Preston LDS Temple Trip

Sister Hansen, Sister Robertson, Sister Christensen

I went to the temple yesterday with Sister Hansen and Sister Robertson, who was so generous to drive us two hours to the Preston Temple! She is seriously the best. We left at 6:30 in the morning but it was so bright outside; so sunny and beautiful all day. England is so green! Green fields are everywhere and go on forever. I love it. All the missionaries were at the temple because it is only open on Mondays on bank holidays and yesterday was the last bank holiday until August. I feel the spirit so much more as a missionary but every time I go I think, "Where is my mom?" I miss going to the temple with you. You would love the Preston Temple.

                                    

We had stake conference last Sunday, which was so good! President Preston spoke about his parents and their conversion. There was a woman who talked about training for a marathon and paralleled it with the scriptures, which was really nice. She talked about why preparing is so important and how you have to keep going even when it is hard. There was a boy who told of his conversion story and the Area Seventy, Elder Donaldson talked about his brother’s reactivation. You might be able to see a theme here. It was a really spiritual and uplifting. This stake is so good! I never want to leave!

                                                        

I'm glad to hear you are studying Preach My Gospel! It is a good learning tool, I learn more and more from it everyday! It makes it easy to teach something so big, like the Restoration, in simple terms that are easy to understand. 

The church is true, I love you all!

Love, Sister Christensen

 

My District at the Temple

MIRACLES

                                                   

The Elders went tracting last week and one of the Elders pointed to a door at the end of the street and said, "In that house will be our new investigators." Every door they knocked on either no one answered or they were not interested. However, when they knocked the door at the end of the street, two girls in their mid 20's, C and D, answered and invited them in. They asked a lot of questions and were really interested in learning more. 

The Elders then gave them to us to teach, so we went and taught them the Restoration last Saturday and invited them to come to church. D said that she wanted to go but C was not as interested. D came to church the next day and a member invited her over for family home evening Monday night (we were already scheduled to go to their home for tea). So we went to their home Monday evening and family home evening with D. On Wednesday, we taught her the Plan of Salvation and invited her to be baptized and she said yes! She said that she feels there is something good and right about our church. She recognizes the spirit and is willing to keep the commitments we give her. She's already reading in the Book of Mormon and she is praying. She has no religious background at all so everything we teach is new to her. She came to church yesterday as well and she is progressing so quickly.

I am so excited for her! We called our district leader to tell him that we dated the investigator he gave us for baptism! We called him twice and he said, "What is the emergency?" and Sister Hansen said, "It's a miracle emergency!" 

I hope everyone has had as good of a week as the missionaries in Wrekin! I know the church is true!

I love you all!

Love, Sister Christensen

POST MOTHER'S DAY
                                      

It was so good to talk to you yesterday! Everyone seems really good! Mom, I hope you had a fantastic mother’s day! Even though I know you hate that holiday (besides the fact you can talk to your missionaries ;)) I miss you all so much! 
                                                        

It is going really well over here in the eastern hemisphere! The members are great; they help us out so much. Our investigators are great too, they are all really prepared. It's good because they challenge us to be creative with our lessons and the commitments we extend. The hardest part is that our most promising investigators live far away from the church and they don't have buses that go there on Sundays! (2 Nephi 2:11 [first two lines])

There is a member in our ward from Poland and I have so much respect for him. He is so happy and loves the church even though his life has been challenging. Also, he lives in Stirchley, which is five+ miles away from the church and he walks to church every Sunday. Every Sunday! He walks. It just shows peoples dedication and how much they are willing to sacrifice for the church. We actually had a sacrament meeting on sacrifice and we talked about it in a lesson we taught after church, that whenever we sacrifice something for the church we are giving up something good only to receive something so much better.

 I love this song we listen to in the flat, it is called "I'm not the only one" And there is a line in it that says something like, "I'm saved by His grace for my slivers of perfect faith" I don't know what it actually says but How often do we make mistakes and in those moments of perfect faith we get a great reward? Just those tiny moments in our whole life we are exactly the person Heavenly Father wants us to be yet those are the moments that make His grace sufficient for us. 
                                  

I love the church! I love this gospel! And I love being a missionary! I have already learned so many things and come to a better understanding and appreciation of my Savior and His sacrifice for my sins. 

I hope you are uplifted this week and thank you for you example to me. Have a smashing week!

Love, Sister Christensen

Moroni 10:32

Fish & Chips

                                                       

Trains, Transfers, Baptism

This week was crazy. We did so much traveling! We went to Manchester on Wednesday for first 5-week training. That is when the mission president, the assistants, the trainers, and the trainees get together and talk about how to be better at different things about missionary work.  We worked on different kinds of finding, teaching the first vision, resolved any challenges we had, and talked about different goals we had as missionaries. It was amazing. I learned so much and it motivated me to work harder and use my time better. I loved it!

I also went on my second exchange this week to Congleton. It was so fun! I was with Sister Tolman who used to serve in Wrekin! She was the first sister missionary to serve in this area. So she asked about how everyone was doing, etc. She is almost finished with her mission, so she was sharing all of her mission wisdom with me, which was so great! I learned so much from her. We taught these people who want to be baptized but they have to stop smoking. It was interesting to see how much they recognized their need of the gospel in their lives. It makes me so happy to see how the gospel changes people’s lives to make them happier.

We had transfer calls this week, which was exciting. Everyone is staying except for Sister Manning, she has been called to be a sister training leader! (She’s the one with the long, curly, brown hair in the pictures I sent last week). She is the best, she's only been out 6 months but she is so focused and so Christ-like. I want to be just like her.

L's baptism day

Last but not least, we had our first baptism last Saturday! It was sunny and warm, perfect for a baptism! Our other investigator who is dated for baptism came as well, which was brilliant! The ward is so supportive here and just accepted Liz and made her feel so good. The church is true!

Have a great week! I love you all!

Sister Christensen

  

Baptized by Bishop Daniels