Week 105: Fin!

Well, here we are at the end of the road! How crazy is that? I will be
home in almost 72 hours!

Super randomly this Sunday I had to get up and speak in church. There
were 3 speakers and they all went way under time so I was called on to
give a talk right there on the spot. The funny thing about it was I
had a thought the other day that went something along the lines of
this: "Wow I've gone my whole mission without getting randomly called
up to give a talk in sacrament meeting!" And then boom, my very last
Sunday it happened.

I'm excited to go home and continue to talk to y'all via other forms
of communication, so hit me up on social media.

I'm super excited to go home to Canada. The humidity is getting worse
and worse every day, but I'll also be a little sad, I think. The place
that's been my home for the last 2 years is going to turn into a
memory soon, kind of sad! I am glad that I dedicated these last 2
years to serving a mission though. I've learned so much and grown so
much in the process; it's crazy! See Y'all!

See you on the other side.



Love
Elder Christensen

Week 104: MIA

No contact

Week 103: Drawing Closer

As I approach my last 2 weeks in the field I can't help but notice how
slow it's going. It seems like any sort of free time I have is spent
thinking about what I'm going to do back home. It kind of sucks,
honestly. It feels so weird knowing the life I've known for 2 years is
just going to end abruptly and I will thrust back into the real world.
I'm excited though.



Anyways, we have this raccoon that breaks into our garbage every single
night at like 2 AM, and we have tried everything. We found a whole
bunch of old bricks and bungee corded our garbage can to a wooden beam
and he still managed to knock it over. Our most recent idea was to
poor bleach all over our garbage area and hopefully that will get him.
Does anyone know how to get rid of pesky raccoons?

Love,
Elder Christensen

Week 102: Pyramid

I attached some pictures!!! First picture is our district after
balling it up at a Baptist church. Second picture is me wearing cat
ear headphones.





So more on the Baptist church thing. We were invited to attend a
Baptist church in the area by one of the deacons. He apparently told
us the wrong time because we went and there was nobody there, save a
few cars that looked like were people in meetings. Anyways, we had our
whole district there and it was getting closer to the end of the
night, so instead of just driving home and calling it a night, we
found a basketball hoop they had set up and grabbed a basketball from
the car and played some 3 on 3 in our missionary clothes. We got a lot
of weird looks from the few people leaving the building. Afterwards we
took a human pyramid pic with a dope background.

Anyways, I go home in like 3 weeks.

Love y'all!

Week 101: Arby's

So my companion Elder Mueller and I decided that we were going to
treat ourselves Saturday night, after having several appointments
cancel on us. We ended up making our way to Arby's because we had some
coupons there. Elder Mueller got this one combo that came with 2
sandwiches and a bunch of fries and a drink. Now him trying to be all
smart and stuff decided to save one of the sandwiches to eat later.
However once we were right about to leave, he accidentally threw it
into the garbage. It has been a time of mourning in Oak Ridge, a Brave
sandwich lost his life, unable to fulfill his calling in life. Who
knows where it is now?

Anyways it's been pretty awesome here in Oak Ridge. The work is
picking up a bit which is always awesome. I was trying to attach some
pictures that I took this week, but then I realized I haven't taken a
single picture for like 3 weeks, WHOOPS!

Anyways, I miss all of you!
Love
Elder Christensen

Week 100: Seeds

Well, this has been a super solid week! We were actually able to set
quite a few return appointments, so we should be busier this week than
any other week that I've been here in Oak Ridge.

Mother's Day was awesome. It was great to talk to my family one last
time before I head back and see them in like 5 weeks. Shoutouts to all
the mothers out there!

[Here is a screenshot I took of the call:]



I got to eat ribs for the first time in over a year yesterday so I'm
still kind of freaking out. I love ribs so much! We were invited to a 
Mother's Day celebration and that was what they cooked, woohoo!

Something very traumatic happens this week: I had a secret stash of
sunflower seeds that I was saving for a rainy day, and that rainy day
came, so I opened the bottom drawer of my dresser to grab the seeds,
and I notice that there is mouse poop everywhere and sunflower seed
shells scattered all over the place! Turns out a mouse got in my
bottom drawer and then nibbled through the bag and helped himself to
some spicy sweet chili sunflower seeds! I had no idea that mice liked
spicy food! And it's not like he ate one or two either, like half the
bag was just scattered throughout the whole drawer, completely open. I
didn't even know mice had the ability to crack a sunflower seed shell.
Needless to say I was pretty hurt when I found out that a mouse ninja
made his way into my drawer and desecrated my holy stash of seeds.
There is still a void in my heart that I am unsure will ever be
filled.

