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

Jun 13, 2011

CAT WEEK

This week turned out to have a them that was pretty much constant: Cats. We just kept running into crazy experiences that were cat related. so lets hear 'em.




First of all my companion suggested that we go to a street that had never been to before that is this random dirt road in the middle of a maze of paved streets. So we start going down the road talking to everyone and we clap in front of this duplex house and we see this lady pull back the blinds and just kind of stare out at us through her right eye. Hardcore witch style as far as the one eye stare down thing

is concerned. So she just stares at us like that for like 5 seconds and leaves the glass part of the window shut, and we had agreed that my companion would practice talking with her and he just didn't say anything so we just all kind of stared at each other. Then all of the sudden she was gone. After a while we just started walking away, but then she came out and yelled at us and we came back, and let me tell you, she was nuts. My companion said something about how we're missionaries and whatever and she just kept staring. So then I was like, "uhhh... did you understand anything he said?" and the first words she said was "How... beautiful..." So I knew what was happening because this happens all the time, and she invited us to talk to her (we stayed in her front lawn pretty close to the street on chairs because I was freaked out by her) and as we were going into the gate I said to my comp, "dude she has a huge crush on us. If she doesn't understand whats going on lets just get outta here" and he was like, "noooo. you're crazy."

So we are sitting there telling her about how we are missionaries and my companion was introducing himself and I got a phone call from one of our really good investigators and so I went to talk to him and left my companion over there in eyesight conversing with this lady. So then after the phone call we taught a really simple thing and she understood almost nothing and we left. Then after we leave my companion just busts up laughing and was like "that was so hard not to laugh." When I asked him, "why?" he responded that when they where just talking she was like "You guys are CATS." and like made a cat noise with hand/claw action and everything. That is funny because "cats" is like the slang term for calling someone babes or hot or something like that here. Apparently you can be super ugly and if you have clear eyes everyone goes crazy. Especially people that are already crazy and live alone.



Then another day we were coming home and something else cat related was pretty funny. Our house is like a 2nd story half of a house and we have to go up these really narrow stairs, and across a balcony and then we go in our house, and at night it is like pitch black on the balcony where we enter. So we are walking on the balcony and my companion like groans/yells and falls down in front of my and it just looked like he slipped on a pizza box or something like that. Actually it looked way funny so I was getting ready to laugh, and in that same split second a shadow comes flying at me and my joy turned to sheer terror and I let out this super gay scream which caused all the people in the street (and there were a bunch) to look at us. Turns out it was just a stray cat. So I like looked at the people in the street and said, "Ho ho ho, it was just a cat" as if I was totally in control of the situation. But lets be honest. I almost peed my pants. But it seems like maybe I fooled the people in the street...?



Other than that we are just chugging along. We've got like 5-8 people that really want to become members of the church but are having some problem or another. One family we are teaching is way hard core. It is a super inactive member and his wife. They've got a couple young kids, but they are super young and just kind of babble and do nothing exciting. I always joke that they speak english. Anyways, the husbands name is nephi and he was born in the church but has tons of crazy tattoos (like this awesome radioactive symbol on his hand) and does a bunch of crazy stuff and is actually like one of my best friends here. He always just is cruising around in boardshorts and army boots and like a billabong hat. And he and his wife are really really intelligent. That makes it so easy to teach them because they love reading and understand things generally before you get done saying it, and then they do what they understand they should do. And so we've only taught them 3 times, but she is already certain that Joseph Smith was a prophet because she prayed and understands the plan of salvation perfectly and wants to be baptised, and they just need to get married/stop doing drugs. Good stuff. We are probably going to go fishing with him here in a couple weeks too on P-day. Also good stuff. I love talking to them because it is super uplifting and enjoyable to see them change every time we go over there, plus their kid is like 6-8 months old so I like to imagine him being like soren in the near future.



It is basically just a bunch of stuff like that. Also I have decided we need to go a lot more public with our approach. Maybe we'll go Dan Jones style in a park or something. We need to do something because everyone thinks we worship satan and that we are this crazy nazi clan of germans that only speak english in their church meetings. So we'll probably go to a bus terminal or a park and do something to get people's attention and educate them about what we believe and stuff. I heard about a missionary in our mission who told everyone in the city the greatest missionary of all time would be there and then dressed up in an A frame thing painted like the book of mormon and went out. So who knows, the sky is the limit.



Besides that there is not much going on. It is super cold and I still would like someone to reactivate my debit card and send it to me somehow. Other than that I can't think of anything else. I love you all and I think that it is pretty funny/typical that kelsey was on the front page of the news paper laying in front of a square of art. Meh. LURVES YOUS ALLS. LATERS. HAVE A GOOD WEEK.

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