The Power of Kindness

Hello my amazingly, stupendously, awesomely, incredible family :)

I love you all! This week has been amazing and hard all at the same time. We have some great goals for this next week in meeting with many different Less-Active members of the church and striving to help them progress on their way back to a knowledge of Christ and the Restoration of His gospel to the earth through the prophet Joseph Smith. I know that Joseph Smith truly was called of God to restore the fulness of the gospel again to the earth.

For my fast this week one of the things I fasted for was a greater knowledge of the Book of Mormon, of Joseph Smith, of Jesus Christ's role as our Savior, of the love of God, and His calling a prophet for us today. As I stood up to bear my testimony I felt the Spirit of the Lord fill my soul with an answer to my prayer. I testify that the Book of Mormon is true, Joseph Smith was a prophet of God, Jesus Christ was chosen before the foundations of this earth to be our Savior and Redeemer, we do have a prophet on the earth today who receives revelation and guidance from our Heavenly Father, and I know that God is our loving Heavenly Father.

Also, as I was sitting in Priesthood meeting for the YSA ward, I had a cool train of thought that carried me to a greater understanding of opposition in all things. Elder Thackeray was looking through the manual and my eyes caught hold of one of the titles that read, "The Power of Kindness." As I thought of this I remembered the story of Joseph Smith, when he was kidnapped by men who wanted to take him back to Missouri. As they were running away with him they were headed off by other members and stopped before they could accomplish their goal. Joseph then invited those men to be guests of honor at his home. Through this I thought of the opposites of bitter and sweet and thought, "To overcome bitter you must be sweet! Fighting anger with anger, anger builds. Fighting anger with love, anger dissapates." As in adding lemons to lemonade it does nothing to take away the bitterness of the drink but by adding sugar to the drink the sour lessens. In my reading of the Book of Mormon today I found a quote from the Savior that also emphasizes this point. "And behold, it is written, an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth; But I say unto you, that ye shall not resist evil, but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also; And if any man will sue thee at the law and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also; And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn thou not away. And behold it is written also, that thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thine enemy; But behold I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them who despitefully use you and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father who is in heaven; for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good. Therefore those things which were of old time, which were under the law, in me are all fulfilled. Old things are done away, and all things have become new. Therefore I would that ye should be perfect even as I, or your Father who is in heaven is perfect." (3 Nephi 12:38-48) Jesus Christ teaches us to fight against evil with good for that is the only way we can truly rid the world of evil. If we try to fight evil with evil we only add to it. Thus to truly fight against Satan we must do so in the name of Jesus Christ. Moses commanded Satan in the name of Christ to depart, and he did. Joseph Smith called upon the Lord to save him from the grasp of the devil, and he was set free. Christ also tells us that this is the way to be perfect. To fight against evil with good is the only way to rid ourselves of all ungodliness. Let us keep the Holy Ghost with us at all times to have Him sanctify us with good in order for evil to disperse. I know that God lives and that we can be made perfect as we choose the right. There is great power in choosing to do good and be good. I know this to be true and testify of the truth in the verses I have shared, in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Sincerely,

Elder Christensen

P.S. I should be receiving new glasses this week :) I'm excited!

P.S.S. Sage won't be baptized this weekend :( But he has made great progress during our past two lessons. We will be meeting with him again soon ad helping him to grow in his desire to follow the example of Christ and be baptized by someone with the priesthood authority of God. It will happen in the Lords time! Sage wants to be a true follower of Christ and there are a few misconceptions that need to be broken down before he is completely ready. It is happening through his reading the Book of Mormon. What great power there is in that book. Sage has been reading a page or so each day :) As he started that he became much more open to learning. He and Derrick are great! Also, Pan invited us over to his house yesterday just to have us pray with him about whether or not he should change his major. It is incredible to see the faith that he has developed in Jesus Christ. He has come to church early the past couple of Sunday so that he would not miss partaking of the Sacrament and renewing his covenants. I love him and I know that God loves him as well. J. Hao took us out to lunch this past week because he found out I was leaving. He has also grown a lot. He hasn't been going to church for a little while, but I am sure that his attending the outgoing fireside and feeling the spirit there will help him grow in a desire to go back to church. I love this work! I love these people! Do all you can to serve others and bring them to Christ for it is the best use of our time in these the Latter-days! I love you all!

