I'm sorry, there's no real big awesom

e story this time around, this week has been a long and harder one across the District. I've never seen so many appointments fall through in one week. During reporting last night we determined that the old serpent has been working hard on us, but Elder Hobbs, with his ever optimistic perspective, said that it is only because we are so close to the Baptism goal with two months to go in the year!

The week was mostly taken up in baptismal interviews, moving into Elder Hobbs and McCown's house, and getting 4 people ready for their baptismon Saturday! Sister Doo Abun was more than ready, and the others that were baptised were two teenage boys that Elder Hobbs and McCown had been teaching before. Their dad opened up extremely well at the baptism, and we will be meeting their family again later today. Also, Corina was a lady that moved here from Miri and had already been taught by the missionaries. Elder Hobbs and McCown had finished her teaching and also baptized her this week. 

Merang has been interviewed, but will receive the priesthood next week. He did get an amazing talk at the baptismal service about the Holy Ghost though :-) Our Branch Mission Leader asked him to.

Saturday morning we were asked to help with a calling training for the District (translating) and with a Youth Activity in our branch (cooking). We ended up not cooking, but we did watch the Testaments. That was fun, and a lot of people came.

Kelvinson and Ignatius have also arranged for us to talk with their dad tomorrow, so that we can explain their desire and ask his permission for them to be baptized probably next week.

Jerry was late from work, but we still had a shorter lesson with him. He's simply waiting for a confirmation from God that this church is true, but I think he isn't as much searching his feelings and listening to the spirit as waiting for a dream.

Well, that's really it. It's been good, and I'll be in a threesome for only one more week for sure. It's crazy though, trying to manage all of Branch 2 together. Not bad at all though, just very busy and a lot more biking :-)

Love you so much!

-Elder Christensen

Hello Family!

Things were so crazy this last week. So many Miracles, so much Love, so many amazing things, I have to only fit in the best things.

We literally met Merang's family every day this week to help them get ready, and they most definitely were! Their baptism was incredibly spiritual, and we had almost the entire branch there, including half of branch 1 attending. The mother, Doo Abun, wanted to wait a week for personal reasons (no worthiness issues, just other things). Merang bore a testimony of how he had doubts in a living prophet, until the 3rd lesson. By then he just knew. Caroline said she was just following her family until she felt the spirit changing her, bit by bit. Tracy just stood up, said she used to think the church wasn't true, then couldn't say anything for about 5 minutes before closing and sitting down. Doo Abun is already asking when she can go to the temple. Bro. Kong and David Kong will probably become their home teachers.

District Meeting was amazing. We all read ch.13 in Preach My Gospel. The branches here have many issues, and we discussed for a while before Sister Bodell asked if we had ever considered doing a fast for the things we were talking about. We did so Thursday, and closed it together at some American food restaurant that isn't expensive that I had no idea existed until now (WHAT). It was amazing, and so many good things already happened.

Sunday, the confirmations were powerful. President Balley had been sick the last week, and he asked us to give him a blessing. Then Brother Gaadong had the same request. Then he asked us to give his entire family a blessing. It was awesome, but by the end it was physically exhausting.

After that we went out and followed up with a new family, a certain Matu being the dad. He was interested in meeting again, and asked us to help him quit smoking. 

The biggest miracle though, was Jerry. He wasn't able to attend church because his entire body was achy and sick. The Thursday before we had met him, almost planning to drop him. Thankfully, we didn't have to. But we did teach Moroni 8, stating how Jesus himself condemns infant baptism and that all people who condone it will fall one day. For the first time, Jerry really considered what we taught, and said he'll 'have to pray about it tonight, to see what is true'. Of course, we supported him, and he also was surprisingly praying in the right manner. That Saturday night we gave him a priesthood blessing as well, and he told us that right now he feels like he's wandering in darkness and the only time that he feels light is when we come. He said he feels like he got some proof of our message because he was working and felt sick. At that time, we had called to follow up with something randomly. We asked how he was doing, asked us to pray for him. We did so. He said that 15 minutes later he felt completely fine and did more work then anyone there. As soon as he was done though, he got really sick again and his brother-in-law took him home. He is so close.

We found out what will be happening to me this week. Elder Beliang will be leaving Wednesday morning for the MTC and the temple in the Phillipines, and I will be entering a threesome with Elders Hobbs and McCown for the next two weeks.Thank you for your prayers! Love you!

-Elder Christensen

Hello you old wonderful! (I got the new watch, it's beautiful).

