up in the driveway and she rolls down her window and talks to her brother and tells him to go inside and tells us that he is handicap. So we start talking to her (in Spanish) and she says she has heard our message before and just doesn't agree with it and isn't really interested and she is getting baptized in some other christian church... So I ask her what her doubt was or whatever. And she explained to us that she understood that the Book of Mormon was actually our bible. She thought we believed the real bible is a fake bible and that Moroni buried the REAL and TRUE bible haha. She said the missionaries that taught her in Puerto Rico couldn't really speak Spanish and it had been 15 years. I was on exchanges, so my companion didn't speak Spanish, so I went on to explain everything and the Restoration and bore testimony talked with her, asked some questions and at the end we both were enlightened by the spirit, it was freezing cold outside and I just had a white shirt on, but the spirit warmed me up haha. And then she said, "next week I'm coming to your church and I want you to teach my daughter and her family as well!" She said she couldn't come this Sunday because she had to go to her church. I told her that this Sunday was testimony meeting and very special and so she said with a smile, I'm coming tomorrow then! So that was cool. Sunday came and she didn't show up, and neither did a lot of investigators that we were sure would come. I was upset a little bit. But then testimony meeting was a little crazy you could say! The craziest one I have ever been in for sure. So I am glad they didn't come at the end of the day... I had to repent for bickering... like always. At the end of the day I learned, teach people not lessons, bear testimony, and the Lord has a purpose for everything and knows best!
 
Well love you all! Thanks for your prayers!
Elder Christiansen
#GMC$