Last one :(

Well I wish I could reflect on my whole mission and let you know how I feel about everything, but words really aren't able to describe it. It has been such a blessing to so many people and I have a heart full of gratefulness for that.

So there was a great experience this last week. Sunday the 9th, I fasted for just one more miracle my last week in my new area in Apopka. It was amazing! We were so blessed!!!! With more than just one.

1) This 21 yr old named Gabriel had been investigating for a while, but never came to church. Sat. the 8th we visited him and were going to drop him, but instead we felt like we should give him one last chance. So we invited him to church. He said he would go if his family went. Well Sunday came and his family didn't come, but he came by himself. We went to the YSA class with him and he made some friends! Then this last Saturday we had an appointment with him and he said he really liked church and felt peaceful afterwards. He came yesterday to church as well and enjoyed it. He is getting baptized this Saturday! :)

2) We set a baptismal date with Melissa and her two boys for the 29th of June. They are amazing!

3) THE COOLEST ONE! So yesterday we were tracting and we felt like we would see a miracle. And so we knocked a door and the guy to my surprise let us right in without even a great contact haha. We sat down and it was him and his wife. He said his gma and mom were Mormon, but that he wasn't ever baptized that he couldn't remember. And we talked a little bit and he said he was in the military. I asked him where he was stationed. He said, "Oh in a naval base in Nevada." I was like "Wait! Fallon?!" And he said yes. Haha. So we became best friends like that. I asked him if he ever went to the dentist. He said yes. He thought his name was Christiansen haha. Said he was young, kind of bald and had glasses. I told him that he has some hair still. So I think his dentist was Donny, he said Donny would remember him because he had to like order a whiter tooth or whiter paste because his teeth were too white for what they had and so Donny like ordered one straight from his pocket or something. His name was Brandon. Ya, he and his wife are going to get baptized! 

MIRACLE WEEEEEEEEK!

Your prayers worked miracles this last week! It was an amazing week. So last week I told you about Armando and asked you to pray for him. He is the one who visits only for a week at a time about once every other month. So Sunday he came to church and we couldn't get an appt. with him. He told us he was leaving on Friday. So Monday we bought him a white shirt (we thought maybe that's why he hadn't got baptized cuz he didn't have a white shirt... haha.. hey it happens) Anyways it was a good excuse to go over, so that night we went over and gave him the shirt but he was real tired, so we couldn't teach him, he didn't really seem interested in talking either so I lost a lot of faith in getting him baptized this last week. Tuesday from 12-6 we had tracting planned 6-7 was a lesson and 7-8 was a dinner with a less active family and we had some people to visit after the dinner. So we hit 5 o clock and we are dead from tracting. And then both our 6 o clock and 7 o clock canceled. We were soaking wet from the rain and we were pretty frustrated, so we continued tracting and went home at 6 to dry our clothes and grab a bite to eat. As we thought what to do, Armando came to our mind. So at 7 we took over one of my comps ties and a picture of him and his family at the temple that my comp printed off from the temple tour we did with them at his last visit a month and a half ago. He answered the door, he said we could sit down, we gave him the picture. Then he told us he was thinking about getting baptized that week! So we told him, yes yes yes yes do it. please. So we got his interview on Wednesday for him and baptized on Thursday! It was a miracle and a half. I realized the blessing of the appointments canceled on Tuesday and had to repent for thinking I knew better than the Lord and for not accepting His will at first and murmuring. Anyways I called up President Hall for permission to confirm him as well at the baptism since he was leaving Friday and wouldn't be at church. He said yes, and I invited him to come to the baptism, and he came. He actually knows the family really well. And at the end he said a couple of words. He mentioned how he and Sister Hall were praying for him that they would see him get baptized before they left on July 1st. POWERFUL. EVERYONE was praying for him including many of you and I am so grateful for that. His name was even in the temple! :)...

