December 10, 2014

So this is a plan that might take a little while to figure out. Allow me to explain. You may or may not be aware that the Mormon Tabernacle Choir is going to be singing in Carnegie Hall next first of July. That is the Wednesday before pageant starts. One of our members (Qi Xiao Dong, he is in the picture below) said that he, for some strange reason he couldn't figure out, bought 8 tickets, when he only has 3 people in his family. When I mentioned that I was planning on coming back to visit during the summer right before pageant, he offered to take our family. The problem is that it is the Wednesday before pageant, so I don't think mom or dad would be able to make it, since you need to be at the pageant on Tuesday for staff meetings if I remember right. Then I realized that one possibility was to come down to the city for the weekend, have mom and dad drive the MotorHome up on Monday or Tuesday as needed, then have the 5 kids (5+3=8) stay, go to the concert, then we ride up with the Buckner family on Wednesday or Thursday depending on the time of the concert. If there isn't room in the Buckner car, we could also either rent a car for a day to drive up ourselves, or pull a car behind the MotorHome on the way out, which provides us with more flexibility once we are at pageant, since we we will still have an actual car. These are just some ideas, but I would really like to go to that concert if possible.

They (the stake) called on the missionaries to usher at the stake Christmas carol concert. It was pretty fun, but we ended up just holding the door to the stairwell open for a lot of the time. We did get to act as elevator servicemen though, just standing in the elevator pushing the up and down buttons a lot.

Elder Perkins of the seventy came to our Ward this last week. It was pretty cool, because he speaks Chinese. Problem was that I was busy helping set up the refreshments for after the combined third hour, so I didn't get to sit in his lesson at all, which was kind of ironic.

Xxx Xxx, our convert back in Feb, got a phone call from his mom the day he quit his job in Rhode Island. He was planning on taking 2 weeks off, and then had a new job set up less than an hour away from the city, in a much nicer restuaraunt. Then his mom called and said he needed to go help in his sister's restuaraunt in South Carolina. So his whole plan he had been working on for 6 months to let him come to church more and get a better job just got destroyed. Now he is in South Carolina working pretty crappy hours, and no chance of coming back up here any time soon. Needless to say, he was upset.

John goes home today. Weird.

They are renting a jumbotron in Times Square for the He is the Gift project non-stop for a month. I think they are stressing that more in our mission than in any other.

That's about it for this week.

Love you lots,

Your son in service,

Elder Christensen

陈少驹

December 3, 2014

I do like the [family] Christmas tree [harvesting] tradition Mom, but you also have to admit that sometimes it was a character building experience.

Thanksgiving was a fun experience, I'm going to assume Ethan sent you the video of the skit that the Elders and some of the members put on to explain the story of thanksgiving. It was sketchy. All the hats were made the night before because the originals were accidentally left at the chapel Wednesday night, and the chapel was closed Thursday, so sister Palmer was up until 4:30 making the hats again. She said at that point she fell asleep on the floor with scissors in her hands, and then had to get up at 6 to start cooking turkeys. Overall turnout was really good though for the party, and we got to take basically a full pumpkin pie home afterwards, along with a huge pot of potatoes and stuffing.

We have gone to bed on time once this last week. The latest we've been up teaching/calling people this last week was 2 in the morning. I was feeling right back at home doing that. My companion....not so much.

Just send a sock for my companion, I don't really want you to send anything for me. Just wrap all my gifts up, and you can leave them under the tree until I get home, and I'll open them then. If the actual tree dies before then, just put them under the fake tree in the living room. 

Recognize these mom? You sent me a box back around April of 2013 that had a bunch of cooking stuff in it. I left them here when I went upstate, and apparently when the elders moved out of 8A for the sisters to move in, they took it with them to apartment 1. I was on a split yesterday with elder Radford in that area, and found it in the back of one of the shelves in the kitchen.

Funny story, some of the sisters were trying to help a girl with her homework, and they didn't know what a Nor-Easter was, so they came and asked me. I answered the question, and then asked how they didn't know what it was, since we got hit by them regularly all last winter. Turned out I was the only missionary here in the Zone that knew what they were. Hurray for being a real New Yorker!

Love,

Your son/sibling in service,

Elder Christensen

陈少驹

November 26, 2014

We had a special Sunday this last week, we called it "Come and See!" In Chinese it translated as an open house event. We only had sacrament, and then we had a decent meal after, and a bunch of activities introducing the auxilliary organizations in the church. It was also my first time translating for sacrament. 2 minor mistakes, but for the most part it went pretty smoothly.

