Week 33 in the Field

Hello friends and family.  Hope all is well back home.

This week was pretty fun.  Elder Alvarenga got his new companion, so we were able to focus a bit more on our area.  We're finding out that we don't have anybody that is going to take off like a rocket.  It's getting a little tough to discern who is going to go the distance and who won't.  We are teaching a lot of different people, and all of them look like they may take a bit of time to get them there.

Hector and his family are having a bit of a tough time.  His wife Rosa is in the hospital with complications from diabetes.  We have an appointment tomorrow to speak with the daughter specifically.  With work, school, and now this, you could just tell that she was overwhelmed.

I had a few chances to go on short exchanges with the zone leaders this week for random reasons.  It is cool to see how they teach and how they do stuff.  It really helps us have stuff to shoot for.

For the last few months, I've been studying a lot more about Christ's life and His example.  I've been reading a bit from Jesus the Christ and the New Testament everyday.  Until my mission, I never understood the reasoning the Jews had for killing him.  It's super sad.  At times when I'm frustrated with people, the contentious part of me wants to tell people, "Don't be like the Pharisees and reject this truth just because it goes against what you have learned before."

I admittedly have been noticing the Adversary's influence a bit more recently.  It's a little disheartening.  We keep praying for, and expecting miracles, but not much has happened recently.  We are still working as hard as we can, and little things are happening here and there.  We just need to be a bit more patient.  There are so many times that it is easy as human beings to want the flood gates open and all the good coming all at once.  It rarely works out like that.  Here, it's a little more frustrating that it doesn't work like that because you see all the potential that's here.  It gets a little easy to think, "How could this not be God's will?"  But, we keep going.  We are going to do a lot better with working with our ward members to get some solid people.

Love you all.  Thank you for all your prayers.  This past week, I felt a lot of strength come that I didn't feel came from within me.  I know this is the Lord's work and I know it will move forward.  Maybe not at the pace we want, but it will.  

Love you all, and have a safe week.

Elder Christensen

Dodger Stadium is in Tanner's area