Aloha Family!

Well last week we had lots of miracles! We had mission tour (which only happens once a year, so that was my one and only mission tour. How crazy is that!) with Elder Wilson and his wife. There were so many good things taught and said but there are two things I wanted to tell you about. So first we had a sister's meeting with Sister Wilson and it was awesome! She read from 2 Corinthians 4 about how we are all earthen vessels with cracks and imperfections but that is the way God wants us because its through the cracks that the light is able to shine through and God is able to use us. I loved that : ) it was so nice to hear because I think we are all too hard on ourselves. Then something that Elder Wilson suggested we start doing was inviting members of the ward to be Book of Mormon reading companions with our investigators and less actives. He said that he has seen so many miracles come of this. You just have someone in the ward invite the person struggling to read the Book of Mormon to meet with them two or three times a week and read the Book of Mormon together taking the time to stop and talk about it a little and you read from cover to cover with them so they can actually get through the whole Book. I am so excited to start this with the people we are teaching because we can only see them and teach them so much but it will be so awesome to have someone else there helping them strengthen their testimony. Especially because we get transferred out of the area but the member will be there the whole time you know!


Speaking of the people we are teaching we got a new investigator yesterday!!! It's kind of an interesting situation so this 30 year old lady is in our young single adult ward and she is dating this 50 year old man. He has a 30 year old son and a 20 year old son and his wife passed away last year but he is the sweetest little man ever. He doesn't speak super great English but he is really, really nice. And I guess he met with missionaries right  before his wife died but everything got so crazy and he hasn't met with missionaries for a while but now we are teaching him. We taught him about prayer and prayed with him and it was so awesome! Also one of our less actives we have been teaching told us last week he has decided to go on a mission and he is going to start his papers now!!! I was so happy to hear that!


Alrighty now for the VC. Well this week at VCTM Elder McDanough read us what the Presidency of the Church considers when choosing a VC sister and the objectives and main goals of the VC. He said that our main calling and responsibility is in the Visitors' Center and that our main purpose as VC sisters is to advance the image of the Church (meaning every person that leaves this place should have positive feelings about the church and of course hopefully want to learn more).  He brought up statistics too about how 25% of converts first contact  is a VC. He just had so many good things to say and it really helped me understand more clearly what I am supposed to be focused on and what I should be doing in the VC. I love the VC because we get to testify so much and really learn to love people really fast and this week I realized that this is my mission!


Heavenly Father called me to work in the VC for a reason so I need to be giving it my all. I will be in the VC most of the time and I want to be 100% focused on the VC. I think before I have been caring more about my area and I still need to but I am very blessed to be serving in the VC and I am going to work harder in here to really reach the goals we set. I don't know if I have told you much about this but every day we set goals to have a certain number of guest Self Refer (SR's) meaning give us their contact info so that we can send the missionaries to them. This week after the training we were really pumped to go out and find the elect and prepared that come into the VC and  so on Monday we set a goal to have 5 SR's. And we just really focused on being enthusiastic and happy and getting to know as many of the guests on our tram tour as we could and we just had such a good time and Heavenly Father blessed us by sending 6 really prepared people on our trams!!! They will get baptized for sure! Those lucky little missionaries that get to teach them will feel like they have truly found golden investigators because they are so ready to learn. One of the guys I talked to was so awesome! I asked him if he has ever seen a Mormon temple before and he said no but that he had friends that were members but they never invited him to Church. So instead of beating around the bush with this one I just said well we would love for you to join us at church! Could missionaries come to your house and teach you about what we believe? And he said yes! And then his fiance walked up and I asked her if she would like to be taught by the missionaries too and she agreed too! I bet they will both be baptized and start a new little Mormon family haha.


I just know that Heavenly Father heard our prayers and sent those people and the next day we had awesome members come in and actually give us some referrals as well! It was a miracle week that's for sure! And because it's the last week of the transfer I think we will continue to see miracles! Sister Looney and I are going to work so so so hard this week and finish out our transfer together really strong!


