Week 17 - Boulogne

This week has been pretty crazy, to say the least.

Monday night, I ate something really funky, I think it was the chicken, but anyways you know how it is when you eat something like that and your stomach gets the rumblies. So on Tuesday we are riding the bus, and its super packed, and super hot and I'm just thinking that I'm gonna have to barf out the window or something, but luckily I made it back to the apartment in time to barf there, but now I feel fine, so don't worry.

Tuesday night and Wednesday in Chacarita which is in the city, and i went out with Elder Perry who's cool. They have the Area Offices, so I met Max's Great Uncle and Great Aunt, that was cool they were nice.

Also with Elder Perry, in his area, we went to this super-sketchy Cilla and everyone wanted to talk to me, I was famous it was awesome. I know how celebrities feel now, like all these kids were swarming me, and these drunk dudes kept wanting to talk to me but Elder Perry said no.  Anyways, we have just been working really hard one of our investigators had a baptismal date for this Saturday, but still had a lot of doubts and didn't pass the interview, so that was sad but we are gonna keep working with him.

Saturday we had an open house in the Chapel, which was pretty good, and we had a decent amount of people, and got some good references that we are going to try and work with.

Transfers are tomorow morning, and the most likely thing is that I stay here in this area for another transfer, but who knows anything could happen.

For Family:

What's up guys? I was just was thinking this week about how much I miss you guys, not in like a sense that I'm homesick, just that I am really appreciative of you all, hope you have a good week!

Week 16 - Boulogne

What's up? Everything has been going great, we had two baptisms this week and I baptized them both. The first, is a lady named Isabel, who is a friend of two members in the ward, and she is super nice and sweet and really receptive to the gospel the whole time and there was a bunch of people that came to her baptism too.

The second is another lady, named veronica, but she doesn't act like a lady haha. We contacted her in the street a while back and she gets really mad if we use "usted" with her instead of "vos" form... And she always calls us "che", which means dude, all the time and she's super funny and weird in a good way. Anyway, when I was baptizing her the water was a little cold and she put one foot in and then ran out, and I'm like "noooo" but then i finally convinced her to come back and everything was good. She brought 10 family members and friends to her baptism so that was awesome.

We have been working really hard to do a ton of visits with the members but the thing is that no one here in Argentina shows up on time, so we have just been telling them to show up an hour earlier than the appointment actually is, and that has been working well.

Friday we had interviews with President Smith and that like ate up all of our morning and afternoon because he was running two hours late. Oh yeah, and guess what, I was walking out of the church and a freaking dog bit me in the leg twice, like ever since I got to ArgentinaIi have grown to hate dogs because everyone single freaking person has a scary pitbull or something that will never shut up barking. But anyways this dog bit, me and ripped my pants, which I was real mad about, and who knows, maybe I'll get rabies now, oh well.

Sunday was Mother's Day here, and our Ward Mission Leader invited us over for a huge asado with all of his family and it was so good, there was so much food and I ate so much. An asado is basically where they just roast a ton of super good meat.

Anyways, another good week, and this will be my last week with Elder Telis because transfers are next week, so it will be interesting to see who is my comp next.

Elder Christensen

For Family:

Everything is going well, nothing to complain about, hope you guys are just ballin there.

Week 15 - Boulogne

Everything has been good this week, we have a ton of people who are preparing to get baptized and have a ton of cool investigators.

All the weeks are kind of starting to blend together now, but this week we had Zone Conference on Tuesday, which was fun, and then we did splits with the District Leader in Villa Adalina, and I got swarmed by a bunch of kids in the Villa because I'm really tall, but nothing really happened, I mean just another normal week, I guess.

This week in Ward Council, shots were being fired left and right, it was nuts, like people just going off on rants, but the moral of the story is that the ward is really excited and passionate about helping the missionaries, so that's a win. I hope everything is going well for everyone of you all.

Elder Tanner Christensen

For Family:

 

Everything is going well, nothing to complain about, hope everything is going well for you guys!

Week 14 - Boulogne

Hello everyone another great week has passed by, we are doing just fine.

Not really much to talk about except General Conference was really awesome this weekend.  2 hour church!!! How exciting, except now in the mission, I really enjoy 3 hour church, because, one, it's a break from walking, and two, the chapel has air conditioning.

