3 heads are better than 2?‏

Hello to all those not here in San Gabriel! It was a good week, long but good. It's been a lot of biking and trying to find people, and not a lot of teaching, but that's how things go in the mission. There are
waves where there are a ton of people to teach and so not much time for finding and then waves of not having a ton of people to teach and so most of the time being dedicated to finding. Right now we are solidly in finding mode.

Our efforts are beginning to pay off though. I'm contacting more than I have ever done. We have a goal of contacting at least 10 people daily. We've gotten pretty good at it, though some days it's still
hard. We also have met quite a few people who have showed interest in learning more. We are going through the area book and looking for anyone and everyone who has ever talked to missionaries before. Slowly this area is taking off. Or it will soon.

We're also learning how to work together as a trio as well. Teaching is interesting and we haven't completely gotten the hang of it yet. It's hard to balance during a lesson and making sure that we
transition smoothly and testify together. It will be fun to work out how to do it best, and to see what I will learn from this experience. It's also hard to figure out plans and who will lead and basically
everything. Syncing our iPads is also an experience. Eventually everyone gets all the information though and eventually we all get where we need to go.

There have been quite a few fun experiences though. Like the other day we were trying to find an investigator (no one was home) and a cat jumped at the window we were standing in front of. It was starting to get dark and for a moment it looked like a person. I found myself in between my two companions with both of them clinging to me in fear. Eventually we figured out it wasn't a person and were able to go on our merry way.

We also have fun living with a companionship of Chinese sisters. They love to feed us, either food they made or food that is given to them. So far everything has been really good. We've been given dumplings, some type of meatball and some sort of pasta. It is super good. We also have fun learning phrases in Chinese and teaching them phrases in Spanish. They are super cute and fun and kind.

We've had other fun experiences like visiting the local mission as a district (the 4th oldest in California) and then translating a Korean man's broken English into Spanish for another man who only spoke Spanish at a bike shop. We've dodged cars and semi's, and I've finally watched all the driving safety videos.

Basically I'm loving my new area. It was a little rough at first but it's gotten better. I'm super excited to see what things I'm here to learn and meet the people I'm here to meet.

I hope all is well wherever you all are at. I send out my love and my prayers. Thank you for all the love, support and prayers I get in return.

Nos vemos.
Hermana Anna Christensen

P.S. I'm going to start ending my e-mails with my ponderizing scripture in both English and Spanish. Enjoy!

And he said unto the children of men: Follow thou me. Wherefore, my beloved brethren, can we follow Jesus save we shall be willing to keep the commandments of the Father? -2 Nephi 31:10

Y dijo a los hijos de los hombres: Seguidme. Por tanto, mis amados hermanos, ¿podemos seguir a Jesús, a menos que estemos dispuestos a

 

guardar los mandamientos del Padre? -2 Nefi 31:10

Goodbye Rimgrove, Hello San Gabriel‏

 The matching shirts came from a sister in the ward, who bought them so the missionaries could sing for the stake choir.

 With the ward mission leader in Rimgrove Ward, He made carne asada, and Anna is starting to really like it.

 One more picture from the temple, with all the hermanas in Anna's district.

The transfers have come and gone, and I was the one chosen to leave the Rimgrove Ward. Now I'm in the San Gabriel Ward, with my new companions, Hermana Austin and Hermana Escalante. That's right I'm in a trio! It's a new experience for me, it will be fun to see what it's like. We live with 2 Chinese sisters, so it's a little more crowded than I'm used to, but it will be fun.

I'm sad to leave Rimgrove. I really learned to love the people there, and the area was just beginning to pick up. One of our investigators will be getting baptized next Sunday so it will be hard to miss that
but I made Hermana Diaz promise to e-mail me pictures. We also had just started meeting with some new investigators. Oh well. I left the area in good hands and I know that there is a reason I'm now in this area.

I don't really know what to say in this e-mail so I'll keep it pretty short. I'll let you all now how the area is going, how it is living with 4 other girls and all sorts of fun things. It's the start of a new adventure! I hope all is going well in all of your lives. Keep ponderizing!
Nos vemos,
Hermana Anna Christensen

Una fiesta en el corazón‏

The subject line credit this week goes to a sweet little old lady we visited this week who got super excited when we told her that it wasGeneral Conference this weekend. That phrase was how she described it, una fiesta en el corazón. It also describes a lot of this week, not just conference.

