December 8, 2009 - Letter

Hello my beautiful family!


WOW I havn't seen snow in one year!!! Mom don't get me trunky! I love the snow..7 inches is that a record for Reno? No it is not that cold here yet anyways. At night it gets chilly I wear my warm new coat.  A little small but if i lose some more weight it should be fine. lol. ya my companion would like you to buy the same coat you bought me last year/rain gear.  If you can just send it and he will give me money that I can send back to you.  If it's not too much trouble.  My companion serves me everyday!  It hard to serve him because he is so nice to me!  He helps me with my Chinese and today bought me breakfast!  SoI think if you could find that coat he would really be happy!  Expecially for Christmas because here in Taiwan theyt don't celebrate it.  But on the 19th our church is having a christmas party! So that should be fun!  Recently my companion asked other american companions to buy something with his money but they never fell through with it! He always tells me we will always be friends.  He has never really had a true best friend!  So everyday I do my best to support him.  The other night some investigators started talking in english to me so I translated for him!  He got really offended because he knows his english is really bad, sometimes I don't know the culture very well I guess.  He said next time tell them to please speak Chinese.  That night was bad the spirit wasn't with us.  But now we are doing better than ever!  President Hoer told me I am with the best missionary in the mission! 

I agree with Dad, because I do beleive President Hoer trusts me to become a true tai zhong missionary!  I don't know if Elder Gallagher mentioned what happened when we re- consolidated!  Every leader in the mission was a recent tai zhong missionary.  We felt that everything we were taught by President Hsu we were doing wrong! and because they baptized way more than us we felt like we were being trained again!!! Which felt really demeaning.  But now I realize tai zhong is the best and we see success no matter what!  So xie zhang lao is here to help me not change myself! but change the habits and customs I had while serving as a gao xiong missionary!  

Ok I wanted to get that out.  So yesterday the lord blessed me so much.  He gave me guidance and put a really cool guy in my path!  Yesterday at 7-11 we were getting ready to go to lunch and this white guy walks up to me and says hey are you a mormon missionary?  I said yes I am.  He said I hate mormons!  You go around and force everybody to change their religion!  I then said I am sorry you feel that way sir, we beleive that this church has the fulness of the gospel!  He stopped me and said I am just kidding I am LDS! haha I said wow I was ready to testify against you in the last day!  He said that's why I stopped you lol he said he used to be a Taibei missionary 10 years ago.  After his mission played college ball then got into scouting baseball.  Later on by the way he is only 30 right now and stinking filthy rich because the oakland A's signed him on to scout young and college athletes! Why? because he can speak Chinese!  So right now he lives in xin zhu used to be part of tai zhing mission but now since last July is part of Tai bei!  He is married and has 2 kids his name is Adam Hisslop.  He says he knows president Dyer in Reno!  By the way do you know the hisslops and what does Pres. Dyer do for work? answer those for me please! He also just got released in his ward as the ward mission leader! So this guy is a stud!  I asked him what he thought about umpiring, he said its great but no time for family life or church life what he has is so much better, because he doesn't need to work on Sundays only once a month because he flys to and fro to Korea and Japan!!!  He then treated us to a drink and later after lunch we met at the stadium here and he gave me his card.  So  I asked him for advice, after my mission what I could do.  He recommended these 2 things. 1 learn japaneese! Because after world war 2 baseball started in Japan and then moved to Taiwan and Korea!  Then get a degree in sports managment or economics.  So I am definitly considering his advice.  I wanted to tell you this so I don't have to think about it till the end of my misson!  I'm going to send this with my recent convert zuo you hao! ya i had another baptism last week! thats 2 for this move call!


Love,
 
Elder Christensen