Monday, November 25, 2013

Exchanges

Monday, November 25, 2013

Dear Everyone,

This past week has been a bit of a roller coaster. I'm still in a threesome. It will be that way until the end of the transfer or rather until Elder Dela Cruz goes home on Dec 3. :) Since I'm in a threesome right now we have to work in both our areas. To be honest it makes things really hard because we have a lot more ground to cover and not enough time to do it all in. It's been good still.

[How has your week as DL been?] It's been a little crazy but not too different. I didn't have to give a training because we had a zone training with the zone leaders. It's really not too different because I'm just doing what I watched Elder Hernandez do as a DL. It was really easy.

So to start, last Monday we taught a lesson with Sister Jenifer and Jericho it went well. They are our less-actives in my area.

We had a zone training on Tuesday which was way cool and got me super motivated to work this week. I loved hearing from all the trainers. On Wednesday we worked in my companions’ area and then had a way fun dinner with our ward mission leader. He treated all of the missionaries in our ward to a dinner. It was pretty cool.

Thursday we worked in my area and managed to teach four lessons but nothing special really happened. But on Friday, I went on exchanges with Elder Lamoglia and we had a great time. He is one of the newest missionaries here in the mission and it was his first time leading his area. It was so fun. Also he can draw really well. It's way fun to watch him draw just the random things but they are way cool.

Elder Ian S. Ardern
Ok, so we had Stake Conference this week, and it was awesome because we had Elder Ardern. He is in the area presidency for the Philippines, and he gave some way cool talks about getting members involved in teaching with the missionary's. I loved hearing from him. http://www.lds.org/church/leader/ian-s-ardern

[What have you heard from about the Typhoon victims?] Nothing much, just that we need to pray and fast for them. Everything here is pretty normal. To be honest we don't talk about it much other than that we are doing all we can from here. But we also just keep working hard.

Well that's all for this week. I love you all. Mahal kita!!!!

Elder Christensen

Monday, November 18, 2013

Emergency Transfers

Monday, November 18, 2013

Dear Everyone.

This week has been crazy to say the least. It was pretty normal up until Tuesday night when the zone leaders called us. (Me and Elder Hernandez were getting along great, and I was way excited to finish the transfer with him.) Elder Tanner told us that his companion was being sent to San Fernando to be trained as an AP and that Elder Hernandez was going to take his place as acting zone leader. That means he had to leave me and move to the zone leaders apartment. I took his place as district leader, so now I'm an acting District Leader. I'm also in a companionship witch is a little crazy. :P I'm with Elder Jones and Elder Dela Cruz. It's interesting to say the least.

So as far as investigators go, we had to combine my area and theirs so we work in both. It's fun, though, because I get to show them around in my area, and they show me around in Kias. We all get along pretty well so no problems.

 [What are your responsibilities as district leader?] Well I have 4 sisters in my district, and they have to text me every night when they get home to make sure they are safe. Every Sunday night everyone in the district sends me their stats for the week, and I make sure they all make sense before I forward them to the Zone leaders. I also have to give trainings at district meeting every Tuesday. Oh and if someone in my district has a question about anything they text/call me. It's really not too hard. Oh, I also go on exchanges with the elders in my district. We are doing one of those on Wednesday to Thursday.

I love you all, I know that the gospel is true I see in all around me and feel it burn within me. I am so grateful that I have this opportunity to serve no matter what happens I know this is the place that I'm meant to be.

So we are teaching this lady named Elizabeth. We had to move her baptismal date because she missed church but we are confident she will keep moving forward. We moved the date to Dec. 14. We are on the back end of the lesson with her and she is so sweet. She is a little hard of hearing, so we write most of the lesson down for her, and she does really well that way. I'm very excited for her to progress. She does everything we ask her to do, and she really does try to make it to church every week. Most times she only misses because of some crazy thing that happens to make it so she can't.

We are also teaching Sis Iva. She is a single mom with very little time. She is very sweet and loves having us come by. But her biggest problem is time. We have the hardest time scheduling appointments with her because she is always working so she can support her daughter. I think when we can get more time with her she will really take off in the Gospel. She really just wants what is best for her daughter.

Thank you mom. I love you so much. Thank you for all that you do at home I don't know if I would feel quite so comfortable without knowing you were at home taking care of everything. well my time is about up. Tell everyone at home that I'm keeping them in my prayers. Keep on keeping on.

Well, that's about all I have as far as this week goes everything else is pretty normal.

Mahal ko kayo!!!

Elder Christensen


Update about Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan)

Last Monday, a local newspaper, The Davis County Clipper, called and talked to Michelle. They were looking for a story about a local missionary in the Philippines. The Clipper wrote an article about Brian.

Michelle: What did you think about the article?
Brian: Why... I don't understand why they wrote an article about me. But it's cool. I was not expecting that.

Michelle: Some missionaries from the Tacloban mission were assigned to other missions. Do you know if Baguio received any new missionaries that were reassigned?
Brian: I don't know about any new missionary's sorry.

