Shout Out Elder Christensen

This is a tribute email to Elder Christensen! (All of these stories are from my journal or emails about him or when I was with him!)

Here are some stories of me and Elder Christensen because he is dying (going home from his mission).

Elder Christensen (my trainer) finishes his mission this week. I just wanted to give him a shout-out for being such a good example when I first arrived. I have told a lot of my companions how much he meant to me. I truthfully have a testimony that he was the only missionary that could've been my trainer. He is the most patient man, and he is always happy. He truthfully helped me fall in love with my mission. I learned how to be a missionary, and he helped me a lot with my Spanish. I knew nothing when I got to the mission, and now I know at least a little bit thanks to that elder. The Lord truly put him in my path for a reason, and I love that man with all my heart. So shout-out Elder Christensen. Here are some stories and funny memories of me and him. He truly impacted my life, and I am grateful for all the memories we have together!

On October 1, 2021, we were in the chapel at around 7 PM. The sun had set, and there were no clouds in sight. We were done with calls and leaving for a lesson, and then we shut the door of the office we have because we were in the historia familiar and the Relief Society room light is on, which is weird because it wasn't on when we came in. So we go turn that off, and by the time the light is off, we walk back and turn and look down the hall, and the bishop and the clerk's office is on, and it wasn't when we walked out of the historia familiar. So we walk down the hall, and the doors are wide open. They're always shut and locked. The bishop and his counselors said they weren't here, and no one else has a key, so we're sketched out at this point and we're like, "What the..." So we go to leave, and we walk out to shut the gate of our church, and this 80-pound metal gate just falls off the track. The metal hinges just broke, and the gate just fell. So we move that and fix and clean up all the metal chunks, and the second we go to open our car, lightning out of nowhere goes across the sky from every direction like the longest bolts, but only in the clouds, so it was like sideways lightning. And it was the scariest thing ever, and I can't even describe the lightning. Pointed like that but through every direction, so it was wack.

We had zone conference in Ponce once, and so Ponce from San Juan and Ponce from Arecibo (where I lived) is the same time to get there, but it takes us an hour east to get to San Juan. Anyways, this is why this makes sense. So we get a call Tuesday night from the zone leaders that we were invited to sleep at the assist house for zone conference to save us time (when it literally just added an extra hour driving east), but we're not complaining because we love sleepovers, and our assistants and zone leaders wanted us to come sleep over with them. So we do, so we go to Jardines de Caparra, which is the sketchy neighborhood because there is a giant caserillo, which is government housing and basically the ghetto. We're not allowed in them as missionaries. Anyways, the assistants live right next to one of the big ones in Bayamon, and so we go to bed and wake up, and their truck was stolen. Lol, hahahahahah, it was so wack. Then we were almost late because we had to go get them the guagua, which is the van from the mission office. Lol, it was insane. I'm telling you, this week was so wack.

We went to our recent convert Carmen's house one P-day when it ended at 6 PM. When we were there, she was getting taught such a good lesson. We had an amazing lesson. The lesson part isn't the point of this story; it's the after-lesson. Lol, we were about to finish our lesson, then her son says, "Ma, hay un cangrejo" (Mom, there is a crab). So we were like, "Whaaa, a crab in your house? It's going to be all tiny and cute." No, this was a huge crab, one that has a built-in shell. So we poked it with a few sticks to try and get it out (it was hiding under a cabinet after a while). Then her son gets a paint roller, drags the crab out, and starts chasing it, trying to hit it with the paint roller, and he's like 50, yelling random Spanish at this crab. It was so funny. Everything is so much funnier when you don't understand the language (I had no idea what was happening). Then the crab went and hid under the gate, so that was awesome!