I really enjoyed all of the talks that were given, my favorite was the one given by Elder Soares in the Saturday Afternoon session about a lot of time new members and investigators feel lost and we need to help them and fellowship them... I just wish all of our members of the ward had been there to listen to it, haha.

NOTE: Here's a link to the talk by Elder Soares he mentions

We have this crazy investigator named Veronica who actually is really nice and stuff, but she literally never stops talking, and I never know what to expect from her. So on Sunday she offers to give us ride to General Conference with her and her neighbor, and I'm like,  "Sweet, this will be awesome we don't have to take the collectivo [shared taxi]." But, then in the morning when we were driving with her I really regretted that decision because she was a horrible driver and kept going down one-way streets the wrong way, and things like that. So that was interesting.

We did a pre-baptismal interview with her and everything was going well until we got to question 4. which asks if they've ever committed a serious crime. And guess what, of course she answered "Yes" and so now we don't know what to do because she won't tell us what it was so, haahaha, it's just a crazy situation. But, we have another investigator Isabel who is getting baptized on the 19th, for sure, and she is so excited for that, and we are too.

Anyway, everything is good, and guess what we are going bowling later today, and I'm gonna school all these latin fools. :)

Elder Tanner Christensen

Elder Christensen with the Uruguayan National Flag.  His Grandfather Mark Spear served in Uruguay, and his current companion and trainer, Elder Tellis, is Uruguayan. 

At a birthday party for one of the Elders in his Zone

Baptismal Picture From Last Week's Baptism of Milagros, from Peru

Tanner wrote that this news article sums up being a missionary in Argentina, it says, "The Majority of Argentines Believe that They are Punctual, But They Arrive Late to Appointments".

Week 13 - Boulogne

What's up? Another good week in Buenos Aires. We had such a crazy week this week, but the highlight was that we baptized and confirmed Milagros which was sweet. Everything went super well with the baptismal service, before and after. Except for one minor thing that happened before, haha, as we were filling up the font I opened the window right next to the font because it was getting steamy, but the window fell down on my thumb and literally like chopped off part of my thumb and started gushing blood into the font so that was kind of crazy, but anyways back to the point, Milagros baptism was really awesome and very spiritual, Elder Telis baptized her and then I confirmed her on Sunday. Then later Sunday night she texts us asking us what she needs to do to prepare to go on a mission herself and Elder Telis and I got so excited, and plus as a bonus she's going to make us some really good Peruvian food next week!

Everything else is going well, we have got some other good investigators, and we had ten investigators at church on Sunday which is a lot. My favorite is this father and son and they're really interested in strengthening their family and they're both capos. [Really cool] 

 

Hmmm, trying to think of funny things, on Tuesday there was a ton of protests and strikes, so there was no public transport, whatsoever, so we hired a taxi to get to our area and we felt pretty cool for doing that.

Oh yeah, on the train ride back to our areas we were with Elder Palacios and he's trying to learn English and anyway he bent over on the train, and then he was like "uh oh Elder I have accident in my pants" and i just look at Elder Johnson and I'm like, "what really??", but it turns out he was just trying to say that he ripped his pants, so we had a good laugh out of that. Yeah, everything is good down here in Argentina nothing to complain about.

for family:

Everything is good, can't complain, the Spanish is getting better every week, I miss you guys, hope everything is going well!

Elder Christensen

Elder Christensen at the Buenos Aires Argentina Temple

Elder Tanner J Christensen, CCM/MTC in Buenos Aires

Elder Christensen and Elder Tellis

Elder Christensen, Tellis and 2 other Elders in the Zone?

First apartment, they only lived here for a few days before moving

First apartment, they only lived here for a few days before moving

First apartment, they only lived here for a few days before moving

First apartment, they only lived here for a few days before moving

First apartment, they only lived here for a few days before moving

First apartment, they only lived here for a few days before moving

Elder Tellis & Christensen at the local chapel?

Display at the local LDS church, the Elders cut out pictures from the Ensign to use as their pictures, those aren't real photos of them 

Elder Christensen and Tellis w/ other members of the District?

Elder Tellis and Christensen

Out in the streets of Buenos Aires, springtime, the winter is nearly over!