Well I love you all so so so much I am sorry I don't get to respond to all your emails individually but I will be sending letters and just know I love you so so so much! PS Mom I got the package! You are the best I saw the treats you sent and I just kept saying wow my mom knows me so well and loves me so much! You are the best! Thank you a million times! And thanks for having Sonya forward me Holli's email that was so fun to read! I can't wait to hear more from her!! PSS the pictures I sent were from the hike to Laie Falls that Sister Looney and I went on today!


Sure love ya!!!
Sister Christiansen

May 17, 2012

Aloha

I just want to say how wonderful it was to talk to you all on Mother’s day!!! I am so glad to hear you wore your lei to church too!! Oh and I got your letter from FHE that was signed by everyone! That was so fun!! Thank you for doing that! Please thank everyone for that! It sounds like everyone is doing well and I wouldn't want it any other way! I am so grateful for the wonderful family we have! I feel so blessed to be in our family!

So a few of the highlights of this week (other than calling home of course) were:
We rode bikes and wore these ridiculous helmets and we saw so many people we teach and someone we know found it so humorous he pulled over and took a picture of us : ( haha Oh great! No, but it was so fun-we rode on the most beautiful bike path! There was the ocean on one side and the mountains on the other side!! How I love Hawaii!

 We took a family through God's Plan (it’s that 15 min. walk through video they have at temple square) and at the end the spirit was so strong we asked if we could kneel and pray for their family right there. It was awesome. I fell in love with their whole family instantly! We also were walking down the street the other day and met someone that we were able to talk to. Anyways we asked if we could pray for him right there at the bus stop and bless him with help in his life and he said yes. I love being a missionary! When in your life can you just walk up to people and pray for them and it is acceptable behavior. It was so sweet! 

We were able to set up an appointment with a person we have been trying to meet with for a while. Yea.

We went to lunch today and the owner said it was on the house and that we are welcome to eat their for free any time we want! The members here are soooo nice! Where ever we go people always wave and say “Hey Sisters!” And, man, I just love them! 

But yes those were a couple of the highlights of the week and there were many other wonderful parts of the week but there's just not enough time to write them all down. I did want to mention though that tomorrow is Mission Tour so we are having Elder Wilson come speak to us! (He spoke in General Conference.) I'm sure we will learn so much! I'll let you know next week how that all went. Well I love you a whole whole bunch and hope you are doing great back in Idaho!

Sure Love Ya!!!!

Sister Christiansen

May 9, 2012

Aloha my dearest family and Friends!

Well mom I shall be calling you real soon!! Yea for Mothers Day! I have never been so excited for this holiday in my life haha : ) So plan on a call from me around 5 30ish (your time) If anything changes I'll call you a little earlier in the day and let you know. And Speaking of Mothers... Amy I am so excited for you to have a little boy!! Yea, you and Zack will be such good little parents! You should send another ultra sound! I would love to see the cute little guy! And Holli in response to your email-I have some bad news; it’s called Cami doesn't have a tape recorder! Ahh! So I need to get one of those pronto! What kind do you have? Maybe my mom could send me one or I could buy one or something? Here is the problem with buying stuff here-you see our only options are none. We just have Foodland. We don't even have a Wal-Mart, but maybe my mom could be so kind as to send one my way so we could start sending tapes back and forth and so that I can listen to your talk! Next-I don't know if you read this Mr. Ben Hulburt but if you do I would just like you to know that I wrote you a letter a while ago and for some reason it came back : ( I'll try sending it again?? And Cami K-thank you so much for the package!!! That made my whole day! That was soooooo nice of you and I will write you back today!

Ok, well here is a weekly update of my adventures here in Laie. We met with ___ on Sunday. She is our new investigator. She was very upfront and honest with us so that was good. But she already told us that she doesn't really feel the need to be baptized : ( She says she wants to meet with us and talk about the gospel and stuff but that she doesn't know if she plans on getting baptized anytime soon...

On Thursday we went out tracting in Sunset which is a really nice area where a lot of surfers live. We were able to talk to someone at the first door we knocked on. We visited with them for a while and the person actually agreed to meet with us on Saturday. Hopefully that will happen. 

