New Years' Eve!

   
This week was great! I think Christmas day was my favorite haha. It
was so nice to see all of my family and of course my friend jake haha!
It was definitely a christmas i wont forget.. we wer supposed to be
leaving the members house around 4:30 and it was snowing like crazy
outside.. yes snowing in Texas! Well we were wiping our windows off
when i opened the car and threw the keys in the car and i guess pushed
the lock button instead of the unlock button and locked our keys into
our car.. So now we are basically stuck at this members house for the
rest of the day and could not go to our dinner appointment that we
were planning on going to. The assistants could not come down to bring
us the extra set of keys until the morning so we were locked out of
our apartment on Christmas night. So we had to stay at another set of
Elders apartment for the night. The assistants finally got to us
around 12:30 the next day and we got back into our car! What a relief.

The rest of the week went really slow because alot of our
investigators were out of town for Christmas and so we weren't able to
meet with them.. But we had a really neat experience this Sunday at
church. So we had received a media referral earlier in the week for a
"Perry Cox" and it said that we had to contact the member before
contacting him so we had to wait to get the phone number from the
office which wouldn't open back up until Monday which is today.. But
on Sunday the member brought Perry to church and he seemed super happy
to be there. during 2nd hour we just sat down to visit with him and
get to know him and he basically told us his life story. He told us
that he was abused as a kid and he just broke down in tears he was so
upset about everything that happened in his childhood. But he did tell
us that he ended up working as a computer tech guy for quite some time
and he knows quite a bit about computers. Well we weren't able to
teach the 1st lesson because we ran out of time. The members that
dropped him off ended up leaving too so we had to give him a ride home
which was a ways away from the church. and guess where he lives.. in
the back of a friends yard under a tarp with some blankets! How Sad!!
I felt so horrible inside to see his living conditions and to know the
things that he has been through. I am just so grateful that i am
blessed to have a roof under my head and a family! Perry is probably
one of the most humblest persons i have met on my mission and he is
willing and ready to make a change in his life to be a better person.
I am excited to see how this journey will go with our new investigator
Perry Cox!

I hope you had a very merry Christmas and Enjoy the New Year!

Love Elder Christensen

Christmas Eve 2012!

This week has been great! This letter is going to be a little shorter
than usual because today is Christmas Eve and we are going to be
running everywhere! We had a few good lessons this week with our
investigators and we also started teaching this lady named Erin
Miller. She lives in Florida but works for one of the members and is
here for half of the month each month so we will see how that goes.
She invited us to a party happening the day after at a roller rink and
that was crazy! i havent been on roller blades in ages and it took me
a little while to figure out how to do it again. But by the end i was
going backwards and everything so it was good! On Friday we had a big
training and i got to see a lot of missionaries in the mission! That
was super fun. On Saturday i rode the DART train which is this train
that takes you into Dallas and saves us on our miles. We rode it into
Garland for someones baptism that Elder Thompson taught in his last
area. It was Super fun. Well i hope you have a great Christmas and i
cant wait to hear from you!

Teaching, blessings and Christmas preparations!

This week has been great and we are doing a lot better now in our area
now that we have been here for about 2 weeks! We are not teaching as
much as i was in my last area mainly because the area i am in now is
more wealthy and less humble. We had a great visit with Allison
Crawford an investigator of ours on Tuesday and also had dinner with
the whole family. We watched the restoration video and had a great
lesson on the prophet Joseph Smith. We were able to resolve a lot of
her concerns and questions and its probably not going to be too much
longer before she takes the plunge!

On Wednesday a member took us to Fuddruckers for Lunch! It was
delicious! I haven't been there my whole mission and its the first one
i have seen on my mission. We went to give a baby blessing after for a
less active sister in the ward. Her Baby has pneumonia! We also
visited Brother Jones who is a blind man in the ward and he was
cracking blind jokes left and right. It was super funny! Something
Texas is famous for is there "Trade Days" which is another term for
"Swap Meets". There is this huge one in one of our areas and we went
to it on Friday to see if there was some stuff we could buy to send
home for Christmas! We had a really great experience Wednesday
night.

We went to visit this family that the bishop was kind of hesitant on us
visiting. But our first Sunday here i just had their name in the back of
my head and it wasn't going away. So i knew that it was definitely the
Spirit. So we went to visit this family and had a great visit with Sister
Larsen on the doorstep. She got to talking about her husband being in
the potato business and we told her we were both from Idaho and she
said that she was from the Rigby area.. a little town called Labelle. Well
that is where Elder Thompson's mom was from and Sister Larsen.. come
to find out was best friends with Elder Thompson's Aunt growing up!
I knew that was an answer to the feelings i was having at church the
Sunday before! What a great experience!!

Saturday we took some Christmas pictures to make Christmas cards and
they are hilarious! Most of that day we were stopping by less active
and part member families to visit. We had dinner at a Chinese Buffet
and guess what was on ESPN?? It was the "Famous Idaho Potato Bowl
Game" Toledo Vs. Utah State. Oh that made me super trunky to see the
Smurf Turf and to also see the Boise Valley when they would show
it.... Later that night we went to the Mckinney 3rd wards Christmas
party which was at the Ragsdales home! They are super rich and have a
huge house and big property!