Love y'all!

Elder Christensen

Week 99: Final Transfer

Well this Wednesday is transfers. I will be staying with Elder Mueller
here in Oak ridge for my last 6 weeks. 6 weeks... wow, I only have 6
weeks left.

We had a pretty awesome week. I pulled my signature move again and
forgot to take pictures after telling y'all that I would try and take
more. I guess I'm just a liar.

We went and did service at a museum called the American Museum of
Science and Energy or AMSE for short. I was with another elder in my
district and we were helping little kids make pocket solar systems for
a few hours. It was a pretty cool experience, minus the fact that I
suck at trying to tell kids where to put a sticker on a piece of
paper.

Now that I'll be starting my last transfer I'll need to start figuring
out what stuff to pack to take home with me. I've acquired quite a bit
of crap over the last 2 years.




Anyways we have some service planned today so I gotta go do all my
basic needs before that.
Love y'all!

Elder Christensen

Week 98: Back to Rockwood

This week was pretty cool. An investigator in Rockwood that I visited
a lot while I was there (weekly for 6 months) got baptized! And since
Rockwood is so close to Oak Ridge we got to drive our car down and see
the baptism. It was great to see a whole bunch of familiar faces.

Week 97: Wheels

Remember how I didn't have a car? Well now I do! How cool is that? Many of you probably don't realize how much it sucks to bike uphill all day, but it does, so I'm pretty excited to have a car again lol. Someone ended up going home early for medical reasons and the mission president closed an area, so we got the car from the closed area.

Although we had the car, this week went a little slower than usual, especially the weekend. I guess everyone was out of town for easter. We only had half as many people at church this week as normal; it was really weird.

Didn't take any pics this week, whoops!

Hope yall had a happy easter. If you never saw the #Prince Of Peace video then you should totally check it out.

Love yall

Elder Christensen 

Week 96: Wolverine

Fun fact: did you guys know that Wolverine was a Canadian? I attached some proof.

(For real though Wolverine is actually Canadian)

This week was pretty awesome. We have been teaching this guy named Mike, and he is progressing pretty smoothly. We brought a member with us to the appointment, and at some point Mike asked about the word of wisdom. He said that there is no way he could give up coffee. The member who we were with explained the word of wisdom briefly and Mike still didn't know if he could handle it. We ended up leaving the lesson on a pretty good note. He committed to come to church and continue to meet with us.  We were biking around going to see different people later that day and we ended up running into Mike again. He looked again to us and said, "boys, that coffee pot has been staring at me all day, and it's telling me that I need to get rid of it." I thought it was pretty interesting how he felt after we left.

Work has been going super good here in Oak Ridge, I really like the church members here and even biking around  isn't so bad, but I mean I wouldn't mind having a car. Hahaha.

Well, I wasn't able to get to a computer today so my standard short emails from a tablet come another week!

Miss yall

Love

Elder Christensen 

Week 95: Oak Ridge

First thing, I have to apologize for not taking any pictures. I must admit that the only reason I took so many the last few months have been because my companion took them all haha. I'll at least try to get a picture of me and my new companion by next Monday.

[No need. Elder C's bishop kindly sent me this picture the day he arrived.]

Oak Ridge is a pretty interesting place. There is a lot of top secret stuff that goes on down here, so lots of members have security clearances that don't allow them to talk about certain things; it's pretty crazy!

Being on a bike really isn't so bad. There are a ton of hills here so it makes it really hard to go up hill, so we usually just get a ride into an area, and then walk around it for a few hours and then get a ride somewhere else, or just walk. Elder Mueller's bike was broken until Saturday anyways and we ended up spending most of Saturday watching conference.

[The bishop invited the elders over to his house between conference sessions.]

