Weekly Fuego

"This is the [actual] place"

FAM PIC - IDMM edition

Squad!

Iowa is nuts. The definition of bipolar. We were looking at temps around -45 and colder on Tuesday and Wednesday and fast forward to Saturday and Sunday and I'm rocking a short sleeve short with a light sweater in the 50 degree weather. Pretty legit. And that explains our week perfectly as well. Started off cold with not much going down then have been starting to warm up a little bit and getting warmer from there. Lemme give you some details.

Tuesday and Wednesday we were shut in cause of the cold. Couldn't go outside, visit anyone, nothing. It was awful. My mindset for a quick second was "oh this is gonna be nice. Taking a little break and relaxing." Sike. That lasted for maybe 30 minutes then I just wanted to go crazy. Thankfully on Wednesday we were able to leave in the afternoon to go pick up the new missionaries fresh from the MTC and chill with them for the night so we didn't lose our minds.

Even in the cold on Thursday, we still had transfers. Lots of running around like a crazy mad man trying to act like I knew what I was doing and staying warm at the same time. I was able to stay warm pretending like I knew what I was doing. After figuring things out though, we had just enough time to go have a lesson with Jose and meet his wife! Walking into their home, it literally felt like walking into a members house and that's a good feeling... Jose's wife is named Susie and she is so cool. After a nice little convo and quick lesson with them, in Spanish *insert tears of joy*, we asked them if they had any questions for us before we bounced and our girl Susie did not hold back. She jumped right into the juicy stuff haha. She asked us the typical question of why no coffee or tea. Keep in mind, we haven't even officially taught them the Restoration... so we sent it with a quick word of wisdom and related it back to their young family wanting to be as healthy as possible and it just clicked in their mind once we did that. No more questions or concerns, just "sounds good. Makes total sense." Jose is working hard to get Sundays off and once he does that, boy oh boy are they just going to take off. It will be super fun to witness!!

We have also been teaching the sweetest and most humble family from Tanzania. Are we surprised....Africans being humble and sweet when it comes to learning about God. To be honest, I can't even say all of their names so I'm not going to try to write them here. Needless to say, they are all incredible. It all started with talking with the 14 year old of the family named Fariji. Ever since we started coming over, he just gathers the entire fam and translates everything for his parents into Swahili. We were able to meet his dad for the first time as well, and if Iowa was Africa, this man would be a member already. He has his own copy of the Kitabu cha Mormoni and loves reading it and says he just feels so good when he reads it. Hmmmm... shocker! And is just so willing for everything but is just held back with the language barrier. We're gonna start having English classes with them and while we do that, we will be hunting down some Swahili members in the Des Moines area to hook them up with. Fariji and his sister Mahombi came to church today as well and loved it! We are stoked for them and the family seems pretty open to everything. Good things about to happen!

The work is true. Take a peep at 2 Nephi 2:11. Hard is good!

Elder Christensen

The GOAT (Kelly not me ;-))