After receiving a sad email from Dallin on Wed. that mylds.net lost his email and he wasn't about to write it again, we got a letter in the mail. Here is some of it: Because our usually empty email spot is crowded today, we don't have time to do alot of emails. So I'm doing it the old fashioned way.
This weeks has been pretty crazy and awesome. Last P-day ( Wednesday) they had some surprise transfers. Transfer day is tomorrow but since everyone was going into Spapporo for mission conference, a few people ( from the far areas) got transferred while we were all in Sapporo. My trainer, Elder Lottermoser was transferred to Obihiro and he is now companions with Elder Geslison, another Spanish Fork kid. I actually didn't get a new companion at that time; they put me in a threesome with my Zone leaders ( Elder Jankoloski from herriman, Ut and Elder maua'i from Laie, HI) Being a threesome has been interesting and I have learned a ton from the ZL's.
Anyways, I found out last night that my new companion is going to be Elder Jensen from Casper, Wyoming. He was Elder Lottermoser's MTC companion, so I have heard a little about him. He just hit his one year missionary mark ( but not quite a year in Japan). We are way excited to have 4 Americans in the apartment--apparently that is pretty rare.
So Friday we had mission conference with Elder Bednar. It was way awesome to get to talk to all of the other missionaries, especially the missionaries that are one transfer behind me ( that were in the MTC with me for 6 weeks). It's nice to not be the newest missionary anymore.
Elder Bednar was amazing! He is so good at teaching by the Spirit. He had asked everyone in a letter about a month ago to have questions prepared to ask him. So instead of him just talking, he had a question answer session for a couple of hours. It was amazing. He teachs really simply with the Spirit and it is super poweful. Listening to Elder Bednar and his translater gave me an added appreciation for being a native-English speaker. The translator was amazing, but he just couldn't quite say everything with power. Elder Bednar used some amazing English that had to be simplified quite a bit in Japanese. But even with all that, the translator blew my mind! He was so fast and so accurate with his translation. My favorite translation was when Elder Bednar described something as "presumptuous." The translation was veyr simple and childlike. All of the English speaking missionaries got a good chuckle out of thatone. Hearing from Elder Bednar 4 times ( mission conference, fireside, Saturday session of Stake Conference and Sunday Stake Conference) was absolutely amazing. He really is a prophet. I can not deny that. A major theme that I picked up on was to come closer to God and to help others do the same.
Well, I think that is about it. I love you all, Elder Christensen
