Week 8 - Boulogne

What's up everyone? Another great week this week.

On Tuesday we had a District Meeting, as usual, and that was good way out in Belgrano, which is like an hour and a half away. Man, I miss having a car, riding the bus is quite strange sometimes.

Wednesday and Thursday, we had to run a ton of errands, we had to go to San Fernando, to the Mission Office because I had to do a bunch of stuff for my visa which stinks. It's because they spelled my name wrong on the forms the first time. On Wednesday night we did divisions, so Elder Moss was my companion for Wednesday and Thursday morning. We didn't have much time, but we were on our way to teach a lesson to a family, when we were sitting waiting for the train. Anyway, this dude comes up to us and says that we are awesome and that he's been to church before, and wants his kids to be like us. He says he wants to get baptized, but then like gets up and walks to the train. I look at Elder Moss and I'm like, "So are we going to chase after this guy or not?". So, I stand up to start chasing after him, but Elder Moss grabs me and says, "No leave him, that guy is drunk as skunk", which made me laugh but I realized he was right, that guy could barely walk, how did I not notice that? Later when we were teaching the family, they made us pancakes with dulce de leche, which was heavenly. On Thursday, when we were at the Mission Office, Elder Crandall (no not THAT Elder Crandall) had to go to the Immigrations Office and get my visa stuff all worked out, since he's one of the Mission Secretaries. That was all good, nothing went out of order, and my visa is done.

On Saturday morning we decided to go try and find less actives in the Villa Hildalgo. Now the Villas are the poorer parts of town, and let's just say I stuck out a lot. When we were walking through the Villa, I kept thinking to myself, "Man, my Spanish sucks, why can't I understand what any of these people on the streets are saying?" I asked Elder Telis and he's like, "Elder Christensen, you idiot, everyone in the Villa is from Paraguay, they're all speaking Guarani" [native american language] which I guess made me feel better, ahahah.

Saturday night, we had the my first baptism for a young kid named Rodrigo, whose 13. It was awesome, the Spirit was strong, and he's just a really good kid. On Sunday, we had to go check out a referral in the nice part of our area, and it was like a 30-minute bus ride there. Boy, this is one nice area. People are just out here casually driving lamborghinis and stuff. Anyway our investigator wasn't there, so that gives us an excuse to go back, but on the way back, we couldn't figure out which bus to take back, so we had to walk three miles back to the chapel to get all of our stuff. That was so long. Anyway, this week has been awesome.

Elder Tanner Christensen

For family:

1. How are your feet doing? Are your shoes comfortable? Are you mostly wearing your shoes or boots?

I wear my boots everyday except for Sundays and they're awesome and comfortable

2. Are any of the missionaries from the MTC in your district?

Yes, Elder Johnson is in Suarez which neighbors us

3. Have you heard anything interesting from any of your friends?

Nothing really

4. Is Katie a dork? She is reading over my shoulder right now and bugging me.

5. Have you felt scared at all? Like unsafe?

I felt weird in the Villa, but not scared as mentioned above

Week 7 - Boulogne

So there is saying in the mission that "the days feel like weeks, and the weeks feel like days",  and I definitely felt that this week. We have just been scrambling to get to appointments. The thing is normally everyday we have a ton of appointments, but no one actually shows up to them, so then we are just like. "Ok, what do we do now?". On a daily basis, we get up at 6:30am and get ready, exercise and study and get out the door.

This week we have been teaching a lot of people, we have been teaching that lady from last week, that offered me the cocaine, and she has actually really been wanting to change her life and come to church. The only problem is that she's on house arrest and wears an ankle monitor, which makes it so she can't go further than 50 meters from her house.

We have also been teaching a kid named Rodrigo, whose 13, and we have a baptism date scheduled with him for this Saturday, which was supposed to be last Saturday, but I'll elaborate on that later.

We are also have been teaching a guy named Lucas, where more in reality Elder Telis has been teaching him, because this guy already has like a super-deep knowledge of the Bible, but is actually super into the Book of Mormon. Sometimes they'll stray into super-deep topics and I get very lost in the Spanish.

