Baptisms ... and Getting in the Holiday Spirit!

Buenas,

Man, so this past week was crazy!!! And also super, super stressful but all worth it in the end because the Lopez family and half of the Sanots family got baptized yesterday!! It was such a great experience to see them all in white!! It all came right down to the wire though and so that is what made it so stressful. It was good, though, and I think the biggest thing I learned from it all is that it is good to thank our Heavenly Father for the trials and challenges that we face in our lives everyday. I know that as we can realize that as we are obedient to the commandments, then challenges and problems are just there to stretch us and make us grow even more than we though we could. So that was something I have started doing and it has really helped me to have a better perspective and attitude/outlook on life. It has also helped me to realize and count the many blessings that the Lord has given me. It's been a good week.

Elder Christiansen and Elder Chacin.

"There are the elders I live with. Elder Chacin is on the right
wearing the shaving cream Santa beard!"

One funny thing that happened this week was Elder Chacin (Cha-seen) and I were driving and we were just laughing and talking or whatever and then he was like, "Elder, It would be so much fun to watch like a kids movie with you like...umm...Kung-Fu Panda or something like that, I bet you just laugh the whole time." And then I was like man, Elder, you have no idea just wait for Frozen. O yea that's the movie we are going to watch for New Year's Eve – Frozen. It was pretty funny though. Also, no need to shed sad mama tears because the tree got here on Monday just like you said it would!!! And so I guess we'll just wait for the next one to come in, too! Life is good down here in South Texas!! I love it!! Man, it's about time Ensworth switched the exam schedule, that sounds great. Hahaha, that's so funny when I was reading your email I was like, "Man, did Dad just move to New York or what, you're there all the time, give him a break" haha, good work, Dad! Also for Christmas we are going to be Skyping from the Fuentes’ house. Still not really sure what time but I'll let you know next week. Also, I talked to the bros and we want to just get 2 four-man apartments that are next door to each other. I also got a box from the youth in our ward that had some good stuff in it. Socks, candy, shampoo and body wash (which was good because I ran out of both of those around Halloween and haven't gotten around to buying more since…no, just kidding!). Oh, also are there any youth who know Spanish? Because one of the cards I got was in Spanish and it was awesome.

All is well though and I’m going to send some more pictures, too. Oh, and also, can you do me a quick favor? Could you send me an ornament that has all of the pro Chicago sports teams on it? If you can't find one of those, then one that is just the Chicago Bulls? It's for a member. Sending you a picture of Elder Chacin and me with the Santos family (Mom, son, and daughter closest to Elder Chacin) and the Lopez family (Mom, son, and daughter that are closer to me) at their baptism. I love y’all so much and I hope y’all have a great Christmas!!!

Con Amor,

Elder Christiansen

"Love, Peace, and Tamales"

Hola Familia,

All is well down here in Hidalgo. My new companion is Elder Chacin (say like: Cha-seen) and he is a super good missionary, we hit it off really well. He is from Venezuela so that's pretty cool, too. He has been on his mission for almost a year so he knows what he's doing and we have been tearing it up. We are teaching a lot of different people right now so that is good, too.

The Festival of Lights down here is pretty crazy. It is PACKED every night down here so you can't really do anything at the Church because the paring lot gets taken up. It has been good though and it has given us an opportunity to talk to a lot of people. Have y’all seen the “He is the Gift” video yet? It's super good and the church gave us a bunch of pass-along cards especially designed for the video so we have been using those as well.

Life is all good though and I couldn't love my mission any more! It truly is the best thing in the whole world. I love the people, Texas, the food (probably too much...) and everything that's come with the job. I especially love the Savior and I am so grateful for everything that He did for us – to help us, save us, and show us how we need to act and behave in order to return and live with him again. 

Amor, paz, y tamales (“love, peace, and tamales”)

Elder Christiansen

"My companion took this of me in a goofy M&M's Christmas tie."

Hidalgo for the Holidays ... and "He Is the Gift"

Buenas,

So we got the transfer call yesterday and...I will be staying! And Elder Thornton will be getting transferred on Tuesday but we still don't know to where yet. I am pretty happy that I am staying because we have a lot going on in our area right now so that's exciting. I don’t know who my new companion will be. It's been a pretty crazy week – I don’t really know where to begin. There was no turkey bowl game here :( but we had five meal appointments on Thanksgiving and four of them were in a row! We had one at 12:00, then 3:00, 4:00, 5:30, and 7:00 and after that I was just toast, oh my gosh, I don't know if I have ever been that full, it was a ton of food. It was all so good though – I love Thanksgiving food now, haha. It sounds like it was super fun at home, too, with everyone visiting. The pictures look great!

