August 13, 2013

The highlight of the week: WE HIT OUR WEEKLY GOAL FOR TOTAL LESSONS!! (To give you an idea of how rare hitting goals is, Elder Mok goes home a week from today, and he has only ever had 1 week of his entire mission where they managed to hit ALL the goals for the week. 1 week in 104.)<br/><br/>

We got dropped by Xxx Xxxx last week, which was a bit depressing, but he was always a little odd towards the gospel, he couldn't grasp for the life of him what the difference was between authority and testimony. On the flip side, we got a surprise lesson with Xxx's husband. He's not too interested currently, but he's also not against it at all, it's just probably going to take some time for him, especially since he has basically no free time. He works from about 10 am to 11 pm 6 days a week, and can't get a fixed day of the week as his break day, and since he lives in Brooklyn, it's a little bit of a hassle for him to come to Manhattan. <br/><br/>

Thanks for the updates about new children in the extended family, I vaguely feel like Wes when he found out that Carissa was married after the fact.<br/><br/>

English class on Saturday had 29 people. Now we just need to get them all interested in the spiritual message we share at the end. Classes on Wednesday are a lot less crowded, typically only 6-10, and I don't help teach the monday and thursday classes, so I can't say how they go. It's pretty easy to tell when there are going to be fewer of them based on the weather, rain is really good at reducing the class size, although heat hasn't really been a problem as far as I've noticed for class size. Currently, most days are holding somewhere in the high 70s to low 80s, on rainy days it can drop to about 73, which is suuuuuupppper nice.<br/><br/>

Fun Fact: Ancient Chinese Medicine states that when you sleep, energy leaves your body to fill the room that you are sleeping in, so the larger your bedroom, the more tired you will still feel when you wake up, because you lost more energy than you would have in a small room. I tell you this because we have been sleeping with the door open in order to have AC in our room, since the bedroom doesn't have a window unit. Have been, but not any more. Elder Wang was feeling pretty tired a lot, so we started doing it with the door closed, and he's been saying he's sleeping better, and I haven't used my blanket since. That said, I had long periods of time where I didn't use my blanket in the MTC, and it was Jan/Feb then. I guess the days when I always needed a heavy quilt on me in order to sleep are no more. (The question I asked which Elder Wang refused to answer was "what happens when you sleep outside?")<br/><br/>

The new Temple Video is available West of the Mississippi, plus Palmyra and Manhattan (New York state is just that cool), we can see it when we go as missionaries, but if we decide/are allowed to go with the ward on the translation days for the ward, it will probably be the old one for a while.<br/><br/>

My apartment is currently Elder Wang and I, plus Elder Cook and Elder Radford. That said, Transfer meetings are next week, so there is something of a decent chance in the apartments getting mixed up soon. We don't talk in Chinese as much as we should, but we do it probably more than we realize, since we all have this automatic assumption that everyone speaks Chinese. For example, in the ward newsletter, the part you took out of my email, I accidentally typed "Ting de dong", which means (literally), "hear/listen obtain understanding." In essence, my listening comprehension. I didn't even notice that I was throwing in thoughts that were in Chinese.<br/><br/>

I just realized I haven't been taking pictures really. Sorry, it's hard to remember to bring my camera, since the side bag doesn't really have a place for it. On the other side, most of the missionaries dump most of their pictures onto clerk's office computer, so I can steal some of those and send them out to you.<br/><br/>

We had a triple baptism this last week, all of them converts, and we're having a triple next week, all children. The ward is growing. Now we just need to get a building to accommodate that growth.<br/><br/>

Love you all,<br/>

Your son/sibling in service,<br/>

Elder Christensen (The version that still has white shirts.)<br/><br/>

August 6, 2013

Salutations, oh people who share a great portion of genetic make-up with me.

This last week has been...actually, not all that exciting now that I think about it. Oh wait. nevermind.

We met a less active member from the Flushing Ward who was baptized in 2007, has the Mel. Priesthood, and has watched every session of General Conference since he was baptized. Yet he hasn't gone to church there in something like 4 years. The reason behind that is rather sad, and also not my story to tell, suffice to say that he has had one of the harder if not hardest lives I have ever encountered. He has great faith, his doctrinal comprehension is solid, and he's planning on coming to our ward every week now. One ward's loss is another ward's gain.

