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

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