Broken Spanish & the Spirit

not successful at finding souls but successful in finding sunshine!

Hola mis amigos!! 

I'm alive! Week 2 in the mission field in the books. Another emotional rollercoaster but I'm coming to better understand and enjoy the mission, even through the hard moments! 

The summer weather here in Washington is heavenly! Almost every day this week was 75 degrees and sunny. We spent our p-day down at the Kirkland Marina surrounded by boats and pine trees, heavenly! There are occasional showers too but I'm trying to enjoy the sunshine before enduring my one Washington winter without the sun! Exploring different parts of my Kirkland area has been a lot of fun too! We can be downtown by the water, in the suburbs next and then up in the gorgeous countryside of Duvall all in the same day! I'm starting to love the surroundings of the Kirkland and Redmond areas...I know I will be coming up here to visit for the rest of my life! Lots of Latinos here too :)

I had the opportunity to meet with my mission president and his wife, President and Sister Beardall on Tuesday. They are the sweetest people and had such great words of encouragement and reassurance for me! They did both comment that I looked like a deer in headlights when they saw me a few days prior at training…but hey they weren't wrong hahaha! It's nice knowing I have a second set of parents taking care of me on my mission too. I've been praying for them a lot after they broke the news to us that almost 60 new missionaries are coming the start of next transfer! It's a crazy time to be out serving but all we can do is keep working hard.

This week was filled with a combination of phone work, in person contacting and finding efforts. We call and text a lot of people that have been previously taught and reach out to members for referrals. We had a lot of days full of more administration work instead of actual teaching opportunities which can be hard. But hey I'm an expert at speaking Spanish over the phone now! The in person conversations still need work...haha!  These things can be tedious and boring but we find success when we work hard! One day we had zero success and another day we made 7 appointments to teach people the next week, crazy! For example, we spent an entire day planning and calling potential investigators. After a lot of negative responses and cancelations we were pretty discouraged and frustrated. But the next day we actually had one of those people call US back to set up a lesson. How awesome is that?! It was a rancher from the Duvall area named Johnny. We had a great first lesson with him on Sunday afternoon and are excited to teach him more! This lesson was filled with the Spirit and it felt great to be back teaching! I even got the opportunity to kneel in prayer with Johnny and show him how we communicate with our Heavenly Father. He got emotional and cried through my whole prayer in my broken Spanish! Proves to you that the Spirit is the real teacher, not the missionary ;) 

I've had those amazing experiences as a missionary but then sometimes I find it hard to stay motivated and excited during those long afternoons inside. The rollercoaster of missionary work I guess!!  Constant prayer as well as more encouraging messages from Jimbo will always do the trick though!! 

We also have started to do drive-thru prayers at our ward buildings! I don't quite understand why we do this...we don't find much success haha but it's really fun to be outside hanging out with the district! My district leader is actually having me (the newbie who has no idea what they're doing) head up a free car wash and baked goods event this coming week in Kirkland to help contact more people and spread some Christlike love to others! I'm pumped!!

Despite how different we are, my companions and I are having a lot of fun together! We do our best to stay busy and still enjoy ourselves. Even though I am their "baby" being trained, they call me their new mom! I do all the cleaning and cooking in the companionship so I guess that makes sense haha! I'm having a good time with them and I have a feeling I will have developed some killer cooking skills by the end of this! 

This week I really came to understand and love the scriptures. Sometimes I can't believe this is happening, but I TRULY get excited to read the Book of Mormon every morning! I've been studying the middle chunk of chapters in Alma this week and have learned soooooo much every time I've read them. The spirit and the love of Christ always overwhelms me with faith and strength to do my best that day. Reading about the missionary work efforts in the Book of Mormon helps me better understand and grow in my purpose as a missionary in this time. Alma 37 verses 33-37 was a great reminder for me. Especially,

"33. Preach unto them repentance and faith on the Lord Jesus Christ; teach them to humble themselves and to be meek and lowly in heart...36. Cry unto God for all they support; yeah, let all thy doings be unto the Lord, and whithersoever thou goest let it be in the Lord; yea, let all thy thoughts be directed unto the Lord; yea, let the affections of thy heart be placed upon the Lord forever." 

As the Lord tells us what we need to teach others, I learned that we must teach these things to ourselves first in order to be successful. I know that Heavenly Father has to humble all of us and lead us to look unto the Lord in all things before we can become stronger disciples of Christ. This isn't easy but I know that through focusing on our Savior and preaching the principles of the gospel we can always find success and hope! 

Andddddd my angel of a mother has a birthday this coming Sunday!! She really is amazing. I've learned so much from my mom and have applied a lot of the life lessons that she has taught me out here on my mission already. I'm so lucky to have her as my mom, my rock and my best friend! Spoil her on the 19th everyone!!! 

I hope the Paxton squad has a ton of fun heading up to the Tetons this week. Get some good water skiing in for me! It's really hard to not be with you guys but I know after I finish dedicating my time to serving the Lord, I will have plenty of time with the family afterwards! Enjoy the views, eat plenty of Ms. Backer's cake and give my mom a big birthday hug!!  

Love you all so much! I pray for all of you. I really appreciate all the emails and messages, I feel so loved! Have a great week everyone!

Dificil es bueno. 

Xoxoxo

Hermana Christensen 

P.S. If you're ever having a bad day, open the scriptures and I promise it'll get better.

Weekly planning is exhausting!

the reason to wake up in the morning!

Celebrating my comps mission anniversary....can you see why they call me Mom? haha