Cross the Street

My little bro, Samuel

Fam & Homies,

Six more weeks in the Loo! I got the surprise call from Pres. Badger that I’ll be staying for six months here in Waterloo. Guess I have some unfinished business to take care of. Elder Scoresby got the boot and it is headed to Ankeny and I got another new ZL named Elder Jarvis. Jarvis is from Oregon, has been out around the same time as me. He’s a stud and a solid guy so it’s going to be fun. On the flip side, Pres. surprised the four of us here in Warterloo by putting us in a dreaded car share…while the number of missionaries in the mission is going up, the Missionary department is taking 20 cars away from our mission. Doesn’t make sense, but you gotta do what you gotta do, but really feeling like we got the short stick. Needless to say though, at how busy we already are, the effectiveness and work we were doing dropped from like a 9 to a 5. We spend a big bulk of the day chauffeuring each other back and forth to our appointments all over town. Winter is coming in fast too, so yippee! (wind chill made it feel like 4 degrees this morning)

Even though the back half of the week was pretty slow, we were able to really take advantage of Scoresby’s last days in the Loo. Monday, after emailing, we decided to stop by this house we had kinda scouted out. We had driven by it many times and it had kinda stuck out to us. Well, we finally had enough time to stop by and it was worth it. A man named Alfred, from Liberia, opens up and tells us, “Anyone representing Jesus Christ is welcome in our home.” Just a classic African response…you gotta love it. Turned out, I learned a nice lesson from Alfred. Back in Liberia, he said he went to another church but that church was right across the street from an LDS church building. He said not once did he walk across the street to get a better look nor had talked to the missionaries. He knew about the Church, but only bits of pieces. It just made me think, how could that happen? He was so close to those front doors but so far at the same time. I’ll cut to the chase: Alfred is like every single one of our own friends that we know who are just so close, just waiting to cross the street and walk in. So moral of the story I learned from Alfred: Please do your member missionary work.  Make it easy for those people to cross the street.

Sunday was pretty awesome as well. Not necessarily because it just happened to be the Primary Program (best Sunday of the year!) or that it was Jarvis’ first Sunday in ward. But my man Samuel came to church! He is a punk 14 year old that for some reason or another, we stuck with and not given up on. Our relationship started as a struggle…he drove me crazy. I just wanted to clock him in the face sometimes. But over time, I have learned to love this kid so much. My family knows that I have always wanted a little adopted brother from Haiti and I consider Samuel just that! I had the biggest smile on my face seeing the word engulf Samuel. It was also awesome to see members, who had helped him out in past, give him the biggest hug when he showed up. Those are the moments that make all of this hard work worth it!

Mucho love,

Elder Christensen

p.s. one win away from that PAC12 championship game! GO UTES!

Goodbye Scoresby

Hello Jarvis