I'm Having the Time of My Life

Hello family and friends. This week was a bit better than last week.  We were able to balance the work with Elder Alvarena a bit better.  This week his trainee is going to come, so we'll be back to our area full time, which will be nice.

 

So I think a few weeks ago, I mentioned that we started teaching the Garcia family.  The Grandma is from Mexico, and one of her main purposes in visiting here is to convert her family.  The dad, Hector, has come to church 3 times out of the last month or so.  The weeks he hasn't come he was working.  He's looking like he'll be pretty solid.  He just needs to keep on learning.

 

This week, we set a goal as a district for everybody to hit their finding goals.  3 out of the 4 companionships were able to do it.  It was so cool having everybody on the same page.  It was the first week in the last 5 that finding was in the double digits for the district.  We had really been struggling with that in the past.  Our next focus is to keep finding in the double digits and church attendance.  We have seen that once somebody is willing to take the time to go to church, they are ready to do basically everything else that's needed.  We think that August and September are going to be sweet.

 

As for our area...  For a while, we were hanging on to people as long as they would let us because we still didn't have many to teach.  We are slowly, but surely, getting to the point that we can work the people a bit more. We have more people in our teaching pool than I ever have had in my mission.  Now, it's just a matter of sorting and aligning our schedules.  Everyone we are teaching are pretty tough to catch.

 

District leader stuff is still going well.  I kind of have a small idea what I'm doing now, but still not much.  If any of you have any ideas on getting a ward council functioning well, I would love to know.  We have some ideas, but since we don't have the keys, we aren't really sure what we can do or how we could counsel on that.

 

Now some fun stuff:  On Friday, we had a mission conference + summer party.  I didn't take any pictures, because tons of water was involved.  It started out with a 2-hour devotional kind of thing.  I absolutely love the leadership we have here.  I've decided that Pres. Becerra reminds me of Dad and Sis. Becerra reminds me of Aunt Susan.  They all talked about having faith in the moment and keeping your focus in the moment.  Then for the next 5 hours, we ate and played tons of games with water fights going on the whole time. 

 

In President's words, "Some people have asked me: 'is this really a good use of time?'  To them I usually say, 'There is a true principle in working hard, then playing hard.'"  When Joseph Smith was playing with some boys one day, a man rebuked him saying that that kind of behavior was below a prophet of God.  He responded with a parable that was basically, "A bow that is always drawn, ready to fire, will lose its elasticity."  So ya, we played hard.

 

Love you all so much.  I hope none of you are worried about me in any way.  I'm having the time of my life.

 

Elder Christensen 

Note from Mom: Tanner melted my heart when he told me he needed a new blanket for his bed because he gave his comforter to a 4-year old in their ward who has been sleeping on the floor with nothing. The comforter he took with him had sentimental value, so his giving that away makes it even more tender and meaningful. Ohhh...I absolutely LOVE what missions do to (for) these young men and women!!!

He Finally Sent Pictures!!!

Gotta love P-days!

Imagine Tanner's excitement when he met a professional ping pong player in his ward!!

Making lunch

The one thing Tanner said he would definitely be bringing home--A TORTILLA PRESS!

Elder Flores and Tanner at the Los Angeles Temple

In typical elder fashion--hanging a fan with a bungee cord and weight.  :) 

Tanner and Elder Smith enjoying items from the Cinco de Mayo package we sent them