A Visit with an Apostle 9/9/13

Hello everyone,

What a busy busy week in the life of a Hurricane missionary. At least the temperature is finally starting to cool down.The week started with us taking our recent convert Joleen to the family history center. It was a great experience. She is very excited to get started working on her family history. She is simply on fire, the gospel has changed her life in a complete 180. She is becoming an example to her children and becoming an example of what the gift of the Holy Ghost can do for a person.

We also taught the Foster children again. Zack when he found out it was my birthday promised to make me a birthday present. Mkayla was in the most recent primary program and she did great…They have a sweet disabled 3 year old little brother and it is so cute and beautiful to see how they interact one with another…

We taught Justeen again and we taught her about the Book of Mormon. We shared the Mormon message with Jeffery R. Holland called Safety for the Soul. Those new Mormon messages really help to bring the spirit. They are useful in teaching, they say and invite the spirit better than we can with our own words at times. Justeen is doing great. We meet with her again tonight and are teaching the Plan of Salvation.

This Saturday we got the opportunity to meet with Elder David A. Bednar in an all-mission conference. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity to be able to sit in a room that small with a member of the quorum of the twelve. He brought the spirit as he taught us how to be better missionaries and members of this great church. He stressed the importance of being able to invite the spirit and get out of the way. He said that we did not need him to have our questions answered but could use the spirit of revelation to understand the things of the gospel. He invited us to repent and to become closer to Christ and closer to the missionaries that we want to be. We talked about how faith is a principle of action in all intelligent beings and that we need to act and then we receive help from the Lord. At the end of our meeting I was able to shake his hand. It was a really special experience. We took a picture with him as a mission, hopefully I will be able to send you a copy of it soon.

Words cannot describe the learning that comes from the experiences I have had on my mission. I find joy in serving others around me. I find happiness in being able to do all that I can for my Lord and God. I don't know a lot but what I do know about this life is that we have a loving Father in heaven. That he loves us and that he gave his Son so that we might live. This is where we come in, we must humble ourselves, gain that faith, and then do something about it. Pride is the enemy of all of that. Being self-centered destroys and deteriorates our companionship with the Holy Ghost. There was a quote shared from pride and prejudice the other day in one of our sacrament meetings "I have been a prideful person all my life in practice though not in principle" -Elizabeth Bennett. Because of my love for Pride and Prejudice and because of the spirit this quote meant a lot to me. I reflected on my principle and then my practice. I have made a goal to strive to serve those around me, to humble myself so that I can be subject to the Lord's help and that my practice will be aligned with my principle. 

I love all of you. I pray for all of you. I hope that you are all doing well.

You are the best

Elder Christensen  

The Heat Never Ends in Hurricane 9/3/13

Dear Family and Friends,

It has been another wonderful and busy week in the great metropolis that is Hurricane, Utah. So many wonderful and maybe some not-so-wonderful experiences. The Lord is ever with me though and blesses me every single day that I am out here. This weekend was the big yearly event in Hurricane called peach days. It is an event that is comparable to the Island County Fair. With the mission president's permission we were able to have dinner at peach days and to proselyte. We walked in and we were pretty popular. A booth on the far end had already offered us dinner the day before. As we were walking to this booth we were offered free food at almost every station. I think that they really like to fatten us up down here. I even got free funnel cake! Even though I was not able to ride I still got the "get sick off of junk food" experience that every fair usually offers. We saw some investigators and members there and it was a fun experience.

I took pictures my favorite ward mission leader Brother Gary Erickson. Later that night we got a call from Brother Erickson's fiancé. Brother Erickson was in the hospital. They were running tests because his leg was swelling and they thought that he had some pretty bad blood clots. We prayed harder than ever, he has been such a great friend and help in the missionary work in Hurricane. He told me at the baptismal service that he wanted to come visit me in Seattle when I go home. (He is thinking pretty far off in the future). After a day in the hospital he was discharged, he had forgotten that he had fallen carrying in groceries a couple days earlier and the swelling was associated with the fall.. Thank goodness.

On Sunday we were supposed to do confirmations at a 9 o'clock service for Anthony and his brother. We were about to leave and the car wouldn't start. Our car battery had been giving us some trouble for a few weeks and our car coordinator had told us to wait until it officially dies. Well it officially died and we had to find a ride, one of our rides got lost so we had to call another. We arrived exactly after the sacrament was finished and we were able to confirm both Anthony and his brother. The Lord does answer prayers! On Sunday we also went to one of the biggest wards I have ever seen, the 13th ward which is about to be split could be a stake. The 13th ward also has the most interesting people and the most interesting fast and testimony meetings. A professional photographer invited us to his studio so that he could take missionary pictures for us for free. We said yes very fast. Look for the pictures coming up maybe you can put one of those on the plaque.

Now it is time to bear my testimony and I will do it through an experience we had just last night. We are teaching a new investigator named Justeen. We had a lesson with her about the restoration. I was able to relate the story of the first vision. As I uttered those memorized words from Joseph Smith History I knew what I was saying was real. I knew that this message and its simplicity could change lives. It was such a spiritual lesson and we committed her to be baptized at the end of this month. The Lord blesses us so much, he gives us constant reminders of what and why we believe. I love Elder Holland's most recent conference talk about belief. Belief leads and guides us, it is that seed that can grow into a beautiful tree of deeply rooted faith. My faith has gown so much from when I decided, just a year ago to ACT. I began to search, ponder, and pray about the things of the gospel. As I acted on gospel principles I was able to find more knowledge than ever before. I hungered for the peace of the beautiful gospel. As we continue to act on the principles and doctrines of the gospel I know that we are blessed with added understanding and added purpose. This is my testimony in the name of Jesus Christ amen.

I love all of you and miss you! Be strong!

Elder Ammon Christensen

Ammon with his Ward Mission Leader