Habitat for Humanity, Pinewood Derby and Perry Cox's Baptism

We had a really good week this week. On Wednesday we had a meeting in
Dallas with all the English zones in the Dallas area and that was
pretty fun.. But i am not too thrilled to go to them anymore because
its the same stuff over and over again and i already know the drill..
i guess that's what happens when you get close to going home.. I never
though that day would come Ha. Later that night we went to a members
house in the Mckinney 7th ward and we had a huge feast for dinner..
The Holm family definitely knows how to feed missionaries that's for
sure. Thursday was a fun day as we were asked to go to the church and
be the judges for the Pinewood Derby Race.. Oh boy was that fun and
brought back lots of missionaries.. There was this kid that reminded
me of Shea when he kept losing with his whale car and the kid was
acting exactly like him haha.. The pinewood derby can get pretty crazy
especially when you see parents start busting out their video cameras
to see if their car actually won! Theres always one of those parents
haha.

On Friday we did service for a place called Habitat for Humanity and
its a function that helps build houses for less fortunate people..
They have a huge warehouse full of housing stuff and we were just the
muscle and helpers for the day. It was really fun and i enjoyed
helping out and doing some hard labor. Its been a while since i have
done some service that was really good working labor. We attended a
baptism on Saturday for one of the Mckinney Elders and then afterwards
we went to Buffalo Wild Wings for lunch.. I haven't been there since
my first area and it was sooo good! Sunday was a really good day.

Our investigator Perry Cox (the one who is homeless) who Elder Thompson
and I were teaching while we covered the Fairview ward was baptized
yesterday and it was such a neat experience and he even bore his
testimony and it was just such a great experience and nice to see how
far he had come from when we first met him. He has definitely grown a
love for the gospel and he knows it is true because of the blessings
he has received from living it.

Mission Olympics and Kevin Harris's baptism.

This week was super slow.. a lot slower than other weeks since i have been in this area.. we have just had a ton of people cancelling appointments and not being home and that has been super annoying.. Our mission president says he doesn't care about numbers and that he just likes to see baptisms and that's totally true but i don't like seeing my numbers when they are low.. it makes me feel like i didn't put in the effort for that week.. oh well. Everyone on a mission has weeks like those. All of Tuesday we were in Carrolton Texas at a Zone Conference and it was called the "Texas Dallas Mission Olympics 2012" it was super fun.. we had to do all sorts of different events.. each event was 6 minutes longs and we had.. Free throw shooting, push-ups, soccer ball juggling, speed walking around the church parking lots, scripture memorization, preach my gospel memory and other stuff like that.. it was so fun but let me tell ya.. i was super sore for the next few days hahaha!

This week we met with Kevin Harris for the last time before his baptism! We talked to him about fasting and about what was going to happen at his baptism and he was getting super anxious! Saturday i was so excited and anxious for his baptism. He got there on time and instead of wearing the jumpsuits that the church puts out. he wore white pants, a white shirt, a white tie and a white belt! He was looking pretty fresh! He said he was nervous because Xavier the person baptizing him was nervous too! That was his first time baptizing. Elder Edlund and I were the witnesses and we had to tell Xavier to restart the baptismal prayer before he baptized him and had to restart.. so he said the prayer right and when he baptized him it looked like he wasn't going to go all the way under and then Xavier gave him the elbow to the chest and pushed him all the way down! so it was a one shot one kill! Kevin felt super good and he was way excited to receive the Holy Ghost on Sunday. He is being fellow shipped super good and the YSA actually took him to a movie after his baptism which was way cool! On Sunday while we are sitting in the chapel waiting for sacrament to start.. Kevin wasn't there.. we were getting pretty nervous cause by this time it was about 10 after the hour and then he finally came in. But he came and was confirmed a member and that was super cool! He felt super good and almost invincible:) Kevins baptism was probably one of my favorites of my whole mission!

Another great week! Camerons' baptism

Cameron's baptism

This week went great! I told y'all last week that I was going to have a couple baptisms this saturday. Well I only ended up having one. It was for Cameron Meroney. It was definantly a great experience. We also had a lot of non member family members of Camerons there too so that was good! This week was a little slow because I got a cold earlier in the week and ended up getting a really bad sore throat and that put me out for a day or so. I literally couldnt even swallow my own spit. It hurt that bad! Earlier in the week we went on an adventure with Bro. Thomas to hunt down less active members out in Frankston and Chandler Texas. Oh my gosh! I am so glad that I am fortunate to have an actual house to live in back home because every body we visited lived in a trailer home and there was pitbulls galore! Everyone had a pitbull! It was a little strange. but scary! Those dogs are not something to play with!
We had a lesson on thursday with we had a lesson with Kylie Glover and Lexie Thomas. both sisters but different dads. they have been coming to church every week for more than a month now. and that was our first lesson with them. We set a baptism date with them for February 4th. it was awesome! They are so ready its not even funny! Friday we went on exchanges with the Willspoint elders. They live like 60 miles away from us and in the other district. We normally wouldnt allow exchanges like that but since Elder Moses's mtc companion is in the Wills Point area.. we allowed it. they had a whole day of trunkiness! hahahaha. my day friday on the other hand was kind of strange. I was with Elder taylor. he is a 24 year old guy and kind of a goofball. He is into a game called dungeons and dragons which apparently is the most nerdiest game ever.. and he tried explaining it to me and it was really weird. I ended up sleeping most of that day cause i was sick, so we werent very productive... Tonight should be a good dinner. Bro. Robison is taking us to this place called shoguns which is a japanese steak house. kind of like tapenyaki:) im super excited!!!!