Elder Wang gave his farewell talk this Sunday as well, then he got in a van with the office Elders at 4 in the afternoon, and away he went. He's back in California now, but I'm going to stay in touch with him for sure, he'll also probably give the home phone a call at some point so he can arrange to stay a night in my room on his way up to Idaho for school. I told him you wouldn't have a problem with it (if you do, say now or forever hold your peace.....) I'm also going to be sending a box of books and such I don't really need. On the top I'm going to put Elder Wang's bye bye book, because he had to leave it behind so everyone would be able to sign it.

I can't remember if I told you about our new method of contacting that we are working on. School contacting basically means focus on contacting around schools so we can find the parents with kids going to/from school, because if the parents are the ones picking them up, then we know that their jobs are more stable, and the added benefit of a full family unit, instead of random part families/single adults like we have been getting. The hard part is trying to figure out how to do it without feeling like total creepers on the kids. Which is really ironic because we aren't even aiming for the kids, we are going for the parents.

There is a new program starting up called "He is the Gift". Look it up on LDS.org, it starts this Friday. Really big, and they rented space on YouTube and a Times Square jumbotron. You can look it up on Christmas.mormon.org too.  #ShareTheGift

We had an interesting experience with breath spray last night. We were in Elder Leishman and Elder Wangs apartment, and we noticed his old breath spray, so we tested it. Disgusting, turned out he had swapped out the spray with rubbing alcohol so that he could light matches and make a mini firebomb. Rubbing alcohol really does taste gross.

We saw a demonstration against the police last night walking back from zone unity, which was interesting, since it was the first time I had seen an actual protest in the city.

Elder Kuo/Guo has gone to Poughkeepsie for a while, I'm now with Elder Atkinson. He's a really laid back guy, so it should be pretty fun. We are merging two of the areas together as well, which means that we are going to be really busy probably with lessons. President told all the missionaries in my transfer (after the transfer meeting) to get very little sleep, and to work our butts off. So that's what we are going to do. We also got a new sister this transfer, sister Moe from Highland UT. She looks a lot like the oldest daughter from the family at pageant, I think they were the Dodds? They had 2 daughters and a son named Andrew who got called to Russia. I don't remember.

Love, 

Your son/sibling in service,

Elder Christensen
陈少驹

November 19th, 2014

I'm still on track to finish reading the BoM by Christmas too.

I gave a special zone training on goal setting and planning last week, which was super weird, considering I'm one of the worst planners ever. What was even stranger was that half the zone made comments later that it was one of the most inspired meetings I have held in my now 6 transfers as a district leader. I don't get it, but if they got something out of the meeting, then sweet, the spirit teaches them what they need to learn, and not what I was saying. 

I'll talk with Ethan and president about it [spending time with Ethan over Thanksgiving]. It so happens that the Ward is holding a massive thanksgiving dinner at the 65th street chapel (2 blocks from the Buckner's house) for most of the afternoon on Thanksgiving day. I don't know if he wants to see me, I honestly don't really care too much, since I would be seeing him again in a little over a month at that point anyway.

Our Ward mission leader gave me a few new ideas in contacting that might form into a new contacting style for the Zone. It isn't fully developed yet, so I'll spare you the details, suffice to say that it is much more focused on finding families.

The humidity is quite chilly. Enough said. We did a bit of contacting, but we have also been pretty busy with making preparations for the Thanksgiving dinner. It's going okay though, Preach My Gospel says "Nothing happens in missionary work until you find someone to teach." So when we don't have someone to teach at that moment, we start looking for someone.

I haven't received any flight plans either Mom, like I said, they come when they come. You get the Email before the letter will reach me anyway, so you don't need to ask, since you'll find out before me.

I can't explain that whole issue with the boundary stuff in email mom, it would need several days of typing probably to explain the full thing. I talked with President Morgan for 30 minutes about it, and he lectured the whole zone about it for another hour plus on top of that, so trust me, I'll explain it to you all when I can actually talk, instead of type.