The Santos family is doing great and they came to church yesterday, too! They are learning a lot and we had a really good lesson with the mom about the Word of Wisdom and I helped her throw all her cigarros away. It was pretty cool. My feet are doing a lot better, thanks for the prayers! I know it's pretty crazy, right?

To answer your question, for Christmas I would like a 2015 Texas Rangers baseball calendar and the new iPhone when I get home. One of the members showed me his iPhone 6 and my mind was literally blown, I couldn’t even believe it. And he hooked up my thumbprint to it and that was sick, too. Oh, ok, a question: is Frozen a big thing? Seemingly out of nowhere, I feel like everything that Wal-mart sells has Frozen characters on it and I don't even know what it is – haha. That's cool about the Benson baby as well! I’m sending some pictures home, too.

I love y’all so much and I love my mission a ton!!! Have y’all watched the "He Is the Gift" video" the Church produced? It is AWESOME – share it on social media, show it in Seminary, it’s so cool. South Texas is the best! Look up the Hidalgo Festival of Lights online and you'll see what's happening down here :) All of it is in my area.

Con mucho amor,

Elder Christiansen

Awesome Meetings and Mission Tour

Buenas,

Man, what a great week! Ok, to start off Elder and Sister Foster were just unbelievable – it was amazing. The spirit was so strong as he spoke with us and it was a very powerful meeting. Some of the topics he talked about were: the power of prayer, the importance of our missions, working with members, knowing that we are children of God, and a few others, and it was really, really good. Then he had a small meeting with all of us leaders about how to lead and how to love the people we serve so that part was great, too. Oh that's cool you saw the picture!

This is a photo of all the missionaries currently serving in the Hidalgo Zone
of the Texas McAllen Mission (TMM). There are 10 zones in the TMM
that include about 190 missionaries (140 elders, and 50 sisters).
Elder Christiansen is standing, third from right.
Seated: President and Sister Maluenda, and Sister and Elder Foster.

What? Clay has a girlfriend, what is up with that?!?!?! :) That's good to know that everyone is doing well though. Yes!! The missionaries had a baptism in our ward, that's fantastic!!! What's the boy's name? Andrew, go to some lessons with the missionaries at his house. Man, that sounds like there are a lot of fun Thanksgiving plans. I kind of wish they had a turkey bowl game here, but I don't think it's happening. Most of the members in our area are either going back to Mexico because their kids are out of school, or they are just taking it easy because Thanksgiving isn't a Mexican holiday, so it should be pretty chill. As of right now we just have one dinner appointment set up, but we'll probably end up with three or four. That's cool about Ensworth and MBA in the finals – hope we win! Send lots of pictures next week from all of Thanksgiving. So this week is the last week of the transfer so next Monday I'll know if I am staying or if I am leaving.

Right now we are actually teaching quite a few different families so it has been going great! One of them came to church yesterday for the first time and they really liked it. Oh, ok, so they have a huge super, super chubby, fat baby and all during church it was just getting passed around by all the members so they helped us out big time on that one, haha. The other two families we’re teaching didn’t come because one of them had sick kids (the Santos family), and the other family didn't come because they slept in. But we’re still working and teaching them. We teach the Santos family with their neighbors, so there are like 10-12 people there. And they all just love my laugh, like it's unbelievable. If I start laughing at something little, then they all just start laughing and then they can't stop. It's super funny.

All is well though and I am loving my time here down in South Texas. Can't believe it's already turkey time, but it's all good. Best of luck to everyone playing in the turkey bowl and hopefully there are no serous injuries.

Amor y paz (“love and peace”),

Elder Christiansen 

A Spiritual Feast ... and Freezing Cold!

Buenas,

I hope everyone is doing well back at home. Got the email and press release from Dad about the College Board, and congrats!! This past week was super good, man I learned so much! This past Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday we had meetings all day long with Presidente Maluenda, and they were amazing!! He talked a lot about obedience, becoming leaders the way the Lord wants us to be, faith, the power of prayer, goals and plans, doing things in the Lord's way, the desires of our hearts, and a lot of other stuff, and it was a spiritual feast for all three days! It was also a lot of fun because I got to see a lot of my buddies from around the mission – all the elders in Corpus and Laredo and Brownsville/Harlingen stayed in the McAllen area so it was a blast!