The people here in Oak Ridge are pretty nice. I've really loved all the people I've met so far. Oh, one cool thing that happened this week: I bumped into our bishop and he looked weirdly familiar to me. He then took a picture of me and proceeded to send it to my Mom. This all seemed so familiar and I eventually figured out that our Bishop was the first member I ever met when I got to Tennessee!  Right after we landed at the airport (before we even met our mission president or any of the other missionaries) this guy came up to us, took our picture, and sent it to our families. It was a really cool experience. So now the first member I meet on my mission will also be the last one that I see on my mission; it's pretty crazy! 

We met a guy named Mike that we started teaching and he is pretty solid. He's in the middle of making some major changes in his life and he is excited to come to church next Sunday. I can't wait to see what kind of miracles Elder Mueller and I see here in Oak Ridge.

I miss all of Y'all!

Elder Christensen 

Week 94: Transferred Again!

Well, I got a transfer call this morning. I will be leaving Johnson City to go to Oak Ridge! Fun fact:  that is where the Manhattan project took place, like where they made the bombs.

We had 2 baptisms this weekend, both of them are kids in different families but they are so cool! It was a great way to end out the transfer.

I'm definitely going to be sad to leave this place. Johnson City has definitely been my most enjoyable area, I have loved it here dearly, but I look forward to going to Oak Ridge! It's actually a bike area, so I am going to have a great opportunity to lose some of the weight that I have gained in the last 21 months haha. (45 lbs)

I attached a video of Elder Gannaway and I being awesome with a card.

Sorry for my weak updates lately. We have been extremely busy these last few weeks and I haven't had a whole lot of time to draft emails or wrote them on P days.  (Weakly emails hahahahaha)

Anyways, I miss and love all of yall!

Elder Christensen

Week 93: The Sound of Silence

No email today.

Week 92: Can You Believe It?

Can you believe it's already been 90 weeks since I went into the mission field because I sure can't! [Side Note: It's really been 92 weeks.  Elder C didn't count the times he neglected to correspond because he was having too much fun.]

Here is a picture of Elder Gannaway and I eating chili's for the first time.

Our week has been pretty awesome! We managed to finalize some plans for a couple more baptisms coming up in a couple weeks so we are very excited.

I'm most likely leaving his area March 29th and then serving my last 3 months in a new area, so I'm excited for one last change of scenery. But I will miss Johnson City dearly.

Don't got much more to wrote about for y'all. [I seriously hope that sentence was a joke.]

I'll try to take more pictures this week.

Love

Elder CHRISTENSEN 

Week 91: Weird Cat

Hey yall!

Sorry for no email last week; I kind of ran out of time. I was having too much fun. Whoops!

Had a lot of exchanges with different missionaries. While tracting we found this weird piece of art:

I was wondering if anyone knew what it was?

Week 90: Silence

No email today.

Week 89: Workin'

Howdy Y'all!

Just been working way hard this week. We helped a member in our ward
(named Max) move a whole bunch of his stuff. We had the whole crew of
missionaries!


Well that's about all I got! I'm compensating from the lack of text with a picture!

Week 88: Shane's Baptism

So one of our investigators named Shane was baptized today. It was
pretty awesome! 

The other picture is of our last district meeting of
the transfer. 

I will be staying in Johnson City with Elder Gannaway
and Hammond for another transfer which is awesome!

I honestly don't have a whole lot of time today and I'm writing this
on my iPad. Gonna have to cut this one short. See y'all!

Love
Elder Christensen

Week 87: Angel's Baptism

Howdy!

This was a pretty solid week! Angel was baptized. She is Connor's aunt. She is super solid! The only thing was that pretty much everything that can go wrong at a baptism went wrong; lol we suck at planning xD

This week was pretty unique. I actually took quite a few pictures!

This is us with Angel:

We decided to take some pretty sweet shots while the font was filling up:

Elder Gannaway really likes Krispey Kreme:

We also got Legend of Zelda Tattoos (Don't worry they were the kind that come off in an hour):

We also saw this wonderful work of art:

Well, life is good here in Johnson City.

Love Y'all!

Elder Christensen

Week 86: More Snow!

We got more snow up here in Johnson City. It's been pretty fun.  Most of the members here aren't too thrilled about the snow but I love it!

The business factor has been pretty exhausting lately. Doing the administrative stuff on top of working our area really hard is pretty intense!

One of our investigators we have been working with a lot lately finally made the leap of faith and came to church yesterday! That was pretty awesome! She really enjoyed it too which is a really good thing.