We also had a teaching appointment this week with someone from one of our BYU-H wards. Also, Julia is doing great! Devin (her boyfriend) bought her ticket to California to meet his parents so that is way awesome! I am so happy that she is happy and that all  is working out for her. 

Next I would like to ask you all to pray really really really hard that Sister Looney and I will have a miracle baptism in May! We set the goal to have a baptism this transfer and we are half way thru the transfer without any investigators with a baptismal date so please pray for a miracle! 

Well I love you tons, sorry there wasn't a lot to say this time. We are trying really really hard to find new investigators and we have been teaching a lot of less actives so that's good but we really need some investigators you know! Ok well love ya talk to you soon!! Oh and just for fun I am sending a picture of our zone at morning exercise.

Love Sister Christiansen

May 2, 2012

 Aloha

I love P-day. It's so nice to write to you and let you know what’s going on here in the middle of the Ocean.

I would like to tell you a little more about the VC because that is basically my whole life. We don't have as many sisters here right now so our shifts are eternal. We are at the visitors' center for about 6 to 8 hrs. a day! I love it here though, so that’s not a problem, the only thing that is hard about that is it leaves no time to work in our area. Because basically we just do our studies in the morning then we are here all day, get off sometime between 6 and 8, have dinner, maybe have an hour or two in our area, then we have to go home and plan for the next day. So I am definitely a visitors' center sister. I thought that maybe I would be here for only a couple of transfers or something, but I guess how it works is we are here mostly the whole time and then we get to go out full pros. once for 2 or 3 transfers. Usually you don't go out until the end of the mission but who knows except the Lord right. But speaking of the VC did you know that after Temple Square this is the most visited VC in the world? How cool is that! And let me just say-man oh man-do we meet people from EVERYWHERE! It's so cool! I will probably talk to more people from different places in this year and a half than I will the rest of my whole life combined. Like this week we took a tram tour with people from so many different countries like India, Australia, and even Iraq!

Our Bishop pulled out of the temple, saw us, pulled up and told us about a girl who just moved into the BYU 1st ward. She came with her RM roommate to church last Sunday, and she has taken the missionary discussions before! Sometimes it's just timing right? Maybe she is finally ready. I sure hope so.

Also just a side note-Julia is doing awesome and has been going to church! Man do I love her so much! And S. Yau finally found a minnie missionary to be her comp out full pros. so it’s just me and S. Looney again.

 And one other random thought, so last Sunday the ward mission leader, S. Looney, and I had our BYU married student ward come to the VC for their third hour meeting and we talked to them about missionary work and shared a sweet Mormon message and it was so great! But the coolest part was when this guy stood up (small world he was my TA from BYUI) and shared his conversion story. He was Southern Baptist and one day a guy came up to him and asked him if he would like a Book of Mormon and he said no. Well guess who that man was? President Faust! But later when he was in school he had a friend ask him to come to church and seminary and stuff and because she was his friend he said yes! He said “see your friend may be invited by the Prophet and say no, but they will say yes to you because they know you.” It was a really powerful story and it's so true! If any missionary work is going to happen it has to start with the members”. In our mission 60% of member referrals get baptized so please please please be inviting your friends and make a goal to always have a referral for the Sister missionaries before you visit a Visitors' Center. It's so cool because most of the time the referrals we call accept to at least have a free DVD and the missionaries in their area are the ones that bring that so it gets the missionaries in the door you know.

I posted some pics of the hike S. Looney and I went on today so I hope you enjoy them! Man is Hawaii not the most beautiful place you have ever seen! I love it! President always says that on the 8th day the Relief Society created Hawaii haha. Well that’s all for today folks, but know that I love you more and more every day and I love my mission so much and I love the people of Hawaii so so so much! And I am so glad I am here. I just thank Heavenly Father every day for having bigger plans for me then I did for myself. He really does know what will be best for our lives and bring us the most happiness! I love Him so much!

Please write me - I love getting letters! ps thank you so much for your email Holli! I will write you back today

Sister Christiansen : )