Love you lots,

Your son/sibling in service,

Elder Christensen

November 12, 2014

We had our Zone conference (my last Zone Conference) yesterday. President spent the first 3 hours answering questions he had asked us to email over the previous week, and then we spent the rest of the time making videos to answer the question "Why do you believe in Christ" the only criteria was that it needed to be 5 minutes and have 2 scriptures. It was really fun, but took my group forever to come up with what we wanted to do (no sisters or other creative people in my group) so we ended up only having time to film it through once, but aside from the camera man accidentally covering the mic hole on his iPad with his finger for 30 seconds of the film, it turned out really good. Here's a picture of the Elder's I did it with, none of them are Chinatown elders except for Elder Kuo and I, so I don't really know them at all.

We had a baptism this last Sunday for a 13 year old girl, followed immediately after by us all skyping in for the baptism of Xxxx Xxxx Xx and his Fiancé Xxxx Xxxx, who were taught all the lessons here in Chinatown. The week before their baptisms president Morgan made it extremely clear that anyone who is living in Brooklyn is not allowed to be baptized here, so they had to get passed off to the New York, New York South Missionaries. I'm sure they appreciated it, the two of them are extremely solid new members, and all the missionaries need to do now is make sure that there is a smooth transition to them starting to attend that branch instead (the week they got baptized was the first time they attended a different unit than Chinatown).

The girl on the left is the one who got baptized.

I'll probably send some more stuff later, but this is the main meat of what happened this week. Oh, and sister Xxxx (the Recent Convert) continues to bring the missionaries crab every Monday. I really like it.

Love, your son/sibling in service,

Elder Christensen

陈少驹

November 5, 2014

President visited on Tuesday for our meeting with the Bishop and the Ward Mission Leader. We got some good training, and we have determined that it is completely not allowed for us to baptize anyone who lives in Brooklyn and Flushing, and if we have anyone who lives out of State, we need to transfer their records to the Ward where they live even if there is no capacity for Chinese in that Ward. So that's going to reduce the number of members who have callings in our Ward, since if the records are not here, they can't have a calling here.

If you look up the previous cover photos for LDS Missionaries Facebook page, you will see a cover photo that I really like.

We spent the day with Elder Christensen from the Bronx today. Helped his comp buy a fake Rolex. We had a good time, he seems to be having a good time. He's still in the Bronx.

We had a YSA and SA FHE activity this week, had a decent turnout. Really fun, but playing Mafia in Chinese can be a real interesting experience.

Not much to report for this week.

Your son/sibling in service,

Elder Christensen

陈少驹

October 29, 2014

This crab was given to us by a recent convert. I ate it for dinner on Monday, it was tasty. We also got free sushi from our new Ward mission leader's convenience store/sushi bar for lunch yesterday. Elder Christensen is Happy Elder Christensen when he gets to eat good seafood.

These donuts were made by Sister Palmer. We thought they were pretty funny.

The group of missionaries are the ones who went  to watch Les Mis with Elder Wang and I last week. 

The show was really well done, but the part that had the greatest impact came after the show was done. I have often experienced a period of, for lack of a better term, melancholy at the end of reading a good book through for the first time, or else after watching a play. It has been something that I have been trying to understand for quite a few years actually, and I finally figured it out in the subway on the way back from the play. I think I feel that way because those particular activities give a sense of feeling to the fact that this life is like an explosion of fireworks. A few brief flashes of light, and then before you know it, it is all over. I get somewhat of the same feeling after I go to the temple as well, but a more positive, if still equally contemplative state of being. The difference is that at the play, it displays a persons entire life in the course of an hour or two, showing just how fast it all is, while going to the temple makes me contemplate on the significance of the flash of light that is our life, and how necessary that flash of light is. The entire purpose is for us to develop the correct attributes in order to stand against the night that follows when the fireworks go out. I hope that made sense, these thoughts bring out the (untrained) poet in me.

We passed off Xxx Xxx Xxxx (dude from the north with very thick accent) to Elder Wang ShuangZhe, he's the guy who understands him the most, and we didn't understand enough to have it make sense for us to keep teaching him instead. We've been able to meet with a few new people though over the last few days, so we might see some new stuff coming up soon. I've had to teach a few late night lessons by myself due to Elder Kuo being one of those people who has to get minimum 8 hours sleep or else he might be pretty grumpy the next day. The latest recently was a conversation with a less active member that kept me up till 12:40. I am so grateful that I went through high school with so little sleep, otherwise I would have struggled so much more on my mission. Instead, the days where I only get 6 hours don't bug me at all. P.S., anyone who ever says that as a missionary, the spirit goes to bed at 10:30, is a total liar.

We went to FAO Shwartz for PDay today.