 

Then on Friday, President called me to tell me I would be getting Emergency Transferred. So that night I packed up my stuff and went to APOPKA. It is still in our district, and I knew I was going to be getting ET'd over there because the elder had some joint problems and couldn't walk real well and doctors couldn't figure it out and President had been talking to me quite a bit throughout last week and warned me that I would probably leave. He was such a good elder. It was sad to see him have to leave. He will be back though once they figure out how to help him. So my last week of my mission is in a new area. We had a baptism on Sunday here with a guy that I have met a couple of times because of exchanges. So that was cool haha. And this week my old area has a baptism as well on Saturday. The Lord has blessed me so much at the end of my mission. It is great! :) I love it.

 

Pray for me to love tracting my last week please. I still am doing fine on teaching and getting out and doing missionary work. But I am dragging my feet when the appointments fall through and I know we have to tract. haha. I'm gonna finish strong though!

 

Love you all!

Livin' la vida loca!

So I am really loving life right now. Just trying to get as much out of the short time that I have. Things have been going great though. Our companionship is doing amazing and we are having a blast. We had some new investigators come to church this week and also we had the couple that has to get married come to church on Sunday. And we had the one guy that goes to Texas and back come back and he came with his family. He is pretty awesome. His name is Armando and his family is all baptized, but him. He knows it is true, loves the BofM, keeps the commandments, goes to church every Sunday in Texas. Wants to be baptized, but just hasn't done it yet. I am baffled on why not. We are trying to get him to receive the blessings of the gospel this week. Please pray for him specifically and also pray for miracles. We have been being blessed a lot. We found a kid named Andres. He is 20. Good heart and very sincere. We have passed by 3 times now and he loves it. We are going to try to get his family involved. The group here is doing good as well. They are doing some missionary work. We are going to an FHE tonight with a family and their friends that they invited over. And also a member that just moved here and came to church yesterday said he has a referral for us. So we are super pumped about that. I have started to write down life lessons that I have learned from my mission. It is amazing to reflect and see how the Lord is preparing me for the future. I have realized that my mission was a blessing and not a sacrifice.

 

We are loving life, we have a good week planned ahead of us. Please pray for miracles. We love them! thank you for all your support, love, and prayers!

Love,

Elder Christiansen

Hey!

So we had a pretty good week once again! I am loving this area. It has been a fun struggle that is for sure. We are seeing too many miracles though in order to cry. This week we made pancakes for a different family and brought them to church with us! They are la familia Jimenez! They are great. I think they liked church ? They had to leave after the first hour because the youngest daughter didn't want to stay. She is very hyper and was very scared of Primary. She is 5. We are visiting them tonight. Please pray for them. Your prayers are working so many miracles out here in Orlando! Whether you believe it or not.

One Miracle this week:

We were knocking in a neighborhood and felt like we were in the wrong place. So we went down a hill to the next one. We decided to go right on the street. We walk past a couple of English looking houses and as we walk past one, the impression to knock it came. So we knocked it and a Dominican lady came out and she was sooo nice! She actually knows a member and likes how she talks about the church. And we talked about the Restoration and some other things on the porch and are going over today.

 

I would write more, but I am too scared that that would be prideful and whenever I get prideful, the Lord humbles me haha. Happens a lot. I am truly scared to pray for humility because I know He answers prayers and that week could be the roughest week of my mission haha. So I'm just going to leave it at that.

 

I almost died this week. We were in a neighborhood tracking and there was a house surrounded by a chain fence and they also had an in screened porch about 15 ft. from the fence to get to the front door. I got to the metal fence and shook it to see if any dogs came running. None did. So I walked in and I was about right in the middle of the chain fence and screen porch and my companions were behind me, and then a pit bull comes running around the corner of the house. So my companions ran towards the metal fence and I ran to the screen porch. The dog went for my companions for some reason, it probably could have got me though. We all made it safely in. Then I realized that the dog was still between me and the fence. The screen door wouldn't lock shut, so I was too scared to leave it to knock the door for help. Luckily kids came running outside and I asked them for help haha. So I was saved :)... I will never get a dog after my mission.

 

Love you so much! Things are great. We still have Elder Cheney the Visa Waiter. He keeps us oldies fired up! The Lord is blessing us so much. Thank you for your prayers! Love you all!

Elder Christiansen

HOLA!