One of the boys we are teaching invited us to his 11th birthday party! It was just as fun as it sounds.

My companions and I gained access to a Sam's club card and were able to purchase a bunch of healthy groceries so on top of working out we are going to fix our diet and lose some weight! 

Anyways, work is good here in Johnson City!

Love

Elder Christensen

Week 85: 2 Chains

We had a pretty solid week this week. We went on exchanges with the APs which there are 3 of, and then there are 3 of us, so in the end we had 6 missionaries all in one area, all sleeping in the same room! It was pretty intense!

Working out at Jake's has been crazy as always.



I got to hold a bird on my shoulder. I seriously felt like a pirate.



Always moving people around here in Johnson City.



And knocking doors like crazy!

Week 84: Waterfalls

Well this week was super awesome! Our investigator Connor was baptized, it was an awesome experience!



Today we went on a hike with our Bishop, it was a pretty awesome hike, it was called Red Fork Falls.

I'm definitely going to miss all of the greenery when I leave to go back to Canada, so I'm going to enjoy it while I'm here!

Miss Y'all!

Elder C

Week 83: Snowed In!

Well, we got a pretty good amount of snow this week. We really only had one big dump but it was definitely a lot more than I was expecting!  Elder Hammond (The Greenie) is doing very well here in JC. I think he enjoys having 2 trainers. It is a heck of a lot of fun!

We were grounded one day this week because of the weather conditions, but since we have a truck we just assumed that it didn't apply to us! We spent our whole day going to our appointments we had set and the looks on people's faces were quite something! It is completely out of culture to visit someone when it is snowing, but it was a heck of a lot of fun!

Here is a picture of us shoveling out the entire road in front of our apartment for it to only be plowed away 30 minutes later!

 

Elder Hammond is the one on the left and Elder Gannaway is the one on the right!

This last week has been such a blast! I love my comps and we have so much work going on here in Johnson City!

I miss and love all of Y'all!

Elder Christensen

Week 82: Happy New Year, Homies

Hey Y'all! 

Transfer call was this morning, and I will be getting 2 new companions! Elder Gannaway, who I have served around for quite a bit of my mission, will be my companion and we will be training a new missionary!

I'm pretty excited to keep the whole trio thing going on!

Hope Y'all can keep your new year's resolutions!

Elder Christensen

Week 81: MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Merry Christmas to all of Y'all!

I don't really have much else to say other than that!

Love Y'all!

Elder Christensen

Week 79: Elder Neilson

So the reason this email is coming in on a Wednesday instead of a Monday is because we had a Half Mission Conference Monday and we had an MLC on Tuesday so our P-Day got changed to Wednesday.

We Went to the Quantum Leap trampoline park again this week, and I attempted my first backflip off of a wall. (You can hear my inspiring words of "If Peter can walk on water, then I can do this!" It was pretty comical in the moment. 

This week was pretty solid though. We ended up teaching 23 lessons with a member present which is pretty legit. We have been so busy with teaching that we have to use every blank moment of the day finding or else we can't hit our desired amount of finding time.  The Mission is crazy!

Miss Y'all!

Love 

Elder Christensen!

Week 78: Fire!

Well, this week was pretty average, still teaching lessons like crazy.

We are switching to a new trampoline park today, it's called "Quantum Leap". It will be super fun! So expect some cool videos next week.

I did my max dead lift today which was pretty fun, I got 300 lbs. It's not that much, but hey, I'm still growing!

Starting to get really hyped about the Light the World calendar. If you haven't checked it out look it up on Mormon.org; it's on the front page.

There were some pretty intense fires down in Gatlinburg, which was a neighboring area to my first area (Maryville). There was a lady in our ward who went down there for a vacation but got evacuated by police late in the night and didn't get to finish out all their trip; they also had to leave everything behind. Luckily the building they were staying at didn't burn down so they can still go back and get their stuff. (They walked out with nothing, basically). Although the city is in such a muck, they haven't been allowed access. Anyways, where I was going with all that is Elder Simonson and I as well as 2 other missionaries in the area decided to go pull her weeds for her as our service activity for the 1st day of December in the light the world advent calendar. Just being able to know you brightened up somebody's day is all I need to keep going!

Anyways I'm going to sign off here but I miss all of Y'all!

Love,

Elder Christensen