The Lord Really is Blessing Us!

Roxas City is the seafood capital of the Philippines

Thanksgiving Dinner Elder Price and I by the Sisters house (ocean) Elder Sunico and I in my area

Hello Everyone: Things here this week went very well. We worked super hard and finally saw some great results. We went from four investigators with a date for baptism to seven this week and had more at church this week too! For Thanksgiving, we went over to the sisters house (in Roxas City also) and they fed us chicken, stuffing (sort of), mashed potatoes (only the second time in the Philippines I have had that!) and gravy. It was okay but nothing compared to home haha. I appreciate the sisters for cooking though. Your party sounds like it was a lot of fun. I look forward to being at the next one :) I am also excited that Britt's team won gold at the soccer tournament. Congrats! That also sounds cool about Koby's party at that dance place. I bet you all had fun. I can’t believe Christmas is approaching already. I don’t know what we are going to do. What are your plans? I will call though I think. We will just see when we get closer to that time. Elder Price and I are doing well but transfers are this week so Wednesday we will find out if one of us will transfer (probably Elder Price) but who knows, maybe we will stay one more transfer together. I haven’t gotten the package yet. Maybe I’ll get it this week. I love you all and thanks for everything. We have some sweet investigators. Also another cool story. Jim Weaver, the American I baptized in Sibalom, just had his two nephews baptized into the church! Awesome huh?! I love the work and all is well. Love you! Bye! Elder Garrett Christensen Hey Pops, Whats going on? Things here are going really well. I am loving life. I am not stoked for Elder Price to leave (which he might on Friday) but we won’t find out until Wednesday. I missed Thanksgiving. It wasn't that great here. I wasn't homesick or anything but it was just a regular day. We are now seeing progress from our hard work and it is awesome. This transfer (last six weeks) Elder Price and I taught 189 lessons. The mission goal is about 125 so we beat it by about 70 so that tells you how we are doing haha. It feels good to get out and work! I love the people here, they are great (usually.) To answer your question I have now performed in 13 baptisms (not including others that I taught that were baptized after I left) and they are all active from what I know. They have all sprouted into other baptisms as well so I am happy. Quail hunt sounds like it was fun and Dre is doing okay. I am glad he bit the head off that bird haha. Are you feeding him?! I am doing well and have no compaints! Love you and miss you lots! Your son, Elder Christensen Here is my November letter to be included in the Dixie Elder, a monthly newsletter than Mauri Webster puts together for me and my friends who are serving around the world: Hello Elders, I don't have a ton of time to write this so sorry it won’t be super detailed. I am still in my third area, Roxas City. I am with Elder Price still and we are doing awesome. He is a super hard worker and I love him as a companion. As of right now we have seven investigators with a baptismal date and they should be baptized on Dec. 24th so that will be sweet. I can’t believe how fast time is going. James, I heard you gave an awesome talk and I am stoked for you to go to France. How are all my boys doing in South and Central America? What about everyone in America? I can’t forget you either Elder McDonald! I hope everyone is doing well and staying busy. I have good news about one of the investigators I taught and baptized in my first area. His name was Jim Weaver. He is from Florida but living in The Philippines right now. I taught him in English and he was baptized in April. He mailed me with the awesome news that his two nephews (who I never taught) just got baptized into the church! So remember that our work isn't affecting just people, but entire families for the eternities! I hope you are all staying happy and healthy. I miss you guys and think about you all lots. You guys help give me inspiration to work hard every day. Elder Price and I have seen awesome results just from being obedient and working hard! The Lord really is blessing us! I love you all lots Elder "Ako Pa" Christensen

Hey Britt, My favorite food at home was steak and shrimp. Here it is chicken adobo or chicken menudo. They are really good to put on rice and eat. Good job on your soccer tournament. I am glad you won. I hope you are playing aggressively and fighting to be the best on the team! I love you lots! Bye! Elder Gary

"You Are Probably Your Mother's Pride!"

