Robert vs. Spiritual Experiences

Loloma!!!

Interesting week....lets start off with some good news.  There are 5 people that should be baptized within the next 2 or 3 months, which is awesome because with all of these ceremonies and junk going on we are having the hardest time staying busy.  If I didn't have Elder Johnson to keep me sane I would want out of here real fast.  But ya we helped move around some people from house to house while there drunk parents and grandparents were away for a certain amount of time so we would help them gather all of their belongings to make there exodus.  Don't need to go into much detail about that stuff but Im sure having a lot of interesting experiences out here.  Technically I have served in 3 different countries since the reservations are sovereign nations.  Its a different world for sure.  There was 7 investigators at church yesterday which was awesome! We also had branch conference and oh man did the stake presidency lay it down!!!!  They talked a lot about tithing which is a really hard blessing for people to accept all over the world but it hurts small branches a lot.  They also talked about the traditions and whatnot.  There are some things that were said that were obviously temple sacred and I wouldn't have tolerated it with any other congregation except the Native Americans because they perform a lot of the exact same things that we do but they have lost the authority for it to be valid.  Very interesting stuff, I wish you all could have been there.  

Another experience we had was we were reading some scriptures with a family and a little boy that just barely turned 3 out of nowhere just said "Jesus called me.....He said He's coming back."  I about had an accident.  I told everyone to be quite and listen to him, and he said the same thing.  Now how does a 3 year old boy understand that or anything pertaining to Jesus Christ to say something like that???  Explain that theory to me evolutionists/atheists???  We didn't even mention Jesus Christ during our whole scripture reading after he said that.  Pretty amazing.  Then a few days later we were reading again and then he came up to me and pointed to a picture of Christ on the wall....he said "Its a picture of Jesus!!"  then he paused and looked around the room for a few seconds and I was  just interested in what he was gonna say next cause this kid is so funny...but then he said "He's in this room right now."  Then he just acted like no big deal and kept walking around....blew my mind.  I have had a few experiences like that on my mission so far so I have learned that when the spirit is in the room and there are little kids around, if they start talking try and listen.  You never know what they might say.  Good stuff!  

We had some sad news yesterday though, one of our investigators has been very sick and lately and then he woke up one morning to find that he couldn't even walk!!  The branch president is related to that family so he took another and gave a blessing to the man but I am not quite sure how he is doing.  Its kind of interesting to think about that how we just starting teaching the family about the plan of salvation and they are accepting it and then they go to the temple open house and have some amazing experiences...and now this.  Interesting.  Other then all that I have been shoveling lots of manure of all types of animals to be used for gardening.  I am going to learn a lot about gardening in the next month.  Except Arizona desert gardening is slightly different then nice fertile Idaho gardening.  Should be fun.  Go Broncos!!!

Love Elder Christensen  

Robert vs. Sacred Ceremonies

Thats the sign you see when you hit the Hopi Rez. and here was my last companion Elder Yazzie from Moreland, Idaho

We shovel lots of horse poo.....it's da best.  and I see something similar to that sunset every night!!! pretty sweeet.

That is Chris and his 1st place prize for the chilli cook off...I had 5 bowls of it.  That is my comp and Brother Linarte from Nicaragua...he feeds at his house allll the time.

This is to top it all off....men at work....a white dude, a black/Tongan guy trying to convince a bunch of Hopis and Navajos that we have their original traditions....Bring it on

Loloma!!!

   

Alright well this week has been a lot of fun and pretty stressful.  Elder Johnson and I are brothers from other mothers.  He is the black/Tongan version of me, I love it.  Well, to make a long story short the people that we have been helping to stop drinking  are pretty committed to be baptized but they don't want to set a date yet.  Thats how it works out here for some reason...if you try and use the Preach My Gospel technique of asking people to be baptized people just look at you weird and then say no.  Its happened quite a few times.  But you just have to let them basically set the date for themselves its really annoying but hey, its how it works out here.  We met this white guy less active member who just works at the police department for a few months and then goes back to Reno, Nevada.  We played some basketball and then the next day we went to go and try to find him....(Its not stalking if your a missionary).  Well we found his car but couldn't tell what door it was.  We knocked on a few and was just about to turn back and then we heard this huge burst of laughter from inside another door.  Elder Johnson and I think a lot like so we both said at the same time " that sounds like him"  and there he was!!  I personally believe that it is NOT coincidence that he laughed at that exact moment.  We had a good talk and he fed us some of this habenero/jalepeno beef stew....ah dang that tore me up, that was sooooo hot...but I still ate all of it and loved it.  Basically we addressed his background and he said that he just wants to be a mormon inside his heart and that he doesn't need to come to church..BUT!! He wants to get back into the routine of church back in his hometown so his son can "make a decision about which path to follow."  Kinda hypocritical....he's also a psychology major so being an intellectual doesn't always mean that you are that smart....when the Gospel is very simple and easy to understand...it doesn't need to be complicated at all...but ya hopefully he swings around sometime and realizes that if you just come to church then everything else will make sense.