The new shoulder bag I got is still holding up well, I wish that it had the capacity of the backpack, but I guess that was kind of the point. On the other hand, my granola supply is empty again.

Xxx's husband is a decent guy, he had to leave after the second hour to go do some stuff before he had to go to work, but he said it wasn't bad, he won't be able to come next week, but Xxx is solid enough that there's no real way for him to avoid coming to church/meeting with us more in the future.

Elder Wang and I are getting along quite well, the most entertaining companionship to watch though is actually Elder Cook and Elder Radford. I'm not sure why or how, but it seems as though the Lord felt to put the 2 sassiest men I have ever known in a missionary companionship together. It is extremely funny at points.

Our senior couple, the Blairs, told us about a new temple video that is coming out on Monday (they told us then, not that that was when it came out). Should be interesting, we'll get to see it in a couple of weeks probably.

I'm not 100% sure, but I believe that John has been transferred to the new Ohio mission. I say this because he was saying that he was going to Ohio, but I don't know if he said where exactly, or if there was some of Ohio that was still in his original mission.

You might want to tell Cameron to stay on the Oboe until he gets his braces off, I'm not sure if you remember, but I went through 150 dollars of Oboe reads my 7th grade year, and bassoon reeds are more expensive, so even if they are slightly more sturdy, it might be more cost effective to keep him on the Oboe. You can figure it out.

I complete my 7th month on Friday. That went fast. At least I'm not yet in the position of Elder Mok (he goes back to Hong Kong on the 22nd. He spent exactly 50 days of his mission NOT in Chinatown, going to be sad to see him go.)

My Chinese is better, I just wish that people would stop using so much vocabulary that I don't know. I've really gotten a feel for being able to get around the accents most of the time now, it's just those blasted words I don't have 100% memorized that get me every time. I'm saving studying characters for when I go upstate and have no one to talk to/listen to, I'll finally get to learn how to write all the words I've been learning.

Love you all,
your son/sibling in service,
Elder Christensen

PS, no mom, I still haven't gone to the ice cream store. Or been in Grand Central, or gone to the Empire State Building, or Freedom Tower.....

July 30, 2013

We call the Tree of Life the Tree of Life because it is where we do the most of our contacting, and it is where a fair number of our recent converts were discovered, and where they began their journey to find eternal life. Hence the name. It is an actual tree on the street, who's shade provides comfort to us in the summer.

I got a shoulder bag, but I'm probably going to return it and go and get a cheaper one that doesn't make me feel so much like a Jehovah's Witness missionary. I didn't buy any pants, but I got 4 pairs from Elder Mok today because he's going home on the 21st and doesn't want them anymore.

Since the 2 sisters left for SLC, we now have 14 missionaries in Chinatown excluding the Blairs. Elders (by missionary age): Mok, Foley (AP now, no longer in Chinatown), Williams (upstate), Blonquist, Zander, Murray (upstate), Wang (my comp.), Me, Elder Cook, Elder Leung, Elder Radford (came out 2 weeks ago). Sisters (By age): Sister Woo, Sister Beer, Sister Khong, Sister Chan (SLC), Sister MacKay, Sister Lee, Sister Chen (SLC), Sister Dong (came out 3 weeks ago.) Elder Foley, being an AP and privy to this kind of knowledge, told us that we are getting 5 more missionaries in October, which is also when the 2 come back from SLC, so either I'll be training that cycle, or else I'll probably be going upstate at that point. I seem to go on a decent amount of splits, basically 1 split every 2 weeks or so.

Sorry about the pictures, I just realized that we're going to the Bronx Botanical Garden today, and I forgot my camera. Oh well, who cares about flowers anyway? (Elder Mok LOVES them.)

Sister Beer went to the LEGO: ART OF THE BRICK exhibit, but me and elder Wang decided our time was better spent getting a hair cut for him and shopping for side bags, so we didn't accompany.

We might be picking up a new investigator this weekend, Xxx (my first baptism), is bringing her husband to church on Sunday. We're really hoping he has a good experience/is open to the message. If so, that would be the highlight of my mission to see him baptized before the end of the year, because then I would probably be able to go to their sealing before I left the field.

