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!

Hawaiian Luau with our investigator, Kevin

Monday we played basketball with a ton of missionaries and i hadn't played ball since my first area! so i was very rusty! it was still fun though. On Tuesday after District meeting i went on an exchange with Elder Stratford to his area and that was pretty fun! when i go on exchanges i like to go to other areas so you don't have to worry about trying to find something to do when appointments fall through. That night a member took us out to eat and guess where he took us! IN N OUT! Oh yeah baby! it was so good! I also bought a t-shirt so i could just say i went to one in Texas:) in n out is pretty new in Texas and has only been here for about almost a year now. Wednesday after exchanging back we met with our investigator Daniel Ramirez! i really love that family and its always fun to go over there. because they are super chill and aren't the kind of members that are going to tell on a missionary for doing something wrong.. not that i am a bad kid.. i'm just saying haha.

We went on another exchange Thursday with our zone leaders and i went with Elder Bishop. He is way cool and he goes home in a week from Wednesday.. We had a way awesome lesson with Kevin Harris our investigator again. He is progressing very well.. We taught him about the priesthood and also the word of wisdom. we found out he smokes like 2 or 3 cigarettes a week. which isn't bad at all and he said he would quit. He also told us that he has a Seventh day Adventist friend that has been trying to Anti him and tell him that the sabbath is on Saturday not Sunday. He told us that since he doesn't know the Bible too well.. he wanted us to give him some scriptures so he could have some fire power to throw back at her! hahaha! How awesome is that! He also told her that ever since we have come into his life he has been happier and drawn closer to god. Elder Bishop also had Elder Sinclair as a companion so we shared with each other a bunch of stories. that night we stayed up till at least 12 telling stories and laughing super hard. I'm sure our neighbors weren't too happy with us. 

Friday was a pretty slow day and we dropped by our investigator Sandra and come to find out.. she is smoking again. she also told us that she was moving so we are pretty much going to drop her because she isn't going anywhere! Later that night a storm rolled in out of no where and it was pouring down rain! We had dinner with the Hamilton's who elder ricks knows quite well.. they were the swim coaches at his High School and Elder Ricks is a swimmer! so while it was storming we had dinner in their home. They have a Great Dane dog and she is huge! i was playing with her and she is super strong and would knock me around! Earlier that day we got a referral and we ended up setting up an appointment for Saturday afternoon with him.

So Saturday rolls around and we met with another investigator Anthony Copeland. We taught him the Plan of Salvation and told him that his baptism date was 3 weeks away and that he needed to come to church 3 times before he could be baptized and he said he would come the next 3 weeks and he didn't.. so that was a bummer. We met with the referral at the church and his name was Tim Duitsman and he brought his brother Ben and sister Monica. We gave them a church tour and then we shared with them the Restoration. They told us that they went to the Manti Pageant in Utah and that's what got them interested. Towards the end of the lesson they started asking us bashing questions and so we had to pull out the bible bashing scriptures and they were caught off guard haha. They did tell us that they wanted to learn more so we will see how that goes.

Later Saturday night we had the YSA Luau and Kevin came to that. it was super fun and there was Polynesian dancers there. I am not sure if it was missionary appropriate. I did video some of them though haha! One guy came out and did the Hakka which was super cool! Sunday was a great day.. like always! Kevin came to church and he is really soaking it up! He says he is learning so much and is super excited to be baptized!

Pictures from new area - Whitehouse

Pictures from new area - Whitehouse

Linda Davis Baptism

Happy Halloween...just another day as a missionary.

Hey mom!
the dallas field i was at is the fc dallas park where the soccer team plays:) and yes there are lots of people that go all out during holidays! there is actually a neighborhood called deerfield where my recent convert melinda eitzen lives and it is apparently the neighborhood to visit during christmas time! everyone decorates their houses and they have a horse drawn sleigh during christmas time that you can rent and they take you to look at the houses!!

so the rangers lost the world series and the bishop that we live with was so upset that night haha. he didnt want to talk to anyone. literally! so diana andrews my recent convert has a mom named linda davis who lives with them. so we recently started teaching linda this last week and we have her committed to be baptized on november 19th. the last weekend before the end of the transfer!!! we are super excited for her! she also came to church:). we also found 2 guys who are 27 and 28 and they live in an apartment and their names are joel and david! we tracted into them and they were pretty interested! we have already had the 2nd lesson with them and they are continuing to read the book of mormon! they are wayy cool and want to learn more!

We also have another investigator named alyssa. she was actually a golden investigator that the elders before us had. well they left us literally nothing on the teaching record! we had a name and a wrong phone number! she apparently had a baptismal date and everything too! well this last week we actually got her information from the sisters because she had talked to them! we went to see her and she is still really interested! so we are going to see her tomorrow and she why she hasnt been returning our phone calls and such. so thats what happened this week!!! i hope you have a happy halloween! holidays on the mission aren't any different than a regular day of tracting haha. well thanks so much for everything you do! i hope you have a great week!
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

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!:)

MTC life

Trying to escape!

I wonder if they were caught on tape!

Top Bunk in the MTC dorm room. This doesn't look

too comfortable without the mattress.

Claire Poulsen, a friend of the family also received her call to the Dallas, Texas Mission. She came out the MTC 1 week ahead of Dilan

Dilan's Mission district

MTC mission companion, Elder Flitton and Elder Christensen

Gym time playing volleyball with the district

Missionaries emailing home while waiting for laundry

The Laundry room

Elder Flitton and Dilan doing laundry

Friends in the MTC

Elder Jake Strong - Italy, Elder Dilan Christensen -Texas, Elder Jared Mortensen - Chili, Elder Zach Batis - Japan