Carmen's conversion is so cool. This lady was a referral (means she signed up to do a Bible study, meet with missionaries, learn how to pray, get closer to Christ, etc., from an ad from Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, etc.). She was a referral we got in April right when my comp got here. He and his companion at the time, Elder Dunn, gave her a Book of Mormon and taught her a few times. Then she was marked as uninterested (from not answering, telling you specifically, etc.). So she then later in June referred herself again for a Bible study, and my comp and his other comp, Elder Ogden, went and taught her a lot. She seemed to be interested, but not a lot. Then I came. Me and Elder Christensen taught her, and she got taught all the lessons again, and you could tell after like 4 lessons after I got here her heart changed, but we couldn't get her on a date for baptism. Then we had exchanges, and Elder Hurtado got her to agree, and she fasted and prayed and was baptized. I am telling you all this because when I was asked to baptize her (by Elder Christensen), I thought it was unfair because he had been there the whole journey. And then that thought hit me. This isn't his convert; this isn't mine, nor will any convert be my convert. She had 5 different missionaries assist in her journey. God needed all of us for a different reason, and we may not know why he needed all 5 of us to help prepare her and be a tool in his hands, but it's remarkable. It took 5 elders to assist and get her on the covenant path. I am super grateful I was able to use my priesthood to baptize our ward grandma. She's so sweet and funny. She gave us 5 breadfruit on Monday. Huge breadfruits for tostones, and it's awesome. Anyways, sorry for the rant. I just love that it wasn't mine or Elder Christensen's or Elder Hurtado's or Elder Dunn's or Elder Ogden's that converted her. It was the Holy Ghost. He told her what she needed to hear; we were just the tools in the Lord's hands.

Elder Christensen - (My first day on the mission, from my journal about him): For those who want to know, he's my dad. That's what we call trainers in my mission. So when Elder Scott got his trainer, Elder Olafant, to get a new greenie, he goes, "I got a brother, so it's all just a family here." So, my dad is from Wyoming, Cheyenne to be exact. I was expecting him to be more small-town, but he's not that small-town. I guess he had 1,200 in his HS, which is funny because I'm pretty sure my graduating class was about that, but his school wasn't too small. The kid is a dork though. He is very good to have as a trainer, and everyone here thinks he sounds Brazilian. Some guy in the plaza told us that, and we've been asking, so apparently, he speaks Spanish with a Brazilian accent. Lol, and he's from Wyoming. He's my age. We graduated the same year, and he's about an inch shorter than me, which is crazy because everyone here is short, super tiny. I'm like a giant; you will see in the photos. And I'm only 5'11", even all the members and non-members. They are all short here. It is weird being so tall for once. We then went to street contact, and we met a guy who was an atheist but thinks Jesus is an alien. I'm like, "Bro, how are you atheist but believe in aliens? And Jesus was one?" He pulled up a picture of Jesus with UFOs and goes, "See, this is a painting from 600 years ago, and those aren't angels, they're UFOs."