To start out with we had some great lessons. One of our investigators, Jesús, is progressing wonderfully. He has a baptismal date and is moving towards it perfectly. We were also able to have his brother in law come to the lesson with him. It was super great because he bore a super strong testimony of the Holy Ghost and His importance. It was really good to have someone besides my companion and I telling Jesús why the gospel was important in his life.

We also got to go to the temple this morning. We went super early, for the 5:30 session in fact, but it was amazing because when we turned off the freeway the temple was straight on ahead and then you just drive straight up to the temple. It was all it up and looked so beautiful. It was a wonderful way to start out the morning.

Finally General Conference. I loved so many talks from it I can't pick a favorite. If you didn't get a chance to watch it go and do it! There is a talk for everyone there. Any favorites from anyone else? I would love to hear them. You could also share your thoughts on a scripture you are ponderizing. Mine is 2 Nephi 4:35. I would love to hear about your studies from all of you!

All in all it was a really really good week. I can't wait to see what transfers bring, and how my life will soon change. I hope the weather is cooler wherever you are at, and life continues to go smoothly for all of you. If there is ever anything that I could do for any of you please let me know!

Nos vemos,
Hermana Anna Christensen
Pictures: my district at the temple. The sun was in the worst place possible.

Somos hijas de un Padre Celestial que nos ama‏

This weekend I had the wonderful opportunity to watch women's conference. For those of you who don't know what that is every April and October the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints holds a conference with speakers from all the leaders of the church. The Saturday before is a meeting called women's conference when the leaders of the Relief Society (the women's organization of the church)
the Young Women's program and the Primary (the children's organization) as well as a member of the first presidency speak to the women of the church ages 8 and up. It is a night of education and spiritual upliftment and it was exactly what I needed! I highly recommend President Uchtdorf's talk, for everyone not just women. It can be found on Lds.org I believe, or very soon if it isn't already up. Or you can listen to the entire meeting as well. I'm also excited for this conference, not just for the revelation, but to see who will be filling the 3 vacancies in the Quorum of the 12. The conference
will be broadcasted on BYU tv, on the Internet and at stake centers starting at 10 mountain standard time on Saturday. I invite everyone, member and nonmember to tune in to at least one session. Those who will be speaking are incredible. Just think of it as watching a TED talk or two.

This was also a pretty good week for missionary work. We have a new investigator, Jesus, who is progressing so well! He is the brother in law of a member in the Ward. After our first lesson he told us that his entire life he has been afraid of entering different churches but this time all he felt was peace and comfort. We are both super excited to be able to teach him and help him towards his baptismal date of October 18!

That's about all that has been going on here, I hope everything is well for all of you!
Nos vemos,
Hermana Anna Christensen

Revelation and food‏

This week was awesome!

First of all we had mission tour with Elder Echo Hawk of the 70. For those of you who want to know he gave a talk in the April 2012 General Conference called "Come Unto Me Oh Ye House of Israel" it's a good read, I highly recommend it. It was so cool to just be able to learn from him and his wife, as well as my mission president and his wife. All of them are such great examples of what I want my marriage to be like and I loved listening to their counsel. My favorite part was by Sister Echo Hawk. She talked about how we as missionaries need to make sure that the things that we teach become totally and completely part of us, written upon our hearts is how she put it, so that way there is never a chance that we fall away from the church. It has become a new goal for me and I plan on working on it throughout my mission and my life.

This week was also the festival international to celebrate Independence Day in Mexico and most of Latin America. There was food from Guatemala, and all parts of Mexico, and pupusas (my favorite
food) from El Salvador. There were also traditional songs and dances preformed by the different organizations. My favorite was the Mexican hat dance my the primary kids. They won't win any prizes for skill but they made up for it in pure enthusiasm. My companion was in the El Salvadorian dance. She did a super good job too. I decided that I just wanted to watch and learn this time but next year, who knows I may give dancing a shot.

We also did find time to do missionary work this week. We set a baptism date with one of our investigators Carlos and started teaching a woman named Maria. There's also a chance we might get to visit the visitors center at the temple with a recent convert this week, which we are super excited about. Stay tuned next week to see if it gets to happen.

I hope all is going well for all of you. As always the invitation is open for communication of any kind.
Nos vemos,
Hermana Anna Christensen

Pictures: the beginning of the El Salvadorian dance, my companion and I afterward, and my zone minus one set of hermanas after the zone activity today.

