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

Nov 8, 2011

Tacos and Guacamole

So we had a fiesta mexicana. Everyone was pretty grossed out by the whole "avacado with salt" idea (we had guacamole). I thought it was amazing. But they just eat avacado with sugar and milk like a milk shake here so it was something new to them.

thanks for the information. They will buy my tickets home soon.

I am super duper tired. I feel wayyyyy skinny too. I look like I am 12 years old. But people tell me I look like I am 25 or 30 so whatever.

uhhhhhh... we have a couple more baptisms of some people planned for this saturday. Yayayyyyy. They are way excited too.



One thing that came to my head right now is that there are a bunch of people that read this, members of the church or not, might not understand what baptisms is or why we do it, so I will give a brief explination while I think of other stuff to say.

Baptism is way simple to explain:

In any country the people have certain rights. For example here in Brazil they have public school and even public colleges that are way nicer than they private ones and anyone who is brasilian can go there. That is a right of being part of the brasilian people.

In a similar way, the scriptures say that when you get baptised, it is the only way to take the name of Christ upon you and become a part of his people. It is as if you become a citizen God's country or something like that. So with that you get some benefits, and in my opinion the two biggest ones are the "gift of the Holy Ghost" and a "remission of your sins". Those two things are way boss, and the only cost for them is being baptised with Christ's authority that only his worthy representatives have, keeping his commandments, and remembering him. So that is pretty doable for anyone, and it has some big time benefits.

The holy ghost is cool because it shows you pretty much anything you'll need to know or that you need to do and helps you be happy. It is like a buddy to hang out with, and also serves as a personal guide. So just imagine, you want to know if it is a good idea to take a job offer or not, but you can't see the future. With the gift of the Holy Ghost, you have a way of knowing if it is a good idea or not, and you can trust him because God sees the future (it is like star wars pretty much).

Then there is the remission of sins part. That means all of the sucky feelings that people get from doing retarded stuff in their past goes away. You just feel at peace for everything you have ever done wrong in the past knowing that God forgave you and that it isn't a part of your life anymore. Also Christ says that all who have been baptised will recieve forgiveness again after doing something stupid in the future basically as many times as they are willing to go after it and repent. Long story short, you get to feel peace of conscience forever. Pretty killer stuff.

So the people that I am going to baptise with my comp have learned a bunch about who Christ is and what he does, and they are down with making a life long promise to follow him and make that a part of their lives. And best of all they are excited because they are going to recieve forgiveness for their sins and they will recieve the Holy Ghost. And it is real. TOOOOOooo LEGITTTTTtttt TOOOooo QUITTTTTttt.

Lots of people get confused and think that we just go around making people a member of our church. But what I explained is really all we do. Being a member of a church is but a small part of following Christ and though it is an essential part, it is very far from the focus of your life. Really we help people go for discipleship and the church just helps them with that.

So yeah, if your life sucks (and even if it doesn't suck that bad but you get sad sometimes), it is almost certain that this comes from a lack of focus on Christ and how he can help you be clean from sin. That goes for members of our church as well as non members. Pretty much 99% of problems that lead to legit sadness stem from that. So just let the missionaries help you learn about it because they are willing to teach you just about this for free and they are literally the most qualified to do this out of anyone that you'll find. And I can tell you from experience that we get in a mindset where really the only thing that is important to us is the happiness of those we teach. So it is just an all around good experience.



Well I didn't really even think of any new stories. I peed my pants randomly this week. Again. I guess that was funny.

I really don't care about that much besides doing this work anymore. It is as if the closer I get to coming home the farther I get to wanting to even think about that. I feel like I will just stay out here forever.

One of my friends that I made out here (Elder Redford) is going home in one week. He is probably one of the elders that I have met that best understands his purpose. He is in my district right now and we are having to do at least one or two companion exchanges a week just to get everyone who wants to be baptised interviewed and ready to go. It has really been a blast. We have been getting a good number of people who are interested in following Christ. it isn't just people who like the church, these people are really converted to Christ. Like I feel so greatful to have been a part of this here because we have been able to help quite a few people change their lives here.

BUT, I have nothing else to say. I'll try harder to find something funny for next week

I love you all and I hope you are putting tools in my room from time to time.

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