This is probably the only post that will be from THE Elder Christensen.

If you are reading this you probably know me and are close to me so I won't really describe myself...

But today is Sunday May 02, 2010. I get set apart tomorrow as a MISSIONARY for the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints at 8:30 P.M. These last couple days have been a whirl-wind but I still have yet to fully grasp the concept of flying to Brazil Tuesday morning so I'm betting the coming days will just OWN me from the inside out as far as craziness goes. I am so excited to head off into the unknown, and am ready to tackle any challenge that comes my way. My mom and dad taught me right, and I am so thankful to you all of you that prepared me for getting this far. You all know who you are

Anyways the blog that follows will pretty much just be a post of Emails that are from me to my family and friends, and it will be a good way to see me progress through my mission first hand. Even if my emails aren't necessarily to you don't feel weird about reading them. I want as many people to share this experience with me as I can.

God be with all of you until we meet again. You'll need it while you don't have me to bestow my presence upon you. haha. I'll see you all in a couple years.

-Scott

Send Me A Letter, I Miss You.

Elder Michael Scott Christensen
Brazil São Paulo Interlagos Mission
R. Euzébio de Souza, 121
Jardim Londrina
05638-100 São Paulo - SP
Brazil

Dec 20, 2010

What month is it?‏

So the other day I was sitting on my bed pulling my hair out over some people that didn磘 go to church, and I realized that I have been in this area for 6 weeks already. What the heck? when did that happen. weird. But we had another transfer. I磎 trying to like it, but I am not going to lie my new companion is prettttttttttttttttttttty annoying. He is really new on the mission and has a seemingly infinite amount to learn compared to my last companions, but is constantly correcting me. It will be a challenge to be paciente with him but I am determined.

One of the more annoying things he does is tell me that I talk wrong. But not in a constructive way. Generally it is like this, ``holy cow, what did you just say? did you say M髇ica? it磗 M鬾ica. You need to study more.创 but this part he is talking in portuguese.

then he follows it up with ``OK? reet (right)? les gu (let磗 go)?创 and I just am agast. It磗 incredibly ironic and sometimes I think he磗 joking with me. But he磗 not. Sometimes I want to say ``talk to me about the literary arts or contemporary society.创 because I can talk about that in portuguese and I know he wouldn磘 know where to start, and then I would burn him and say ``now do it in english, because you磛e been studying english for 5 years.创 But instead I just say ``oh sorry. thanks for being patient with me.创 and try not to hate him. I am determined to like him.

But yeah, I miss my last companion. He was a really gifted teacher and we were really good freinds so we were rolling along every day in unity and power. It磗 kind of like someone cut my arm off and is telling me to tie my shoes. I磍l ask people questions to help the people think about what we磖e teaching and he always thinks that the silence is because they didn磘 understand and so he jumps in and says ``oh my companion is a crazy american. He doesn磘 really know how to talk, what he wanted to say is...创 and the investigators will say ``we understand him perfectly, we were just thinking.创 but it磗 too late and that good spirit that was there during the lesson is already gone. NOOOOooooooooooooooooooooh well... Just gotta take it one day at a time.

But yeah, I will call at 8PM my time. The favela gets pretty wild on sunday nights, so I can only imagine the holidays. I can磘 believe the things they do to their motorcycles when they are drunk. It just blows my minds sometimes. They just ride around in first gear with it pinned hitting the rev limiter for hours and hours because they think it磗 super cool. I mean who can blame them, backfires and ruining engines is pretty cool. I think can hear the poor rod on the single cylinder engine crying sometimes, and I am just waiting for one of the motors to throw a rod and kill someone because it will go flying out the side of the little air cooled block. But it still hasn磘 happened.

Teaching wise I read a talk by David M. McConkie from last conference and I am applying what he taught about being a hard core teacher and it磗 super fun. Like I磎 not going to lie, I can have alllll of the difficulties and health problems and whatever else bad in the world and I will still love teaching the gospel to people. And I love having nothing else to do but live it and teach it. I think it磗 pretty annoying when missionaries, especially here where we have lunches with members everyday and half the people we talk to are legitly interested, complain about the work. I really just don磘 understand what there is to complain about as far as the work goes. I complain about my companions because they are turds sometimes, but the stuff I do with them is so cool that I generally end up not caring that they are super annoying. Given that our focus here is on families, we have a couple families that we磛e been blessed with that are just incredible to teach. On dude name Alexandre and his family are just champs. He磗 in there cleaning the chapel during the week and doesn磘 miss days on sunday and just understands everything. Like he磗 a better member than I am and he磗 not even a member yet. And he lives in a housing project and works as a guy that drives a recycling cart (a.k.a he has a horse and picks up literally TONS of trash throws it in a cart behind the horse and sorts it at the end of the day to recieve next to no money) but the guy is so thankful for what we have taught to him. When my companion went to another area he gave us pirated DVD磗 as a present, which was one of the nicest thing he could get for us so we accepted them to not make him feel weird... (we磍l teach about the whole ``you can磘 pirate DVD磗创 thing next time I think) He says the day we stopped him on the street is engraved into his mind as the start of the best part of his life so far. So that磗 cool. It磗 always nice to have people get what we are teaching and be super thankful for it.

But yeah. That is my life. I love to teach because I know the people of whom I am testifying. It磗 not just an empty message about Christ. The more we can get people to understand that, the funner it is. And it just gets better everyday. I just wish time would slow down a little bit.

I磍l call at around 8PM my time to try to catch everyone home, because my companion has to call at 7PM anyways. If that doesnt work just email me because saturday is a PDAYYYYYYYYYyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy. I love you all. Latersss

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