Well where to start? O ya.. We had a new family come to church this week! :) We have been blessed with so many miracles recently. There is no room to be sad. They are really cool! They loved church as well. So that is great. We have another lesson with them tonight and I think they are planning on going on a temple tour this Wednesday. There son who is 13 started investigating at first from the English elders. He was going to church with a neighbor friend. Then the mother got interested to see what her son was learning. And she doesn't really speak English, so we started teaching her. Then we invited her husband to join us as well and he did! There is also a daughter named Ailec who is 9! They really are a wonderful family!

 

Our Visa waiter, Elder Cheney is doing great! He is still with us. It is kind of selfish, but I don't want him to leave haha. It is crazy that at any moment we could get a call and he is gone.

 

Last week we knocked a lot a lot of doors. And we saw some miracles with that. Yesterday we were walking down a street and we don't knock every door, just the Spanish looking ones, and we felt to knock a door and so we did and a lady answered and her daughter isn't doing so great. So we said a prayer with her and taught her a little bit and she seems really great! We have another appointment with her this week. Tracting isn't the most desirable thing, but we make it fun and we are meeting some great people. We don't really have too many members, and no one is outside, and we aren't too creative, but we work hard and the Lord blesses us. We are getting really really tan though. No bueno. Me and my white companion use a lot of sunscreen.

 

Thank you for your prayers! They help me stay concentrated and motivated. We see miracles daily!

Love Elder Christiansen

Hey!

Hey everyone! Sorry we emailed late. We had a dentist appointment super far away, and we got back later in the day and the computer lab was down. So we are all just sending one email to all our families! So you know we are alright. Because they only let us onto the computers for like 5 min.

The week was super great! We had a blast. It was pretty hot. We knocked a lot of doors. But we also taught quite a bit of lessons. And had some spiritual ones in there! We had a couple investigators come to church and they liked it. We are hoping to set a couple of more baptismal dates this week:). We all get along pretty well. A trio is pretty fun! Never a boring moment. We have a young couple Jose and Marisol that are truth seekers! And we also have a couple of other families in there. It was a great mother's day at church. They gave them roses. We love you and thank you for your prayers. They always help us keep going! :)

 

-Los Misioneros

 

P.S. Sorry Grandma Jean for not responding about school! I felt bad afterwards. haha. I love you! And yes I am excited and nervous and sad. Bittersweet!

Baptism!

Tuesday was probably one of my favorite days of the mission for sure! We had a baptism on Tuesday and we had invited the family that has a baptism date, but they weren't able to come because the mom had back pains. So while we were sitting in the baptism, the thought came to visit the family after the baptism and give her a priesthood blessing. The baptism was so smooth! We have a new way we run the baptism program and it was just perfect! We really couldn't have asked for a better baptism. And when we started the water to fill the font about 3 hours beforehand President had recommended that we watch the font fill up for a couple minutes. It was a real touching experience. Real peaceful. So after the baptism we took a couple with us to go do the priesthood blessing. We gave her the blessing and it was another just peaceful experience! She felt the spirit for sure and we shared a little message with them and they seem to be doing so well. As we left it started to rain pretty bad. The worst rain that I have seen in my 2 years here. So We had another appointment to go to and there were a bunch of cars that had just stopped in the MIDDLE of the road and put on their hazards because their windshield blades I guess couldn't keep up. So we were weaving in and out of them haha and we got to our next appt. The streets were just filled with water! And in that appointment, we had another great experience with the family. We watched a little video with them and talked about commitment and they committed pretty hard to go to church Sunday. Unfortunately they didn't come, but it was still a great experience. As we were driving home, I ran into a lake in the road haha and I think we were about wheel deep in water, so I just punched it and then all this water shot off the roof of our car. Exciting spiritual day haha. My feet got soaked this week from all the rain. I guess it cuz of all the holes in my shoes haha. Don't buy me new ones though. They were born with me into the mission and they are going to die with me in the mission :)

 

Today is the start of transfers. I am staying with my companero mexicano and also they are sending us a new missionary that is waiting for his visa #ElderStockardSwagg. So we will be in a trio for a while I imagine. Gonna be a blast!

 

Elder Christiansen

#143

Thanks for your prayers Happy Mother's Day!