I tend to overreact…only a little!

Elder Christensen & Elder VerHaaren

So first off Elder Perkins leaves on Monday, which is really sad. He said see you back at the home front and that hit me a little hard because the next time I see him will be back in SLC.  But Mark comes in next week so I'm super stoked for that!!

So this week I went into the doctor to ask about my cough that was getting worse and worse.  (As usual)  He said I was fine and gave me some pain killers and an inhaler.  That night was really rough though.  I laid down and my heart was beating really fast and wouldn't calm down and my chest was really tight.  I asked my companion about it and kind of freaked him out, so he woke everyone up and we tried to figure it out.  Of course you know we're these little eighteen year old medics running around, yelling "put some leaves on it!" And that wasn't working.  But my comp ended up giving me a blessing and my heart calmed down.  Turns out it was just a weird reaction to the inhaler I got.  I definitely thought I was a goner though.  It was cool though.  It strengthened my testimony that the Lord does look after his missionaries.

Wednesday we skyped for the first time!! We taught a man in Armenia who's name was Ashtot.  He seemed kind of frustrated with us because our Armenian wasn't great and the skype kept cutting out.  But it was cool to see how well we could communicate with him, other than the bad skype connection.   He kept speaking english with us and Sister Boyle would come over and get mad at us. So that was really funny. After we taught him we found out that he wasn't a member! And we treated him the entire time like he was one. Whoops!! Our first realish investigator!!

Dad you should be real proud of me! This week me and my comp were called at the music coordinators.  The week before I had a feeling we were going to get a calling and my prideful self thought we would be zone leaders or something like that. I guess the Lord knew I needed humbling so he called me as a music coordinator.  But we're really excited to finally have a calling.  When they extended the call I swear I could hear old man pops laughing at me.  Serves me right I guess!

Our investigators are doing well.  We had to push the baptismal dates back for both of them because we haven't taught all the commandments. Hopefully that all works out though! I wonder if we'll get knew investigators soon... Who knows?

Anyway the times are flying and I can't believe we have less than three weeks left in the MTC.  We'll get our flight plans next friday and I'm so excited for that.  Last week Elder Burraston shared a thought from his baseball days.  He told us this story about how on one of Caesars conquests they stormed the city by sea.  When they got off the boats Caesar commanded his troops to burn the boats so they knew that it was either win or die. There was no turning back.   It's the same for the mission.  When we left our homes and our families behind we knew that it was either win or die(figuratively of course).  The mission has not been a time to dwell on the good of the past and the bad of the present.  I'm learning to focus more on the good of today and the hope of the future.  I decided that I have burned my boat.  I'm not turning back.  There are people in Armenia that the Lord is preparing to hear my message. I know that this is where I'm supposed to be and I'm reminded of that everyday.  I love mission life and I'm excited to leave here and join the Lord's army in Armenia!

Love Elder Christensen

​P.S. The pic is of me and Elder VerHaaren from a couple weeks ago.  He's already in New Jersey... That կետ

P.P.S.S.  How was the first days of school?