Week 14: Crying Face :'(

Well, transfer call was on Saturday. Basically what it is, is a big conference call with everybody in the whole mission.  Everybody mutes their phone microphones (It would be crazy to have 100 phones on at once) and we listen to the President tell us what's happening.  We get to hear who is leaving their area and will need to pack up their things and come to a transfer meeting on Wednesday; we hear people who are entering leadership positions, training positions, and people who are coming down from leadership positions.  SO Elder Goldsberry is leaving :(

He's actually almost done packing all of his stuff. Most missionaries do it Wednesday morning, but he figured it's a good idea to be smart and pack everything beforehand.  I'm not sure where he is going, or who my new companion will be -- I won't find out until Wednesday -- so you'll have to stay tuned and find out on the next episode of Dragon Ball Z... I mean on the next installment of weekly emails from Elder Christensen. (Speaking of Dragon Ball, apparently they just started making them again... whaaaaaaaat????)

Well my picture game is still weak, lol. I PROMISE that I will take pictures this week, because I will be with my new companion and whatnot, so there will be tons of them. I'm not completely empty handed though, I do have a few, so here you go:

[Warning: If you have arachnophobia, ignore next photo.]

Random fun fact: Conference Sunday is my birthday!  Hahaha how cool is that?  (October 4th for those who were wondering). 

OH I almost forgot... The Maryville area is losing one of their cars... YAY!!! That means I get to bike around every other week, WOOHOO! (I'm not actually excited; I'm just trying to trick my brain into thinking I am.)  Conveniently enough, the other missionaries' car stopped working right as they announced that we were losing a car, so I guess that means our car will be staying.  There's like a giant hill right where our apartment is so I'm going to have to bike up that thing like every night. 

Well I don't want to keep complaining about having to ride a bike so I think I'm going to end this email right here.

Love 

Elder Christensen

Week 12: U-Haul

So we go to move one of our less-active members as she was moving all the way to Michigan or something like that.  We show up and she has this little 6x5 ft trailer.  There were like 8 of us, so we were thinking "Oh man, this is going to be an easy move, right?"  She had 4 couches, a fridge, 2 tables, a few dressers, and a bunch of boxes.  We were sceptical if we would even be able to fit half of it in there, but she insisted that it would all fit.  So we all went forward and managed to fit all 3 couches into it, and then we were out of room.  So that was fun, I guess.  Always be prepared if you want to move, is basically what I'm getting at here.

We've been going along as usual and a thought popped into my head. In about 2 weeks my trainer is going to be gone!  WHAT?  Has it been that long already?  I'm going to have a new companion soon. Hopefully he's a cool guy.

Since it's labour day we weren't able to access the library to fire off emails so we had to improvise which ended up with us barely finding computers by the end of P-day.

Anyways, I promise that I will take like a million pictures this week. I'm seriously the worst at taking pictures. I miss you all!

Love

Elder Christensen

Week 11: TiWi

Let's see... I got to drive a car this week! That's a good thing right? WRONG! We just got these new friends in our car called TiWi. It means "Teenage Eye Witness". It's essentially a black box device that is installed in our car and yells at us when we are speeding, braking too hard, taking turns too tight, hitting bumps in the road, practically everything you can think of.  It then takes all of your driver data and then ranks you as a red, yellow, or green driver.  If you get marked as red you lose driving privileges for the rest of your mission; yellow you lose them for a transfer, but being yellow multiple times will result in losing those privileges.  Apparently in all the missions it's been implemented, it has had a great success in lessening the accidents and maintenance on mission cars, so it's going to save like millions of dollars worldwide, so I guess it's a good thing to have. (I still hate it though!)

Other than that, this week has been pretty ordinary. I went on exchanges (I switched companions for a day) with Elder Hoff. He was in my area and it didn't last too long since I ended up being so busy the whole night he was here, but I've exchanged with him before and so we didn't need to do any meet/greet stuff.

My picture taking game is still weak, but I did manage to snag a picture of Elder Goldsberry posed in an awesome manner with one of our member's new puppies. His name is "Bobby" and he's like a month old or something.

Anyways I love you all and hope you have an awesome week!

-Elder Christensen

Week 10: Withdrawal

So all that soda we bought was mostly caffeinated, and let's just say there's none left.  And the last couple of days have been rough since we have significantly reduced our caffeine intake.  Although I'm pretty sure it will go away in the next couple days, for now we have caffeine headaches.

Other than that, things have been awesome!  We had a big event (that I didn't get to go to) at the Maryville college, and we got to set up a booth and give out copies of the Book of Mormon to all the freshman that wanted one.  Elder Goldsberry went with Elder MacDonald for that and I stayed with Elder Gannoway and went to church.  The other Elders showed up to church but they were late because of the event.

We've been going through a bunch of lists of members who are inactive and visiting them. It's created some pretty awkward encounters! Ask me about that when I get home.  

Unfortunately I don't have any pictures this week because my picture taking game is weak, but I'll make up for it next week hopefully!

Love 

Elder Christensen