There is not enough time anymore!!

   Hey Everyone, this is going to probably be my shortest email yet, but there is just not enough time anymore! Mondays we are starting to have our office meetings, so from like 10 to 1230 ish we are in meetings. So that takes more time out of our preparation day. But it is good. 

We are beginning to discuss transfers. For the most part for now it seems like we will be doing transfers the same. But we just discussed with President and Sister Mortensen about the times and things that we will be needing to get done! They are so on top of it though. They are ready and excited to continue working hard and continue seeing miracles. 

This last week was very much the same as last week. We did interview training again. But now we are revising it so we still are going to be doing it this week, along with doing transfers also. It will be a long week, but it will be worth it. We have taught our training 20 times now, and each one is around 3 and a half hours. Some have been closer to 4. So we are looking forward to being able to finish strong this week. 

Wednesday night we will starting our transfer meetings and begin thinking and praying about which missionaries to transfer and which ones we can ask to train. We about 17 missionaries who are departing this transfer, and about 17 entering, so we will need some good trainers to help the missionaries out. 

So I don't know if I have talked about what we do during our training much, but if I have I am sorry. So we are teaching a lot about setting inspired goals, and then making inspired and effective plans to accomplish those goals. So as we have really done our best to apply the training to us, we have seen so many miracles. We can truly see the lords hand in the work! We have also been making it a big priority to help these missionaries understand even more that this is The Lords Work! Not ours. This really is his work and when we do it His way, then we see miracles. 

We also see that the work is hastened. Its been cool to see this change. So on average we teach about 570 lessons a week in our mission. After going through less than half of the mission and teaching this training and committing the missionaries to rise to a new sense of commitment. Our average jumped up to 870! That is so incredible to me! I can see the Lord getting ready to have this mission just take off! More and more miracles are been seen daily through out the mission. And our mission is on track to set a new record for baptism and reactivation. Now I am not trying to say this to brag or anything like that. But I am saying that because we can see how the lord is hastening His work! As we have aligned or will fully with His, then the work hastens! That is such a cool miracle to me! 

Yesterday we were also able to get back in with our investigator Kyle. He is still doing very well!  He was in Oregon for a week. We were a little bit worried with him leaving, but he went to the singles ward Oregon, and said he enjoyed it there also. But the last few days he was there we couldn't get a hold of him. He wasn't replying to our messages or calls. So on Sunday we asked our ward mission leader Captain Moroni to go and check in with him. And he told Moroni that he would be coming to church. Well by the time church rolls around he wasn't there. Elder Hillebrant and I were kinda worried at this point so after sacrament meeting we drove over to his house to see how he was doing. 

It turns out that he just wasn't feeling well, and didn't want to get anyone else sick so he stayed home from church. But we met up with him later that night and talked with him to make sure he was still feeling good about being baptized for this next weekend. And he is still as excited as ever! He truly is becoming more and more converted! We then ended the night with talking about the temple, and how in a couple weeks he can get his recommend to do baptisms for the dead. He was very much excited about that as well! And he just looked through different pictures of the temples, and was just amazed by them! So we will plan on him being baptized this next Saturday!! :) 

Saturday we were asked by a stake to go speak at a youth conference. So we went and taught some different mission prep classes. It was fun! 

One more miracles I would like to share happened Saturday night! But to start this one off we were in a park in the Woodlands! Now many of you might remember that I served in The Woodlands for about 9 months and it was along time to be there, but I loved every minute of it. I would go back to the college park ward in a heart beat. But we were up in the college park ward boundary( college park is actually within our ward boundary because we are in a singles ward.) and we were walking around this park trying to contact some different people. And there was a guy sitting on a bench that I approached and started talking to. 

His name was Marco. He said he had seen missionaries before and said one of his friends was a missionary. I then asked what his friends name was. He said the name of his friend was Jessie D. ( I will just use initials for last names.) And I knew this Brother and Sister D. very well! And they told me that there son Jessie was going to be back in the middle of July. Marco mentioned how he wanted to get back in contact with Jessie. We then said we would try to help, and then we actually taught him about The Book of Mormon. He was very interested in reading. We told him after the lesson maybe sometime we could meet up again and with Jessie and sit down and have a lesson together, and he said that would be great! So we got in contact with Brother D. And he said once there back in Texas, that Jessie could help us out! So it was just a cool miracle for me, because it has helped me to again see that the Lord works in mysterious ways, and he has a plan for all of us. I know me serving in The Woodlands was no coincidence. I was up there to get to know the members and meet different people there that we are beginning to teach again! God is continuing to move his work forward and we are just blessed to be apart of it! I know that to be true! 

  We are so blessed to be apart of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. It holds the keys and the authority to help us return home to our Father in Heaven one day! As children of God we all have the same goal of returning home to live with God again, and we are blessed to know that goal. Now sadly not everyone knows about this wonderful plan that Heavenly Father has for us. But that is why missionary work is so important. This is how we help others to see Gods goal for us is, and his plan on how to achieve it. 

I am sure people get sick of hearing me say this, but please look for missionary opportunities. They are out there. Pray for them and you will find them. What is the most common promise in the bible?   'Ask and ye shall receive, seek and ye shall find, Knock and it shall be opened up to you." I know that  to be true, I have seen it! Missionary work isn't just helping people here on earth either. Please make an increased effort to attend the temple and preform those saving ordinances for your ancestors, and others who have passed on. You will be blessed for doing it. I promise that to you as a representative of Jesus Christ! I know that to be true because I have had the Holy Ghost testify to me of the truthfulness of that. 

As members we always here the same things over and over again. Now it is going to take acting upon this to see a change. So after you finish reading this please think of specifically what you can do to have missionary opportunities, or how often you will attend the temple or do family history. And then present that plan to Father in Heaven and commit to God that you are wanting to accomplish this goal. He will help you, and he will bless you with more strength to stand up against temptations. He will strengthen your families and bring y'all closer as a family, and you will find more happiness in your life. I testify of that. 

I hope all Y'all have a wonderful week!

Elder Joshua V. Christensen

P.S Fun random story, we went to one dinner appt this last week, and the guy we went and had dinner with said he was related to some Christensen in Utah. Now this isn't the first time I have had some one ask me if I am related to certain Christensen's in Utah.  But as we talked about our family history we found out we have a common ancestor who came across from Denmark. 

And as we continued to dive deeper into our family history we found are closely related. I came into the dinner appt not knowing this guy, and came out finding out that we are 2nd cousins! Now that is cool!  We found out our Grandfathers are brothers! We had this cool experience because I have done my best to learn more about family history, and it is so cool! :) Just thought I would share that. 

Driving in the Car 

Us after we finished teaching at the youth conference.