Week 41: Chilly

It's been getting a bit cold around here, but there's nothing my thick Canadian skin can't handle! Although my companion from Arizona isn't liking the cold.

We've been doing really good since Elder Patterson got to Rockwood. We have been contacting and teaching a ton of people; we even had a few Spanish lessons!  I had absolutely no idea what was going on during those lessons but that's ok.

Well, I don't really know what else to say this week, it's been a regular old hard working week here in Rockwood Tennessee!

I miss / love all of you

Elder Christensen

Week 40: Hallelujah

Well my new companion is Elder Patterson! He's a cool guy. I will attach a picture.  

He's like SUPER good at the piano. He carries a keyboard around with him so that he can practice in the apartment. He's like REALLY good.  He can sight read music and stuff and play pretty advanced pieces.

Well, we've already started cracking down on how we can improve our area and we are excited to implement all of our new ideas in the coming weeks.

The group picture is my district right before transfers happened. It's a pretty common occurrence to take a big group photo for all the memories. The only two people that left in that photo are my companion Elder Farnsworth on the far left and the sister in the very front. Other than that it's the same.

Anyways, one last thing to talk about is the new Easter campaign for our church. There's a short 2 minute video about Easter and it is pretty awesome!  I encourage everyone to watch it and to share it on facebook or other social media if they so desire.  The video focuses on the true meaning of Easter. Here is the link: https://www.mormon.org/easter/

Anyways, I love and miss you all! 

Elder Christensen

Week 39: Didn't see that one coming!

Well, transfer calls got moved to this morning which is WAYYYY better than having them on a Tuesday.  Turns out I AM NOT GETTING TRANSFERRED! I really thought I was going too  Totally mentally prepared for it but right at the beginning of the call my companion Elder Farnsworth got called to be a Zone Leader!  I knew it would happen eventually but we considered it the lowest of the 4 possibilities at this transfer call.  I would tell you who my new companion is, but I completely missed my info because I was cheering so hard that Elder Goldsberry will be moving to my zone to be my zone leader!  I was so excited that I missed who my new companion is so that kinda' blows.

Well, I guess I'll be in Rockwood for at least another 6 weeks which will make my total time in this area 6 months.  I do love the people here and by no means am I sick of the area or anything. 

Well, I love and miss all of you!  I promise I will take a picture this week!

-Elder Christensen

Week 38: It's coming...

Well, transfers is in 9 days. And that's always scary! They changed how we do transfers. Instead of finding out on Saturday night if we will be leaving our area and then going to transfer meeting on Wednesday to find out where we are going and our new companion, we instead find out Tuesday morning and then have to leave Wednesday morning.  
We also find out where we are going and our new companion before we even leave our area. We also have less than 24 hours to find a ride and pack!  It's going to be crazy but I'm prepared for it. I'm not even 100% sure if I'll be transferred, but I just have a feeling that I will be.  I will miss all of the people in Rockwood, Tennessee that I grew to love.  I'm also kind of sketched out since both of my areas so far have been just barely outside the city of Knoxville, so I will most likely be travelling to a completely different part of Tennessee, or potentially heading to North Carolina or Virginia! It's a lot to wrap my head around but I also love to look forward to a new place.  

We've been rolling pretty well though. We've recently reactivated 2 families, and Farnsworth bought a guitar! He can't play it very often but he's starting to get pretty good and he hasn't had it for very long; now we can serenade our investigators as we teach!

Well, I love and miss all of you! 

-Elder Christensen

Week 37: Slice 'n Dice (THIS SHOULD READ WEEK 36)

Well, remember how I was all excited about having that Nissan Rogue? Well, we lost it. Haha... We get a new car later today but I don't know what it is yet; hopefully something nice :)

Well, I cut my finger pretty bad this week with a knife. I've literally never cut myself this bad before so this was kind of surprising. It's not super bad or anything but it looks pretty gnarly, so that's cool I guess. Hopefully it leaves an awesome scar.  Pro tip: Pay real close attention when using a knife.

I went on an exchange will Elder Smith this week in Lenoir City. It was pretty crazy. He had an appointment set up with someone he hadn't really ever met before. I'm like 100% certain he was a drug dealer. It was actually pretty funny.  We were knocking on some doors in the same area (some government housing) and he saw us and yelled out the window something to us like, "Hey guys, I'm a little busy with something. Can you come in like 5 minutes?" So we say, "Yeah, sure." Then he leaves as soon as we knock on his door and goes to another house, walks out with a little bag and says he's waiting for someone who has money for him. Then he canceled his appointment with us and we ended up knocking more doors in the area. We did some other fun stuff on the exchange too, so that's good.

Almost immediately after I went on an exchange with Elder Breck and I taught some solid lessons to some of their investigators. We even set a baptismal date with a little girl who came from an inactive family!

Basically the missionary life is going well and Rockwood is an awesome place!

I love and miss you all!

Week 35: Rogue

(Apparently there was an issue with the myldsmail servers so I'm going to have to resend all the emails I sent on Monday to make sure, so if you didn't hear from me it wasn't my fault I promise!)

Well let's see, we've had some weird weather the last few days; it's like really rainy but it kind of freezes a tiny bit and turns into slush on the ground. It's not cold enough to fully freeze over, which is nice.  

OH... I got a brand new Nissan Rogue 2016 (seriously had like 50 miles on the odometer) to drive.  It's only for a few weeks but basically Elder Farnsworth has a reputation in the mission for keeping vehicles and apartments clean, and my reputation is good too, so our vehicle coordinator decided that he didn't want to give a brand new car to some dirty missionaries so we got it! It doesn't have a TiWi in it either which is pretty awesome. That means I can drive as fast as I want! Although I don't really abuse that ever because I'm a pretty cautious driver.  In a couple of weeks they will take it away from me and I'll probably get another Chevy Cruz to drive Yay!

Well, work's been good and steady, I'll probably be leaving Rockwood at the beginning of March which sucks but we''ll cross that bridge when we get to it.

Love and miss you all!

Elder Christensen