A Car for Christmas!

What’s up fam + friends!

This week flew by! It was transfer week, so a lot of changes. I am still with Elder’s McConnell & Sitterud. Not too big of a surprise but you never know what Pres. Badger has up his sleeves! Our companionship was the only one in the whole zone that didn’t have changes. Spanish missionary wise, we have two new Hermana’s – one training and the other just got out here in the branch along with Elder Thomas replacing Elder Espinoza. I’m not expecting you all to remember all of this but with Elder Espinoza leaving, the original ‘Fab Five’ is no more. But Elder Thomas is a stud so we’re going to refer to each other as ‘the Five Guys’ haha!

Miracle of the week! We are out of the car share!!! I already realized what a big blessing it is for us to have a car but this last transfer was super frustrating. Just lots of time being wasted driving back and forth and it was driving me crazy. But Pres. Badger came in clutch, moved a couple cars around and now E. Rocha and E. Thomas have their own car (and somebody else gets to shareJ). You could say that was the best early Christmas present we all could’ve asked forJ.

So because of that, since Thursday we have been trying to work a lot and try to make up for some of that time we feel like we lost this last transfer. We’re focusing a lot on finding and trying to teach those who we think are ready and wiling to progress. We found some solid people, one who is part-member family whom we accidentally or maybe coincidentally met. We had been meeting with his Grandma to try to reactivate her and get her back coming to church. After our second meeting, her grandson Roel walked in and asked us, “So can you guys baptize me?” Just out of the blue…so obviously we were stoked and have been working with both of them a lot!

Some bummer news from this week though – after church last week, Elder McConnell was talking to Luis’s son, Luis Jr. He was asking a lot about baptism and then started asking Elder McConnell about some of the fake anti-mormon stuff he had been told about. E. McConnell was able to answer all of his questions and by the end of the discussion, Luis jr. really wanted to get baptized! But… two hours later we get a text from Crystal (the Mom) saying ‘If you guys are in the neighborhood, don’t bother stopping by. You are not welcome.” Total shot to the gut that we were not expecting at all. Our guess is that someone had been telling Crystal all this anti stuff and when her son came home all excited about getting baptized with Luis and Amelia, it sent her over the edge. Real bummer!!! We obviously haven’t stopped by their house and Luis’ communication skills are not the greatest. So super frustrating. We feel bad for everyone in the Branch who had helped them so much and we’re really wanting to see them become part of the Branch. So for now, we are just hoping and praying that Luis and the kids keep coming to church and somehow continue to progress.

I love the Christmas season. A quote by Elder Stevenson sums up the significance of this time of year and why we celebrate the birth of Christ. “Without Christ, there would be no Christmas. Without Christ, there can be no fullness of joy. Without His birth and His Atonement, we would have no Intercessor, no Advocate and no Mediator with the Father and who makes it possible for us to return to their presence and live together as eternal families”.

Love you all.  #IluminaelMundo

Elder Christensen