I think Pres. Buckner is probably comparing the success in Chinatown with the success on the rest of the island mostly. We do get baptisms fairly regularly here, but we certainly aren't doing the 50ish baptisms a year that they were doing in 2011. That said, we're doing a lot better at retention as a result, which I think is probably more important currently.

Weird mission story of the week: I got proposed to. Elder Wang answered the clerk's office phone while he was emailing, listened for a bit, then handed the phone to me. I had a 40 minute lesson about the translation of the plates, the word of wisdom, and most of the Plan of Salvation on the phone with some random lady who seemed decently interested in the gospel, up until the point where she was saying that she felt God was telling her that the 2 of us were supposed to get married. I actually thought "what would Jesus do in this situation?............I HAVE NO IDEA." She never even told me her name, and refused to give us her address or number so that the missionaries nearest her home would be able to get in touch with her. Weirdest phone call ever. (and for the record, I said "I would at the very least want to meet you in person and get to know you a lot better before I made a decision like that." I gave a similar response all 3 times she offered.)

I haven't really tried to find mexican food here mom, but there are a lot of Hispanic people in the Lower East Side, so I'm sure it wouldn't be too hard. I'm getting really used to NY style pizza though, I might miss that when I come back. Also, there are several streets of Little Italy that come off of Canal street. Speaking of which, I have offically memorized the street layout from Essex street to Mulberry (11 steets of Chinatown, the 11 I walk the most, and I'm mostly memorize for the rest.)

Have a great week, love you all,
your son/sibling in service,
Elder Christensen

July 23, 2013

I only have black shoes, so a brown suit might not be the best idea, maybe a gray one, although I might beat you to it. I'm going shopping today for Khakis potentially, they fall into the new approved list of proselyting clothing. How's that for a weird thought? I might just buy a suit at the same time if it's cheap enough. Also, I might be buying a shoulder bag, the APs told us that President is going to ask us to stop wearing back packs at Zone Conference tomorrow (apparently a lot of young men walking around with black back packs looks a bit like we're terrorists, and they've decided to phase it out.) Don't worry mom, I'm not going to empty my personal account for clothing/bag just yet.

Xxxx is back in town, we're meeting with him today. We also picked up 1 new investigator, Xxx Xxxx, but we're not too sure how solid he is, he says that he feels like the book of Mormon is really similar to the bible, but he can't tell how we're different from any other Christian Church. We've already taught him the Apostasy 2 times.

I'm still good on watches, I only bought the fake Rolex for the sake of having done so/getting a Rolex, but the other one still works perfectly fine, so no problems there.

I got to weigh myself for the first time since I came out here......170. Not the worst I've ever been, but I've decided that I'm walking about as much as I was at college, and so if I just start eating the way I was in college, I should be able to lose the weight pretty fast. The only problem is that the gas is STILL down in our apartment, which means I can't brown hamburger or chicken meat for the tortillas that I would eat at BYU. I'll figure something out though. Curse the convenience of those delicious Hao Yun buns. On the topic of food and health, my advice would be not to eat sweets even on holidays and such, that gives the implication that they are desirable, but not feasible on a regular basis. It's much more effective if you can convince yourself that it isn't a case of "I can't eat that, I'm dieting" but more like "I don't want that, it doesn't sound very appetizing."

I'm going to get to talk in church in about 4 days, but not for sacrament meeting. Me and Elder Wang are teaching Gospel Principles on Sunday. Not sure what topic. My ting de dong has gotten a lot better, but I still have a lot of times where if its my first time listening to the person, I don't understand all of what they're saying, it seems to take me about an hour to get used to someone's accent. As far as speaking goes, I'm still improving, just hoping I reach competency before I get sent upstate. Thankfully that's still probably 4 to 6 months away.

The weather last week was.........HEAT. 5 days in a row were something like this: 94, 95, 96, 96, 97. Thank goodness it's now down back into the mid 80s for the moment. Contacting in that weather is as bad I think as the dead of winter. Nobody wants to stay outside longer than they have to. Except for us. We're outside LONGER as a result of that. Good thing the Tree of Life provides a lot of shade while contacting. It finally rained again yesterday for the first time it felt like in forever. Hot rain is so weird feeling.

