September 10, 2013

We received an update on the use of internet proselyting. I will be logging back onto my personal facebook account around the end of October probably, and using it for missionary purposes. Now, the exact usage of it is still not clear to me, what is clear is that I am going to need to go through and get rid of a lot of old posts, comments, potentially friends and pictures. I'm also going to need to friend the mission president and the APs and my Zone Leaders.

Sorry for the announcement about the need for another suit, it's cooling down here faster than I was expecting, and when I got the Dry-Cleaners (professionals this time) to put another patch on the old sleeve, it lasted for about a day before it tore on the OTHER side of the patch the MTC did. Really bummed by that one. 38 Regular Jacket seems to be the right size, 2 button, 2 slit, open lapel gap are all preferred but not required. Pants would be 32/32. If you can't make it match the pants I already have, then feel free to do it via missionary mall. Black or Gray would work equally well, brown might not be the best idea since I only have black shoes. Also, on a fun note, I am holding steady in the range of 162 to 166 lbs currently. Now I just need to get the ward members to stop providing so much dessert with the utmost expectation that we will eat every single bit, and I can really start to lose some weight.

Xxxxx is still coming to church every single week. We take turns translating for him. I translate one week, Elder Wang translates the next. There is nothing to give you a head-ache during sacrament like trying to translate into Chinese during Fast and Testimony meeting I've learned, because during the other weeks, you can ask the person before hand for a copy of the talk, and just read translate. Translating by ear takes a lot more concentration. As far as other Chinese practice, I still try and talk to Elder Wang in Chinese as much as I can remember to when it's just the two of us. We have a goal to only speak Chinese while we are in the car, and we're working to get better at that. I also spend a lot of time now reading the Book of Mormon in characters. Not to say I know enough to really read it, but I'm learning a few every day, so it'll come eventually.

I've taken about 500 pictures total since I got into the field I think (That said, 90 of them are of various birds from when we went to the Bronx Zoo). I'll try to send you out the SD card itself in a while once I have the chance to upload the stuff on it onto my flash-drive. I don't really trust the computers here in the public library with my SD card and Flash Drive for some reason, so I'm going to try and do that stuff on one of the computers at our chapel.

My spiritual thought for the week comes from a bit of revelation I received during sacrament, although it wasn't related to the sacrament at all. During this dispensation, the nature of missionary work has changed substantially. From a start with soap-boxing in England that would lead to missionaries like Dan Jones in Whales baptizing over 3000 people, to what we currently have today. What I discovered though was that with the planned phasing out of tracting, we are moving further and further away from declaring the Gospel to any and all, to having those who are interested come to us. Now, missionary work of course will continue to work on finding from our own efforts, as well as the members, but it made me think of Mormon and Moroni. They were not allowed to preach the word. The work of God will go forth Boldly, Nobly, and Independent, until it has swept every continent, visited every clime, and sounded in every ear, and then, it will stop, because there will come a time when all people HAVE learned enough, and have decided to reject what they learned. And at that point, missionary work will follow the course of Mormon and Moroni, and switch to working as hard as they can for member retention. Clearly this point in time is still a ways away, but it was a little bit of a paradigm shift for me to realize this.

Love you all, hope that homework doesn't kill you all,
Your son/sibling in service,
Elder Christensen

P.S. no I haven't had the chance to go to the temple yet, I haven't actually gone since June I thing.

P.P.S. Upstate is really good, I'm getting a much better grasp of why they always say tracting is ineffective, but study time is a blast. Did I mention I've started reading the Lectures on Faith and the Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis during apartment time after we finish daily planning? Both are excellent food for thought.