The Ward isn't doing a Halloween activity, but we are going to do a big thanksgiving dinner, which was a big deal last year (I've been told numbers around 300 people and 17 extremely large turkeys for last year's). The reason is because no-one wants to eat Chinese food on Thanksgiving, so all the Chinese restaurants are closed that day, which means that we have a ton of less actives who never show up that will pop out of the woodwork (or at least that seems to be what happened last year, and we are hoping it can happen this year as well.)

I got your Halloween package Mom, thanks for the sauce, I will do my best to use it all before I go home.

Love you all,

Your son/sibling in service,

Elder Christensen
陈少驹

October 22, 2014

We found a new guy on the street last week named Xxx Xxx Xxxx. He is weird. And has the strongest northern China accent I have ever heard. He's from Tian Jin, which is about 2 hours away from BeiJing, but I only understand maybe 50-70% of what he says. Elder Wang ShuangZhe and elder Leung taught him a lesson on Sunday, since me and elder Guo went to stake conference at the stake center. Elder Wang is from ShenYang China, which is north of BeiJing, he grew up with the northern accent, and he said he could only understand 80-90% of what the guy was saying, he has that bad of an accent/talks that fast. So teaching him might be interesting.

We have an interesting situation developing in Chinatown. I described to you before how many of our members live in Brooklyn and Flushing on Long Island, right? Well if I didn't, now you know. The problem is that we found out from President Moegan during interviews that the people who we teach from there who don't want to meet with the south missionaries because they met us first, still should not be getting baptized here. Apparently it's a bigger issue than we realized, we aren't sure what the full implications will be yet, but president is coming down to meet with us and bishop Huang at some point, so I don't know what exactly is going to happen. Should be interesting at least.

Oh, and they have changed the mission rules, we are one of the test missions for a new policy, we are sleeping now from 10:30 to 7:30, it is a policy they are considering putting in place for the rest of the world next summer depending on how it goes. I hate it. Sleeping for 8 hours is hard already. I usually just get up early and exercise more or do language study, because I just can't sleep that much.

Love,

Your son/sibling in service 

Elder Christensen

陈少驹

October 15, 2014

We went to the Statue of Liberty today, so I don't know if there will be enough time to say everything I want to. The statue was cool though.

The talk that elder Perry gave was awesome, Elder Hallstrom of the 70 was there as well. Elder Perry talked a lot about the 1964 world fair (50 anniversary) and he also talked about the social nature of being a member, both in the use of media, and in encouraging people of all faiths to become more active in their church attendance, even if they are catholic or Muslim or something. At one point he asked who was currently using their smartphone to make a post or tweet about what he was saying, everyone chuckled, and he said "nothing is sacred anymore these days, so we might as well use it to our advantage!" Which was possibly the funniest thing I could ever imagine an apostle saying. 

Another interesting part of his visit came from the fact that during the opening song, a homeless man named Jacob stood up in the middle of the congregation to sing, and started waving his arms around as he sung. The guy sitting next to him tried to pull him down, but Jacob is about 6 foot 6, so pulling him down didn't really work. He sat down after the song. Elder Perry was chuckling all through the song watching him. President Buckner got off the stand, left for a minute, came back, and I saw the security looking through the window into the chapel. Why do I know his name was Jacob? He asked me to help him shave his neck before the meeting started while I was washing my hands after going to the bathroom. 

I just got a haircut from a professional barber.

Love, your son/sibling in service,

Elder Christensen
陈少驹

October 8, 2014

Well, transfers have happened again. The entire zone stayed the exact
same, except that sister Dong is going home to Taiwan, so sister
Palmer is coming back down from Connecticut to take her place. This
transfer was a week short because president Morgan has a mission
president seminar he needs to attend, so he is going to make the next
one 7 weeks long in order to correct for it.

Sister Dong and I

If you were wondering, she is 24. Pretty short, huh? She also already
graduated from a college in Taiwan, so no, she is not going to any of
the BYU schools. 

General conference was great. I'm now looking forward to watching most
of it in English. I decided to go for broke this time, and watch it
all in Chinese, especially since we had it broadcast in the Chinatown
chapel for the first time ever (normally we spend the whole day up at
65th street for Saturday and Sunday). We still had to go up for the
priesthood session (the building closes at 6:30 on weekends), so I
still saw that part in English. I actually enjoyed listening in
Chinese, it requires me to focus more, and I still got answers to
every question, without writing down all the cool quotes that just
slow me down when I write them. I'll admit though that the 2nd session
on Sunday was getting a bit hard to focus, I think my brain was just a
bit too blasted from listening to 8 hours of translation over a 2 day
period. We had a dumpling making activity for lunch during the
inbetween time from 2-4 (2 hours faster than you). We were planning on
trying our hands at making dumplings, then we realized that most of
the ward works in Chinese restaurants, and that they could pack
dumplings like it was their day job. And their night job too. So we
let them do it for the sake of time. 