My internal clock is off....‏

This week was weird. My internal clock has now been set to missionary time, which is Sunday is church, Monday is P-day, Tuesday and Wednesday are normal days, then Thursday is District meeting, Friday is weekly planning and Saturday is normal, and then repeat over and over and over again. This week however we had a zone meeting on Friday, which means that we were supposed to weekly plan on either Thursday or Friday, and that we didn't have district meeting on Thursday. Our normal family home evening on Monday night was also moved to Thursday, and we had exchanges, so this week was just weird. 

However the work is really starting to pick up here. As always we do a lot of work with less actives and recent converts. It's really interesting to see all of the different reasons that people first joined the church, and then also why they stopped attending. In some cases it's for a job, others it's because their family isn't supporting them in going to church. It has made me really grateful for a family who has always supported me in everything I have decided to do, from the school I attended to serving a mission now. It makes everything so much easier. 

This week we were also able to have a bunch of first lessons. It's really cool to look back and realize all the little miracles that went into making those lessons happen. Like with one guy, Carlos, we found while I was on exchanges with one of the sister training leaders. We were looking for someone else, who lived in apartment 32, but some how I turned 32 into 7, so that was the door we knocked. We set up an appointment with him for the next day and ended up having a great lesson with him. But when we first got to his lesson he was in the shower so we decided to visit a women we had visited a little while earlier and invited to an activity. The time of the activity had changed so we went to tell her about it. As we went we were able to hold the door for a woman with a shopping cart. That woman invited us back to her house, gave us water, and listened to a little bit of our message. We have another lesson with her this week as well. I love being able to see all the little ways that the Lord works to help us out as missionaries. I also love that I have learned to appreciate even the smallest miracles that happen every day. A quote by Elder Bednar sums it up pretty well I think, "The tender mercies of the Lord are real and do not occur randomly or merely by coincidence." I can testify of the truth of that. 

This is going to be another great week as well, we have mission conference this week with Elder Echo Hawk of the 70 and then a festival that celebrates the culture of Latin America on Friday. I am so ready for inspiration during the conference and then some really really good food during the culture event. 

I hope this week finds all of you well, and that we can all take a few moments this week to recognize the small tender mercies of the Lord. 

Nos vemos, 

Hermana Anna Christensen 

Just Another Week

Anna's district in the back, Anna and her companion, Hermana Diaz.

Hermana Diaz holding a kitten because it's cute.

 

I don't really know what to talk about, it was just a regular old week here. On Tuesday we had some lessons cancel, but we did have two lessons with 2 sweet little old ladies. Both are sick so can't attend church as much as they would like. One of them is from Brazil, and speaks both Portuguese and Spanish. The other always gives us Sunny-D and cookies. It's really fun. 

On Wednesday we spent most of the day fixing Hermana Packard's bike. It took us a lot longer than expected but it's working just fine now. We also had dinner with Hermana Padula. She feeds us on every Wednesday and she is probably one of my favorite people I have ever met. She is from Guatemala and she and her daughters make amazing food. She also has a super strong testimony. It's hard for her because she is the only member in her family, but she shares it in whatever way she can with them. 

Thursday was district meeting. It was different because of your new district leader Elder Lane. He did a super good job though. We learned about contacting people by looking for ways to serve them. It was really good. He had us read a talk beforehand, "Developing Good Judgement and Not Judging Others" from the April 2010 General Conference. It offered really good advice about how to make good decisions in life, but not making hasty decisions about others. I feel like it was very helpful and a good reminder. 

Friday we had to go to the 6 month training meeting out at the mission office in Arcadia. We learned more about adjusting to missionary life, handling stress and the like. It was really good to see President Villanueva and his wife. They are both great examples and I look up to both of them a lot. We also had weekly planning which is never very much fun but is still a very important thing to do as a missionary. It's during that time where we plan lessons and figure out how the week is going to go. 

Saturday we spent mostly out on our bikes visiting old investigators and people that have the potential to become investigators. It's how we spend most of our time if we don't have a lesson. It makes me very grateful to have an iPad because all the information needed is in Area Book or on Google maps. It is very helpful. 

Sunday we didn't get to do much after church because Hermana Diaz wasn't feeling very well. Fortunately she is better so we can work hard this week! Like I said it wasn't the most exciting week in the world, but it was a week in the mission field so that counts for something. 

I hope all is going well for all of you, that the weather is cooling down and that there might even be a little rain. (None for us thus far) 

Nos vemos. 

Hermana Anna Christensen