I'll need to just focus on the most important stuff this week.

Well, this last District Meeting was an interesting one. Earlier, Elder Misa had told me that during his reporting with the A.P.'s that 'Sibu was falling'. I tried to figure out exactly why that was, as this district and this zone had seen amazing miracles and such amazing progress in the last couple weeks, and it came down to the fact that our goals were not being hit. That was all that our leaders were seeing. District meeting was completely focused on that accordingly, not only hitting our goals but doing all in our power to achieve then. We also watched the videos of Team Hoyt and Derek Redmond to show the way that Heavenly Father will carry us once we have made that goal. 

The craziest thing about it all was, after it was done, I realized it was everything that I was currently weak at as a missionary. I've never been a numbers oriented person, and numerical goals are not my forte, but Elder Sutherland and I have pushed ourselves to the absolute limit this week accordingly to achieve our goals. It has been amazing. 

I was actually sick for a couple days, nothing serious, but a cold only. We kept going though, and by the end of the week we had indeed hit our goals, but more importantly we had some amazing miracles occur.Friday we had gone on splits with the Chinese Elders, and it was also Elder Durrant's birthday! He said his best birthday present was trekking through the jungle and really enjoyed it. That same day, Elder Sutherland and Elder Baer contacted a nice girl named Caroline who invited us back Sunday night.

Speaking of the Chinese, Winnie is now on date! September 6th is the prospective date, but no missionary has ever met her step mother, the only legal guardian she has. There is a worry that, if she doesn't get permission from her step mother, Winnie could not be baptized. We are praying for an opportunity for that to happen, as Lena is also on date for that same day.

Ingang told us we couldn't meet her this week. Next week can.

Catarina's family continues to be awesome. We met with them a few different times, and their children are all very receptive, although we don't know what Catarina quite thinks yet.

Jerry's family is still doing great, but really needs to come to church. We are hoping to be more forceful with them and help them see the blessings they could be getting.

Kanyan was baptized! He was so great, but the most significant part was his testimony at the baptism. He told a lot of his life story, of when he was young and living in Kampung he had gotten caught up in all of the drinking and smoking and cock-fighting that goes on there, and stayed that way until he got married to Lena. A couple years later they moved to where they are now and met Acui and became friends, and that was before Arin was born. After the Elders met them and they had gone to church one time, Kanyan had traveled to Bintulu. While there, he had thoughts that helped him realize he wanted to go back to church again and stop drinking and smoking. The rest of the story you already know :-)

At church the next day, Kajup came to church with his wife and daughter! The branch's reaction was so great toee, as they welcomed him back like a prodigal son. We also had a nice church attendance, with 67 people there!

At church the next day, Kajup came to church with his wife and daughter! The branch's reaction was so great to see, as they welcomed him back like a prodigal son. We also had a nice church attendance, with 67 people there!

Sunday night, Bro. Kong followed us out to visit Caroline's family, who promptly invited us in. His name was Merang, the race of Ulu, and his wife was a Kenya woman named Dabung. They have 5 daughters and 1 young boy. It was an absolutely astounding lesson that shocked us both to the core, as it ACTUALLY FOLLOWED PREACH MY GOSPEL! Neither of us had ever had a lesson where we actually taught the entire Restoration in one sitting, offered a soft baptismal commitment, and have it accepted. The Dad said, that "if we do obtain that knowledge, of course we will be baptized!" It was amazing, and still seems too good to be true. We pray that it will continue.

This week has been hard, long, stressing, physically exhausting, and rewarding beyond imagination  Thank you for your prayers! (Also, please pray for the Chinese Elders to find new people to teach).

-Love, Elder Christensen 

Weeks are full of days, and normal days make normal weeks. Sometimes though, those normal days decide to become very abnormal days, making for exceedingly abnormal weeks. Like this week. 

Honestly I think the only normal-ish days were Monday and yesterday.

Here we go.