Friday we had a Zone Conference in San Fernando, which is like 2 hours away, and that was really fun. We just listened a bunch to President and Hermana Smith and the Assistants and Zone Leaders. I finally got to give Elder Byers his package! Anyway, the lunch was super-good there, which was my favorite part. After the Zone Conference we were supposed to have a Baptismal Interview with Rodrigo, as mentioned before. So, we went to our area and I went off with Elder Moss and Elder Telis and Elder Vasquez, the District Leader, went to go do the interview. So Elder Moss and I were just contacting in his area for a while. But, it turns out Telis and Vasquez didn't make it to Rodrigo's house in time to do the interview, so we have to do it next week.

On Sunday, we went to church, as usual everything is good. And after we went to Ward Council, and like I don't know why you're always complaining about Ward Council, Dad, that was awesome. We had empanadas, Coke, and popcorn, it was sweet. And the ward is really good about helping us teach and giving us references because it's really hard to get street contacts because people are kind of mean, to be honest.

Elder Telis wants me to add the fact that he continues to meg me (when your opponent kicks the ball between your legs, and then runs around and gets it again) and break my ankles when we play soccer, but after this, we are about to go play Basketball at the Chapel, so that will quiet him down.

For Family:

This week was good, but a little harder, I miss you guys a lot. It was fine in the CCM, because I had a bunch of people to talk to, and i really liked my district, but now nobody speaks English, and I feel a little alone sometimes. But the work is good and exciting, love you guys!

Elder Telis (Trainer, from Montevideo, Uruguay), Brother & Sister Echaverria, Elder Christensen

Apartment in Boulogne Area

Apartment in Boulogne Area

View from the apartment in Boulogne Area

Boulogne Area

Week 6 - Boulogne

What's up everyone? The first week out in the field was literally insane... But let me start back before we left the MTC: On our last Sunday it was really awesome, we gave out blessings to our companions to prepare for the field, and we had a great Testimony Meeting. Monday night was the last night before everyone left, so we could basically have as much ice cream as we wanted. I ate like 7 fudge bar thingys, and that was awesome, but those fudge bars would come back to haunt me later.

All the missionaries at the Argentine MTC that left on August 7th, 2018

MTC District of 13 missionaries. 9 of them went continued on to the Buenos Aires
North Mission together, the others to various other missions in Argentina.

On Tuesday morning President and Sister Smith, who are in charge of the whole Buenos Aires North Mission, came and picked us up from the MTC. We rode in a huge van with them to the Mission Home, and let me tell you this is the first of many experiences I've already had with crazy Argentine drivers. Traffic is crazy, and the drivers are insane. Those fudge bars were about to spilled all over the van. But, thankfully we made it to the Mission Home in time for me not to puke.

We get to the Mission Home and do some paperwork, have some interviews, and eat some awesome empanadas and do a little training. Then the moment of truth, when we find out who our first companion is, and my trainer's name is Elder Damian Telis. He's from Montevideo, Uruguay and guess what, he doesn't speak a lick of English, so that has made things interesting these first couple of days. Anyway, we leave from the Mission Home and go to our first area. The name of the area we are in is "Boulogne" and we are in the Buenos Aires North stake. We show up to our first apartment, and man, this place looked like a murder scene, I mean it was worse in there than after Hurricane Katrina hit. Broken glass everywhere, and just super small, none of the light bulbs actually worked. We just got to work cleaning it up, and made it look all spiffy.

First apartment: 575 Virrey Vértiz, Boulogne, Buenos Aires

Elder Tellis & Elder Christensen, probably at the Mission
Home or LDS Chapel near the Mission Home?

Wednesday was business as usual, we went out and got to know as many members as we could. We are opening a new area here in the Boulogne ward because missionaries haven't been here in a while, so we have got a lot to do. We went and had lunch with a member, and just talked with everybody we saw. It turns out it's a lot easier to talk about the church when you have someone that actually speaks Spanish. 😮

Wednesday night, we get a call that says we have to move out of the apartment into a new one which I wasn't too sad about. Thursday morning, we get up and pack, and a moving truck comes and these dudes come and just start moving all the stuff, so I was like "cool, let's move!" So we move all this heavy furniture, and mind you this is on the second floor, with some super-narrow staircases that's really scary. Finally, after like 2 hours, we have everything packed up and in the moving truck. Then, the owner of the apartment shows up, and says that most of the furniture belongs to him, not the church. So then we have to take all the furniture back up to the apartment, so that wasn't fun. Our new apartment is nice and pretty modern, and its got a McDonald's around the corner. The only downside is that it's actually outside of our area, and like a forty minute bus ride to the Chapel. On Thursday night we had Zone Conference, and introduction thing, like 1 hour away. There I got to meet up with Elder Byers because he's my Zone Leader, so that was cool too.

