02/29/2016: Week 24 - Cow Tongue and Cats

Hello!

I have no time for a lengthy group email today, but seriously, nothing much happened. I will give you a few highlights though:

1. We celebrated Sister S's birthday!

2. I ate cow tongue in a house with 12 cats. It wasn't too bad, but I would never eat it again. The taste is a normal meat taste, but the texture is of the devil, ha ha!

3. We did not go back to the lady living in the house with the 50 wind chimes hanging from her ceiling. She called us, said we were crazy, and told us not to come back. So, you know, whatever.

4. Here are some of this week's photos: me enjoying the rainbow after yet another rain storm, my permanent socks, me searching for new investigators, and a group photo of the Sisters.

Love,
Sister Christensen

2/22/2016: Week 23 - Worst Thing to Happen Yet

Hello!

This week, we had a service project. The other sisters had met a woman on the street who said that she needed help cleaning out a little room. They offered to help her, and arranged for us to go there this past week. 

We all started walking there, thinking that we would sweep, tidy, and mop up this little room and be on our way. We arrived at the house, and a woman opened the door. She hadn't bathed in a while, and the first thing we saw were wind chimes. Fifty of them. Hanging from the ceiling. From that point on, we knew we were in trouble. 

She then showed us the room. Or, better said, she tried to show us the room. The door wouldn't open because there were so many things in it. There were boxes upon boxes of grocery sacks in the room. We started to clean it out, and that's when I realized, I was in a Hoarder's television episode. 

As we began to move boxes, we found some interesting things, including:

1. A box with two rotting pineapples. They had been there long enough to rot through the box and onto the floor. It was also housing a colony or two of bugs, AND growing new pineapple. AND THE WOMAN WANTED TO SEARCH THROUGH THE REST OF THE BOX TO SAVE ONE OLD SHOE!

2. We touched one box, and ten cockroaches ran out into the rest of the garbage. But they weren't normal sized cockroaches. They had probably fed on the rotten pineapple and gained supernatural abilities and size. They were the size of the palm of my hand. 

3. Sacks with old underwear, sacks with shoes that were falling to pieces, a sack with a book about "spiritualism" (basically possession), and some sacks that we didn't even dare open. 

We had to distract the woman to throw all the garbage out, because she was having panic attacks. And we didn't even finish. We have to go back this week with some elders because there are probably rats and scorpions in that room.

But wait, there's more...

We took the rest of the boxes down to the basement. When we opened the door, we saw a little white room. Everything was clean and white. The walls were white, the floor was white, and the ceiling was very very low and also white. In the corner there was a white little bed, all made up nice, with a little white dresser and mirror in the corner. A black dust had settled in the room, and you could tell no one had lived there in a while. It was the creepiest thing I have ever seen. I am pretty sure someone died in there. 

Anyways, that was my week!

Love,

Sister Christensen

P.S. Photos of Minion traffic bumps and a cute dog.

2/15/2016: Week 22 - Not Much to Say

Hello!

I don't have time to write a big e-mail this week. Also, nothing happened. So, there's that. Here's some photos though.

Love,

Sister Christensen

2/8/2016: Week 21- Living on a Prayer

Hello!

Serving mission is like that part in Harry Potter where Ron is reading tea leaves. As he is reading Harry's fortune, he says, "You are going to suffer... but you are going to be happy about it." As missionaries, we have a lot of challenges. People lie about their addresses, call us names, etc. and yet we still continue. We also have the opportunity to change lives, to bring people to Christ, and we are so happy to be doing it! 

In that light, this week has been great! We had divisions this week, so I packed my bag and went for a day to work with Sister H. We had a lot of fun, and taught a lot of people. We spoke about the challenges that come with opening an area. I learned a lot, and we ordered dessert pizzas.

The other day, while walking with Sister S, we stopped at a house to ask for water. The husband answered the door and gave us two glasses of water. We drank it, and then he asked us if we wanted juice. We declined, but he left to get the juice anyways. He filled our glasses once again, and we drank them. He then asked if we wanted more, and we declined (again). He then told us to take the juice with us. We tried to tell him that we really didn't need the juice, but he insisted and firmly told us to put it in our bag. So yeah. We took a picture with our free juice.

We also had two new investigators come to church this week! They came to church with a less active member for the first time, and loved it. The mom told us that it was very different than any other church they had visited in the past. They gave us their addresses, and want to learn more about the gospel. Sister S and I are very excited to go and teach them this week.

I hope everything is going well for you all! 

Sister Christensen

2/1/2016: Week 20 - I Would Walk 500 Miles

Hello All!

A run-down of my week:

1. Sister S got sick. :( We stayed in the house and talked about our lives and made spaghetti. That was pretty cool.

2. We went to the baptism of a kid in the ward, and it was really sweet. Sister S and I had the chance to sing at the baptism as well. The Spirit was really strong. 

3. This week, I lived a part of every child's nightmare and fell into a storm drain. My oh-so-loving companion then took me to the pharmacy and wiped alcohol not-so-lovingly across all the cuts I had on my leg. I really need to work on this whole balance thing. 

4. I learned how to crochet with a woman from the ward. 

5. I learned I am not blessed with the gift of crocheting.

6. We were teaching one inactive family this week, and everything went really well. We talked about Christ and his love for us, and the entire family started to cry. The dad then told us that he had been praying for some guidance spiritually that day in another church, and we showed up at his door later that night. They also came to church this Sunday, which was amazing to see. I love being a missionary. 

With love, 

Sister Christensen