One week, I was making some tostones. For those of you who don't know, it's a very big thing here in Puerto Rico. It's basically like French fries but with plantains, and you smoosh it into a little disc, so it's like a cookie French fry made from plantains. Super yummy. We eat them a lot, and you can make them very easily. If you want to try, you should. Super yummy. Anyways, what happened was the oil in the pan was heating up a lot and started smoking really, really bad, and you know I'm a new missionary. I don't want to start a fire. So, what does my brain think? Dump it down the drain. Then I'm like, "No, don't. You'll melt the pipes." And then I thought to just cool it off with water first. (If you've listened to the talk "You Are Receiving Revelation, Now Act On It" by Loren Dalton, it's on YouTube, super good talk, highly, highly recommend) Essentially, if you don't listen to it, here's a breakdown really fast: God talks to us any way he wants, but we learn in Alma 37:6, "By small and simple things are great things brought to pass." Satan and the Holy Ghost are spirits, so they talk to us through our spirits. But the problem is we've been in the earthly bodies, so we don't understand that well. So we need to see it in a physical way. So how does it come? As your own thoughts, a positive thought, and that is revelation. But we take credit too often. The Holy Ghost, though, wants us to know it's him, and Satan wants us to think they're thoughts from ourselves. Hence the double thought or the thought that, "No, that's just my own thought. I don't need to go call my friend I haven't thought about for 4 years that just randomly popped into my head while folding laundry randomly." No, do you get it? The adversary is the second voice. He comes right on the heels of the first voice because he needs to talk us out of the prompting from the Holy Ghost. Also, the adversary uses logic, and he is really good at it. Satan is smart; he knows all. He was the first to volunteer in heaven. He is smart; he knows how to get us. But guess who doesn't need logic? God. God doesn't need logic. Did it make sense to swallow a man in a whale or build an ark on dry ground or appear to a 14-year-old to restore a church or to talk to a prophet in a fire? God doesn't need logic. Hence the first thought not making sense a lot of the time because God doesn't need logic. Satan is smart; he uses logic and uses the first person every time to make us think it's him. He's usually the second voice. Anyway, this makes a lot of sense because if you have read the Book of Moses in the Pearl of Great Price (Moses 1:11), it talks about how Moses saw God with not his physical eyes but his spiritual eyes. So it makes sense that the spirit talks to our spirit. Anyways, the talk talks about how positive thoughts come from the Holy Ghost, and the second thought is always the adversary. (Seriously, go listen to the talk. It is so good; you will learn a lot. It's called "You Are Receiving Revelation, Now Act On It" - Loren Dalton. I have only found it on YouTube though, so go there!) Back to the story, remember how I said I had a thought of dumping it down the drain and cool it off? (I didn't want to start an oil fire because they don't get out with water, and I knew that 3 seconds ago). Anyways, the first voice says, "Pour it down the drain and restart." Two seconds later, bing, "Don't do that; it will melt the pipes" (It doesn't make sense; the pipes are metal, not plastic, but Satan made me think so). So I was like, crap, what do I do? Bing, add water to it. So I go to the sink, turn on the water, and put the oil in the water, and pppppsssoooosh! An explosion of steam and oil flying everywhere, a huge puddle on the ground, and I mean a huge puddle. Now here's where it gets good. The whole ground and sink have oil everywhere, but only 5 drops, tiny drops, got on me (yes, I got oil burns), first-degree though and very tiny. Anyways, I know for a fact an angel saved me and my hand. There was oil everywhere, and the second after it happened, just like I talked about, I got a prompting: bing, "An angel saved you." And I am very grateful for guardian angels. I can't even describe it. I swear I felt something on my hand and holding my body. I know for 100 percent certainty there was an angel there. I was protected and had a miracle from seriously injuring my hand. The moral of the story is the adversary is good; he wants missionaries to fail, and we need to act on the first prompting, never listen to the second.

Friday, the power goes out. It goes out a lot, like only for 15 minutes to 5 hours, depending on the day. The power went out, and it's literally 8 am, so the sun is out. Elder Christensen is such a dork. He's been begging all of last week for the power to go out, and it didn't surprisingly for one whole week. Anyways, he was begging because he wanted to use his glow sticks. He really wanted to use his glow sticks. So at 8 am, instead of opening the windows, he shut them and shut the door so we could use his glow sticks. LOL. Later that night, we were calling the district for the nightly call to make sure we are all home and safe. We were telling Elder Seneca about this, and I go, "He pulled 2 greens out of the can. Do you know the odds of that?" And at the same time, in sync, we go, "That's a 1 in 30!" It was so funny; you had to be there to know.

Well, so remember a few weeks ago about Nato? I'm now 80 percent sure he's a perverted 60-year-old homosexual man. He's lucky we (me, he doesn't like Elder Christensen, who knows why) are lucky I'm 19, or I would call the cops after this last call. Hahaha, but I'm going to keep answering because he's kinda funny. LOL, but also very wack. So he called us last night, and I answer and go, "Hello!" (mind you, Nato only speaks English as well, so I understand everything he says). "Is this Elder Tew?" he asks. I go, "Yes, it is. What's up?" Then he rambled on for 15 minutes about his roommate, and I taught him lesson 3 while he was rambling. It was actually really smooth. Then I invited him to be baptized, and he goes, "Well, let me baptize you." And he goes, "What are your intentions, Elder Tew?" I said, "I just want to be your best friend and help you have salvation in heaven so you can have a higher kingdom of glory." And he started flirting with me, saying, "I really just want to be your dad." Then he said he wants to wake up and see me every morning. He said he wants to be my dad because I think he wants me to call him daddy. LOL. I told him I had a dad in Utah, and he asked how old he was. I said he was 43, and he said, "I'm 60." Then I go, "I guess you'll have to be my uncle," and he got all upset and rambled on about how that's a bad idea because he wants to live with me and have me. Words don't describe how creepy he is. "I love you, Elder Tew," he said.

