Week 45: To The Border

Y'all, I'm going to Del Rio, literally the furthest place I can go in the mission... and it's on the border of Mexico. I guess I better start working on my Spanish.

In other news, we put Tia on baptismal date for May 7th!! I don't know how I forgot to mention her in my last email. This woman has basically been begging us to baptize her haha. A couple weeks ago while we were texting her she randomly said that she wanted to be baptized the next Sunday. We did not expect that at all! We realized she probably didn't know that we don't baptize people at our church service and she hasn't been taught all the lessons so we told her we would need to meet with her to go over some things. Then a few days later, she was having car troubles and we asked one of our members to help her out. Later that night she posted and gave a shout out to her "friends at the Church of latter day SAINTS" on Facebook so I commented and said we were so glad we were able to help her. We commented back and forth for a little bit and then she randomly says, "I want y'all to baptize me next time y'all get the chance". If I'm being completely honest I started busting up laughing... not because she wants to get baptized but how she said it lol. We were like okay awesome well you have to meet with us so we met with her this last Thursday and explained more about baptism and what commandments God has asked us to follow. We were nervous she might want to back out after that but she said "I'm serious about this baptism thing". We were trying to decide on a date that would give her enough time to feel prepared so we were looking at the end of May and she was like nah I don't want to push it out that far! So we decided on May 7th. Unfortunately I won't be able to make it cause I'll be too far away in Del Rio.

We met with Austin last week! He met us at the church, we gave him a tour, and then he insisted that he take us to a drink place. FYI this was the first time we had ever met with him and he was asking us to get in his car and take us somewhere we didn't know. I said a little prayer in my heart and just hoped that he wasn't taking us out to the woods to murder us. And he didn't! I'm alive! He asked us a lot of questions about our faith and missionary service and it honestly was one of the most natural lessons I've ever had. He told us that we're cool and he wants to be our friend. He also wants to hangout with us and maybe go hiking this next month?? Once again, sadly I won't be here for it. I'm excited to see where things go with him though!

On Thursday we were street contacting and this guy named Kyle called over to us and we started talking to him. He was one weird dude. He told us that when we get to heaven he thinks that we'll be like ken dolls and have nubs instead of ya know... privates. He said he wants to come to church though? Then not even 3 minutes later, another guy asked us how we were and we asked if we could share a scripture with him. He said that there's no saving him so I said "I don't know about that, are you sure?" and he said "Yeah, I'm an atheist, but as weird as it sounds I support Christianity. Go save more souls!". Then another couple minutes down the road someone pulled over on the side of the road and rolled down his window. He asked if we were Mormon and started to get out of his car and said "don't be scared, I'm Lutheran". He then proceeded to give us invites to a bible study called "Reading the Bible Correctly" and told us he was the pastor. Before we could really say anything he was gone. So yeah, Thursday was interesting. 

I gave a talk in church yesterday on missionary work and we tried to guilt trip (jk) everyone into coming to support me. We should've had like 20 people there cause they all love me right? Nah. One person came, but it was actually a miracle because we've never met her in person before and she's never met anyone from our congregation. She was so brave!! It was Desiree for those of you who remember her. She was the one I found over Facebook last August and then met with over zoom in February. 

For my spiritual thought I'll share some excerpts from my talk: 

Something I've heard a lot on my mission is, "The reason why someone decides to serve a mission is different than why they choose to stay on their mission". This is absolutely true. My reason for coming on a mission is not what keeps me on my mission. Now that I'm coming up on my year mark, I can say that my reason for staying on a mission is due to the love I have for my Savior, Jesus Christ. Serving a mission and bringing more of God's children into the fold is one way I can show my appreciation for what Jesus Christ has done for me. I know that the message we share is true and it's my responsibility as a follower of Christ to share the joy and peace of mind I have with others.

Serving a mission has been the best decision I've ever made. These past 10 months have been some of the hardest and best months of my life, and I wouldn't trade it for anything. I have matured and grown in ways I never thought possible. But most of all, I have developed a sincere love and testimony of Jesus Christ and I only hope to continue to strengthen my devotion to Him.

- Elder Christensen

Pictures

1. Exchange with Elder Garrett

2. Biking in the rain

3. Good ole Texas neighborhood

4. Yokai Ramen 

5. Biking in the rain pt. 2

6. Ghetto apartment complex