Robert vs. 5 Baptisms

Loloma!!!

I am staying here on Hopi with Elder Johnson for another transfer!  Good news.  The bad news is we got moved into the an RV trailer that I can touch both walls with my arms stretched out.  It is a little bigger then I thought it would be so it's all good.  We spoke in church yesterday and that went well.  Had a few interesting experiences with people coming into the church wanting to cause arguments but got that taken care of.  I can't really send pictures right now because we are using our senior couples computer and it is really slow so it would take forever.  No idea when I will be able to send some.  We are getting ready for 3 baptisms on April 12th and they are doing solid. Just trying to stay away from the alcohol and verbal abuse of everyone in the village.  They are strong though.  Found out that there are 2 others that are ready for baptism in so we are looking forward to 5 baptisms in April.  Well we aren't going anywhere for transfers so I am not able to go anywhere to get a suit.  Nowhere in my zone is there a suit store.  I asked my district leader when he goes to Farmington on Tuesday to look for a cheap suit coat and pants at goodwill or something and I will pay him back.  I will get one eventually don't worry.  In fact nobosy in my district is moving except one and there is a greenie coming in with our district leader.  Everyone in our district has been out over 1 year so I assume this new elder will be kinda scared.  Especially since his first area will be in the middle of nowhere literally.  We decided to have some fun and on distrcit meeting we are going to just talk in different accents so he thinks we are from all over and just mess around a bit to put him at ease.  Don't worry we will play nice with the new guy.  Everyone goes through it.  Especially Rez missionaries cause we are stranded and have nothing else entertaining to do. Fun times!  GO BRONCOS

Love Elder Christensen

Robert vs. Two Elephants...and an RV Camper

Loloma!!!

    

Well we will see how much info I am able to bust out this week with the time I got.  We have to use a different method of emaling now because of some rule changes so this will be very interesting and frustrating.  But hey, when you live in the middle of the desert and not a single person that you know has internet and anyone over 35 has never used a computer before...things can be interesting.  Don't need to get into details.  The stress is piling up for sure over here and this is definitely the hardest thing I will ever do in my life.  When an entire nation of people that have many centuries of time to work on superstitious traditions and alcohol and or drugs is in 99% of all of the houses that you walk into....the pressure mounts up pretty fast.  I feel like I have 2 elephants on each shoulder right now, but for some weird reason I love it here and I never want to leave.  I have a good feeling like I can squeak out 6 more weeks here but we will find out this Saturday.  

Found out that we are being kicked out of our trailer this Wednesday and getting an RV camper.  I ain't talking about the camper that you get to hitch up to your huge truck and drag around.  I'm talking about the camper that goes ON the truck....ya....those super small I can touch both walls with my elbows ones.  Plus, for the past week there have been like 50 mph winds all day so bring it on!   It will be fun.  Look at me trying to be optimistic! 

We have had some good lessons this week though and have actually had a lot more success with the few white people recently then the Hopi.  We gave a Book of Mormon to the family from Arkansas and sparked some interest I feel.  We will see what happens.  There was only about 20 people at church this week...no idea what's going on out here.  Really frustrating and stressful.  Found out the branch president here was asked to go to spring training when he was younger with the Yankees and the Dodgers but he never got the chance to go and the scouts said he would have been an All Star.  I have had a few good conversations with him on baseball and all that did was make me baseball sick.  For some reason I am not surprised that the senators get to go to Omaha this year.  I always knew one day that the group that are now seniors, Coach Mac had a soft spot for them.  

There was 2 investigators that came to church this week though and we have set a baptism date for April 12th for 3 people so hopefully that happens.  Well I apologize that I am not able to tell you more but the term Pday out here where I am at there is no such thing.  We chop wood and coal all day and do whatever else we can to help people that can't help themselves.  Pretty tiring but at least you feel good about it even right when you sit down to take a break and someone else calls.  Welcome to the rez!  I love the Hopi though and wouldn't want to be anywhere else.  No missionary ever will be able to enjoy being here as much as I do.  Ever.  Well I go to go to a lesson!  See ya next week and hopefully I can fill you in on some more details.

   

Love Elder Christensen

Robert vs. Sickness and Spring Break

Loloma!!!