Well, Monday we a relaxing P-day with a good family night at Acui's house. Nothing too spectacular there, but Tuesday we had a pretty good District meeting in the Morning at the Beus's house, focused on our drives to be Successful missionaries. We all discussed what we hope to see in the lives of the people we teach to know that we are a successful missionary. Everyone had good input, and personally I tell myself to work for conversion. Later that day was Kanyan's baptismal interview (I've been spelling his name wrong the whole time), so I went on splits with Elder Jackson to the Zone Leader's area as Elder Sutherland went with Elder Misa to ours. We had a good day visiting less actives in a place called Sentosa, and had a cool miracle. We had visited a member named Sister Lucy who had given us a Kitab Mormon when she heard that we were completely out. On the way home, we were riding past a roundabout when Elder Jackson thought he heard someone call out 'Elder!'. We went back to the house to the little girls we thought called out, but nobody said they had. We ended up contacting an entire family there, and giving them the one Kitab Mormon that we had just recieved. 

After that we went to Institute at the Beus's house, only to have Elder Hobbs call us and ask us to pick up groceries for Elder Bester, who apparently had fallen quite ill within a couple hours. We ran and did so, and after getting to their house also gave him a blessing.

That night was the night which Elder Sutherland had planned to take the de-worming pills.

Wednesday morning, Elder Sutherland was completely down and out for the count. Whatever those pills did, he was knocked out all day. I got to read a lot of the Teachings of Joseph Smith the Prophet!

Thursday, Elder Sutherland finished recovering by about 6 in the afternoon. We did weekly planning and then got to go meet Kanyan and Lena again. We taught about the temple and had a great lesson with them, but apparently Lena is a little discouraged that she's not ready to be baptized with her husband. We then went to begin splits with Elders Bester and Hobbs that night, to be completed the next night. The A.P.'s were also supposed to stay at our house that day, but they had missed their flight in K.L. due to traffic. Accordingly, they showed up Thursday night and left Friday morning to go to Bintulu. A Lot of mail was brought!

Friday, Elder Hobbs and I spent a lot of the day out in Permai Jaya. We met with a new family out there, Catarina being the matriarch, and they were extremely receptive. A teenage son named Harry was asking questions that were exactly the same ones Joseph Smith asked before he prayed, and the Restoration fit like a glove. It was great. 

We then also met with Jerry. Some of his kids were in Miri, so we had a shorter and sweeter lesson about Alma 32. Jerry is starting to realize how churches are different from each other, and that's a good thing as it will be easier to show how this church holds all the truth. 

On the way back it started raining buckets. We had another appointment scheduled after our Branch Missionary council at Edwin's house, but that appointment turned out to be happening a birthday party we didn't know about. In the confusion, we tried to cancel the appointment and Acui called us. I couldn't hear her very well, but it sounded like she said that Kanyan wanted to wait on his baptism for Lena to be ready as well. It was of course his choice on such a thing, so we said he could.

Saturday morning we called everone to say the baptism was called off, and went to permai. We met Catarina's family again, and this time another son, Kelvinson, asked quesions that went right into the Plan of Salvation. My tire then randomly went flat, so Elder Beus came to bring us home. When we got home, we were called by Acui again asking when the Baptism was. I apparently had completely misheard her the night before, and we ran over as soon as she called (we wouldn't have been able to do that if I hadn't hit a flat tire). The baptism is now on for next week.

Sunday morning gave me a needed spiritual revival after what happened, and at church Dundang received the Aaronic Priesthood! 

Well, yep. That's the week.

I love you all!

-Elder Christensen

Oh family. Family is the greatest thing ever. Elder Sutherland found a line in Preach My Gospel that says that "Heaven is only the continuation of the ideal family" or something like that. I love you guys!

This week has been full of all sorts of great and not so great things, but it has yielded much fruit! 

Here are the big updates and stories.

We celebrated Elder Jackson's birthday at Rugby this week, but it was also Elder Sutherland's yesterday! To celebrate that we went to a nice restaurant called Tom's Too and I paid for his steak. A lot of the other Elders also came, including Elder and Sister Beus, and it was awesome. 

Last Monday we went to Bro. Kong's house for family night, it was fun but tonight we are going to try harder to do something to help the younger kids stay interested (any advice would be appreciated!).

We had a very interesting lesson with Jerry's family, as Elder Beus had asked if he could make a chart to explain church organization. We thought it would be a smaller thing, but he ended up teaching the entire lesson with us translating. It basically covered everything we were apprehensive to bring up, but it was done in a way that it couldn't have been better for them. We'll have to really see how Jerry feels about it, as the main message was that God is the head of this church, not man.

