Robert at the Temple

Hey, everyone.  Just wanted to let you know that Robert (and I am assuming most, if not all, the other missionaries in the area) were able to take a trip to the temple today!  We haven't heard from him yet and are hoping he will get a chance to write tomorrow.  It's disappointing not to have a letter to read today, but I think we can all forgive him considering the circumstances.  We'll post his letter as soon as we get it.  Have a great week!

Robert vs. Catholics

Baby Llyr looking at Robert's plaque in Boise

Ya'aat'eeh!!!

 

Alright so I had my first Spanish sacrament meeting this week.  I actually really enjoyed it!  I pay a lot more attention since I don't understand a lot of it.  We sat right in front of Brother Esmil who actually was a captain in the Marines forever and was a Spanish translator so one of his callings is to translate during sacrament so I didn't understand anything I just listened to him for a minute.  Most people in the branch speak English as the first language they just have a calling to serve in the branch, so the congregation is about half and half white/Mexican.  I actually was asked to read a page during gospel principles class in Spanish and people said they were very surprised that I didn't speak, they thought I knew Spanish by just hearing me so I guess that's good.

Im working on 9 months now being out here and lets just say that I am starting to just tell people how it is.  Im tired of playing the soft spoken missionary anymore so during lessons and stuff if people start to fight or disagree just to disagree without a question....I let em have it.  Plain and simple. I love it.  It builds my testimony tons and if people don't accept at least we gave it to them as pain as we could make it.  Ive been on a pastor tear this week.  We had 2 or 3 lessons with Spanish pastors, I will go into detail about the 1st one and I definitely feel I was given the gift of translation of tongues to help me out.  We were on exchanges and I was with Elder Chavez, we were working the west side of Farmington for the day.  We had a couple of lessons in the day and I really had to focus to get the gist of what people were saying but I got most of it and I helped answer a question through Elder Chavez translating so that was good.  Then that night...oh boy.  He took me to this Catholic priests house...they talked forever but I understood about 75% of it and I would just tap Elder Chavez and give a scripture and it seemed to work out pretty good.  During the whole time I wanted to say something in Spanish like bear my testimony at least.  Its so frustrating when you can understand a problem or concern in a language but you have absolutely no idea how to answer it.  One of the big things that we pointed out was how closely the Book of Mormon and the Bible are related, especially when it comes to genealogy stuff from Lehi's family.  Just read 1 Nephi chapter 5....all bible stuff. Case closed.  Anyways while they were talking and the lesson was about over I pulled out my little pocket dictionary and looked up a few words and then I just waited thinking of what to say.  Well it ended pretty suddenly and they went to a closing prayer before I had a chance to say something.  We got in the car and were driving away when I was like...Elder Chavez I was gonna say something I think I could have done it.  He stopped the car in the middle of the road and turned around back to the house....I'm all like what are you doing?  He said were gong back!  and I about had an accident in my pants like oh no.....Well we did it!  He knocked on the door, Elder Chavez told the man I had something to say and he looked at me....then I just blurted out my best testimony in Spanish I could.   He stared at me for like 5 seconds after I was done and he said "I know you know its true" and he started talking English to me!!! So he speaks English fine! That was kinda annoying but hey I did it in Spanish.  Then we talked a couple more minutes in English and straight up told him that Jesus Christ never had anything to do with the Catholic church and Jesus never even went to Rome!!!  How could have Jesus have put His church and His authority in a place he had never been to or showed himself....so yeah the guy was silent.  We shook his hand and we left with a smile.  It felt awesome.  Most likely will never see that man again in my life but I think we planted a good seed. 

Then yesterday Elder Delgado and I got cornered by another pastor and yeah, that was interesting....he would pull out these Bible verses trying to disprove something we said when the verse and the entire chapter wouldn't be talking about what we said at all...frustrating.  Anyways sorry for my rants and whatnot.  I just love telling people that this is the one and only true church of Jesus Christ that HE set up and He is leading it right now through a living prophet.  Basically President Batt gave us permission to just be straight up blunt with people because these are truly the last days and people need to hear the truth.  So there ya go!  This church....THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST.....is the only church on the earth that has the correct authority and organization from Jesus Christ himself.  I certainly would want to be a part of that.  I am very thankful for growing up in His church and it took me long enough to understand a lot of things but now I know!!  So I love being out here and spreading the truth.  

So to answer some of your questions...we have jeep compasses...they aren't jeeps, in fact I don't think they deserve to even have JEEP written on them.  They are terrible but its certainly better then walking which we are grateful we don't do a lot. 

Anyways that's frustrating that we cant even hold our own ground on the football field anymore.  Im glad that I don't have to watch all the disappointment.  thanks for everything! GO BRONCOS

 

love Elder Christensen

Robert vs. En Espanol, Por Favor

 Robert with his new companion

Ya'aat'eeh!!!

Ya, so some huge changes have happened with some fun experiences.  I'm sure everyone knows by now but I have been told to go to the Spanish branch until later notice.  A missionary had to go home early so I had to replace him.  I was not the first choice to be put there, 2 others before me were supposed to but I guess I got picked.  The days certainly seem to go by slower since I don't understand half of everything that's being said.  I am working just saying a prayer and doing a testimony right now.  I understand about 25% to 50% of a conversation but I obviously have no idea what to say back when people ask me a question.  I'm getting quite annoyed with saying "no habla espanol" so much, I feel worthless leaving my companion out to dry sometimes.  He's mexican though, so he does just fine.  A couple of days ago we gave a blessing to man that didn't speak English but he asked me to do the blessing, also I have been asked to say prayers and stuff when they don't speak English at all.  I just say it in English hoping they catch some of it. 