This week started with some not so good experiences but ended pretty good.  Monday night we had 5 lessons fall through and once it hits dark you cant really do much out here cause of how many things "go bump in the night."  Kinda messed up.  So that was pretty disappointing but I went to bed and was feeling just dandy.  Alarm goes off Tuesday morning.....I just rolled over....aw man I'm sick....Ya I ended up blowin chunks 8 times before 2 o' clock.  Basically spent all day in bed and a lot of Wednesday but come Thursday morning I was good to go.  The in and out flu it was.  I am 100% now so its all good.  Haven't been able to get ahold of a lot of people out here because of the ceremonies going on.  This is the last week though for a few I believe so that should be good.  We decided to go knock on some doors where the "bahana" live in the hospital and high school housings.  Got a few wonderful slams and many rejections but 1 person actually came out and treated us like humans.  He said he wasn't very interested but that his wife was about to give birth and her father would be coming on Wednesday to give her a blessing so.......we going back Wednesday!  It should open up some doors I think.  He said that he wouldn't mind us coming over for dinner and stuff but he didn't want to talk about anything religious.  Which is something I  am used to out here with weaving in religion without offending anyone.  I'm excited. 

Well I don't have anytime so I will tell a real quick story then I got to go.  We were trying to visit some people yesterday after church and NOBODY was home.  When spring break hits out here everyone leaves for good.  We turned around after we knocked on a door and I saw a lady that I have been trying to talk to since I got here.  She was out doing something in a truck.  Walked over there and she let us in and her husband came down and we all just had a good ole talk for a while.  They are white people from Louisiana and Arkansas so they had some thick accents.  He lived in Boise working for something to do with Lucky Peak for about 3 years but ya we talked a lot about random stuff.  I was just trying to figure out a way to bring up the Book of Mormon the whole time and while we talked about Hopi for a minute I just asked them if they knew why the LDS church is so interested in Native Americans.  They didn't really so then I talked about the Book of Mormon for a bit then my next object was trying to figure out a way to get them to take the book.  Right when I was thinking that she said.."you gonna leave that with us?"  I said if you want it! Good stuff.  One more Book of Mormon in a home.  Good stuff, we will be following up with them soon.  They are fun to talk to and just throw out a billion words in 5 minutes.  Doing great over here just living it up in the desert.  

Love Elder Christensen 

Robert vs. Driving to Tuba City

Zone Conference Photos

Loloma!!! 

We didn't have church this week because of the Gilbert Temple dedication.  We left for Tuba City yesterday at 6:45am and got there just in time for the 9am session.  I have driven to Tuba City and back 27 times now.  Thats nearly 41 hours straight I have spent on the road.  I got at least 4 more trips.  Thats a lot of driving.  Get pretty burnt out by the end of the week.  This land has probably one of the best landscapes ever though so I am not complaining.  I haven't seen anything green in a very long time now, but I love all shades of brown now so its all good.  The Gilbert Temple is really awesome of course, from what they showed on the satellite TV that Temple is HUGE!  I was able to see the 1st and 2nd sessions.  The 2nd session was my favorite of the two.  They announced if I remember right that by the end of 2015 there would be 6 Temples in Arizona.  Snowflake, Gilbert, Phoenix by the end of this year, Gila valley,Tuscon, Mesa.  There are over 400,000 members in Arizona alone, might as well call it southern Utah.  Temples are awesome, through a lot of studying of the Old Testament I have learned a lot about Temples and their purposes.  Unfortunately, there really are many "plain and precious things" that have been taken from Bible.  Especially the Old Testament.  It makes no sense to me at all how anyone could even think that the Bible is a perfect text.  Blind leading the blind.  

Anyways, the good stuff is that we set a date with the Silas family!  April 12th.  The end of this transfer is march 23rd so we will see what happens.  I am pretty sure I can squeeze out 1 more transfer on Hopi land.  Elder Johnson and I get along great and we have way to much fun sometimes.  But I would be going insane out here if I didn't have someone to laugh with so I am glad he is here.  There is one man that we visit out here named Dennis.  He is a  very smart guy and we don't really pressure with much commitments or anything but if we don't have anything to do we go and just hang out with him for a while and talk about whatever.  He said that the more he is around us the more he likes the church and if he was to convert to a church it would be the LDS church.  We are slowly working on him.  Haven't talked to Chris in over a week so I am thinkin about him a lot.  Other then that there isn't to much going on out here, the work is moving but its at a crawl on the reservations because "the first shall be last and the last shall be first."  Everyone else basically has to get the gospel before the Jews and/or the remnants of the house of Judah fully accept it and blow everyone's mind.  But we do what we can to help.  I have been doing a lot of gardening this week as well.  Quite a number of hours playing in the dirt.  We have had 2 HUGE sandstorms this last week as well looked like I was in Iraq or something.  Or on the movie Hidalgo....pretty crazy.  But I love it here and have grown accustomed to the desert life.  Wouldn't wanna be anywhere else right now. 

Love Elder Christensen