Apartment: 4666 Villa Ballester, Buenos Aires

Friday was such a long day. We had to run a ton of errands to get our visas done or whatever. So we rode a train basically to San Fernando and had to stop at a bunch of different places and then wait for like 3 hours in the Argentine version of the DMV.

Saturday was normal, we just proselyted, met with a bunch of investigators and members.

Sunday was cool, went to church and all the members are all super-nice to the fact that I don't really speak Spanish. Sunday night we were prosletying, and this is my funny language mistake for the week. We were walking home and this lady calls out from across the street asking how tall I was. So, we go over and she's super-nice, she's just chilling out there, cooking some asado. We start talking to her, and she was really receptive and she tells us about how her life is kind of hard. She keeps saying that she likes "merca" and I have no idea what "merca" is. So, I just nod my head and say "que bueno." Then she says do you want some "merca", and I say "sure" trying not to be rude or anything, and I'm genuinely curious what kind of food "merca" is. So, then my companion jumps in and pulls me away and says "no thanks, we don't want any merca". and we start walking away from this lady rather hastily. I'm like, "come on man, I was teaching that lady", well then he tells me how "merca" means cocaine and that that lady is a coke addict. So, that was funny.

Boulogne Ward Chapel, 1309 Olazábal Boulogne Buenos Aires

P-day (Preparation Day, Monday, is the day off to do errands, shopping, etc) was good we did some shopping, and it's nice everything is pretty cheap here. Then we played some soccer at the church with the other elders in our district. And we got some Burger King, which was soooo good.

Anyways, I love my mission so far, go read John Chapter 8, verses 1 through 11, it's one of my favorite passages in the New Testament. bye

Family update:

1) What is your companions name?
Elder Damian Telis

2) Where is he from?
Montevideo, Uruguay

3) How tall is he?
178 cm = 5'10"

4) What is he like, what does he like to do?
He's really hard-working and funny, at first it was hard, but I can understand him better everyday. He really likes soccer, and likes to drink matte

5) How many brothers and sisters does he have?
5 siblings, he's the second oldest

6)  Do you knock on doors mostly or just talk to people in the town square?
When we do proselyte, we mainly street contact. We try to find investigators from the area book because they are usually more receptive

Week 5 1/2 - Your Missionary Has Arrived in the Buenos Aires North Mission!

Dear parents,

Your missionary has arrived to the great Buenos Aires North mission! He arrived safely on Tuesday and met his mission president, President Smith. They enjoyed a lunch together; later he was assigned to serve with his new companion, and they are now working together in their area!

We’ve attached a photo of your missionary with President and Sister Smith, as well as a picture of the group at the 3 de Febrero Park, where South America was dedicated for missionary work in 1925 by Elder Marvin G. Ballard.

If you have any questions about the mission, feel free to respond to this e-mail. Thank you!

Elderes Crandall y Mitchell

Secretarios de Visas y Viajes

Misión Buenos Aires Norte

1122821607

Week 5 - Buenos Aires Argentina MTC

What's up everyone, the last full week in the MTC has been pretty sweet. [PARENT NOTE: He leaves the MTC next Tuesday, August 7th, to go to his actual mission, Buenos Aires North.] On Thursday night we ate shark which was really cool and I felt awesome, but then they actually told us it was fish, so that was disappointing. 