Then he was begging for a day with me, and I told him I can't leave Elder Christensen. He said, "It's fine if he comes, I guess," and I said, "Sweet, can we invite Toda Fuentes too?" (Toda Fuentes is his friend and actually how we met Nato. He is the reason, LOL, but Toda Fuentes is more normal.) Also, I really like his name, Toda Fuentes. It sounds funny. And Nato goes on and said, "I only like Toda as a friend. I like you guys more than a friend." So, I'm convinced he's in love with a 19-year-old, so we're probably going to stay away from him. LOL.

This one P-day, we decided to go see a cool water hole in the mountains of Puerto Rico (basically a tiny hill, LOL, but tons of jungle, trees, lizards, and iguanas). Wow, that was so funny! So, we parked, and some guy said something in Spanish, and I'm like, "I don't know." I am thankful for companions and kids in my district that understand. Basically, this guy wanted us to park somewhere else because we were across the street from a church, and we shouldn't be on their camera. So, we ignored him and went to the trail. We walked on this trail to the cave and the little forest hole. We walked probably like half a mile, and we saw it. It's good, all is well and cool, and there are these Polish people on some tourist tour. The tour guide is like, "Here, eat this, but don't chew the seeds" (it was a passion fruit or parcha in Spanish), and she's like, with this broken English that sounds very Polish, so it's even funnier, "Why no eat seeds? Is my stomach going to explode?" It was absolutely so funny; we were all laughing. LOL. It's not bad to chew the seeds; they're just tart. So, it was true, don't chew parcha seeds, but they are edible. LOL. Anyway, we saw the cave, and we went back to the main trail. This is where it got so bad. LOL. We decided to go right, which was not back towards the car; it was further on the trail. We wanted to know what was after. After about 30 minutes of walking on this trail through the jungle, I said we should turn around because I am lazy, and the more we walk away from the car, the more we have to walk back. But they told me to "callete" (shut up), and we kept walking. Hahaha. So, we ended up walking around through the jungle for an hour and ended up in a giant field. We went through the field and ended up in another pueblo (town). Well, we pulled up Google Maps, and we were 4 miles from the car. So, instead of deciding to go back, we decided to walk around a mountain through the city, and we walked like 7 miles that day. LOL. It was so funny. Halfway through, I had to pee, and they were laughing so hard. LOL. My district is funny.

This is what I call the Elder Christensen evil week. He set up so many member presents. Direct extract from my journal:

"Well, as you all know, I am a picky eater... the pickiest. And well, Satan knows that. So what does he do? He gives me 5 member meals this week. Oh, querido... (It's actually not that difficult anymore since I've done it so much, but I still hate eating at people's houses).

Meal 1: Let's get into the food stories this week because, well, it's quite entertaining. So the only normal one was Tuesday. We had a member bring us pizza to our apartment, and she couldn't find it because it's in a maze (Puerto Rico neighborhoods are mazes, LOL). Anyways, she gets lost, 30 minutes later tells us to meet her at the church, so that was funny. Then we got fire pizza, and that was the most normal day we had with food. LOL.

Meal 2: On Wednesday, we had a member meal with the pagan family in Lechuga (it's the town name, which means lettuce). So, we get to their house, and they have a devil dog, I mean a devil dog, like came running out of the cage trying to bite us for no reason. Anyways, we end up eating with them. They gave us lettuce (salad), lasagna, tostones, and cake. So, I go and eat all the lasagna but 2 bites. I have 3 tostones, and then there's a salad, and they didn't give me dressing, and I don't know how to ask, so I just had plain lettuce. It was a horrible idea. A horrible idea. Literally just lettuce. Anyways, I end up eating all of it but 1 bite less than Elder Christensen. And they asked us (mainly just me) if we wanted seconds, and I said, "No, gracias. Estoy super lleno," and then I got made fun of for not being able to eat anything, which didn't make any sense because I little ate one bite less than my companion. So, meal number 2/5, I got made fun of like crazy in Spanish for not being able to eat anything as a gringo. LOL.