The ward liked the show, 5 of them were allowed to bear testimony on the experience last Sunday. Really cool. Also, Xxxx Xxx Xxx had a freak out when I told him that the Lehi he was taking pictures with was probably my dad. Apparently nobody remembered to tell him. Sister Yan (the Relief Society President) just commented on the fact that you were both younger than her. I think she might not have been expecting that.

Love you all, Glad you made it home safely,
Your son/sibling in service,
Elder Christensen

July 16, 2013

My lesson of the week: If the watch is only 25 dollars and says it's a Rolex, not only should you not trust it to actually be one, you should also assume that it will break fairly quickly. Well played street vendors, well played.

My actually spiritual lesson of the week was in the form of a contact. I saw a man with long bright pink hair, a decent number of face piercings, and a lot of scars on his arms pushing a stroller with a bag in it. I said the obligatory "how are you doing sir?", he kept walking, and then suddenly turned around and shouted "There you are!" Naturally this was a bit of an "oh crap" moment, but 10 minutes, 1 Book of Mormon placed and a restoration pamphlet given later, I realized that especially in NY, you really can't judge a book by it's cover.

Sister Hazen's spiritual experience went thus: she took us all up to the top of the hill, set up the chairs in a circle on the grass, had us close our eyes, and as they played church hymns, they put objects in our hands that were to remind us of the savior's life (fake lamb doll, small cross, bundle of cloth, stuff like that.) then we had a free for all testimony meeting the next day after we all went to the church sites.

I'm going to guess that Pres. Morgan will say that the new dress code thing doesn't count for us, not hot enough during the summer, and he HATES sandals.

After determining that I am sick and tired of my new suit pants being exceedingly tight, I have started to work out my abs again. It currently feels like someone ran over my stomach with a lawn mower. That's what I get for not working them out in close to a year.

Most recent P-days have been spent doing group activities as the zone, so not really games, but doing a lot of fun, almost vaguely touristy stuff. (I still have yet to go into Grand Central Station, even though I've ridden trains through it a large number of times.) Speaking of the subway, I've now memorized about 60% of the subway system on Manhattan, I'm going to miss trains when I get home. I think I'll use the Front Runner and Trax a lot. Buses are still a weird thing for me.

Use the talking time Robin, the people there are ones who DECIDED to be there, in some way shape or form, every single one of them WANTS to have you talk to them. Trust me, it's easier than trying to talk to Chinese strangers, most of them hate talking to people they don't know. Even if they've already had cast member talk to them, it will help them pass the time better, without as much boredom tempting them to just go home and come back later on one of the other nights.

The Blairs said they liked pageant, although they got a little wet the first night. Also, they showed me some pictures of you all in costume, If you could send me some of those next week though, that would be fun.

Service project of the week: cleaning out a hoarder's apartment. The guy had computer parts from back when dad was in High school I think. Plus about 3000 floppy disks, 6 joy sticks, 12 flight simulator games, and I would estimate about 100,000 pages of manuals on how to run various ancient computer programs. Oh, and a number of other crazy things. Super fun.

Love you all, Drink a lot of water, (I am)

Your son/sibling/companion in service,
Elder Christensen
PS, Have fun seeing my ward! Make sure you communicate through Pres. Buckner so you know where they are/what day they come, and take pictures!

July 9, 2013

Where is this rain of which you speak? It hasn't rained at all here since you started driving out. Still super humid though.

Congratulations to Dad on successfully getting yet another cool part, to Wes on getting a specific part, but one which he has already had, and the rest of you for getting decent random parts. I noticed that Wes had a very appropriate beard in his pictures, but I guess the wig didn't match his natural beard color.

We had a missionary coordination meeting a few weeks back in Bishop McConkie's work office, which also happens to be President Buckner's work office, that's probably where he saw me.

