A testimony of the Law of Tithing

hey mom!
how have you been?? its gonna be short today cause we are way busy! im not getting transferred so i have the same address! we had a baptism on saturday for shirley lentz and it went very good! we met with an investigator named melinda eitzen yesterday. and she was taught all of the lessons from the previous elders so we were just seeing how she was doing. we met with her last week and she had a problem with the law of tithe. so we met with her yesterday and she said that after we left last week she had a dream all night about tithing and she came to know that it is a commandment of the lord. so she ended up paying tithing on sunday and then we met with her last night. she said. so i think we should set a date for my baptism! it was so cool that she wanted to set a date and we didnt even ask her to.. we werent planning on setting a date last night either woo hoo! so exciting so she will be baptized on the 17th. have a great week!
love elder christensen

Service project

So, this week we did alot of service and heres one story from the week. we had to go clean out this apartment for this couple in their 50's and they were horders! it was so gross! i ended up cutting my leg on a broken mirror and putting a huge gash in my leg. well not huge but deep. its okay no stitches just a bandage and i was good to go. well we took 2 loads of trash to the dump and we got out of there! that place stunk! the man that actually lived there was hospitalized because of the stench in that apartment. he got a sinus infection that ate the bone away between the brain and nose and he ended up passing away yesterday!:( so it was kind of sad to hear that and to see how he lived for his whole life!

Lovin' lasagna in Texas...but not as good as moms!

Hey mom!

it is always nice when i get to see emails every monday! thats so funny about zach and his bike riding! he never road the bikes when i was around? what made him wanna do it now? i havent really been spending lots of money lately but today im gonna go buy some ties cause i have like none and i want a more color variety! the streak for the heat never broke.. it never hit a 100 on like 2 of the days this last week which felt great! but very humid because it rained!

So heres an interesting story for ya! so there is this member named james andrews who was converted back in 2007. well he quickly fell away from the church and about a year ago he started biking and weighed about 300 pounds. well today hes probably about 230.. well he started having heart problems and we ended up giving him a blessing a couple weeks ago. well he married his wife diana about 20 years ago. and after a year they divorced. well about a month or two later they found eachother on facebook and still had feelings for eachother. so they wanted to get back together and remarried. well when they got a divorce.. the papers never went through, so they had been married for over 20 years and had no idea.. well they are now back together! well ever since hes been having heart problems.. he figured that was a sign of god telling him to go back to church. so he started going back and he brought his wife diana along with him.. well she is baptist and she said she has never felt the spirit in our church like she has anywhere else! she said that this is where she belongs! well this week we had the first lesson with her and i committed her to baptism.. my heart was beating so fast! she said yes and i was so happy for her! she could really feel the spirit because she started crying at one point of the lesson. it was a very spiritual lesson!

my companion and i get along great! and we teach very good together! the wards here are nothing like the ones at home! size wise that is! but they are all very strong in the gospel and very good with missionary work! so far lasagna seems to be the number 1 meal we eat haha. but hey.. lasagna is way good! not as good as yours tho:) i hope you have a great week mom! i love you lots and tell everyone that i love and miss them too!

lover elder christensen

Thank goodness for wearing short sleeve shirts in Dallas!

If you look in the background, you can see the Plano watertower

letter from Dilan:

Dear Mom!
so whats this i hear about ping pong.. did you get a table or something? if so thats way cool! we have a pool table in the house we live in so we take advantage of that quite a bit. we actually had to buy more chalk for the pool sticks today haha. okay so the power just shut off like 2 minutes ago and thank goodness my email was saved haha. but yes of course we get to wear short sleeve shirts. i would quit if we couldnt haha. jk! i have 7 short sleeves and 3 long sleeves. well my bike i bought from a members son who bought it about a year ago.. he never used it so it was like brand new and it was originally probably 600.00 dollars. it is a trek and it is really nice! i have pictures so i will send you one. so as of today i have lost about 20 pounds.. they just keep falling off and its so awesome! it makes me really happy! we go to walmart every monday and we buy food for the week. most of the time we have dinners at night so the people we live with dont make us food. she does cook us breakfast on sundays tho! :) i hope you are doing good mom i love you!
love elder christensen
ps. do you think you could send me one of those electric toothbrushes that you got shea on his mission? i would really like that!:)

Biking for 20 miles a day in 100+ degree temps

The answer to your first question is we are on bikes! we bike about 20 miles or so a day and it has been over a 100 every day since i have been here. i have lost about 10 pounds since being out here and i hope to keep losing weight! i do pushups and situps everyday and workout a little with the dumbells. breakfast is usually a bowl of cereal and lunch is maybe a sandwich. i dont really eat a lot during those times. its usually dinner with the members is when i eat! i drink a ton of water out here and i sweat so much! i dont think there is ever a time in my day where i am dry from the sweat! but it has humbled me so much since being out here and i am growing to love it! our days mostly consist of leaving the house around 12.. tracting for about 5 or so hours and going to dinner and then tracting for about 3 hours after us. even tho tracting is the most useless thing to do for missionary work.. the lord has blessed us with a few referrals since being here! we had a lesson with a 23 year old girl named shirley lentz yesterday and committed her to baptizm and she said yes! i was so excited for her and am glad she made that decision. so i think my first baptizm will be on the 27th of august.