The Fairview ward also had their Christmas party on Sunday and it was
awesome! The members of these wards are definitely willing to do
missionary work! One member brought a friend to church yesterday and
now we will start teaching her this Wednesday.. Lots of great
opportunities to do missionary work here in my area!

First Snow in Texas!! (McKinney area)

We woke up this morning to 30 degrees and snow on our car! I got to
throw my first snow ball in over 2 years! How sad! This week has been
pretty crazy with being doubled in to a new area with my new
companion! His name is Elder Thompson and he is from Victor, Idaho and
he has been out for 20 months so he has 3 transfers left! It is weird
to think that i am only 3 months behind him! Anyways.. this area is
great and we are feeling so welcomed from the wards here. Our first
night we had dinner at the James Family's house and they are super
rich.. along with everyone else in this area! Brother James questioned
us about why we were out serving a mission and it kind of felt like i
was being interrogated!

For most of the week we were just trying to get a feel for the area
since we are both new and have no idea whats going on. We had dinner
with a returning part member family on Thursday and that was great!
The father was baptized at 8 and his family went inactive almost right
after but he started coming back to church this year and his wife got
bapitzed and also his son but his 15 year old daughter Allison
Crawford is still holding on. We had dinner with them and then we
shared a brief lesson with them about the importance of the book of
mormon and then we had to leave to make it to our next appointment. We
drove to Sister Shantelle Smith's house and when we got there i
recognized her and she recognized me. She actually used to live in
Tyler Texas and i went to her house a few times when i was in the
Bullard and Whitehouse wards. Well they have a neighbor who we are
teaching and his name is Taj and we are also teaching his little
sister. Well we met with Taj and had a great lesson. He told us that
he wants to be baptized but his mom wants him to wait and check out
more churches before he makes his decision.

We attended the Melissa Ward Christmas party and that helped us get to
know some of the members a lot more! Yesterday at church was the best
though. We finally got to meet all 3 wards that we cover and everyone
was so nice! Thats Texas for you! Unless you are in South Dallas (My
last Area). The Bishop of the Melissa and Fairview wards are so pumped
for missionary work and we sat down with both of them and got tons of
part-member names and families that we need to start getting
acquainted with! Yesterday was probably the best day this week for us
because it helped us figure out this area so much more than when we
first got there! My new address for this area is:

1600 Heritage Dr. # 612
Mckinney, TX 75069

Transfer to Melissa, Texas and Ward Christmas parties

This week has been good! We had District Meeting on Tuesday and our
District Leader Elder Shuman said the dumbest thing ever. He said that
he has been grateful to be the district leader this last transfer and
he hopes he didnt make any of us lose faith. haha. who says that? He
is one of those missionaries that desires leadership and that is just
stupid. If i was to be in leadership i would not push my seniority on
other missionaries! We had a really good lesson with one of our YSA
Investigator Alex Sauer. We have been teaching him for a while now and
he isnt really going anywhere. He has mixed feelings about baptism and
other things. So we decided to re-teach the Restoration to him since
it has been a couple of months and the lesson went really good. I
asked him the question "if this was all true what steps would you be
willing to take to change" and he gave some answer that i cant
remember but i asked him if he knew that Christ was his savior. And he
responded No. Well then i asked him that when he prays.. who is he
talking to? and he responded.. well when i am with you guys i pray to
your god and when i am alone i just talk. I told him that our god is
the same god as the Baptist god, the Methodist god, the Mormon god. He
is all the same God! and i said when you are alone.. I invite you to
pray the way we do and ask God if Jesus Christ really died for you!
and we left it at that! It was a really bold and powerful lesson!

The rest of the week was Hit and Miss. On Saturday morning we went to
the Mountain Creek ward Christmas Breakfast and it was pathetic. It is
nothing like ward parties back home. It just seems that the ward
doesnt click together. So I didnt feel homey at all! I did get a
picture with Santa though:)! After we went to Larrys house to help him
with Service. We got to use a torch and melt metal. That was pretty
cool! He also has this huge cat face spider that built his web in his
backyard and we found a small grasshopper and threw it in his web and
that spider destroyed the little grasshopper. Haha. After helping
Larry we went to Jared Salinas' house to help him put up Christmas
lights. He is a YSA Member. After helping him we went to the YSA
Christmas Dinner and party and we were there until we had to go home
for the night. Later that night I got a transfer call and i am leaving
Duncanville! I am going to Melissa Texas and i will be covering 3
wards! The Melissa Ward, Fairview Ward, and Mckinney 3rd Ward! I have
mixed feelings about the transfer but oh well. I wanted to stay for
Christmas! We went to see Lacy for the last time last night and she
said she has been crying on and off all day! She was super sad to see
me leave. but she did tell me that she was going to come visit me for
Christmas!:)