Hey Y'all

  This week has been a great week. We were able to see many miracles while working this week. I guess just starting from the beginning, we met with our bishop last week and got a list of names from the ward he wanted us to try and meet. We did this most of our days, but we were able to get into a lot of the homes of those people and see how they were doing. I love going around and meeting with the people in the ward. It is a great time to get to know the ward better, as well as to share messages about our Savior Jesus Christ. 

 Training has been going well, I am trying to help Elder Harris out in any possible way that I can. My goal for training him was to make him a better, more prepared missionary than I was when I was first out. We have been going through the different lessons practice teaching and working on the main principles we have to teach. But not only that, creating an environment where the spirit can dwell. As we work on getting the spirit there we can build companionship unity as well as have the spirit be the true teacher. We are only the mouth pieces for the spirit. But for the last couple weeks we have been trying to hard to get our investigators to answer us back. Sometimes this can be so frustrating, but as we continued to work hard, we were blessed. 

Tuesday we had a great chance to go to the temple. I absolutely love being able to go to the temple and being able to feel of the spirit there. I went with different questions in mind of how I can be a better missionary, trainer, District leader, and just how I can help my area out the most. I just felt that I needed to keep working hard and doing my best. Those were my thoughts when leaving the temple. 

But I had a great tender mercy when walking out of the front doors of the temple. I saw Tammy Sue Thayer. She was a member in my last area that always would have us over and would always take good care of us. She was our ward mother. I loved being able to see her and catch up with her. She made me feel so good when talking to her, she said she loved having the other missionaries in her ward, but she missed having us. It was just a tender mercy to me, and she just helped make my day that much better. 

Wednesday rolled around, and we were still working hard to find people to teach and to find new investigators. We biked around a lot that day because we had used so many of our miles to be able to go down to the temple. But it was worth it, we were able to be seen by more people. But that night when we got back was when the miracles were beginning to happen. That night after planning we got text messages from Lexi, Evan Dodge, and Brittnee Podejec. These have been 3 of our investigators we have been trying to contact for the past few weeks. And we were able to catch back up and see how they were doing, and also set up an appointment to meet with Lexi.

 Lexi is one of Greg Prows friends. So because of the member missionary work of Greg we have been able to get more investigators. But Greg just left this last Wednesday to go on his mission. He will be serving in the Alpine German Speaking Mission. Its cool because that is the same mission where my older brother Elder Ryan K. Christensen is serving. 

 The next day we started to prepare to teach Lexi that night and we got a message saying that she would not be able to make it. She has done this before, and my companion was a little upset that this kept happening. But I thought for a little bit how to reply to her. I told her this, "Lexi, we would love to meet with you tonight, but we understand that things come up. What time works for tomorrow?"  I tried to make it sound as nice as I could. But she later replied back and said she would try. She ended up changing her schedule to meet with us which was another miracle! 

We called up the Prows family and asked if we could meet at there home for the lesson, and they accepted. We got there early to talk to the Prows about what we would be teaching that night, and I had the thought to tell them to try and not bring up Greg being gone through out the lesson. But right as I began to tell them this the doorbell rang, and Austin and Lexi showed up for the lesson. I totally forgot to tell them about the feeling that I had. Well we started into the plan of salvation, and it kept going off topic to the thought of Greg being gone. Several times this happened, and it just made me realize that the thought I had was absolutely from the spirit. And I was slow to act upon it.  The spirit can tell us so many things and can help warn us of things. It is so important to listen, and if we do we will be blessed with the companionship of the Holy Ghost. 

The lesson with Lexi still went well. The spirit was still there and she could feel it. She told us that when she was home that she was happy, but when she was in the Prows home with us she felt 10X happier. She described feeling the spirit as a happy feeling heart burn. It is so true when we feel the spirit we can have those warm feeling in our heart. That is the holy ghost testifying of truth. At the end of the lesson we invited her to follow the example of Jesus Christ and to be baptized. And she looked at us and said YES!! We set the date for November 16th! So now we will continue to help her work towards that date. 

We also committed her to come to church, and we have done that in the past, and for about the last month, but yesterday she came with the Prows family. It was such a great feeling to be able to see her there. And she really enjoyed how welcome she felt. You can also begin to see the changes that are going on in her life. She is seeming more happy, and she wants to continue to read the Book of Mormon. She is really excited about being able to get baptized!! I love this gospel and the change that it makes in each of our lives. It is truly divine. 

  

To end the week we had a devotional at the Bishop's home with the youth last night. And they were focusing on family history. I loved the sweet spirit that was felt during this meeting. We went through it and it helped get some of the youth more excited to try and do family history and indexing. And at the very end Bishop gave us the opportunity to talk with the youth about our thoughts with family history.  And I was so happy to be able and talk about the subject. 

I was able to speak on how much family history has affected me while just being out here on my mission. I have felt closer to my family back home, as well as my past ancestors. There is a real protection that comes from doing family history. I told all of the youth this. And I really do believe this. " I am closer to the age of a lot of you, I only graduated this last year. But if there was one thing that I could change doing through High school, it would be taking some time each week to do family history and going to the temple. Satan is going to do all that he can to throw us off, and to get us to make mistakes, but as we do family history we can be protected!! I know that this is true.

 I have already experience this while I have been out here on my mission. I would invite you to think about doing more family history. It will help you so much in your day to day life. I know that some of us have busy schedules and don't feel we have enough time to do it. But do you think if you want to do family history more in your life that your Heavenly Father will help you to have the time?  I know that he will help us to be able to do it. He can help us and He wants to. This is a great time of life to be living in, and we have so many opportunities to serve. We just need to take advantage of those opportunities. Our ancestors are real people. They aren't just names in the computer. They are just waiting to be able to experience the happiness that we do. And they can receive that as we do their family history and temple work. I know as we do this we will be blessed abundantly. This is my testimony, and I know it will help us. 

Well I hope all Y'all have a great week.

Elder Joshua V. Christensen