Israel, Israel, God is Calling!

We have had an interesting week.. full of random events but it ended with a wonderful Stake Conference! A couple of days ago, we were stopping by a members home to see if this member , Sis. B, could go out with us one day this week. She is the only active member in her family and has two kids that aren't baptized. She has a ton of non members in her home all the time. So while we were talking to her in her house, her nonmember son came in and told us that our tire was flat, like really flat. What? that was really strange because I did not even feel the flat tire as we drove there. So we went out and yes it was very flat. There was a razor like thing in it so we had to switch it out with the spare. While they were doing that for us :) we were talking to Sis. B she told us how her son's friend asked her about coming to church with her. She was so excited and immediately set up a time for us to come and teach him at her home. It was funny because he was sitting right there and you could tell he was a little bit embarrassed and timid about it, but never denied anything. So we are going to teach him tomorrow! We are so excited. He has a very difficult background so we are just hoping he will be willing to make the changes he needs to so he can improve his life. 

Saturday we had the adult session of Stake Conference. Man, that was so good! President Packard came and spoke, and of course he always wows the audience. (Personally his was my favorite talk..) We also had Elder Gordon H. Smith come and talk. He is a member of the 6th quorum of the seventy and is a Senator from Maryland, I believe. He gave a very good talk as well. He shared some neat stories but I really liked the talk he gave on Sunday a lot more. It was very powerful.

Sister Bentley and I have been having awesome conversations about the gospel lately. Yesterday, we were talking about stake conference. Elder Smith talked briefly about the story of the woman caught in adultery. A picture depicting that story was on the front of the program. It was really neat because sister Bentley was talking about how that story really hit her that day. What she was saying and expressing reminded me of a very similar experience I had a transfer ago. This story means so much more than I thought it did even just a few months ago. The people brought this woman to Christ to find a way to condemn Him at the same time condemning this woman. I can only imagine how this woman felt, being so exposed to the public of her sin. And yet, Christ took that confrontation so simply, humbly, and peacefully. You can just see the gentleness and the care He had for this woman. In the picture, He is reaching out to her, just like He is telling her He understands and He loves her. Christ is so careful and loving. Through this story I had a strong feeling how deeply and truly Christ felt every one of our pains. He is there with us during every trial, He knows exactly how we feel because He felt what we feel. Can you imagine that? It is so incomprehensible to me how He truly went through every single pain that has ever or will ever come into the world. But I know He has. And I am so grateful for it.
I was reading an article from the June ensign, about the sacrament. It was such a wonderful way of describing how I felt as I read and talked about this story. It is heart breaking and painful to think about how Christ did go through all of our pains for us, and how unworthy we feel. But He loves us so much more than we can understand and He sends us His love and grace. We must understand why He did that so we can use the atonement and continually strive to be better and to become like Him.

President Packard talked about how when we let the Lord Hasten His work through us, He is actually hastening the work in us. And how the gospel is all about us becoming like our Heavenly Parents. I wish I had my notes with me so I could talk more about it. But I don't think I could say it as well as he did anyway. It just made me so grateful for my mission, and how the Lord keeps telling me how lucky I am that I actually listened to the prompting He gave me to serve. I cannot express how grateful I am to be here and to learn the things I am learning. My life has been forever changed. I hope all of you who have served a mission will always remember why you served, the things you felt and experience there, and how it has applied to your life since. Those of you who are planning on serving a mission or who may serve a mission in the future, know that it does change your life, you learn so much about life and about your own relationship with God. The decision to serve is NEVER the wrong decision. I always think about how everyone should serve a mission. It would benefit the world in so many ways. I love it!! And those of you who haven't or may never serve a full time mission, we are all missionaries, just remember as you live a consecrated life and follow the promptings the Lord gives you, you are doing exactly what He wants you to be doing. We, as members of His church, have covenanted with Him that we will dedicate our lives to Him and everything we do will be for the benefit of others, our families, and ourselves in drawing near unto Him.

Love, 

Sister Christensen

Only historical site in North Brookfield

Service

                                     

https://www.lds.org/broadcasts/article/ces-devotionals/2012/01/israel-israel-god-is-calling?lang=eng&cid=email-shared

Transfers, funeral, branch-wide correlation!

Peaches and cream with Sister Bentley

                                      

This week has been crazy. Since my dear Sister Endemann and to leave me, We went to say goodbye to lots of the beloved members. We had wonderful appointments with them; they all love her so much! So getting off to transfers was difficult. But the meeting was so good! It was also very sad because I saw so many wonderful missionaries that I love that I have no idea when I will next see them! But it was also a really neat meeting because it was the first one that I have gone to where the members are invited to come see the departing missionaries. It was such a powerfully spiritual meeting. I saw many members from my previous areas which was so wonderful! I miss them all so much. It was definitely a treat.