The Hopi are doing some very important sacred ceremonies for the next few weeks so we are going to have a lot of time on our hands.  I'm glad that I have someone out here with me I can talk to so I don't go insane.  But ya there really wasn't much to report on this week...because of the dances there was about 30 people at church this week...it kinda shows who is truly converted to the church and who is not.  We got a lot of work to do here.....I can't wait for the second coming...just hurry it up!!! haha but ya that's about it!  GO BRONCOS

My address is 

P.O. Box 832

Polacca, Az 86042      

The mail service doesn't forward mail anymore so everything has to be sent directly.

Love Elder Christensen  

Robert vs. Drunkeness

Loloma!!!  

Aw man this is an email of joy for sure.  This week was a bust!  I'm not complaining but I've basically been running the entire area by myself for 6 weeks.  My current companion is an awesome guy but the curse if "idleness" is still surely upon the Lamanites.  I will be rejoining with the people of Hagoth.... thats right.... I am getting a Tongan companion!  Not just any Tongan...my favorite Tongan....who I already served with in Farmington 1st ward on the bikes.  My main man Elder Johnson!!  Not quite sure how we are able to be companions again but I am definitely not complaining.  Lets just say I pulled a few strings....and President Batt knows that I need some help out here.  But ya, I am staying with the Hopi for another 6 weeks!  6 months with the Hopi!  I am pumped!  I know the Hopi will love Elder Johnson, they are tired of all these white Gentiles.  This is definitely answer to a million prayers and hours of thinking....man I need a companion that will actually work with me not against me....here it is!!!  

Alright though, we had one crazy experience this week.  It shows how strong alcohol has an influence on people out here but it also shows that drunk people do the funniest random junk.  We decided to visit one of our investigators that we've been meeting with since october.  They have done a wonderful job at staying sober....until this week.  During this time of the year there is a ceremony called the bean dance and the men go into the Kivas and plant bean sprouts and the sign is if you have a tall bean sprout then that means your crop will be good this year.  But there is a lot more to then that and plus they have to go and smoke a ton of tobacco in peace pipe things and whatnot.  Anyways, our investigator doesn't want to do that stuff anymore and he wants to be baptized but he won't without his wife, which is understandable.  But he is getting tons of pressure from his clan and family to go and plant his beans.  People will persecute you nonstop its ridiculous out here.  He was just feeling overwhelmed and wanted it to go away so he turned to the bottle.  Poor guy.  It only made it worse.  We had a good talk with him though and he let his feelings out and was pretty sincere despite being a bit hungover.  As we were sayin the prayer his wife pulls up in her car with his mom.  She honks like 10 times and then we come out to see what the heck is goin on.  They wanted us to help her mom out of the car......oh boy....lets just say it was a "big" problem if you catch my drift...I open the door and WHAM! I got nailed by a huge whiff of booze and it almost knocked me over....this 80 year old shi'ma (as you would say in Navajo)  was wasted out of her mind.  So was the driver...so we had 3 drunk people on her hands.  We had to help this lady or else she was gonna fall out of the car and probably die.  Elder yazzie and I are tryin to lift her out of the car and she is just screamin PLEAASSEEE JESUS!!!! just over and over again...needless to say I was about to die from laughter on the situation.  We were able to get her out of the car and onto her walker...but it was uphill on sandy dirt so she was goin nowhere fast.  We basically had to push her up the hill and we almost got to the door and then she said she wanted to lean on the wall of the house.  We just kept pushing and saying NO you gotta keep goin, don't stop!!!  All the while the other 2 drunk people are cussin and laughin and ya...it was fun, and the shi'ma was still yellin for Jesus the whole time.  We got her to the step to her door and she obviously couldn't get the walker on the step so I set it up there for her and try to get her to step up or something, anything.  Then she just said...I'm a lay down now.  I was all Noooooo!!!! But it was too late, she did the go limp toddler move when you try to pick them up on us and we couldnt hold her. So there we were.....lookin at each other like...what the heck do we do.  There was a half passed out grandma lyin in the dirt and 2 other drunk people yellin around....I was just prayin that nobody saw us.  But we didn't know how to get this lady in the door!  Then one of the other people just said...roll her over and we will carry her in.  Whatever floats your boat!!  So we rolled her over and then they each grabbed an arm and we grabbed a leg and we half dragged half carried her in the living room....all while save me Jesus was still being yelled.  We laid her on the floor and then we needed to go so we left, but we saw that the other 2 people just left as well....but here is the funny/sad part....they have a daughter that was coming home from school in  about 10 mins and since nobody was there to explain to her what happened she probably walked into the house with a drunk grandma on the floor yelling her at her that the missionaries did this to her or something....aw man it was so funny and awkward and sad I had to take a break for a minute.  What a day that was.  Thats about it!

