I heart my Mommy

Happy Birthday Mom!

We teach an English class here! Just me teaching important English to Filipinos haha :) My friends and Mace will laugh. Im not sure if Mom and Dad will get it haha. Hello everyone! Elder Gary here. Things were okay this week. It was probably one of my most frustrating weeks as a missionary. Like all of our appointments were falling through and we also had people that were progressing tell us they do not want to continue listening to us. We had one funny experience with a lady sort of trying to bash us but she was not very well educated haha...she said her "born again" pastor had authority from God because he studied Latin in college....we were like "uhhh..." haha we didn’t know what to say so I just tied it into Joseph Smith haha. Apparantly if you study Latin and start a church, you have authority haha? I guess we will just be tracting a lot this week. I actually don’t mind tracting. I think it is sort of fun meeting people and shocking them when we can speak the language haha. The language is good here. I can pretty much get everything by now. We use a lot of Tagalog here so it is good. My comp and I are getting along fine too. That is rad that Britt is a brace face haha. Dork! I really liked the picture though! When I get home your teeth will be all perfect and pretty! That is cool that Canyon View did so well in the state tournament. Also Desert Hills. I bet dad was loving life at the ball field with all those games haha that will be fun when I get home. The big talk here is about the NBA. Everyone talks about the Heat, and Bulls....I don’t have any clue who even plays for them but I said the Bulls would win haha, nothing to back that up. Just my gut feeling :) This upcoming week we have what is called zone conference. President Pagaduan comes up with his wife and the assistants to president to do a training for all of us. It will be good to see what they say. I like all of them a lot. Plus we get free food so that is always a bonus! I can’t believe school is almost over already. I am OLD now! I have already been a year out of high school. Life is all downhill from here :) haha jk. Today we have planned to go into Kalibo and go....bowling haha! I am excited. Apparantly there is just a guy that keeps score and puts the pins up by hand but I have also heard it is a machine so I will let you know next week. The weather was more like summer this week. It never rained and was just super hot and humid. It was fine though because I assume it will get better every week from now on and will get cooler and more rainy. I thought you would want to know that I am officially done with one full journal. I have kept a good journal every single day of my time in the field and almost every day at the MTC. I have an extra so I don’t need a new one yet. Maybe in 6 months or something. Mom I was thinking about something this week. I would like you to describe to me your feeling when Jordan died. Your thoughts on his death. If you had a strong testimony at the time? If you knew where he was going? If you were mad at God for allowing that to happen? Just everything I wanna know about your and Dad's feeling when that happened....Also I would like to say super, super happy birthday to my mom! I love you tons and wish I could be there to give you a hug and gift! That is cool about your trip to San Diego. I remember going to that baseball game against the Reds and the Reds hit back to back to back home runs when Griffey was still playing for them. It was awesome. We were on the third base line and dad saw some people by us he knew. Anyway, things are good. I love you all so much! Love ang inyong bituing anak na Si Elder Garrett V. Christensen (Your star child) :) Wow Fram Bam I can’t believe you got braces! They look so good on you so thanks for the picture! It is going to be so sweet when you get them off and your teeth are so pretty and perfect. All the boys are going to like you too much but it will be okay because I will be home and I will scare them away :) Are you excited for summer? I know I always loved summer when I was your age! What are you going to do this summer? Play with mom and dad, and Mace and Berk too! haha? I love you Barbs! See ya! Hey, I have a little extra time so I thought I would just say something to Mom. I just wanna tell you Happy Birthday and how thankful I am for you in my life. I thought lots about you this week since your birthday was coming up. I can’t imagine my life with any other mom. I know I was so spoiled and did lots of dumb things when I was in high school but you always showed your love to me and helped me. You never forced me to believe the things I believe. You just showed me by the example you set. Here I see so many parents that are either in different countries or just don’t care about their kids and I hate it. You always worked hard and I thought of a story about when I was young and we and when we still lived in the big pink house. During tax season you always left really early in the morning and so even though my school started at like 8, I would always wake up at like 6 (when you woke up) and go in your room just to talk to you and hang out with you before you left for work. Then when you got home we would go on walks and stuff and I loved it. I never realized how important families are until I got here and have seen so many broken families and seen how awesome my family is. I truly have been given much. I am so happy to know that if we live accordingly, we will always be together since we made the step of going through the temple. I know you have worked so hard for me to be here and prepare me. I also know of the sacrifices you are making at home for me to be here. And I am doing all I can to make everything worth it. I know that Britt will be an awesome young woman if you let here grow and don’t force her into things. She will make mistakes, just like I did (and do) but she will grow into an awesome daughter and sister if you just keep setting an example to her and spending time with her like you always did with me. I am so thankful to have a mom that I could take to dinner and a movie and have a way fun night. Other people don’t have that and I am so thankful for it. Thank you for being you, you are my mom and I couldn’t be happier about it. I love You! Hey Dad what is going on? This week was okay but didn’t have as good as I had hoped work wise. My health is doing great. I feel pretty good except just tired like all day everyday haha. We walk a ton here in New Washington. Maybe like 5-8 miles every day depending on the day. It takes a toll on me sometimes but I am just kind of used to it now. I bet that was fun seeing your old buddies at the Canyon View game. I do miss baseball and football a lot. Nobody here ever talks about either of those. Here it is basketball and basketball only. I hate it haha since I suck at basketball. Are you going to the Spanish Fork vs. Snow Canyon game this week? I wish they could both lose haha jk...Anyway I love you dad!