Week 2 - 05/03/12

The days are blurring here. I blinked and we're already on week 2. It's all becoming the same to me. I can see how 9

weeks here drive some of the missionaries here crazy. The food is ok....

mmm... Awesome really, but in all honesty it's all beginning to taste the

same. Elder Elsbury, one of my companions made the comment yesterday that we

should tell the our zone president that we should get the full missionary

experience here and have us go to his house and feed us like members do.

ha-ha!

By the way, thanks so much for all the boxes you sent me! They had tons of

stuff I needed, especially the shoes! Special thanks for that Dad! In Gym,

I'm running 2 to 3 miles a day. I'm so glad I did and stuck with cross

country. I'll take the skills I learned there into my whole life. I notice

that as I run, I'm falling into many of the techniques I learned. It's

awesome! The other day, I had an interesting relation experience to running

and going on my mission. The other day, I finished my workout, but for some

reason I was dissatisfied with my effort. I'd run 2+ miles, but was still

annoyed, like I hadn't given it my all. So the next day, I ran extra hard,

and did extra pushups and everything, and to make up for the other day, I

was very satisfied with my results. Then, in a train of thought, I related

that to my mission. I did NOT want to end it feeling like I hadn't given it

my all. Quoting one of the speakers I heard here, they said on the day you

get off your mission, have the others have to take you off on a stretcher

because you worked so hard. THATs how I want to end.

Anyway, do you know how tired you get here? You'd think that after sitting

around all day eating super high calorie meals would make you energetic,

but instead most days during a meeting or class lesson the guys going to

Denmark find our eyelids are made of lead. It's so annoying! I really blame

the food. yep. That is one thing I WONT miss here. the food. hehe.

In my studies,(because we have HOURS of personal study time here...) I've

been reading Jesus the Christ. That is a flat out incredible book. If you

could somehow challenge the scouts, or boys, or ANYONE to read it, they

would find they can draw incredibly close to their savior. It tells them

incredible things about Jesus, and why he did what he did. My testimony of

my/our/the world's Frelser...Savior... is growing. it's grown a ton, and I'm

not even halfway in!

So I've mentioned our investigator Tobias, right? He was a guy that on the

first week here, they said go teach. he only speaks Danish. oh, and he's a

non member. good luck! We were like... WHOA. Pressure! This is the real

deal. So for the past week we've been working our hardest to teach him, and

for me the BIGGEST ANNOYANCE then AND still is the language barrier. Oh I'm

improving most certainly, but I've still got so far to go. Anyway, we were

teaching him and we were going to challenge him to be baptized, on the last

lesson before he was suppose to leave. and then he left early. he sent us a

video revealing he COULD speak English. (I'd figured as much. He'd have to

to get through the gate.) And how he'd felt the sprit and intended to

follow up with contained lessons. We were both excited and satisfied.

Little bummed because we couldn't challenge him to be baptized but oh well.

BUT THEN! later that day as we were in the start of our second class, in

walks Tobias! We were so happy, especially elder elsbury who'd been very

dedicated to him. But then we noticed something wrong... he was wearing a

white shirt and tie and a white name tag of a teacher.... PUNKED! He was

actually one of our teachers! We reviewed over the whole experience and

what we learned. I'd learned a lot about loving and teaching with the sprit

with our investigator. Though Tobias was fake, the spirit of him and us

teaching him was not. It was a great experience.

Ok, I'm out of time. Love you all so much! Please keep sending letters, they

totally make each day I get them!

vises!

Elder Christensen