Hello wonder family!

Enough formalities, here's this weeks story.

We had a crazy couple days on Monday and Tuesday, as both Elder Hobbs and Elder McCown were transferring. Monday night we had a great F.H.E. at the house of a less actives house (who came to church this week) named Sister Daisey and her two sons. Brother James and Brother David Kong both came, and Elder McCown got to kill a chicken. It was pretty good.

The rest of the week was full of random, crazy things happening, all seeming to be pointed at preventing the 4 baptisms that were scheduled for last Saturday. Through Faith, prayers and diligence though they were all overcome! Tuesday I had to go on exchanges with Brother David and James again to meet with all those that were being baptized to finish the lessons, as Wednesday and Thursday I went to Singapore with Elder South to pick up Elder Beliang. Elder South and I got up at 5 a.m. for our flight, and I almost forgot my passport, but it was a good flight. 

In Singapore we stopped by the 2 dollar tie shop, and I finally got new ties for the first time in my mission. I realized I've been wearing the same 6 ties with the exact same 6 pants every day of my mission so far, finally able to switch it up a little bit.

The Train the Trainers meeting that night was fun also, but the A.P.'s told me apparently is was a fluke that they had sent me there. I'm grateful I went though, Elder Beliang loved the M.T.C. and the Temple, and it's already been great to have him back. Elder South's trainee's name is Elder Wimmer from South Jordan, and he and Elder South are already working great together.

The next morning was the new missionary orientation, which went late a little bit so the four of us headed straight to the airport. We arrived just after the gate closed, but they were merciful and rerouted our flight to go through K.L. later that day. It was fun to visit the butterfly garden and the free calf massages again. Both of our flights in Singapore and K.L. were delayed due to rain, and Elder Beliang and I didn't get home until past midnight. It might have been a little tender mercy that both of us slept through our alarms the next morning.

Friday picked up well although we got started late, and we headed out to Permai jaya to finish lesson 5 with Kelvinson and Ignatius. However, a massive rainstorm hit and we took shelter (and our dinner hour) at the Lakeside Restaurant. Also, the Zone Leaders had been in Singapore for M.L.C. and their flight was also delayed due to rain, but they still arrived in time for us to go on splits with them and do Norina's baptismal interview as well as Kelvinson and Ignatius. Due to the grace of God they all passed! Saturday was accordingly spent mostly in preparing and getting every thing arranged, and it went beautifully. We hope to find some new investigators this week, as we have now just baptized almost all of our 'on-date' investigators now, as well as teaching a lot of recent convert lessons!

Sunday was a good day, we have entered another threesome with Elder Weston, as his companion, Elder Vincent, and also Elder Liddle have not yet arrived. Immigration problems in K.L.

Speaking of that, Elder South had a cool experience. We were in line for passports in K.L. the same day that Elder Vincent and Elder Liddle got held up, and Elder South got strongly prompted to move to the line that I was in. No problems, so that's a good thing.

Love you so much! Thank you for the prayers!

-Elder Christensen

The Baptisms of Narina, Kelvinson, Ignatius and Siti.  Bro. Merang, who was baptized two weeks ago, performed the baptism for Siti.  On the far right is Elder Beliang, back from the MTC and happily endowed! 

Hello family!

This last week has been long, hard, glorious, uplifting, and edifying for a myriad of reasons.

I think the best way to do this would be to tell you the end results:

• Kelvinson and Ignatius are now on date for this week, we were able to meet their dad who freely gave permission for them.
• Siti is now on date for the same day, she felt that she had been prepared (plus that Sister Doo Abun has been helping her immensely).
• Norina had an amazingly spiritual experience through prayer, scripture study and a youth activity and no longer wants to wait for her family to be ready, and asked us to baptize her secepat munkin (ASAP). She's also on date for this week!
• We got a referral from the Elders in Kutching, an man named Nila. He had been in the Hospital, and whilst there some one had given him a Book of Mormon. His cousin had also been baptized, and Nila asked him how he had overcome his W.O.W. issues. He had met with Elders a couple times, and told us he wants to be baptized, stop smoking, attend church, and read the Kitab Mormon. Elder McCown called it 'literally the dream of every missionary come true'. He also lives with a family of relatives, Johnny and his family.
• President Balley has recently been on a major Branch Mission Effort kick, and has been sending members to visit less actives and those that are struggling like crazy.
• Jerry has continued to do well, we had a great lesson with him about the ways the Spirit talks to us. He related to us a dreams that he had years ago where he was on a dark cliff holding his scriptures and next to an iron rod. A voice asked him where he wanted to go, and he said continuing on the path. The voice them told him to hold the scriptures in his mouth and hold on to the rod with both hands before he could continue. Because of that dream, we were able to help him completely accept the Book of Mormon as the word of God.
• Merang asked me to ordain him a Priest yesterday, and it was a beautiful blessing, blessing him specifically to be aware of and learn about the right to the ministering of angels.
• NOTHING happened for my birthday because I didn't tell anyone! I didn't want it to be any different.

Anyway, that's probably 20 percent of what happened this week, but it's the best stuff! Love you so much!

-Elder Christensen

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