Teaching, Teaching, and more Teaching

Hola amigos! 

I hope none of you have forgotten me yet during the past month that I've been gone! Yes, I've officially made it a month in the mission field (woot woot)! It's the small victories that are worth celebrating so thank you all for bearing with me haha! Long but rewarding month! 

 It was a good week here in Kirkland! Another great week of weather but it has definitely warmed up the last few days...living in an apartment with no AC isn't too fun at times! This week was a little longer than last but was still full of good learning experiences and worthwhile moments. This last p-day we ran a lot of errands and even hit the Super Target here in Redmond. Nothing better than therapeutic shopping at Target, right?! Later that day we got a call from some Spanish members of the Totem Lake ward, the Triburcio family. They had extra food and invited our district over to eat! Super nice people. We ate some bomb tacos in their backyard, got forced into eating a cricket for dessert (it was dead don't worry but still gross) and we were on our way to enjoy the rest of p-day, not thinking anything of it! Well a few days later we ran into Hermana Triburcio and she mentioned how great it was to have the missionaries over and that she needed our help. We didn't know much about their family but turns out that the mom is the only active member, as the husband doesn't want to be involved in the church at the moment and none of the kids have been baptized. None of us had any idea! She told us that she loved the spirit that was brought into her home with all of us missionaries and invited us Hermanas to come teach all of her daughters! She wants us to help them grow their own testimony of the gospel and baptize them. How awesome is that?! An ordinary member meal turned into a missionary gold mine! Other than the Triburcio family, we tried to stay busy with more service and teaching. 

We started teaching English classes this week via Zoom to any Hispanics living in our area. Turns out teaching English is a lot harder than it sounds...but hey writing everything out on the white board is always fun! Despite it being a challenge, we know we'll find success in helping others improve their English and subtly their testimony of the gospel too! This week we continued working with our potential members in person and via Zoom and made some great and unexpected progress. We unfortunately weren't able to have another lesson with the Robles family but had great lessons with Johnny and a few other investigators from the Duvall area. During the lesson we had with Johnny, we taught him the gospel of Jesus Christ. I wasn't quite sure what to say at one moment so I paused and felt the spirit so strongly. I knew exactly what to do and felt the spirit guide the rest of the lesson so well. Shortly afterwards, I invited him to be baptized the end of August! Well just to be completely honest...he didn't say yes hahaha! But he didn't say no either! He explained how strongly he feels about the things that we teach him and how happy he has been since we met. But he is nervous about his family situation and how they would react. He is fearing man more than God at the moment but we are not giving up hope! My companions reassured me afterwards that 90% of the time a person does not say yes to baptism after the first invitation! So we have more lessons set up with Johnny and hope that he will receive his answer soon! Definitely a scary moment but it was the strongest I have felt the spirit guide me as a missionary. So cool. 

Another great teaching opportunity we had was with our friend, Miguel! We have been teaching him via Zoom since he actually lives in Barranquilla, Colombia! He was a member referral from someone here in our ward. We logged onto our Zoom call expecting to have a drop lesson with him. He had been taught the first 3 lessons but didn't seem crazy interested in having missionaries come to his house in person. We ended up reading 3 Nephi 11 with him and he told us all about the reading he has been doing in the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith History. The entire lesson he bore such sweet testimony of the truth he has found in this book and the love of Christ he feels when he reads! So our drop lesson ended up becoming such a great discussion in the scriptures and finished with me asking Miguel to prepare to be baptized on August 25th! I didn't even think we could invite him since we aren't physically serving in Baranquilla but my companions told me to so I went for it! The spirit was so strong again as I bore testimony and extended the invitation the best I could with my Spanish. He said yes and was so excited! We are starting to work with the missionaries down there too and we are excited to do all that we can to help him prepare to enter the waters of baptism. The spirit truly does work in lessons, no matter if it's in person or over a screen. Such a great blessing of missionary work and experiences like these help remind me of why I'm on a mission! Bringing others to Christ by helping them feel the spirit are experiences I won't ever forget! 

 On Sunday we had our church meeting over zoom again! After bugging our investigators all week about it, we were nervous about who would come! But we were super excited to see that our friends Liliana, Ivan and Marvin all joined the call! We hadn't taught them the past few weeks due to scheduling issues but we had been keeping in touch and invited them to church just for the heck of it. We were hoping for our other friends to join but seeing their smiling faces on that call made us so happy. Liliana stayed for both hours of church and totally participated in Relief Society. We haven't even had a complete lesson with her and she's just killing it at church. How awesome is that?! We are so excited to work with them this week and help them continue their progress. Heavenly Father can work in so many ways to show us who are His chosen and prepared people that He wants us to focus on! I know I'm kind of all over the place with all these investigators and friends we have but keeping track of them can be difficult and all their progress is at different places. Missionary work is a rollercoaster of emotions but we are excited and hopeful to make even more progress this week! Thank you all for your patience! 

Even though this week was long, it really showed me how quickly time can go by as a missionary in terms of transfers! We only have 2 weeks left of this transfer and have so much work to do with our investigators. Turns out that 6 weeks goes by crazy fast in terms of helping people progress, get to church, schedule lessons and keep commitments! It's almost like time is always running out so we definitely felt a sense of urgency to continue the work and help others the best we can to eventually prepare for baptism! Turns out I only have 11 transfers here in the mission and that my first one is almost over. That is NOT a lot of time to make a difference so time to get to work!!! It reminds me that all the time I have as a missionary is sacred and that to enjoy every moment I have to be part of the Lord's army. Time to grind!!! 

I want to end briefly by sharing something from the New Missionary Orientation I had this past week. Some of the missionaries going home shared bits of advice with us newbies! One of my favorites was "Take prayer more seriously. When you kneel down to pray, remember who you are talking to!" I thought this was really cool. So many times we can casually pray about what we need and want in that moment and we can forget the divine communication we are participating in. We are blessed to have the opportunity to talk to our beloved Creator and Heavenly Father about our thoughts, worries, desires and what we are grateful for at any time of our day. So I challenge each of you this week to take your prayers a little more seriously. I think this is something that everyone can focus on and try to improve, especially me! Prayer is such an amazing thing and it really has saved me this first month in the field. Exercise your faith this week and kneel down to have a sacred conversation with our Father in Heaven. He's there, he's listening and he's waiting. You will never regret saying a prayer! 

I love you all so much! Thank you for the unconditional love and support you show me. Mission life really has shown me how blessed and lucky I am to know and to be loved by all of you. You are all in my prayers! Miss you all. Have a great week and thanks for reading! 

 Dificil es bueno. 

 Xoxoxo Hermana Christensen

SOS....I'm now an English teacher

When all lessons bail

Duvall baby....where the field is white and ready to harvest!