kamusta na akon panimalay :) I am way stoked for James to get going. That will be a bummer that I won’t see him for over three years haha but oh well. He is a stud and I am sure he did sweet. I am glad he threw in a Twilight movie reference into his farewell talk. So before I tell you how I "feel," I wanna tell you some things that happened this week I thought you might like to hear. First of all, Our chapel here is two stories. We have a member here who has cancer in her leg and cannot walk at all. She has a wheelchair but there is obviously no elevator here so when we got to the church Sunday morning, I volunteered to carry her up into the sacrament hall. So I grabbed her like wedding style and carried her up the stairs and set her at the piano since she is our pianist. When I set her down she was saying thanks and she said "siguro ikaw and bugal sang imo nanay" or in English "you are probably your mother's pride" haha I was laughing. She is tiny so she was easy to carry but she was so thankful. Just relates well to James' talk I guess. We also learned this week that the Philippines was voted as the world's third most politically corrupt country in the world. I don't know what the first and second are, maybe Nicaragua is up in there haha, I don’t know? As for how I feel, We (Elder Price and I) feel a little bit frustrated right now. We feel like we could not be working harder. We are constantly talking and trying to help our investigators, but we just aren't seeing the results we want. Our vision of the area is a lot better than the results we are having, which is frustrating. It hasn't affected us. We are still doing all we can but that’s how we feel right now. I also feel like I am getting a lot closer to Christ amidst our struggles. I have been studying the "Jesus the Christ" and I love it. It puts into detail all the things that Christ did. All of his teachings, things he did and why. It is amazing. I feel happy with where I am and who I am with. I feel like I miss you guys but I find myself thinking about home less and less every day. I feel joy when people accept commitments and keep them. I feel sad for people who turn us down and coincidentally turn down Christ' church. Sorry I don’t have a lot of cool stories this week. I met a girl from Oregon who wants us to teach her to speak Ilonggo, but she doesn't live in our area so we referred them to her. Hopefully she will learn the language and about the church. It sound like you are all doing well. I love you all lots and miss you. Happy Thanksgiving! "pagustohanay kamo kaon ha!" "Eat all you can!" Elder Garrett Christensen Hey Pops, Whats up?! It sound like Hurricane finally got their championship which is cool I guess. I bet Breck was super excited. Things here are going well. We are working as hard as we know how. A normal day is like this. 6:30 wake up, shower get dressed, eat 8:00 personal study 9:00 companionship study 10:00 leave the house and go proselyte 12:00 lunch 1:00 language study 2:00 proselyte 9:00 return home and plan for the next day 10:30 be in bed! Haha, it gets tiring sometimes but it is okay. We stay super busy all the time. It’s like there is no extra time to do anything. They don’t have Thanksgiving here so we are just going to buy a chicken and eat lots of it I guess haha. Thanks for the sports report. I love you Dad and miss you lots! Your son, Elder Christensen Sorry i forgot my cord to send photos but I got some sweet pictures this week. I will send them next week. Please Send me some photos of the Thanksgiving party and the "turkey bowl" haha Love you! Hey britt. No they don't have Thanksgiving here, so it is a bummer huh? We will still buy lots of food to get full. They don't have turkey here either, so we will just eat chicken. That is good all the "kasapatan" or "animals" are doing well. Good job on your soccer. I bet you are the best. Keep practicing and work hard to be the very best at everything you do! I love you! Elder Gary

Crazy... to Even Think of Being Really Cold

Whats up family? I had a really good week here in Roxas City. Elder Price and I are working hard and doing okay. We aren't quite seeing the results we hope for but we aren't doing bad so it’s fine. Maybe we are being hard on ourselves. We are finding a lot of people, but they just don’t seem to be "the elect." They will have us in their homes but won’t do things to progress and learn about the truthfulness of our message. I am shocked about my bank account being so low. I feel like I haven't spent anywhere near that much but I have had a lot of things I had to buy so maybe it’s correct. Plus, I forgot the packages I have sent that are each like 5000-7000 or like $120-180. Sorry! I have been trying to be better with my money. That is crazy that Desert Hills and Hurricane are in the final for football. Did Spanish Fork go 3A this year? I bet Doug is excited about that haha. We had a pretty regular week. We found an indoor gym here that is wood floor and everything so it was way fun to play basketball on. We rented it out for two hours and played this morning from 10-12 so that’s why I am writing later than normal. That is crazy for me to even think of being really cold. It is always so hot it will be a crazy shock to go back into cold weather. That is way sweet about Nate Binks being home and talking. I like the story too. It is sweet how crazy things happen like that on our missions. The times we are the most frustrated and down is when crazy things happen and help us out. I bet his life is crazy adjusting back to home life. I got a letter from Evelyn the other day and I bet Brad and Emily are doing well. That would be rough to live so far away from where they are comfortable. Things here are going well and we are doing our best. I am loving life although I was a tiny bit sick this week. I had "sipon" which I think is like a "sinus" or something like that. I had a sore throat and a little cough and stuff but it didn’t affect our work at all so it’s good. I love you all and thanks for writing! Elder Garrett Christensen Hey here is Elder Christensen from the real "God's Country" How are you doing dad? I am doing well and we are working hard. To start off, this week was a boxing match of Manny Paquiao who is Filipino. So on Sunday the entire country stops and watches the fight. It made the work hard but was cool. He won after 12 rounds, is what a member told us, so everyone was happy here. That is cool that Nate Binks is home. That is coming up faster than I can even imagine! I will try to make the best of my time here. That is cool you got to go hunting for some pheasants. Elder Adams and I were talking just last night about pheasant hunting and Elder Colling said "Whats a pheasant? Like a squirrel?" Haha we were laughing, but he is from L.A. so I guess he would not know. We have a good friend here in the mission from Nebraska that said he will hook us up for pheasant hunting after the mission. That is also cool that the Utes are doing well. I hear they have a good defense but their offense sucks. Is that true? Anyway I love you lots dad and hope you are loving life. I love you and miss you akon tatay. Halong gid!