Chinatown is becoming very different from how it was when I got here. Elder Cook is the new district leader AND training Elder Radford, who comes out next week. Elder Foley is the new AP, so he is leaving Chinatown for probably the last time of his mission (he goes home in December). Elder Blonquist is the new Zone Leader companion for Elder Mok, and a new Sister today being trained by Sister Lee makes up for the fact that Sister Chan and Sister Chen have received a transfer to..........SALT LAKE CITY TEMPLE SQUARE VISITOR CENTER! They're going to be there for about 3 months, and then come back to New York. I'll send you some pictures of them, and if you want, you can go and try to find them. Speaking of people from my mission who might be coming out to Utah, Xxx (the recent convert I baptized,) is planning on going to General Conference in October. Apparently if you have a Passport that is from outside the North American continent, they have a big bloc of really good seats reserved in the conference center for international visitors, and you don't even need to get a ticket.

Transfers were today. I'm still with Elder Wang, which means he broke my record of sending people upstate after they were my companion. On the positive side, I've finally started to figure out how to take advantage of having a native speaker companion, and now I have at least 1 more cycle to implement these improvements.

I don't know if I ever told you that I am now the proud owner of a fake, probably illegal, 25 dollar Rolex, which was obtained via street vendors who were selling them to the next group of people over for 90 dollars. (They would have been really mad if they could understand what we were saying to the vendors in chinese. That's what you get for being a tourist.)

I'm not sure how they do the translation for Chinese, but the ward has been taking people up to the pageant for some years, so I'm sure they have something figured out (Xxx is planning on going next year, she didn't get involved in the church early enough to schedule herself to go this time.)

I'll make sure to give the Blairs Dad's number, and you can set it up with them.

Love you all, Have fun at the Hill,
Your son/sibling, (and for the duration of Pageant, companion) in service,
Elder Christensen

July 3, 2013

The Blairs are going to be at the Hill on the 12th or 13th, but it isn't decided which yet, I also haven't tried to set up a specific place yet, their plan is to get seats somewhere in the front sections, so I told them they probably want to be there around 6 or 7, but since it is opening night, I can't really say for sure what time would be good for them to try and save seats. They're just going up to visit the sights with their family, they aren't helping out with any of them.

We play ultimate frisbee every Pday morning at 6 AM for an hour. I've gotten a lot better at throwing a frisbee for some reason since that tradition started about 2 months ago.

There is a new Elder and a new Sister coming in to Chinatown this next week, and Elder Williams is probably coming back down from Yorktown too. Basically what that boils down to is that there is a roughly 1 in 5 chance I am training next cycle, someone is going to get the call from President warning them about it by the end of today. That would be madness if they weren't a native speaker.

This last week has been making up for the lack of contacting we've been able to get in for the preceding few weeks. We did probably 8 to 10 hours of contacting over the last 2 days, but we got some decent potentials, and 1 new investigator out of it.

I was reading my setting apart blessing a few days ago, and I noticed that it said I was called to share the gospel in Chinese or in English. That made me feel really bad, since I hadn't really been trying to talk to the non-Chinese people that much recently. The next day I was able to give a Book of Mormon to a black guy going to Dominican republic who said he would read it on the plane ride. And ran into a guy from Nigeria who we were able to help resolve some issues about tithing with, gave him a pass-along card.

Got to go suit shopping with Elder Wang last P-day, and got told I looked like I was a security officer. Interesting way to start a contact.

6 months. Poop. I hope the next 18 slow down a little more. That's weird, the Sisters who come out this cycle will be the one's I go home with probably.

Love you all, have fun upstate,
Your son/sibling in service,
Elder Christensen (who is starting to forget a couple of words in English, but can still remember what the Chinese word is. That is one of the most disturbing moments when that happens.)

June 25, 2013

I miss panic-mode mom...(sigh)

Tell Cameron I wish him good luck on the test tomorrow!

So...Melissa is now a mom. Didn't she only announce she was pregnant about 2 weeks before I went into the MTC? That went fast.

Thank you for the new suit mom, it is quite wonderful, with the only exception of it being a little tight on the waist. I actually went down a belt size when I put it on (for the record, I've been the same belt size ever since I started in the MTC, but the new suit pants forced me down a loop.)

