Finding those the Lord has prepared!

Life is just so good!  I am loving being a missionary! It has been kinda a crazy week with transfers, but we have also seen some crazy miracles! For the most part things with transfers went pretty smoothly. I just can't believe how fast time is continuing to fly by. I am not sure how much longer I will be able to serve as an assistant, but I sure have enjoyed it. 

 Well I don't have a lot of time to email today so this will need to be a bit shorter. But this week we have seen some incredible miracles with our investigators. And previous to this we were having such a hard time getting in and meeting with our investigators. And so I was pondering this last week about what things we could do better to help the people we are working with. And I just had the thought that we got to be making sure we are getting our weekly planning in each week. 

Sometimes with how busy we are we don't get the opportunity to get our weekly planning done. And this is somethings I have been wanting to make a greater priority with. Weekly planning is the time that we get to sit down and have a divine appointment with the Lord where we can seek and learn his will for our individual areas. I have some  amazing spiritual experiences where I felt I received direct revelation about lessons we need to teach and how to overcome there concerns or questions. 

And so with that being said as we sat down and pleaded for the help of the Lord, we were guided with the things we needed. We planned lessons for two our our investigators we have been working with, and they went so well! 

(This is one of the missionaries I worked a lot with while I was in the Woodlands. He has finished his mission and we dropped him off at the airport on Wednesday.)

Alicia is one of our investigators we met with later in the week after our planning. We had planned to teach the plan of salvation because she has continued to keep her commitments to read the Book of Mormon. And we were feeling like she was ready for the plan of salvation. So we decided we would have this lesson at the temple this last Friday. 

Just before our lesson with her we met with one of the recent converts in our ward named Evan. And he was getting ready to leave when he ran into one of the members that was coming to teach. Well we invited both of these members to come join us for the lesson with Alicia. And it was such a powerful lesson with her. We were master teaching and she was understanding so well. And there were some different points where this recent convert Evan just jumped in and started teaching. 

There is a saying by Boyd K. Packer that is when a testimony is found as it is shared. And literally as Evan taught he began to see even more fully how strong his testimony was! It was incredible! And we ended by inviting her to prepare to be baptized on Dec. 27. She accepted!! She was about to bring up concerns but Evan jumped in again and testified to her to really just remember back to the way that she felt since she has been meeting with missionaries. And so it helped her to overcome some of her concerns. So she is pumped! She texted after saying she would do her best to find her answer! 

And then also our investigator Christian we planned for also in weekly planning in depth got back in contact with us. And he has had a rough week. He lost his grandfather this last week and that is why he didn't show up to our appointment with him. But we asked what we could do to help him out. And he mentioned that he just wanted to meet up with us! 

And as we planned previous to that we had planned to go in and teach him the Plan of Salvation. That right there is just another testimony builder of the fact that God is aware of all of his Children. I know that to be true! So Saturday he also came to frisbee and got to be fellowshipped really well with members of the ward. He mentioned that he wanted to come to church also. So we gave him all of the information. 

  So fast forward to Sunday, he came and he loved church so much! This last week was fast Sunday. And we were getting right towards the end of the meeting. There was a common theme of people talking about trials and how we go through trials to make us stronger. And it touched him so much. So he said, " I think I want to go up there." and now remember this is his first time ever coming to church. So he went up to bear his testimony. And it was almost like he has been a member for his whole life. 

He thanked the missionaries for helping him. And he mentioned how when we started teaching him he had the question of how to know if this church is the true church. He said to me, " I have heard so many different stories about these churches coming up and being "true". How can I know if yours is any different. " And he is using this example during his testimony and then he said, " I had this question and I posed it to them......................... and then, Christensen just had this big old smile on his face as he looked at me. And he said,  Christian the beauty of this message is  you can know for yourself.   Pray and ask God to know if this is true! I testify to you that He loves you, and he will answer you!" 

 Christian said at that point he was going to give his all to know if it was true. And again while bearing his testimony he said, " Some of you know that I use to work t the Galleria Mall. And it required me to have to work on Sundays. Well since then as I have prayed, He has taken that job from me so I can be at church." He was laughing and said if that is a good enough answer I don't know what is. He just then continued to testify of his experience of him coming to know if this is true! It was such a powerful testimony meeting! 

And just as I mentioned that when Evan testified he found his testimony the same happened to Christian. Members were thanking him after for his testimony. And many thought he was a member. And just told them. I am preparing myself to be baptized. So we will meet with him on Wednesday. And we plan to also to extend a baptismal date to him for the end of the month. 

I have a firm testimony that the Lord is preparing his children. Christian and Alicia are just two examples of that! There are so many more who are prepared. It just takes our effort in reaching inviting people to come closer to Christ. With the initiative that the church has with He is the Gift, it makes it so easy to be able to invite people to come closer to Christ. Christ is the Gift, so again I just want to invite you to prayerfully think of who you can Share the Gift with this Christmas season. I promise you as you do you will experience the true joy of Christmas. And you will feel Christ loves more abundantly this season. 

I hope y'all have a great week! 

Elder Joshua V. Christensen

Some more pics from transfer week.