Hey Gang! Hope
everyone is doing well this week! Our
week started out fantastic! Tuesday the
Lord just granted me the greatest spirit and excitement for missionary
work! We talked to a lot of people and
taught good lessons. We answered Anthony’s
questions about the Book of Mormon, then we went out to our far area and taught
Harvey about choosing to serve a mission, then taught a new investigator,
Lita! Her fellowshipper, Lorry, is sort
of less active, but we are hoping her fellowshipping will make her more
active! We taught our tiniest
investigator, Leah, and she’s also doing great, progressing toward her baptism
on the 13th of June! We ended
the night teaching the families of Jess and Allan combined about the Holy Ghost
and it was just good vibes, man.
Wednesday morning during companionship study Elder Nalumen told me he
wasn’t feeling good. Now, you got to
know something about my companion, this kid is a workhorse and doesn’t slow
down. He has been all congested for
about a month here, but he never complained, never said anything. Well, he just developed a bad cough and said
something, so I knew something was up.
After going to district meeting and talking to Sister Clark about it, we
decided to have him rest. And man, he
was out like a light. Meanwhile, I got
done a ton of stuff around the house that I had been meaning to get done. I’m finally all organized!
Thursday at about three in the morning he tried waking me
up, then eventually threw his Preach My Gospel at me to tell me that he had a
fever of 101. Well, we got him the right
medication and I gave him a blessing. He
slept all Thursday, and I, again, started getting my stuff organized. I got to have personal study for two hours,
which was a rare treat! At around 5:30
in the afternoon Elder Nalumen said he was ready to work. I asked if he was feeling better, and he said
no, but he missed being outside. He said
he could do it, so we taught Daisy and Ronald and Wesley, the Atchico
brothers. At around 8 my comp was
starting to space out, so we called it a night and he went straight to
sleep. Friday I finished the Doctrine
and Covenants, so that was cool! My
companion had a rough night again, so at the order of Sister Clark we went to
the hospital for an X ray and a blood test, which both came back normal. In the afternoon, we left Elder Nalumen with
Elder Lopez (who just had surgery and is recovering, can’t walk very far and
who was in Tarlac Zone back in February) at the assistants/office elders’ house
while I went with Elder Eggett and Elder Cancel to help run some errands,
namely lifting/transporting a refrigerator and some furniture. J Oh! I
forgot to say that Elder Eggett treated me to Mang Inasal, this awesome
restaurant, as his “payment” for the zone shirt we made! What a guy.
At about 5, Elders Cancel, Lopez and Nalumen
went to have Daisy’s baptismal interview while me and Elder Eggett went with
Sonny to interview Arlene Canlas, who was my investigator a year ago! It was great to see how much she had
developed spiritually since I taught her.
She passed and she’ll be baptized the same time as Daisy! Afterwards we went to try to teach Arianne,
my recent convert from a year ago, who hasn’t come to church in months because
she felt bullied by some of the young men and her parents apparently told the
missionaries a while ago not to come back.
Well, we talked to her mom, and her mom seemed excited to see me, but
she said that Arianne wasn’t there…but I’m pretty sure she was…It was late and
I know Arianne’s parents like her home before dark... My heart broke a little
bit. I hope she’ll still talk to me,
maybe when my parents pick me up. But,
on the bright side, we taught my old buddy Tristan who’s coming back to Church
now, as he was less active when we got here.
That was fun! And they fed us
mangoes!  |
| Running errands with Elder Eggett |
 |
| New zone t shirts designed by Elder C |
 |
| Cat that gave birth in the assistants' apartment |
Saturday we did weekly planning, picked up my companion’s
ridiculous amount of medication na Sister Clark told us to buy, and picked up
the zone t-shirts! Then we came back to
the apartment and my companion was exhausted again. We worked in the evening, but only taught Matthew. Sunday was great! We picked up Daisy for church, and Matthew
and Leah came as well. Lots of less
actives came, too! The Atchico brothers,
Lorry and Harvey, Sister Agustin…. It was awesome! AND Brother Dave brought two referrals to
church: Justin (16) and Marlon (18), who are super cool and really looking for
the truth. We taught them in the
afternoon and they accepted baptismal dates for July! I also gave a talk in church about the
Sabbath, which I think went ok! One
piece of bad news is that Matthew’s grandpa isn’t budging, so he can’t be
baptized now. But, it’s ok! He turns 18 in July, so it’s pretty
soon! In the afternoon we taught a ton
of lessons, and PJ, Loui and Moy worked with us! I cooked them refried beans with rice for
dinner because that’s all the food we had left in the house… They were not very
fond of it, it was funny! It tasted like
home to me. J But yeah, it felt so good to get out and work
a whole day. I’m excited for this coming
week! Lots of good stuff in store.
Well. This is it.
The last one… I’ll try to send another update when my parents are here
next week picking me up. But if not,
this has been quite an adventure! I love
this mission more than anything else I’ve ever done. I’m excited to go home because “Brandon
Christensen” is someone else now, someone a lot better. I will be arriving at the Salt Lake Airport on
June 10th, at 4 pm, in Terminal 2 (Delta flight), if any friends or
family want to greet me there, I have no complaints. That evening, once I am released, if anyone
wants to visit, I will be in my basement watching The Amazing Spiderman 2. My homecoming address will be Sunday, June 14th
at 9 am, and everyone is invited to my house afterwards to visit.
I love you all, I love the Philippines and I love the
Lord. This is Elder Christensen, signing
off…
-Elder Christensen
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