We had an activity with a recent convert on Monday night though where
she showed us how to make dumplings step by step, from random pile of
dough and big bag of mixed pork, scallions, and eggs, to perfectly
identical dumplings. At least, if she is making them, when we made
them it was a little bit on the slow side, and pretty sketchy looking
at points. 





 I'm curious to see just how awesome the cabin is when I get back. It
looks like it's really nice location, maybe you could take a few
pictures of the inside next time to give me a feel for it. 

We have a baptism this Sunday, I will be performing the ordinance for
Chen Yan, she is a 24 yr old who the sisters have been teaching. Her
story is cool, a few months ago, we showed up about an hour before
church started because we were going to be teaching a lesson. She was
randomly sitting on the couch, the bishop had opened the door and then
gone into his office, so she was just sitting there waiting for church
to start an hour early. I only talked with her for a few sentences at
that point, but we found out that she had been feeling like learning
about Christianity recently, so she decided to google search
"Christian Churches in Manhattan" in Chinese, and our church was the
first one that came up on the list. If that doesn't count as God in
the Machine, then I don't know what does. I did the interview for her,
and I guess she had a really great experience, since she asked the
sisters afterward if I could be the one to baptize her. Then, we are
all going to the 65th street chapel, because Elder L. Tom Perry is
coming to give a devotional! That's going to be really cool. If I can
get a picture, I'll send it next week, but I wouldn't get your hopes
up too high, there will be a lot of people I'm sure who will all want
a picture with him as well. 

On the subject of baptisms, I've conducted interviews now for 8
people, and I have realized one topic that I am going to stress in the
next district meeting. Every time I ask them the question "Do you
believe that the Gospel of Jesus Christ was restored through Joseph
Smith?" They all answer yes, but then I ask them one word that they
can't seem to answer well to. Why? Why do they believe it? Most of
them sit there quiet for a little while, then start telling the story
of the first vision, which is good, but it doesn't answer the
question. So I have to start digging around for a little while with
them until we find the point(s) in time where they have felt the
influence of the spirit, and then help them see how that connects back
to Joseph Smith, because the spirit only will testify of truth, and so
if they have felt the spirit testify to any part of the restored
gospel, then Joseph Smith is a prophet. I'm going to make sure that I
mention it to my district so that they can do that with the
investigators, so when anyone, myself during the interview, or one of
their friends, asks why they believe, they can give a straight answer.
Because they have felt the spirit. 


We are going to watch the [Meet the Mormons] movie on Friday, the mission is letting us
watch it at 65th street, because they don't want us to go watch in
theaters. It isn't supposed to be a prosyliting tool either is what
we've been told, more just an introduction to how Mormons are regular
people and such. 

I have no idea why this only sent the first paragraph the first time. This was the
whole email. Hopefully president forgives me for this one instance of
slight disobedience. 

Your son/sibling in service, 
Elder Christensen 
陈少驹

October 1, 2014

We've been doing a decent amount of contacting recently, we usually average around 2-3 hours, which is a bit less than the average 5 or so we were doing last year.

We have one investigator named Xx Xxxxx, he is a friend of Xxx Xxxxxx, a convert who was baptized in April. He is a pretty nice guy, he has no background in religion, his biggest issue is the fact he lives in Massachusetts, and not very close to Boston either. He comes down to Chinatown every week or two, but he lives in a region without much [missionary] coverage, so it is hard to follow up with him during the week. (Did I ever mention I don't really like New Hampshire? Every person I've met here who moved to New Hampshire disappeared because the coverage there is so bad.)

I have realized that one of the main things that was impacted by my becoming a district leader was my journal. I did a decent job for the first year roughly in the field, but ever since I became a district leader, it has been quite a challenge to record everything. I still try to write when I get time, but I think I probably average about once every week or 2 for the last 7 months. At least I get lots of pictures!