                                  

The next few days were so busy! Sister Bentley and I planned for our Branch-wide correlation meeting that occurred during the third hour of church yesterday. It was so stressful! But it turned out so well and we have received over 40 referrals because of it! We are so excited. Lots of work is coming up! We are already exhausted from the past weekend.

Not only did we do a ton of planning to be prepared for the meeting, we also had many activities going on. We get a lot of last minute calls sometimes, so Friday we got a call from a less active lady who moved to New York Saturday morning and said she needed our help to clean and empty out her house. We ran up there and worked with her for about 2 hours getting all their stuff into their U-Haul truck. It was an interesting experience in and of itself. But we got it done and she is on her way. It is kind of sad to see her go, but I know this is a better situation for her.

Saturday morning we had funeral to go to. One of our member's brother died and they asked us to attend and help out. We were gone from 8:30am to 9pmthat day! It was insane. We were only at the funeral from 9:15 until 2:30 then we had a meeting with our Branch president and our newly called branch mission leader. It was awesome. We are so excited to work with our new mission leader! Then we had to run to another town to give the Springfield elders their phone.. they left it at our chapel on Friday from district meeting. After that we planned, took a break and had dinner with a member, then planned again until 9pm. That was a heck-tick day! But it was so worth it because we had a wonderful day yesterday, besides the stress.

I am so grateful for this work. I am so excited to work hard this transfer with Sister Bentley! We are pumped with all the new things coming up. I love the work of Salvation! It is so refreshing and relieving to know that you are doing the work of the Lord.

Love you all!

Love,

Sister Christensen

Hello Everyone!

Our District...3 are being transferred

This week has been so crazy! But very good and productive. Last Monday we had our usual lesson with our investigators, T and her son A. We taught them the restoration (again for T, and for the first time for A) and we used the cups demonstration (if some of you don't know what that is it is when you use stacked cups to show the importance of the priesthood and the organization of Christ's church which then leads into apostacy). Then we watched the Restoration dvd with them. The lesson went so well and they both had great questions. Sometimes it scares me to try and teach Tara because she is so smart and intellectual, she thinks of every odd and end and asks a ton of questions. It is kind of hard to teach her sometimes because she doesn't have a strong belief in Jesus Christ. Ultimately it is her desire to seek out her own revelation on whether He is truly the Son of God or not. But her faith is definitely building since we first started meeting with her. I love teaching Aras because he is also very smart, but he is very sincere and has a great desire to know the truth.

Making Lei's for the district

This past week Sister Endemann and I had to give a training on the spirit in conversion for our district meeting. It was such a neat experience because we really felt like the Lord was leading us in preparing for our training. We decided the night before to put together a video of the district's "investigators" in 5 years telling them thank you for their work and dedication in helping them in their conversion. They also told them about the blessings and successes in their lives, like getting baptized, going to the temple, being sealed in the temple and so on. We had our members pose as the investigators. It was so cool! Most of the members were converts themselves so it was really neat to see them look back on their experience with investigating in the church. It was a really fun idea and the training went so well, the spirit was definitely touching everyone in our district. It was neat to watch.

                                             

Right after district meeting was t-text and my dear, sweet companion, Sister Endemann is getting transferred to Norwich, Connecticut as a Sister Training Leader! I am so proud of her. She will work many miracles down there. I am so sad to lose her but I am so excited for her! She is going to my very first zone.. I loved it down there! So my new companion.. Is.. Sister Bentley!! She was my MTC companion! I am so excited for her to come here to North Brookfield! It was so funny because when I saw her name I just remembered when we were in the Mission Home right when we arrived and we told President Packard that we wanted to stay as companions! Now we finally get to be companions! I am pretty excited :).

                                       

Have a wonderful week everyone! The Church is true :) I love you!

Love,

Sister Christensen

The following pictures are taken of The Cross in Barres, MA

MIRACLES IN ALL FORMS

                                      

It has been a very interesting week. Lots of random things came up but it was good. We have had a few miracles happen this week.

One was our branch missionary meeting. We set this up about a week or two ago and pulled it together really quickly. We have never had this meeting since I have been here, but we are going to have it every month now :). The purpose of this meeting was to take full advantage of our branch missionaries and get them totally updated with our investigators and their needs. We only got a few words in but it was a fantastic meeting! Basically what happened was that all our missionaries realized the importance of coming out with us and working more with us, the importance of fellowshipping our investigators! They are all converts and they realized how vital members were to their conversion. It was awesome.

                                     

We also were able to visit with an older less active couple this week. I met them briefly once, my first week here. They didn't let us in then, but they immediately let us in this week and talked to us for an hour! They were so happy. Sister Endemann said that they don't usually let us in, let alone be that happy. Also, the husband usually doesn't stay in the same room to talk, but he stayed the whole time and we had a wonderful visit with them. Sister Endemann has this thing.. whenever we are with an older couple she always says "hey, Sister Christensen is going home soon, do you have any marriage advice for her?" she kills me.. So she did that with this couple, and I actually think it was a great ice breaker for them. It was pretty funny.