Rats? Just maybe one or two a week....

Hey everyone: Things here are going very well. I will answer your questions before I forget. Regarding toilet paper.....haha the people, unless rich, do not use toilet paper. There is toilet paper at the stores but most don't buy it. Nice restaurants usually have it in the bathrooms but sometimes they don't. Really if you want it, you can always be prepared but if not, it’s not a big deal either. They just use alcohol as a disinfectant so they aren't as dirty as it sounds. Regarding meals, the poor people here usually just eat a ton of fish so at any given meal they usually don’t have much meat, but since we cook at home, we do lots of meat so we are okay. When we eat at member’s houses, they are usually the rich ones so they have lots of meat too in their "sud-an" which is "rice topping" in English. In a given day we usually eat oatmeal in the morning, either chicken adobo (my favorite), chicken curry, or pasta at lunch. Then for dinner we are usually tired so we just cook like top ramen type things. I have seen lots of rats but none as big as a cat. The biggest ones are probably like the size of a softball at the stomach, so maybe like a small cat. They are nasty but they aren't like over populated in my area. Just maybe like one or two a week. Regarding Filipino culture that I won’t forget is maybe, you don't walk in the house unless they say "sulod" which is "enter." You always take your shoes off at the door. You don't sit down unless they tell you to "pungko." Also when you walk in between people that are talking you have to bend down and put your hand out in front of you and say "scuse" so you don't interrupt them in their conversation. When I dream, I either dream in English or Ilonggo. I see white and brown people so just mixed. I don’t dream a lot though. I hope that answers your questions. I am super stoked for Brock Aldred (Philippines Cauayan Mission). That is rad! I actually have some friends from the MTC in that mission. I am glad that you are doing well and having fun in Utah. I miss that weather that you guys have right now. It still rains here about every day for a couple hours. This week I was on splits with an Elder for three days, Elder Sunico from Manila and we had a lot of fun. The Filipino Elders are always the best cooks. So he cooked for me and I loved it, although they use tons of oil haha it is so good. That is sweet that it is snowing again there. That sounds fun camping too! I love all of you are hope you are all doing well, I am! Elder Garrett Christensen Hey Brittney, Things here are going super well. I like it a lot and Elder Price and I are working super hard and get along great. That is funny that you wore my uniform to school. I bet you had the best uniform ever! I love you Barbara. Bye! Hey Dad, what is going on? I am kind of worried about my bank account. I usually take out maybe 1000-3000 pesos a month which is like $20-60 American dollars but that’s all usually unless I need shoes or something big. I bought some Adidas shoes last month cause my ones from America are broken. Other than that I should have plenty but I don’t check it so maybe check the spending. I also had to pay $7,500 for my tooth which was pretty expensive but how much do I have in my account? I had like $2,000 American dollars at first but I have had lots of wasted money on the dentist thing and usually I spend more money than the mission money just cause I eat lots. Thanks for your concern. Here the sun goes down around 6:30 every night and it is hard for work because people go to bed so early but whatever. Thanks for the sport update. That is rough about the Colts, they haven’t won a games haha ouch. Anyway I love you Dad thanks for everything. Love you! Elder Garrett