This week has been an inspirational one, and an incredibly blessed one. It also came with some of the weirdest compilation of random trials I have ever seen or imagined possible in on week. Our Branch President was in bed with an eye infection (he lives 3 hours away from the church), our second Counselor's car was totaled in an accident, our primary president is having husband issues, our recent convert family disappeared off the face of the map, our Branch Mission Leader's wife is apparently having struggles and randomly left her husband and kids to go to her kampung yesterday morning, and the list continues.

HOWEVER! We did successfully complete the baptismal interviews for the family of 6 that will be baptized this weekend! Merang's family continues to do great and is on track for their baptism this weekend! We weren't able to follow up with Charity or Manggie yet, but they said we can meet this week.

It was a pretty humdrum week other wise. Tuesday was Zone Meeting again, which was awesome. Elder Jackson had misspelled 'white handbook' in a sms, so the entire zone now calls them their 'white hamdannk's'. Elder Shorts (from Mukah) and I figured out what a Hamdannk was though, it's just a pork Pau (white, ham, dank). We will start a fast food chain when we return called "Hamdannke's", a German owned chinese food company. Brilliant. 

We met again with Jerry, who continues to do well. We focused on the Apostasy this week, and watched the film 'The Great Apostasy' which Elder and Sister Bodell brought, the story of Wilford Woodruff and Robert Mason. If he doesn't change this week though, we might have to drop him as he has shown no desire to change.

General Conference was amazing! We had all showings at the church, so it took a large chunk of our time from Saturday and Sunday. Elder and Sister Bodell were amazing though, feeding us both lunch and dinner on Sunday.

The week ended with an amazing miracle. We had text-ed everyone on our phone telling about the General Conference showings, and some random people we had never heard about called us and said they would come to Priesthood Session. They did, and it turned out to be a former investigator from forever ago. Her name was Ju, and she brought a friend named Amil. They were apparently church-hopping per say, seeing what the differences were in all Christian churches. They watched part of 

Priesthood Session and we then taught them the Restoration in the front foyer. They were very intrigued and said they could come next week to normal Sacrament.

Elder Baer and I went on splits this last Friday, as we had a Chinese potential investigator. He was a man that Elder Beliang and I found as we were riding by a house near Merang's neighborhood. The little voice spoke, and we knocked on the gate at 8 at night. The 20 year old guy came out and told us we could come back. Quite literally, he was the most prepared person I have ever met. He said how a minister had helped him pray when he got sick after a operation, but the minister forgot about him. He felt he was healed because he believed in Christ. He recognized the face of Joseph Smith, and said whenever people talk about Jesus he feels like people are laying their hands on his head. He described it exactly as the picture of Peter, James, and John giving Joseph Smith the priesthood.

NEVER

DOUBT

IN

MIRACLES

The Spirit is just the coolest, isn't He?

Love you so much!

-Elder Christensen

Hello everyone! This week was a good one, don't worry, but it was a long one in deed. Lots of things going on, lots of good things happening!

Elder Beliang is amazing, he had received very complete instruction in a mission prep class. All I do for training is point to a concept in P.M.G. and he acts on it immediately. He's seen a long history of disobedient Elders in his home town, and in his first couple days he professed a desire to never follow their examples, as they never succeeded. Needless to say we have had no problems getting along.

This last Tuesday for District Meeting we made a District Vision following pg.146 in P.M.G. and raw Spiritual inspiration (how edgy is that?). It was amazing, and we received a lot of guidance.

Brother Merang's family is continuing to do very well. They're on date for Oct. 18, the week after we show General Conference here in Malaysia. Last Saturday we taught them how do do a Family Night by doing a family night with them and teaching Tithing. We used an example Elder Jackson had explained, where you give the person 100 sen (cent), ask for ten back, then grab everything in your reach and put in their hand to show them the blessings that they they cannot hold. It was also Carista's birthday, so we had a great birthday dinner afterwards.

Brother Jerry has been slowly stagnating, he understands and professes he believes in everything we teach, but he does not truly follow it. We are praying to know what to do for him.

We found a new family this week, a certain Brother Manggi and his wife and two kids. We only met them once this last Sunday, but we taught them the Restoration. We asked Brother Manggie what he felt about our message, he thought for a second, and he simply said 'bagus!' which being translated means, good, wonderful, awesome, amazing, etc. We committed them to be baptized once they knew it was true on the spot. That has never happened in my mission before. They were prepared.

We also had a powerful experience following the Spirit. We were trying to follow up with a contact we had, and we were both prompted to leave from a place that felt very dangerous. We left, and instead taught Brother Kanyan's family about the Roh Khudus (Holy Ghost) using the experience as an example.

I love you so much! This Gospel is TRUE!

-Elder Christensen