Going on splits is a fairly regular thing, usually about 1 time every 3 weeks, this time was different though because instead of going with Elder Blonquist (district leader) or Elder Cook, who both live in my apartment, I went with the zone leaders, who are elders Foley and Mok. Brilliant teachers, the 2 of them.

The Chinese is still coming along, its just a matter of time mom. Think of it this way, in Taiwan, I would already be nearly fluent by now, but only in listening to Taiwanese people, who don't really have that much of an accent. Here, you have to also be at least somewhat capable of understanding Cantonese accent, and nearly fluent in fujianese accent comprehension, and we still get a decent amount of exposure to northern accents as well, so I might not be picking it up as fast, but I will understand a lot more people. Or maybe I need to just ram my head against a cinderblock wall again.

Street contacting is the same as it always is, just now there are more people on the streets, so there is a higher number of them that are willing to stop and talk to us. YAY! No new investigators yet though, but a couple of decent potentials. Oh, and Basketball contacting was banned in this mission about 2011 if memory serves.

Fun spiritual insight for you. In Chinese, repentance is hui(3)gai(3). It literally translates as something to the effect of Guilt (hui) Change(gai). My new comprehension of repentance more accurately falls into GaiShan, which means to improve.

Xxx Xxx Xxx is basically dropped for the time being, he's having a really hard time.

Xxxxx is in Connecticut for the summer to get money to keep going to school in the fall, so we might have some phone lessons with him soon, and try to put him in touch with a ward up in Connecticut.

Xxx Xxx = my first baptism. I'll send you the picture along with this email. PS, it's really hard to baptize someone when the font is leaking, so the water is only knee high.

Going to the temple today, so not a lot of time,
Love you all, don't die (its a little bit hot right now, it's 90 degrees outside)
Your son/sibling in service

Elder Christensen

June 19, 2013

Chinese is right on the edge right now for me (or so it feels). I have finally learned to some extent how to hear the actual words in the long stream of strange sounds, and my vocabulary is large enough that I can actually recognize a decent amount of what is said (depending on the topic of conversation), but I can't quite get the words in Chinese to just instantly mean what I know they mean, I still have to think for a second before I can understand, or else sometimes just translate it into English first (which can take longer, especially since if I try that, I tend to forget about 70% of the sentence.) On the cool side, I can actually read the scriptures in PinYing and typically understand what the verses are, even if I have to guess some times on a couple of words. (not characters at all though)

Elder Wang actually sweats a ton more than me. He'll be dripping if he's sitting in a suit at 70 degrees, which is really funny to watch. I need to wash my sheets this coming week anyway because I'm going on splits with the zone leaders next Tuesday, and Elder Mok DESPISES sleeping in other people's beds precisely because they don't wash them enough.

The Dragon Boat Festival was fun, but I forgot my camera (sorry). We ended up not doing the raingutter regatta aspect, which was good because it was way too much effort for the turnout that we got (decent # of people, but 0 children). I also found out afterwards that we are not allowed to be outside after 6 on Halloween and New Years, and only until 8 on the 4th of July. It's still windy here, and it hasn't gotten above 80 yet, most of the time it hovers between 60 and 75, which is pretty nice.

Had my 2nd interview with President Morgan, we talked about pageant a lot actually.

If you see my ward on 18th-20th, or the Blairs between the 12th and 13th, say high to them for me. (my ward is all Chinese, with a bishop who is 6"5', and the Blairs are wearing missionary tags.) I might try and organize a specific time and place for you to meet (near the information kiosks for example.)

Elder Blonquist's Grandparents and little brother came and visited with him for 1.5 hours yesterday, he said his brother had grown about a foot (he's 12.) Apparently it is okay to meet with some family members briefly, with the mission president's express approval. Too bad you don't have a car while you're up there.

YAAAAAAYYYYYY, Granola.

If you find any new suits in a 39 or 38 inch chest, preferable 2 slits on back, 2 buttons, please send them out, or else I am going to need to fix the pinstriped one fairly soon. (how do you think that suit would look if I told them to put on elbow pads? that might be cheaper.)

Tell Robin to learn how to drive one of the other cars, it will help her get more practice, and she might need to drive one of them still come fall.

John Thompson is training his firstborn son, who also happens to be named elder Christensen (from Oregon, probably no relation).