You don't know these people, but This is Chad Faulkner and his wife. He served a mission in Chinatown back in 2010-2012 (he trained Elder Mok, who was the Zone Leader when I first got here). The reason he was in town was because he was performing the baptism for an eternagator that he contacted on the street while he was serving here. Her name is Xxxx Xxxx, but a lot of the time we call her Xxxx. He promised her when he left for home that if she ever got baptized he would find a way to make it to her baptism. I conducted her Baptismal interview on the 21st of last month, and when she passed she decided to try and let him know, not because she thought that he would be able to come, since he goes to BYU Provo, but just to let him know. She wasn't able to get a hold of him until Friday night. Low and behold, he and his wife are both doing the Washington Seminar internship program that Ethan is part of, and so despite the last minute notice, 4 hours on a bus later, he was able to come, and she asked him to perform the baptism. Then we had a bit of a hard time finding a suit that would fit in the men's changing room, they were considering having a different person do it, when the sisters found an XL suit hanging on a door in the Women's room that fit pretty well. Random, but the Lord works in his own ways. It was an interesting experience for me personally because usually baptismal interviews are quite strong spiritual experiences. Xxxxx's though...let's just say that it was one of the most awkward interviews I've ever participated in, on either side of the table. I felt the spirit, but not much, and so I wasn't really sure if I should pass her or not, but I didn't feel like I needed to NOT pass her either. In the end, I decided to pass her, and it turned out to be a wonderful experience, which probably wouldn't have been able to have Elder Faulkner participating if I had decided that she needed to wait. I guess I am just glad that I was able to identify one very clear instance in my life where the Lord didn't really need to push too hard to get me to do the right thing, he just trusted me to do it.

There was another similar experience that occurred this week regarding revelation. Normally, our president gives us outlines for District Meeting. This time though, he didn't. I wanted to have a discussion on General Conference, so I prayed to know if that was right, no real response either way, so I decided to go ahead. I started reading "Ensign to the Nations" by elder Holland (April 2011). After reading the talk though, I didn't feel like the specific point that I wanted to convey was well covered in the talk, so I went back to the basics of my district meeting. "What principle did I want them to learn about?" "What invitation did I want to give them?" What I realized was that having the principle for the discussion JUST about general conference didn't match with my end vision of inviting them to try and write some questions for General Conference to answer. So I realized that what I actually wanted them to learn was revelation, and how to get it through General Conference. So I started looking for another talk, I skimmed through a couple, and then found "The Spirit of Revelation" by Elder Bednar (also April 2011). If you haven't read these 2 talks, do it, they are awesome. I realized after reading it that the process of how I had come to the conclusion I should share THAT talk during district meeting was a prime example of how revelation is often piece by piece, and that the Lord will always give us the chance to choose. Probably, if I had shared the original talk, it still would have gone fine too, but I felt that that was one of the better district meetings I've ever led, and it was a very neat experience to realize that I had been receiving greater guidance in the process of preparation than I had originally suspected.

Which brings me to my final topic, General Conference! Don't take minutes, come with questions, don't write down the names of the speakers, just write down the answers to your questions when they come. The best are questions that are not open ended, because those will be answered at least a half dozen times over the course of conference in different ways. Yes/No, True/False, or option 1/option 2 questions tend to bring the most direct answers in my experience. Of course, being willing to act on the answer is important too, Joseph Smith asked an open ended question, (Which church should he join?) and still got a specific response (None). It was his willingness to act on the answer that was most important.

I finally had pigs ears, pigs feet, and duck feet for lunch with a member. Surprisingly, all weren't bad, just messy to eat (and in the case of the duck, took a long time to get what little there was to eat into your mouth.)

You were saying we would replace the floor while Wes was on his mission. Let's be honest, that floor will probably get replaced when Cameron is on his mission. I hope the new couches look good, I liked the old ones.

I currently can do about 30-40 non-stop push-ups depending on the day. Let's see if he can beat me.

Well, this might be the longest email I've ever sent to you.

Love, your son/sibling in service,

Elder Christensen

陈少驹

September 24, 2014

Mom, the travel plans will come when they come, I have no influence on that. It should be some time within the next 4 months, beyond that, I don't know.