Meal 3: So, we go to this member's house who has a boyfriend because her husband died or something. I don't really know. Anyways, we go to their house, and we have to be super good and make a good impression because he is not a member. So, we have to try to be a good impression because he's not interested. They've been trying for a while, but he's just not interested. Anyways, we got there, and the food she made was my least favorite ever. Pollo guisado, which is chicken wings cooked in stew. Ew, I hate vegetables and chicken. Anyways, I put the chicken in my pocket. LOL. And I know I am good at it because my companion always asks when I do it, so that means I am sneaky. So, it's good because they don't notice. Hahahhahahahah. Anyways, I had chicken in my pocket for like an hour. LOLOLOLOLOL.

Meal 4: The poison. This is where the shiz went down. The shiz went down, dawg. So, we get there, these members are like super crazy. Last time we were at this dude's house, he was peeing with the door open. Anyways, she always makes super ghetto food, and it's like kinda wack and gross. Anyways, she loves my companion with her whole heart. Like, she always asks for him on the phone and talks to him. Anyways, she just loves Elder Christensen. But for some reason, she still doesn't know his name and she calls him Elder Jefferson. LOL. Anyways, she always makes him sit in the same spot, and they say the same joke: "Buen provecho... bon appétit." LOL. They laugh so hard, it's kinda funny, but only because they think it's so funny. Anyways, she takes these gross burgers and fries them in oil for like 2 minutes, and then they were soggy and cold still. LOL. Then, like all these toppings. Ew, it was so nasty, and it had so much mayo. We eat it all, and she's like, "Elder, ¿te gusta?" (Did you like it?) "Sí, hermana, me encanta." (Yes, I loved it.) And she's like, "Él siempre le gusta más." (He always likes it more. LOL.) So, she calls me out for not eating, which is wack because the only time I haven't eaten her food is when it was pollo guisado, which is horrible. Don't eat it. Anyways, it's wack. We get back to the church, and Elder Christensen runs to the toilet and just blows up the toilet. You heard about the terremoto (the earthquake in Puerto Rico). Ya tú sabes, that was Elder Christensen in the toilet. Hahahahah, jajajaja. Just kidding, but he exploded it. Then he came back and went straight back to the toilet, and I was like, "That's weird. I feel fine, but my stomach feels off and weird, but it doesn't hurt, just kinda funky." So, that was wack, but it was just cooking in my stomach trying to digest, I think. But it literally couldn't.

Meal 5: So, we have a meal that night of the shiz going down at 7 p.m. This chill white guy who speaks English and is working here gives us these nice steaks, and they're so yummy. BTW, I eat mustard with my steak, and apparently, that is weird. LOL. Aparentemente eso es loco, no sé. It's so wack. Apparently, I heard about that. LOL. Anyways, this guy gives me this fat steak, so I am just beefed the freak out that day with this wack island beef, and I'm over here dying. Then he had a bowl of assorted fruits, and I had this huge dead fruit fly in mine. It was so nasty. Then we go home, and it's 8:45, and my stomach is still feeling funky from the hamburger, but I haven't pooped or anything, and I can feel my stomach muscles started cramping. I think it was trying to digest. Anyways, we're done with missionary work. It's like 10, and we lay down in our bed, and I go, "I am going to blow my chunks." LOL. (Puke, only Lina knows and josh7013). Anyways, I went to blow my chunks, and I puked like 5 times in a row. Everything came out, and it was in my nose and all over the bathroom, and the toilet got it all over my garments. I was cleaning that up for a while. Meanwhile, my comp is just trying to sleep, and his greenie is puking. Jajaja. It was horrible. Anyways, don't eat Puerto Rican hamburger or steaks. It is not a good mix. But I know it was from the hamburger. They were funky. It just had to kick in. LOL.

Puking, lettuce with no dressing, chicken in my pockets, getting teased for not eating, fly in my food... it was a disaster. Anyways, the joke of Lechuga is "lechuga en lechuga" because we ate lettuce in a pueblo called Lechuga. LOL. Lettuce in lettuce.