One thing I love about being in the Spanish area is we can go ANYWHERE.  We cover half of Farmington so we get to go wherever we feel like we need to.  As far as I know I am only here for this next week possibly but ya never know.  My heart really aches to go back to the Rez or to Colorado...more Rez but I am enjoying farmington.  My companion is from Ventura, California.  His name is Elder Delgado, we get along awesome we are just alike when it comes to having as much fun as we can doing missionary work.  We came out the same time so we both hit 8 months TODAY!  crazy.  Since he has been in Farmington for the whole time he has the area memorized, so there is no down time trying to figure where stuff is at.  He jokes around with me a lot when we knock on doors knowing that the people that live there are Spanish members that give me a hard time or the are crazy people....the latter was yesterday.  We were in 5th ward area and knocking on doors and a lady came out laughing at us like an evil witch..no joke.  She tried to get us to come inside but I told her no and then she started screaming like a deranged person and yelling out animals and stuff like...." I told my daughter and my husband (long pause)....RABBIT!!!!  RABBIT!!!!!" Then she pulled out a coin purse with a bouncy ball and yelled LOOK BALL!!! and she threw it at me.  Elder Delgado was laughing his butt off, he has run into this lady before so he knew what would happen.  We started walking away and she followed us and so I said to her if I could get a drink of water and she said YESSS!! so she ran back inside then we booked it back to the car.  It was hilarious but really creepy and weird.  So he is knocking on all the doors that he tells me to from now on. 

We got our jeep stuck in a mud ditch really bad too that wasn't very fun but oh well.  Its been raining here like crazy and there is actually a youtube video that someone showed us of main street its called something like  " flooding near webb-cheverolet Farmingotn, NM"  something like that.  Look it up we drove by about 3 minutes after it was recorded. Crazy!

Well gotta go but I will tell more next week, thanks for everything. GO BRONCOS

love Elder Christensen

Transfer

Just a quick note to everyone: my mom received some info from a ward member in Farmington yesterday.  Another missionary had to go home due to some serious health issues, so they transferred Robert yesterday to a new companionship!  The crazy thing is that it's in the Spanish branch with the Spanish speaking missionaries!  Robert is still in Farmington right now, but is serving with the Spanish speaking Elders.  We aren't sure how long he will be serving in this capacity, but we are assuming this is just a temporary assignment change until another Spanish speaking missionary can be called to take Robert's place.  Hope those high school Spanish classes are coming back to him....good luck, Elder Christensen!

Robert vs. A Bible Bash

Ya'aat'eeh!!!

Wow lots of things happening at home that I am not a part of.  Its ok though I really enjoy being out here with my many friends preaching the gospel.  This last week was very good.  We exceeded almost all of our goals for the week and taught 17 lessons.  We have 5 more investigators and have 4 people on date for baptism in October.  Its pretty neat to run into those people that first start off just wondering what we even believe in and then the next thing they want to be baptized!  We don't even try to persuade, coax, or manipulate people towards baptism.  We present the information for what it is (the truth) and let them decide.  Good stuff.  We are starting to go on splits with the Elders quorum once a week now and that certainly helps a lot with seeing people and helping the ward out.  Things are definitely looking on the upside here.  We talked to almost 100 people just by riding on the streets and saying hi as well, its fun to just surprise people that we will just walk right up to you not caring what your doing.  Interesting reactions.  We had 2 or 3 people invite us in to bible bash this week, but the Book of Mormon trumps the bible 100% of the time so those lessons turned out really good and them wanting to know more. 

Yesterday we also taught one of our new investigators about how the "Gift of Tongues" is NOT when something takes you over and you start whispering and grunting in a language that only God can understand.  Quite strange that belief is.  She agreed at the end that she would never invite that stuff again into her.  I again don't have a lot of time this week so I wont be long.  I am probably back down to about 175- 180 pounds.  These bikes really make you fit.  I heard the broncos destroyed this week but I wasn't surprised.  I cant wait for BYU to lose to us....  Other then that the church is true and so is BSU. 

Love Elder Christensen

Robert vs. Training

Ya'aat'eeh!!!

 

Okay so I don't have a lot of time at all.  I got 4 other elders that wanna go.  Since today is Labor Day we got permission to email at a members house. Don't worry dad, we are not spending a lot of time at the Palfreymans that isn't scheduled at all.  We are try to leave them to their own as much as we can.  They are the missionary "parents" in Farmington though and they feed us at least once a week and so we can't turn them down.  Especially since Sister Palfreyman's food is the best ever! 

Well all I got to say is that we are dong a lot better when it comes to missionary work here.  We got 10 lessons in 4 days and talked to over 60 people, helped move in a couple people that we just ran into riding our bikes.  Good times.  Our first day was interesting with my 2 companions.  I have gotten pretty strong with my biking but the others it takes awhile to get anywhere but I'm kinda putting them in  a trial by fire.  I love being in control mwhahah just kidding.  We have a lot of fun together.  One of them got a flat, and the other biffed when he ran into me it was funny.  Other then that we got in with a lot of new people and taught some really good lessons.  I'm excited for the area.  We have 3 people on date for baptism its awesome. 

I heard about the BSU game...I almost cried at first but then I realized I would rather be blown out then lose by 2 or 3...tired of that.  So its ok! GO BRONCOS!! At least BYU lost.

 

Love Elder Christensen

Letter from the President

We don't know if Robert is going to be able to write today because of Labor Day, so we thought we would at least share this letter (click picture to enlarge) that Mom and Dad received last week from Robert's mission president.  We are all so proud of Robert and are anxious to hear about his new adventures as a trainer!