We also found a lot of people to teach this week and we found a lot of families, too! And because of that we had a lot of investigadores (“investigators”) at church yesterday so that made it more fun, too. Oh, it has also been FREEZING cold, oh my gosh, it was 55 the other day and it's 50 today and I'm wearing literally all of the winter clothes that I have, haha, I'm such a baby now when it comes to cold weather. Oh, and we got even better news too...we have mission tour this week!!!!! That's when a general authority comes in and we have meetings with him so he can teach and train us some more! The person coming in is Elder Bradley D. Foster, so I am really excited for that, too!

The mission is going really well and it is still such a blast – it never gets old, I love every minute of it and it just takes my breath away when I think about all the important things and lessons that I am learning out here. There is no other way I would have learned these things had I not decided to serve a mission. It's also incredibly scary how fast the time is going, but that's another story. There is nowhere in the whole world I would rather been than here in South Texas. Oh, ok so I’m telling you this and please, please don't get worried or anything, everything is fine and under control and I'm100% healthy – but in your prayers this week, specifically pray that my feet can get better. I got a blister or something like that for the first time in my life, and it's just taking a while to heal up. So, yea, please say special prayers for my feet, haha. I love y’all a ton!!

Con amor (“with love”),

Elder Christiansen

Having Charity for All Heavenly Father's Children

Buenas,

Man, what a week it was this past week, I don't even know where to begin. There was a family that was going to get baptized by some of the elders in my district so I went over to their house (the family's) on an exchange to do the baptismal interviews, and everything that could have gone wrong, went wrong. It was just one of those nights I guess. I'm not going to go too far into it, but it was just a mess. The boyfriend of the mom of the family they were teaching never wanted to listen to the elders, and then when I was there he ran out and just started yelling at us telling us to leave. It got pretty intense and since I was on an exchange with a younger elder, I started talking to the boyfriend and it was pretty intense, haha, like he was not happy at all. And then he called someone else and he gives me his phone and the person on the line was yelling at me saying that she's calling the cops and a bunch of other stuff and that she hates us and to never come back, it was pretty crazy. But after my right-handed haymaker nailed his left eye he stopped talking to us and went inside (haha, no, no, no, I’m totally kidding, obviously I didn't hit him, I would never do that, haha). But it was pretty chaotic though. And then I went back over to a different house looking for the family Sunday morning to see if they were coming to church, and while I was talking to the mom, one of her sisters came out and just went off and was yelling at us, too, so it was a "Yell at Elder Christiansen" type of week. It was all good though, it really helped me learn to have a good attitude and to have charity towards all of Heavenly Father's children.

Life is so, so good though and I love being a full-time missionary. I am also super excited because we're having 3-day training again (it's 3 days in a row of Presidente training and helping all of the zone and district leaders in the mission so we can in turn train the missionaries we are in charge of). It should be super fun though, because I loved the last one. I love y’all so much!

I love y’all,

Elder Christiansen

Surprise Text and Photo from South Texas!

Love technology! I got a text message on my phone last night with the photo below attached. What a fun surprise! It was sent by a member in the Hidalgo area, and Ethan and his companion were celebrating a birthday with her family. Such a sweet and thoughtful gesture! We continue to be so thankful for the kind members in South Texas who take such wonderful care of the missionaries! 

Buenas,

Yay, y’all got the photo! It was the Fuentes family's nieto (“grandson”) who was having his birthday party. He was turning 4. It was super fun and we just talked to la Hermana Arrembide the whole time. After the photo she wanted to send it to our mamas, so I was like, ok great!! Sounds like it's been a crazy week though! Good luck Andrew on college stuff! And good job Dad for being a beast at seminario! (teaching “seminary”).

Elder Christiansen is on the back row, on the right.
Looks like it was a fun Disney birthday party!

This week has been good, hard but good. We haven’t had really anyone we have been steadily teaching so it's been a bit of a struggle. It has been a good learning experience though. Life is going well, though and I am still really focused on my mission, even though I've been talking a little bit about college and my roommates and stuff like that. Haha – yep, the time sure is flying. I literally can't believe it! But that's why we have to take advantage of every moment to learn, grow, and help others to come unto to Christ because the time to go home is coming up pretty quickly. I love y’all a lot and thanks for all the support! Pray that we can find families to teach and baptize! I love y’all!!

Con amor (“with love”),

Elder Christiansen