We also met a new family that we are teaching, the head is sort of a matriarch named Caterina, and they live out next to Ingang. We originally met one guy there who invited us back, his name being Paul, and they're awesome. One of the young adult sons, Ari, was saying he'd always been confused about why there we so many churches and wanted to know which one was right, so he was extremely excited when we said we could tell him the answer. More on them next week!

We had a fun day on Friday with Splits with the Zone Leaders. I got to do the 40 minute bike ride out to Rantau Panjang with Elder Jackson and had a lot of fun lessons out there. As we were leaving, there were kids with these crazy firecrackers that sounded like gunshots without casings. One thing I guess I should let you know, on the news here there's apparently been some strange incidents of people being taken by chinese gangsters who gas people and take their organs. Just so you know, and we are taking precautions and being very careful when needed.

On that note, have you heard about MH17? Is that crazy or what?

We have been working pretty consistently with Lena this week, and she is getting better. It's hard for her as she is still learning to learn. Kenyang however is on date for this next Saturday, and he is very ready. We'll be having family night at Acui's house again tonight.

Saturday was a branch social, which apparently nobody planned. So we ended up doing Musical Chairs, Karaoke, and eating, but it was still fun.

During Branch Council, District President Chua said we could request for Wheel chairs for Desmond and Sebastian, Ingang's kids, which would be really cool if we could do that. 

Yesterday we were able to go with Brother Kajup to see a less active named Entalai. He is really cool, expressed a desire to return to church, owns a car and has work off on Sunday! That's really cool, and hopefully we can see him there next week.

Anyway, this week has been great over all. Elder Sutherland is an amazing guy and I absolutely love working with him. He seriously has been one of the most influential parts of my mission so far, all the way for the better.

I love you so much! 

-Elder Christensen

This is how I'm starting the letter because I don't know how else to start it :-)

Hello family! This week has been an interesting one, filled with good and bad alike. Last Monday's Rugby was incredibly fun, I've never played rugby before but I actually really enjoyed it. We're actually playing it again today, but it's also Elder Jackson's birthday and we're throwing a party for him at K.F.C. (don't tell!).

We had a great family night that night at Acui's house, mostly based on watching Finding Faith in Christ.

Well, to be honest so much has happened after that I don't remember what days they happened, so I'll just ramble for a while. 

After last week's sickness, I'm basically fine now, though I'm being much more careful about what eat at least as far as nutrition is concerned. Elder Sutherland is part of that, as he sometimes is still feeling sick. He will take de-worming pills this next week. We are doing fine though, don't worry about us! We have had some very fun and delicious meals at home this last week accordingly, including Pasta and very American tasting lunch sandwiches!

Acui is still doing fantastic. Dundang is still awesome. Kenyang and Lena are on date to be baptized the Saturday after this next one. We had a lesson where we found out that Lena hasn't been really understanding much of what we have been teaching this whole time. At one point she actually went really quiet, as the spirit whispered that she hasn't yet put in the personal effort to really study the gospel. It's really hard for her, learning in a language that isn't her own and not being able to read. I'm not worried about her though, it's just her personal refiners fire.

Jerry is doing great, they still haven't had the opportunity to go to church, but we still had an amazing lesson with them about the role of the Holy Ghost and who he is. We're hoping to extend a better invitation for church this week, but they're very open to it right now.

We haven't been able to meet with Ingang or Nyabong due to extenuating circumstances, but they're still doing alright. We managed to learn more about the possibility of a van for Ingang, but we have no solid information right now.

We got to meet again with Sister Daung. It was kind of cool as we went after our other appointments fell through Saturday night. The next morning, she paid for a private taxi (not cheap) to take her to church. That was a real sacrifice for her, and the first time since I've been here that she's come. It was very touching to see that.

Last night, Garra, a member from branch 1, came to our house and asked us to help give a blessing to his son. He has the Melchizedek priesthood, but didn't remember how to do it himself. Elder Misa anointed, and Elder Sutherland gave the blessing. It was a sweet experience.

This last Tuesday we had a fantastic District Counsel. I'd been stressing about what I was going to do for the training, but after some fantastic discussion with Elder Sutherland, I threw all the stressful stuff out the window and went completely off the Spirit. The result was a Blues Clues analogy resulting in a creation of a new District Counsel format in which we discuss President Main's weekly message and together choose an application to try as a District. It was wonderful and Glorious, and Elders Bester and Hobbs brought Paus for everyone!

Well, Life is Good! I hope it's the same for you! 

Love you!

-Elder Christensen