Martin sent a few pictures to Brian. His comment was: “Yes, I got the pictures. That's crazy.”

In addition to the pictures, The Deseret News published an amazing article about the faith and rescue of 10 sister missionaries.









Monday, November 11, 2013

Crazy Week

Monday, November 11, 2013

So, to be honest this week was crazy. It started way fun when we all went to the Philippines Military Academy (PMA) where we took some way cool pictures. [See below.] They had some really fun tanks and stuff from World War II and from the Korean War. The Korean flag was a on the memorial for the Korean War. It was way cool to see all the stuff. We didn't do much just took pictures and walked around. It was a blast.

[What was the best teaching experience from this this past week?] To be honest, our best one was last Monday night when we taught a less active who to be honest the only reason they are less active is because they can't get work off on Sunday.

But after that this week took a bit of a nose dive. My companion and I were out finding and we got punted about 4 times. We have been having pretty bad luck and just have not been able to work. After a while we both got frustrated and we took it out on each other... On Thursday we had weekly planning and at the end of that we had our companionship inventory… We are back on good terms with one another and are ready to work again.

Brian's Location in Comparison to the Pathway of Typhoon Haiyan
I know that everyone heard about the super typhoon but I would like to just let you all know that I'm safe and fine. We got hit with a little rain and some wind, about 15 miles an hour. There was no damage in our area. We did lose electricity for a while but that was about it. There weren’t really any problems here other than the fact that we lost power for a little while. It didn't even prevent us from working... We worked really hard but we heard a lot about how it affected the lower islands. I feel really bad because I can't do anything to help, but I am very grateful that nothing happened here in Baguio.

[Note: Not only is Brian north of Manila, but Baguio is also in the mountains. We believe it is because of the mountains that he hardly had any wind or rain.]

[What different cultural experience did you have this past week?] Well, I heard that Sam [Clark, Brian’s cousin] thought he saw a lot of dogs in Arizona. But I'm here to tell him he has no idea what a lot of dogs are until he comes to the Philippines... there are sooooooooo many dogs. Haha that was just something I noticed. It's fun.

I love you all. I keep you in my prayers. Mahal Kita

Elder Christensen

Pictures are from the Philippines Military Academy









Monday, November 4, 2013

Punted

November 4, 2013

Dear Everyone,

This week has been pretty strange. It was probably one of the worst weeks stats-wise I've ever had. We had a lot of lessons planned for the week but almost all of them "punted" us (said they were busy or something like that). It wasn't very fun. We walked around a lot this week, but I never got sad. I was annoyed sometimes and maybe a little bit discouraged, but I never got really sad. It's times like these that we just have to push on.

To be honest the main reason why we didn't teach was because they have this holiday here were they all go to cemetery and have a huge party all night long. It's a holiday to respect and remember theire dead. They don't celebrate Halloween here they do this instead, and it's on November 1st not October 31st. there are never trick-or-treaters, but they do their own thing for sure. Everyone went out of town. It was crazy. I didn't actually see any of it because we had to go home early for safety stuff. It sounded pretty cool though.

[Note from Michelle: The reason for the party on November 1 is "All Saint's Day" or “All Hallows’ Day.” It's interesting: the name Halloween is Hallow's Eve. All Saints’ Day is a big day to celebrate the dead and the Saints in the Catholic Church. The Filipinos Christian roots are mostly catholic. I remember one of my Filipino hosts telling me about the huge celebration on All Saints Day. She said that families would go to the cemetery and have huge picnics.]

Oh, on Wednesday we had exchanges with the zone leaders. I went to their zone with Elder Tanner. It was so much fun. Elder Tanner and I get along so well. We spent the whole time we didn't have to teach someone talking. We also had one of the less actives tell us this supper creepy story about this girl who killed herself in a wedding dress... It was kinda scary, and not going to lie, when we had to walk on the dark foggy road home, we were both a little scared... It was so funny though because I scared Elder Tanner on that road, and then we were ok. Haha

A couple of weeks ago it rained pretty hard and we got stuck inside this skate ring thingy when it flooded. That was crazy that's where we were with the picture of me in the little car thing, and when I'm standing in the water.

October 13, 2013; Brian in a Huge Rain Storm

It's me, Sister Paduga (I think that's spelled right) Elder Egar and Elder Hernandez on his back. :)



Elder Kemmy is my zone leader and that's the picture of just me and him. He has a blue shirt over his shoulder. He’s acutally in the States now. That picture was his last transfer.
October 21, 2013; Brian and Elder Kemmy

The snake almost KILLED ME. Ok maybe not killed me, but we were walking on the air strip and I almost stepped on him. In the Philippines that’s bad. The spiders are nothing to worry about because none of them are poisonous, but the snakes are.

October 24, 2013; Snake Brian almost Stepped On


Well that's all for this week. I love you all. Mahal Kita

Elder Christensen