Chris blessed the sacrament again and told me that he stayed up til 1 am reading scriptures...the scripture bug bit him...good.  Yes the Choyou family came and we set up another time for Wednesday this week so its lookin good.  I swear this area is the most stressful and rewarding areas of all missions.  You get the best of both worlds here.  The disappointment of absolutely no progress happening for a couple weeks then bam!  Someone wants to be baptized or almost 100 people come to church.  Good stuff.  I am just excited for tomorrow when I get to pick up my favorite Tongan.

 singadee!!

 Love Elder Christesnen

Robert vs. The Adversary

Robert's buddy:  Bear

 This is how Robert plays Monopoly with his companion, helps him stay in the "zone".

 Hike with Chris and Elder Yazzie

Sweet Scenery

Loloma!!! 

    Well this has been an interesting week to say the least.  Don't need to get into to much detail but it got pretty rough here. Gosh every week I have so much stuff to say but my brain has no idea where to start or anything...okay here we go.  I got my new glasses and oh buddy are they fancy.  I hope I don't break them very fast.  Its inevitable that I will break them eventually, that's just how I roll.  These glasses though have some weird material in them where you can literally bend them in half and then they just bounce back to regular form.  It's like they put "flubber" in them, pretty cool.  We had 5 investigators come to church so that was awesome.  I have come to the conclusion that the only true "numbers" that really matter are obviously baptisms and investigators at sacrament meeting.  It doesn't matter if you teach 200 lessons a week....if nobody comes to church then there wasn't really much progression.  Early Saturday morning I was about to start razoring myself and then i felt like I should call Chris cause we hadn't heard from him all week.  So I did, and he told us to come out...so we did.  We went on another little hike/lesson and we talked.  He is going through a really rough time with the courts and the social services for possession of his son.  We had to encourage him to come to church cause he didnt want to.  It was a bad week, I feel really bad for him.  It seems like everyone is teaming up against him now because he is trying to live righteously, even his own family.  Super sad.  The Adversary truly doesn't want any the Native Americans to be strong in the true church, he's working really hard on them I can't even explain the evil that is out here.  But Chris said that he knows that he needs to keep coming...and he did! He also passed the sacrament for the first time so that was awesome.  During our priesthood meeting our Elders quorum President felt that we should have our own testimony meeting for class that day so thats what we did.  Everyone was talkin about how they were supposed to be on Hopi for a reason at this specific time and how they got there and all this stuff and I was gonna get up because I feel the same way.  Then Chris got up for the first time and just poured his heart out, it was amazing.  Afterwards us and a few others gave him a blessing and Bro. Wallace, the guy who gave him the blessing and also is the chief prosecutor for all of Hopiland told Promised Chris that he would find a wife and that he needed to get his patriarchal blessing as fast as possible.  I know that was divine inspiration because Chris is the only person we've talked about that with and hes been really thinkin about it.  Well there ya go!!!  Answer to prayer received.  So hopefully we can set that up this week for him and if I am lucky I will be able to go and be with him for the blessing!! cool eh?  

Last Thursday night was a hectic one for sure...lemee tell ya this has been the most stressful week of my life for sure.  One of our members daughters decided to run away with some 31 yr old freak that she met on the internet.  Scary stuff.  We didn't go search for her but we went and gave blessings with Elder Kamka and another member of the branch presidency to the parents and others.  IT was a loooooooong night for sure.  We let our District leader know that we were gonna be out late so it was ok.  We got in and finally went to bed around 12:30....it was nuts.  But long story short the FBI found the guy and rescued the girl.  She was at church yesterday so it was good o see she was ok.  Her parents were baptized about 3 years ago and they were really struggling with their faith during this but they bore powerful testimony that they have grown a lot stronger spiritually and are more converted.  Crazy week.....crazy week.  But its all good! The book of Mormon is true! True Blue through and through!!!  Glad the Seahawks won!  Now only if we can transfer that skill to the mariners.....then this will be a good year.  That is a miracle in itself, but hey ya never know!!

oh ya!  Just got word that the U.S. post office will NOT be forwarding our mail any more.  Sooo...if anyone is gonna send anything then wait a bit until next Monday when I can tell you if I'm staying here or not.  

Love Elder Christensen