Love you all,
Your sibling/son in service,
Elder Christensen version Chinatown.

June 11, 2013

I've decided I don't really like contacting in English, it tends to just be super awkward for some reason. I guess that's a good sign, since I seem to be more comfortable talking with people about the gospel in Mandarin than in English. I'll have to reverse that when I go upstate.

Yankie's Games are really strange to go to as a missionary. REALLY strange. But also really fun. You'll get a few pictures from that at some point.

We talk a lot in English and a lot in Chinese at the apartment, it seems to mostly depend on what we're talking about, and how focused we are. That said, I've caught myself several times transferring into Chinese without meaning to do it, and in some cases without even noticing, which is a promising sign. Now if I could just understand what everyone says a lot better, that would be great.

If you want to send him (Elder Wang) a package, feel free to. He really likes Essential Oils (ironic then that he's companions with me, since he has to use a diffuser in the apartment every day, or else he complains it smells, and I can't even tell what the difference is between our apartment and the subway scent wise.) And his family is FROM China, but lives in California, so he can get some packages, he just doesn't. Speaking of which, I'm out of granola bars again. :-) A water bottle would be good too.

I have been wearing just short sleeves about 50% of the time these last few weeks. Which is a good thing, since all 3 of the suits I have out here now have holes in them. (Sorry mom, the replacement you sent out has a few holes in the fabric on the inside of the jacket that are I think going to grow quite rapidly once I have to wear suits every day again, and the other suit is just really old, there's a tear forming on the left leg right below the side pocket, not a seam ripping, the fabric is coming apart.) It's not an urgent thing, but if you find another suit in my size, preferably 2 slit in the back, 2 buttons, I would like that. I am going to definitely need another suit, or else get the pinstriped one repaired, by about October or November at the very latest I think.

I went on splits yesterday with Elder Blonquist, and we met some of the nicest, and some of the most truly New Yorker people I've ever met. 2 people ASKED to give us their numbers, and 2 cussed us out, telling us that they'll call the cops if we tract their building again (we might be going there tomorrow, its supposed to rain, so contacting won't be any good on the streets. Not like the cops would do anything to us anyway, all the non-american missionaries have green cards or visas.) Oh, and its really awkward when you're talking to people on benches in the park, and then realize that you're out-numbered 2 to 5 by the Jehovah's Witness missionaries who are also contacting in the park. Yes, that is what every day is like for Elder Blonquist (he's the one who met the black guy in Columbus Park with the sword that I told you about. He's a magnet for crazy stuff.)

We've been working on our hardware merit badges this week. We're doing a Dragon Boat Festival party for the ward next Monday, which means that, since everyone in the ward is busy, the missionaries get to arrange it. It's really interesting when you realize that no-one on the island of Manhattan has done a Raingutter Regatta, which means that 4 19/20 year old missionary Elders are going have to figure out how to make the boats and "raingutter". We're using popsicle sticks for boats, with shiskabab sticks as masts, and we found some 4 inch PVC, which we are now going to work on cutting, and putting together some kind of frame for it to hold it up off the ground. This might end up being the most Ghetto Regatta ever, but it's going to be interesting, one way or another.

It sounds like a lot of stuff is changing pretty fast back home. It will be odd to see how different things are in another what...19 months?

You mentioned something interesting about "missing the point of the mission". Some of the missionaries (I'm being completely serious when I say I am NOT one of them) have been getting a bit down and out about the fact that recently they haven't been able to get any investigators who were actually interested in the Gospel, only in translation help really. The single largest lesson I have learned since I started my mission was that repentance is not supposed to be an action. It's supposed to be a way of life. I've been thinking a lot about how my mission might just as well be about the people who I teach now as about helping me figure out how to live the gospel correctly. Also, many of these people will come into contact somewhat regularly with missionaries for quite possibly years to come. Several of our current investigators are proof that it can sometimes take many encounters with missionaries and members before they really start to feel the desire to learn more, so I figure, if they don't have interest right now, that's okay, there will probably be more chances for them to accept later on. And my street contacting is getting better too, which is always fun.

Love you all, Eat bacon,
Your son/sibling in service,
Elder Christensen