So it's been raining a ton, in the beginning of the week, like raining all day non-stop. On Saturday we went proselyting in the west part of Buenos Aires in one of the nicer neighborhoods actually, which was disappointing because I kind of wanted to get mugged. So anyways, it was raining all day on Saturday, and we were trying to teach people, so we wander into a guitar shop and I start playing guitar and Elder Peterson is playing the ukulele. We start talking to the worker about the church and it turns out he's been like to 4 years of religious school and he kind of starts roasting, us so we are like, dang let's get out of here. So, we are walking around not really having much success, so we go eat lunch, at guess where, McDonalds, but we didn't have enough money to buy anything, so we just ate our sack lunches in McDonalds just to get out of the rain. But then after McDonalds, I was like, man this is hard, so Elder Peterson and I said a prayer and I was reminded me of a scripture in Mosiah 25 or 26 i can't remember right now, but it's basically when Alma and his followers were in bondage to the wicked priests of King Noah, and they prayed for help and strength, and their burdens were made light. The Lord didn't deliver them right away, but he helped them progress through their struggles which is how I felt on Saturday afternoon. We didn't have a ton of success, but we had a good time proselyting and learned a lot. OK, back to the story so after McDonalds we go to a grocery store to get some candy, naturally. but as we are walking in, we bump into this one lady and start talking to her about the church and she's really interested, so we gave her a pass-along card and got her information. So it turns out my sweet tooth was a blessing. And plus, I bought a bunch of candy, so we killed two birds with one stone, and there will be more mentioned about said candy later. Later that day we go into another guitar shop, different than the one in the morning, but then this guitar shop guy started roasting us even worse than the first guitar guy, he just kept calling us a bunch of "Shankees", and I didn't know what that even meant, so I was just sitting there thinking the whole conversation,  "What does Shankee mean?", but then it dawned on me, that he was saying "Yankee" but with an Argentine accent, but anyway we didnt necessarily have a lot of success, but it was a good time for sure. [PARENT NOTE: Argentine Spanish uses a "Shhh" sound whenever there is a "Y" or a double "L".]

In other news, we had a different teacher for most of the week in the afternoon because our main teacher was gone. His name was Hermano Gallegos, and lets just say he was a little nervous because he had never taught a North American group yet, and his english was a little shaky. [PARENT NOTE: In the MTC, classes are divided into native Spanish speakers, that stay 3 weeks, and North Americans, that stay 6 weeks.] So naturally, we have to do the "Rats in the ceiling" prank to him. So I get up there saying there was a rat, and then I throw a sock at him and he literally screamed, and there's probably a 73 percent chance he had a heart attack, so that was really funny. But actually he did a really good job teaching and we really enjoyed having him. We were learning the "Past Subjunctive" tense this week which was stupid, like,  why does Spanish have so many different tenses? I've decided I might have to be like Kevin from the office. I don't if any of you have seen that show, but theres an episode where he talks super-simple and he says "Why say many word when few word does trick?" and I might have to just do that with Spanish. 

Oh guess what? I also ate a spider this week. Easiest three dollars I have ever made. Maybe I'll turn into Spiderman, who knows?

So back to the story about the candy I bought. On Monday I think, we were playing basketball during outside time and Elder Smith says that if he makes a full-court shot, that he gets my dessert at the next meal, and guess what, he swishes it. It wasn't like totally suprising you know, Elder Smith played basketball in High School and I was like, oh well. It turns out he was nice enough and didn't make me give him my dessert. So then a similar bet comes up between me and Elder Dardon, who is from Guatemala.  He says that if I make a full-court shot, I get to have his whole dinner that night, and if he makes it, he gets my whole dinner. I'm like easy, there's nothing to lose here. Elder Dardon couldn't make a full-court shot, heck he couldn't even make a layup to save his life. So I go first and I miss my shot, so, no harm no foul there, I figure. But then Elder Dardon gets up and shoots a line drive and of course he swishes it, nothing but net. So I don't wanna give up my dinner, so we make a compromise, that I give him the rest of my candy, which was like two candy bars, so that was really sad.

Anyways, it was a fun week, and my time at the MTC is winding down. I leave next Tuesday for Buenos Aires Norte, I think the mission home is in San Fernando (on the north side of Buenos Aires) which is like an hour and a half drive. It's been a great week, and I love sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ. Miss you guys!

Elder Tanner Christensen

For Family:

Do you think you guys could attach a couple pics to the big email, thanks. And Dad, it's funny you sent that Elder Holland quote because we watched two Elder Holland Devotionals this week, and he said that line you sent "Salvation is not a cheap experience", and that has kind of been an inside joke in our district ,whenever somebody says something is hard. Not much to say, it's all in the big email I guess.