One of the two biggest miracles that happened (for me) this week was when our sister training leaders had us do a last minute exchange. One of them was really sick, my companion was really sick, so those two stayed in North Brookfield, and I went with the other sister to Oxford.  It was just what I needed! We had one appointment fall through (which I was really sad about because it was with a family and they seemed really awesome!), but we had another appointment. It was with an older man, in his 60's, who was taught by the missionaries 40 years ago in Germany. He had 3 baptismal dates in Germany, but they all fell through because his wife, at the time, wouldn't let him get baptized. He has been living with his current girlfriend for 15 years. So we taught him about the law of chastity and said that if he wants to be baptized he has to either move out, or marry her. He said he has been trying to marry her forever, but she doesn't want to get married. So that is an issue. But you can tell that he is so sincere and so set on being baptized that he will not let anything get in his way. He is hopefully getting baptized in July! That was a really neat appointment because it went flawlessly and we had the perfect member with us who said exactly the right things. One of the best lessons I have ever had!

                                       

Now, the second of the two big miracles was our lesson with an investigator last night. This might seem like a weird miracle, but it really built my testimony.

Our appointments with these two investigators, E and A, have fallen through since our first visit with them a few weeks ago.  But we finally got a set date and we brought a recently returned missionary with us. Arty was busy so he didn't sit in on our lesson. We taught Elizabeth the restoration and it went so well. Another one of the best lessons I have ever had! When we invited her to read and pray about the Book of Mormon, she declined. She is currently reading the Bible and said that she does not have enough room to start reading and trying to understand the Book of Mormon. She said she had too much respect for the book to take it when she had no intentions of reading it. She grew up in a non religious household and is still very young in Christianity. She is trying so hard to understand it all and has definitely come a long way. She was so kind and sincere about the invitation but then she said that she respects us and what we are doing too much to have us come back and waste our time with her. I gained a lot of respect for her as we talked. It was sad that she had to be dropped because you can just tell how sincere she is and what she could really gain from the gospel. But as we talked outside with the returned missionary, we all felt like she and her husband both will accept the gospel. They are not ready now, but they will accept it in the future. It was such a powerful feeling that we all left that house uplifted and strengthened. I know for sure she will accept it, without a doubt in my mind.

It has been a special week, hard, but a lot more special than I realized, actually, until now. I love serving a mission. My day does not go as well unless I have an opportunity to bear my testimony or share the gospel in some way. I am so excited about the gospel and love searching and finding those people who are being prepared. I love teaching, though I am not the best teacher, but I always feel so good afterwards, even if the lesson did not go as well. It is truly amazing how many blessings you get from sharing the gospel. I hope you all feel that.

I love you all so much!! I hope you are having a wonderful week! Happy Father's Day this Sunday!!

Love, Sister Christensen

Beautiful Massachusetts

                                     

 “Give me some of your Revelations”

This week I decided to start rereading the Book of Mormon again with highlighting examples of diligence, and I am also rereading preach my gospel (start to finish) as well. So far, it is so enlightening! I just love everything about these two books. They mean 10x more to me after each time I read them! I am so enthralled with the Book of Mormon, I can hardly put it down. I read it before I go to bed, first thing in the morning, and any other spare moment I get. It is wonderful.

Since doing this process I have realized more and more about how important it is for our investigators to have personal revelation. And then, on top of that President Packard was inspired to call a random zone conference on personal revelation! It was so perfect! So tonight we are teaching our wonderful investigators, Tara and Aras, how to receive personal revelation so they can receive their own witness of the truth! Wish us luck!

I never realized how significant it is that we believe in personal revelation. Most people and scholars believe in revelation but not how we do. They believe that revelation is received from recorded history and scripture. They don't believe, or know, that you can receive revelation in so many other ways! That was really interesting to me. President Packard said that James 1:5 is one of the most revolutionary concepts Joseph Smith ever taught, that you can ask God a question and that He will answer you. We are so blessed to have this knowledge and the opportunity to receive revelation personally from God! Don't take that for granted!

I think the most important thing I learned from this wonderful conference is that we cannot give up on trying to receive and perfect the way we receive personal revelation. It really is hard! It is hard to keep it up. But if you continue to try your best you will only get better. You will fail and mess up time and time again, but it really is only through these mistakes that we learn how we can perfect ourselves and the way we receive, recognize, and act upon the revelation we receive.

I hope you all have a wonderful week with this beautiful new week of June!! What a beautiful world we live in. Enjoy it! :)

Love, 

Sister Eliza Christensen

Cultural Night at Relief Society

Rock House Reservation in Ware, Massachusetts

Sister A & me

Lady Slipper--going extinct:(

The Road Less Traveled

Our Chapel in the Woods