Bubble of Oblivion

In person church for Liliana!

 Hola todos!! It was a solid week this past week and we were plenty busy! From the little bits I saw on Facebook, it seems like it was a good time to be here in my mission bubble of oblivion ;) Studying the scriptures, street contacting and sharing the Restoration on the doorstep of random people’s houses has never seemed so appealing compared to the chaos of everything else!

We continued to do a lot of finding and teaching this past week. We saw some awesome miracles and good progress with our investigators. One of those in particular include receiving a call during dinner to translate a doorstep contact for the elders that speak Chinese in our district. They had been struggling communicating with a woman that only was spitting spanish back to them. Long story short, we talked to this woman on the phone and 20 minutes later ended up at her house teaching her entire Venezulean family the Restoration lesson and leaving them Book of Mormons. SO awesome. It showed me that with faith, any slow night can bring some miracles.

We were able to do a lot of work with our recent convert, Liliana, this week! She finally has arrived home from visiting family in Japan and she was so excited to attend church in person for the first time since she was baptized in September! We also had the opportunity to teach a ward class this week about temples and it was awesome! We were able to help a lot of recent converts like Liliana understand what happens inside of temples, how we can enter them and our goal to have all of our ward members preparing to enter the temple. We had some really good conversations. Even though we had every technological issue happen and I had to teach a lot of it on my own due to shy companions, the Spirit was strong and it was such a great thing to be apart of. I miss the temple!!!

I had a first this week while eating some dinner in a member’s home this past week. Even though we are directed to avoid eating inside homes, we had a very insistent bishop that didn’t give us the chance to leave haha. Well while we were there, we were served some authentic mexican “mole” which is a bitter chocolate sauce that they served over tortillas, chicken and raw onions. A chocolate flavored salsa over meat was far from appetizing and I had never come so close to throwing up during a member meal hahaha! Thank goodness for the single can of orange Fanta I found on their counter that helped me gulp down an entire plate with a big, gracious and fake smile on my face. Nevertheless, I am so grateful for my amazing ward and all the members that have welcomed me into their family. Even though I will avoid mole for the rest of my life, I am super grateful that I’ve only had one experience in my almost 8 months of being a missionary that the food wasn't too awesome. I love the Lake Washington ward!!  

All three of us Kirkland hermanas gave talks in church this Sunday and both my companions did such a good job for their first time giving talks as missionaries! For me, it went well too but I think the ward might be sick of hearing from Hermana Christensen for the fifth time ;)  It was a really solid week overall and we are looking forward to finishing off the transfer strong in the next 2 weeks.

For a quick spiritual thought I would love to share a quote I found while studying Elder Jaggi’s October 2020 general conference talk called, “Let Patience Have Her Perfect Work, and Count It All Joy.” The line that stuck out to me was,

“Patience is the key to letting those trials work for our good.”

I loved that! I have been thinking about patience a lot these past few weeks as I am most likely finishing my time here in Kirkland soon. This past transfer has stretched and overall grown my patience with both my companions and my area. In moments of discouragement when my investigators haven’t progressed to baptism as quickly as I had planned or times of frustration when I am exhausted from all my responsibilities, this quote from Elder Jaggi has helped me regain a better perspective. It is the Christlike attribute of patience that transforms our weaknesses into strengths and our trials into blessings. Elder Jaggi continues to explain that with patience, we grow our faith, and with faith we have more joy. Although I am far from perfect in this attribute, I have a testimony that focusing on our patience brings much more light and relief in our trials. Developing patience is far from easy, but good thing hard is good ;) 

I love you all tons! Have another amazing week and I hope you all find some love and light in your lives amidst all the hate around us. Join me in the bubble of oblivion and just focus on serving others in the name of Christ, it's pretty dang fun. You're all in my prayers!!

Sending love from chilly Seattle!

Difícil es bueno.

Xoxoxo Hermana Christensen 

P.S. Blake Moore is an official national representative for the State of Utah in Congress?! The world really is crazy….. hahah just kidding, Blake is our government's only hope. Love you Moore family

So fun to have Liliana at church with us!

This is how the members of our ward join in on our lessons.

Never too young to start reading a good book :)