Hi,
Well, here I am! It was nice being able to talk to you on Sunday, I'm glad that that worked out. Even if Some People didn't really stay in camera frame too much.
So here's a funny story for everyone. On Sunday I taught the 'gospel principles' class. Well, usually I translate in that class for our Nigerian investigator. There wasn't another American who could help translate, so our one French Elder sat down and gave it a go. So an American was teaching in French and the Frenchman was translating it back into English for a Nigerian named Gospel. All in a classroom in Benin. If that isn't the set up for a punchline, I don't know what is. As it was, I had the urge to chuckle a bit the entire time.
In other news, my driving abilities are improving again. I just had gotten rusty again. But I seem to be doing okay now. Which is lucky, because I'm going to have to do it a lot more soon once we go back down to 2 office missionaries. Unless something unexpected happens. Again.
I seem to have this knack for teaching lessons with senior missionaries. Elder and Sister Eastmond gave a Book of Mormon to someone and he was interested, so they brought him by yesterday so that we could talk to him. That was a fun experience, he seems like he could progress. I've been very happy with the number of contacts we've been getting lately. Ok, I lie, I always wish we had more contacts. But I'm happy that so many of our investigators are coming from contacts rather than door to door.
This last week I had an amazing experience in the office. Like I may have mentioned, I am the one assigned to enter baptism information and send it to church headquarters. Well, on Tuesday I found a form from my last area! I thought the name looked familiar, so when I called to confirm something I also asked who it was. Turns out it was one of the last new investigators I had back in Togo. It was super cool to know that he had continued with the missionaries, I had been super hopeful for him before I left. The best part though? The person who actually baptized him was someone else I had found and taught almost every single lesson to (I think we still needed to teach obedience and obey the law of the land or something), and who now wants to go serve a mission! Sometimes I've felt like I didn't really accomplish anything in Togo. I think that's one reason why I'm in the office is so that I could learn about things like that and know that I really did make a difference.
One of the best feelings that you can have as a missionary is when you are in a lesson and you ask the investigator what he or she actually feels about your message, and they tell you that they know that it is true because they have seen their life change as they have read the Book of Mormon. There isn't really a feeling quite like having an investigator bear their testimony back to you. It is moments like that that inspire me to keep going. So now Romario and Sonia have solid baptism dates for the 15 June. I'm very excited, both of them have already come to church for the last month or so and they have good testimonies (for clarification though, they are separate investigators).
This week I've been learning the power of memorizing scriptures. It has been something that I haven't been working on too hard for a long time because I've been doing so much of my studying in French. I decided to go and memorize a couple of verses in English though. Memorizing verses, though hard, really helps me feel like I'm locking myself into the gospel. Almost like I'm taking a rope and tying myself to the iron rod.
In other news, I have been officially designated as the translator for the missionary conference we will be having with Elder Dickson of the 70. Yes Mom, I'll have someone take a picture. Now I just wish I knew what vocab to learn, the last general authority to come to our mission used lasagna as an object lesson, which I still don't know the vocabulary for.
I may start teaching piano soon here at Gbegamey branch. I need to figure out if there is more than one keyboard though.
I love you all, but Mom I love you the mostest,
Elder Christensen
PS mom, I hear it's been a few weeks since you've updated my blog. Not all my friends are on missions... just most of them.
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