Hello Wonderful Family!

This week, I can finally say, every hard week has payed off.

Here we go.

Monday night we had a great lesson with a less active, when our branch president invited us to attend a family night at his house. It was with Bro. Mandoh and Sis. Santi, who have been struggling for a while, but we found that the entire night was for them. President Changgai just taught a lesson about how great the Gospel is and asked Elder Poppleton to testify. He is such a great Branch President, he's been working so hard just on his own.

Tuesday, Elder Poppleton gave a great training on the differences between Stimulation and True Happiness. Part of our mission focus right now is finding Joy through Diligence and being worthy for daily miracles, and it's been working great so far. The biggest thing I learned from this week came later though, keep reading!

Wednesday, the great missionary work-halter of Chinese New Year began with a bang. Literally. huge fireworks until 4 A.M. Most of our members went back to Kampung for the next two weeks, and also some investigators. We also had exchanges with Elders Jensen and Stole. They apparently have been struggling for a while, but it was great just to talk with Elder Jensen that day. We went out to explore an area our Branch President suggested, which we found was completely Islam and Chinese. We did contact a very intelligent Chinese man in town for the season who teaches English to Ibans.

Then my tire went flat (2nd time that week actually), heavy rain came down, and every bike shop is closed until tomorrow. I've been riding a rental from Elder Pryzbyla, but I'll need some money in my account soon.

Thursday was a great weekly planning, before we started exchanges with the Zone Leaders. The town was desolated, as if a Zombie Apocalypse had happened a year ago. We visited the Governmental Administration building for fun.

The Next day, while I was with Elder O'Bryent, an amazing thing happened.

We had basically contacting planned the entire day, but E. O'Bryent had a brilliant idea to try something neither of us had done before. We started with prayer after lunch, they step-by-step planned exactly where to go by planning bit by bit what to do all day. We ended up deciding on three locations. We went out and acted on our plan, and although it might have seemed fruitless, we felt confident that we were where we needed to be in God's wisdom.

Saturday, Elder Poppleton and I did 'The Thing' again, and it was one of the most glorious days of my mission. We went back to a street we had seen before, to find many more Chinese houses then we remembered. Then we saw a man working on his car, and contacted Musiem, a Bidayu Christian that was very friendly and open. We talked for a while before leaving him a Kitab Mormon and setting up a day to call and meet again.

Then we had an appointment with Dion and his family, who would have been baptized in December last year except for not having a marriage certificate and having a difficult work schedule. President Changgai followed, and explained Self Reliance, a church program to help with the work schedule, and had a paper to help them get a marriage certificate. They then pulled out a completely valid marriage certificate from Indonesia, apparently they had thought they needed a certificate from Malaysia. Now they are working with President to obtain a better work schedule to attend church again.

Then we had a lesson with Jimmy, son of a less active, who brought a friend named Fidelis. He was really smart, really opened, and enjoyed learning about Jesus Christ. He asked us to meet him next week Saturday.

Sunday, our attendance actually increased because a lot of less actives came with work off due to the holiday. The District president attended, and praised the branch from the pulpit for having the first reverent, Spirit-filled sacrament meeting he had ever attended.

After praying for guidance that night when a less active lesson fell through, we were led to a man named Jeffrey wearing his father's old fedora. He talked to us for a half hour, telling us about visions he had which correlated to the spirit world. Everyone else thought he was crazy, but we just pulled out a Plan of Salvation pamphlet and explained that our church had restored truth that verified what he had seen.

Needless to say, life is great.

This work is the Lord's work, and the closer that we work with him the the more he will lead us.

Love you all!

-Elder Christensen