October 22, 2012

Hi Everyone, 

Wow, sounds like it was a bit of a rough week back home. Sorry guys.
It was a little hard here, but not really more than usual. Just in the
natural course of missionary work and life.

I'm not upset about the fact that you emailed me about Great Grandma.
I agree with your decision. It probably would have scared me to get
that call from the mission office.

Missionary work goes here, but it is a little bit slow for the moment.
It's never a problem finding people to teach, but finding people who
will actually progress is sometimes a little bit harder. Lots of
people like to listen to talk about Jesus, but not everyone likes to
act. I've got some ideas for what we can do this week that will
hopefully help us figure out who will actually progress.

Mosiah is good, but personally I keep getting sucked into 1 Nephi for
the last two weeks. Weird isn't it? That's only the one that I've read
eleventy-seven times. But I'm finding new ideas and new verses. I'm
greatly enjoying it.

I still haven't gotten any mail. I think that the office elders just
aren't going to the post office until they figure out what to do about
customs. Which is frustrating, because I know that there is stuff
there for me. Did you send anything that would conceivably cost
anything at customs? If no, I'll just tell Elder Caycho to go ahead
and pay customs and I'll pay him back. As far as requests for my
birthday.... Not really. Okay, that's not true. Can I get bacon?

So it turns out I lied a little last week. I said that it is
impossible for an American to train another American. Well, after I
was done emailing my companion was still on for a little bit, and it
turns out Elder Terranova will be training an American for the last 5
weeks of his mission. I don't know if that will be a common thing now
or what, there is that. Elder Terranova is the most Africanized of all
of us though.

This week I saw a lot of senior American Citizens. First we saw the
new couple who will be serving in the mission office. Elder and sister
Semken seem to be doing well, things are pretty well established for
them at the bureau. Next there were several older couples at church.
It turns out the church is doing a humanitarian project with
wheelchairs this week. The couples have already visited Ghana, Congo
(RDC) and South Africa this year. That sounds like a great idea for
when I am retired.

The sister missionaries that came into the MTC with me just hit their
halfway point. I've been out for a long time. It'll be weird when they
go home and I'm still here. At least they are all in France and not
here. That would be really weird if they were in the same mission.

This week was the week of the primary program. I don't know if it was
the first one in the history of the branch, but maybe. It made me
really happy. It kind of felt like I was at home again. The level of
singing ability was actually close to the same.

I can't really write this much this week. My keyboard is freaking out,
and I just don't have the spirit at the moment. I hope that things are
going well back in Utah and wherever you happen to be reading this.

Lots of Love,
Elder Christensen

PS, I was actually going to email you some photos today, but I
happened to get the computer that doesn't have USB ports. Looks like
you'll just have to wait until next week. Just like me.