I want to share one of the crazier (in a good way) stories that happened this week, not to me though, it was to Elder Wang Shuai and his trainee. They were about to go get lunch on Monday when Pres. Morgan called. He was in the 65th street chapel with a Chinese lady who didn't speak any English, and he wanted Elder Wang to translate, and gave the phone to the lady. After a quick discussion, Elder Wang and his trainee headed up to the temple to teach her a lesson. They didn't have any Chinese BoMs on them though, but would you believe that there was 1 copy, old and a bit rough on the edges, crammed in the corner on a shelf in the Family History Center at the temple? The lady was really interested, from BeiJing, and will be coming to church on Sunday and meeting with the sisters soon. After that, Elder Wang went to get lunch, guess who they ran into on the subway?  Xxxxxxx Xxxx, elder Wang's first new investigator when he started his mission, and the only investigator he ever had from his hometown in China. The guy dropped them like a pile of rocks back in March of 2013, but when they talked to him on the subway, he was wearing a suit, and said he had just passed his baptismal interview, he's getting baptized in one of the English wards next Sunday! Then after they got lunch, they went back to the temple because the South Manhattan Elders there said they had a potential investigator that was Chinese who said they wanted to meet Elder Wang. A solid investigator from BeiJing, she will be passed to the sisters as well, but the fact that there were 2 solid BeiJing people in the same day, both found at the temple, is so out of the blue that there isn't even a point in trying to argue that it is coincidence. And Elder Wang was over the moon to hear about Xxxxxx Xxxx.

This one is for Cameron. We went to the Metropolitan museum of art today, this was one of the exhibits.

 I gave up trying to understand how modern art counts as art. There is absolutely nothing unique about that piece, it is just a blue rhombus. And yet it hangs in the Met.

I would email more, but I need to hold a baptismal interview in a little bit, we have 2 people getting baptized next Sunday, hopefully three, assuming this interview goes well.

I got the muffin mix, thanks. A bottle of JDawgs sauce would be well loved as well. If I didn't finish by the time I go home, I could leave it for the other missionaries.

I don't think elder Guo will kill me, I think he will probably go upstate next transfer, at the very least though, I think I will probably have one other comp after him before I die.

The lack of a ward mission leader just means that scheduling baptisms and follow up on/passing off new members to the ward is a bit less smooth. We should be getting a new one though this coming Sunday, so that will be fun.

Oh, we had the farm trip to upstate this week, it was really fun, I'll make sure that I send you pictures next week.

Love you lots, 

your son/sibling in service,

Elder Christensen

陈少驹

September 17, 2014

There are a lot of restaurants in Chinatown, which means there are also a lot of restaurant supply stores. We went in one a long time ago because we were bored on Pday, and we stumbled across them (Æbelskiber pans). I think they were just plain metal though not cast iron, but I would need to double check. I'll probably need to keep it, since I doubt any missionaries in Chinatown will keep using it after I die. I can ship it with a bunch of my short sleeve shirts and some books as well to free up space in my suitcases.

Your comment on Robin being able to kick your butt but needing to catch you first was hilarious.

The associates gave us all scholarships too, which is extremely nice. Plus, it will free up some of my schedule to be able to take a Chinese Minor, which I might not have been able to do with all the generals as well.

The Æbelskieber thing is a reward for the Zone. If we hit our goal for member-present lessons this week, then I'll make them all breakfast. 12 people, so to fit it into the morning schedule I'll probably need to split it into just one or 2 companionships a morning, and rotate them all through.

Elder Wang ShuangZhe made us a traditional Chinese treat as well, you make a basic dough from flour, baking....whichever is Sodium BiCarbonate, yeast and water, let it rise, take a small amount, roll into a ball, flatten it, put it into your hand and make a cup in the center of it. Take a mix of 50/50 flour and sugar, spoon it into the cup, fold the edges over until you have created a little roll with the flour/sugar mix in the center, put it on the counter with the (closed) hole down, smash it flat, then spray a frying pan, the "pancake" will have a lot of flour on it because you've been using your hands on it so much. The flour doesn't matter, just put it in the pan, fry it until the side down looks cooked, flip over, once the other side is done, pull it off, you can eat it pretty quick, and they are best when fresh anyway. The pancake can be anywhere from 3 to 6-7 inches diameter, just depends on how much dough you use. Remember to use more of the SugarFlour if it is a bigger one. You can try it when you have time, they are quite tasty, and you can split it open and stuff things inside too. Elder Wang called them TángBîng (糖饼) it just means sugar cookie/pancake.

Part of the reason why I don't include as many stories is because I can't remember them as much, being a district leader in the model district drains a lot of my time, I haven't been able to write in my journal more than once every week or two for the last several months, and so it is harder to remember what stuff I wanted to tell you. I'll try and pull out some fun ones though.