Grand Performance

Hello my wonderful family,

Thank you so much for helping me to get everything I needed done for my passport. It is in the works and hopefully all goes well. All I know is that all will go according to plan. Well, you remember how on Monday I said that anything and everything happened wrong. One of those things is that my glasses broke. Yup We have tried a few things to fix them but not much is working and I look kind of nerdy walking around with tape on my glasses. The tape and glue only holds them for about two days. So, while we were at Walmart on Tuesday I checked out how much the cheapest glasses will cost at Walmart. As I was there I found out that my prescription had also expired and so I will need to get a new one if I want to buy new glasses. What do I do? I don't know how long it will take for them to make new glasses for me either. I will go to Walmart today and ask about the time necessary for making a new pair of glasses for me. If it will be too close to the time when I leave then I won't bother but if they can get them done a few days ahead of time I would like to get some new glasses. Meanwhile I have a couple more ideas of how to hold these glasses on my face ;) I love you all.

It is easy to get frustrated when nothing seems to be going right but that is when we need to take a step back and look for the diamond in the rough. This week we had a great lesson with Sage which we both felt helped open his heart a little more to the gospel and to us. Derrick was also there which I am sure made for a much better lesson. Derrick seems to be struggling a little bit and I ask that you pray for him. Pray that he will continue to hold fast to the rod of iron. We were also able to teach the Shi Family this week. They are a good family. Their interest level doesn't seem that high right now and so we have decided to help them read through the Book of Mormon. We will read a little from that and the bible each week that we meet them until they show a little more interest. Another great thing that happened was that we were able to attend a cultural event for Chinese New Year. It was an amazing performance with a few really good chinese singers from the bay area, an incredible magician, and some great dancers. It was a lot of fun to attend a performance again and walk out of the theater. I haven't done that in a while.

As we we sitting there we saw a few of our english class students whose grandchildren were a part of the dancing groups. The ending performance was a Chinese Baritone who sang a song entitled, "我是中國人" as he sang I could feel and hear his passion for being chinese. It was a grand performance and it even made me feel proud to be chinese, eventhough I am not. That is just how well he infused the song with his pride for China. I love being a missionary. I know that God lives. I know that He has blessed us with a Savior and that all He does for us works towards His goal of bringing to pass the immortality and eternal life of man. I know that Jesus Christ is our Savior and today we have access to His Atonement through the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ. We can learn more of Christ through scripture such as the Bible and the Book of Mormon. I know the Book of Mormon is true and that it was translated by a modern day prophet named Joseph Smith. I leave this with you in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Sincerely,

Elder Christensen

How to Trust in the Lord

Hello my incredible family,

Wow! What a week and what a day yesterday! I think if there was anything that could have happened wrong it did and I am grateful for it. Why? As I was talking with Elder Thackeray yesterday on our long drive back from San Jose I knew that there was something I needed to learn. I think the biggest thing I have learned is how to trust in the Lord.

We were asked to give the lesson in priesthood on Sunday and it was about President Monsons talk entitled, "Stand in Holy Places". As I studied a scripture came to mind, in 1 Nephi 2:20 we read, "And inasmuch as ye shall keep my commandments, ye shall prosper, and shall be led to a land of promise..." President Monson shares ways in which his experiences have proven this promise to be true. He prayed to still have his dollar bill and because of his following the commandment of prayer it was granted. He was inspired to call upon Peter Mourik to bear his testimony and because President Monson followed this inspiration and kept the commandment of God, he and the people were all blessed.

I know that there have been trials, but I know that as I maintain faith in the Lord and follow His commandments I will be able to "stand still and see the salvation of God." I have been praying and fasting over the past couple of days and my thoughts have turned from finding the passport to allowing the will of God to prevail. As the will of God goes forward I know that I will be able to learn what I need to learn and become what I need to become. I know the gospel is true. Heavenly Father is deeply involved in our lives and I know that His plan is a plan of happiness. Let us all be happy! In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Sincerely,

Elder Christensen