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.
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