Planning baptisms, Visiting a farm, hoping to acquire first Texas Cowboy hat

This week has been awesome!!! My companion Elder Moses is too trunky to tract haha so now if we dont have any lessons planned and we are not doing anything we will go hunt down less actives in both wards. and believe me!! there is so many less actives its not even funny! But this week we got 12 LTMP's (lessons taught with a member present). those are the best kind of lessons because when a member is present the investigator is hearing their testimonies too and not just ours. Friday i went on an exchange with one of the zone leaders, Elder Layton and that was an awesome day! We tracted for 3 hours or so and we were able to get along very well! We also went on the exchange so he could interview Colton and Corinne Clay for baptism and also Cameron Meroney! So this next Saturday we will be having 3 baptisms:) Corinne Clay is still saying that she is deciding between mormon and baptist but she passed her baptismal interview so more than likely she will be baptized!! We also are going to start teaching these 2 girls in the Bullard ward on thursday and they have been coming to church for quite some time now. I had no idea they were not members. So if we get special permission from our mission president we can teach them everything on Thursday and they could also get baptized on Saturday. so there is a possibility we could have 5 baptisms this coming Saturday:) if not then we will have 3 this week and 2 next week:)

Saturday we had the privelege of attending the baptism of Isaac Northcutt. He just turned 8 and he had asked me to give the talk on the Holy Ghost. The Northcutt family is so cool! They were the ones that let me skype home:). Well after the baptism Isaac's grandma came up to me crying saying how she loved my talk and that it was very good:)! That made me feel pretty good:) I was just surprised that Isaac had asked me to do it and not someone from his family! He loves the missionaries though! He asked me one day. "Elder Christensen... will you still be on your mission when i go on mine"? That was pretty funny! He was surprised when his mom told him that i will be 30 years old when he goes. Thats crazy to hear haha! Last night we had dinner at the Atwoods house. They are so cool! They own over 500 or so goats and then they have peacocks, horses, an emu, ginne fowl, etc. Anyways they have a flippin zoo at their house. They also live next to his parents house and they are the owner of the Atwood Cowboy hat which is a very popular cowboy hat. So i think I'm probably going to get one:)! So that was my week and i finally survived a week without using any bandaids:)

well mom i love you very much and hope your week is great!

love elder christensen

Linda Davis Baptism

Hail Thunderstorms in Dallas...finally!!

Diana andrews and her husband James Andrews

Melinda Eitzen and her husband Kevin Gosney

hey mommy!
thanks for wishing me a happy birthday! you feel old? where in the heck did these 20 years go!? i remember being a deacon with seth chandler and causing a ruckus every where we went haha. thats way awesome that you ran into jordan! shes a great friend to me and am glad that we stay in touch every week! This last saturday i had 2 more baptisms making my baptism count 3.. i had the priveledge of baptizing melinda eitzen and i baptized her on the first try! i was pretty proud of my self:). melinda is an attorney for divorce cases she has a pretty big house and lives in one of the more fancy neighborhoods here in plano! plano is a pretty rich area and some houses around here go for 400,000 dollars and they arent even 2,000 square feet! crazy right? this last week has been crazy! we have had lots of meetings and on tuesday i had to move some other elders out of their apartments and into a members house. well this one elder named elder hermansen has a desk that probably weighs 500 pounds. it is by far the heaviest piece of furniture i have moved in forever! well its a good thing i was there and not some scrawny missionary because it was so heavy and that scrawny missionary wouldnt have been able to lift it an inch of the ground. LITERALLY! on friday our investigator diana andrews who was also baptized on saturday took us to buffalo wild wings with her husband james andrews. i watched the whole first half of the boise state game and kellen moore was tearing it up! i was going crazy! people were probably wondering.. isnt this kid not allowed to be watching tv or even be here? haha but i didnt care! i was super happy! the work here in plano is coming along great and i just hope the lord continues to bless me and my companion as long as we are faithful workers of thee! last night me and my companion were tracting and were caught in a huge thunderstorm! it was hailing the size of golf balls! no joke! we got home and we were soaken wet! i had called 5 minutes before getting home and told our members to open the garage and put some towels out. well we got home and there was not only towels. there was also those floating rings that you sit on in a pool sitting out for us as well! they like to joke with us and i thought it was super funny! last night was the first big thunderstorm we have received since we have been here. i was super excited for that! i think the drought was finally over! we broke the record for the hottest summer in dallas texas and thats way exciting too! well mom im greatful for you and your support! have a great week! i love you!
love elder christensen

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