We had a mom come to English class this Saturday who brought her 2 year old daughter. She's been coming for about 6 months, and she almost always brings the kid, who is SUPER cute, and also likes to run around about as much as Eli did when he was that age. We were all used to her running around, and so we weren't paying quite as much attention, just making sure that she didn't leave the room that her mom was in (the chapel). Then we all heard a loud alarm go off and lights started flashing. Sure enough, the little girl had climbed on a chair and pulled the fire alarm. We couldn't figure out how to turn it off, so we had some missionaries go downstairs and explain to the doorman so that he could call the fire department before the trucks came over, and the rest of us just kept teaching class, since there was no way to turn the alarm off, and the time wasn't up yet. Teaching English class while a fire alarm is blaring is an interesting experience.

We had two little girls baptized this week as well, both were ward baptisms, but it still is really good to see a baptism. It only started 45 min. late because one of the fathers went home to make fresh sushi for the refreshments before he went to the chapel on 15th street where the baptism was actually happening. We also still have no ward mission leader, haven't since May, it's starting to be a bit of a long time.

My companion has been developing mystery rashes/itchy spots on his arms and legs now for quite some time. We have yet to determine the source, but it would appear that he is allergic to something. My unofficially diagnosed eczema is also still having fun hanging around on my wrist and the back of my hand, but it really is just the same as when my hands would get really dry during the winter back in Utah, just now it happens all year long.

We talked to a guy on the street yesterday who seems interested, English though, and moving to the Bronx in a week or two, so we won't see him for that much longer. Really nice though.

I learned how to say Plaintiff and Defendant during language study a few days ago. No, I never actually use most of the crazy words I learn, but I learn them so that when someone uses them I can understand what they say. I also found out how to say car sick.

Hopefully that was enough story for you,

Love you,

Your son/sibling in service,

Elder Christensen

陈少驹

September 10, 2014

Congrats though on increasing your BoM reading. Based on your descriptions of home, I'm somewhat glad I get to miss a lot of the drama years while I'm out here.

I actually did move apartments, but since I only moved next door in the same apartment building, it isn't actually much of a big deal. I am living with Elder Wang ShuangZhe (my comp from upstate) and Elder Atkinson (the Elder I replaced when I started with Elder Zander) in the apartment I started in, before I went up.

If you can send muffin mix, that would be good. There are still granola bars in the Zone Leader's apartment from your last package that you sent to me (August 2013), I had one a few weeks ago, it tasted the exact same, so if I want any more I can get them from there. Apparently no one else in the Zone likes Nature Valley. Odd.

To honor 9/11 tomorrow, we are going to the freedom tower today for PDay. I'll see if I can't send you some of the pictures.

I have the new debt card, I was really happy to see that it kept the same pattern on the front, I was expecting a pretty lame card to replace the old one, but it turned out the exact same.

Well, in other news, the new Elder that Elder Wang Shuai is training is really cool.

We don't teach online as much now, because my comp isn't a native speaker, it's a bit hard to make sure we can understand everything they are writing to us. We still teach some late big lessons on the phone though.

Love you,

Your son/sibling in service,

Elder Christensen

陈少驹

September 3, 2014

Well, I dodged a training bullet again. Elder Wang is training a new elder from Houston named Leishman, and I'm with Elder Guo this transfer. This transfer will also be a 5 week cycle, so that will be fun.

Sorry, we had a lesson today at 4, and had to help a former translate some social security stuff, so this weeks email is going to be really short.

Fun fact I was thinking about a few days ago. The sons of perdition have physical bodies, so outer darkness needs to be a physical place, as well as a state of being. Where is it then? Every planet is created with priesthood power, and with the intent to bring about the exaltation of man, so there would be some amount of god's glory present on the planet wherever you went. Then I realized that the phrase "cast off into outer darkness" might actually mean literally getting cast off. Thrown into space where they have no contact with other elements, their bodies effectively useless, since they can't actually walk, talk, or do anything with it more than spirits who never received a body can.

Oh, I saw Robert again, he is still in the Bronx with his trainer, he is going to be with his trainer for 3 transfers. He likes his trainer though, and seems to be having a fun time.

In other news, this guy got baptized last week. He's cool.

The guy on the far right is my new comp. The only one I haven't been comps with yet now is elder Radford, the guy between me and elder Guo.

We still have no ward mission leader, which is silly, since it's been about 3 months since the last one left.

Love ya,

Your son in service,

Elder Christensen

陈少驹