Elder Tanner Christensen: Week 39

Pretty crazy week. On Monday night we had a lesson with Jose the investigator that smokes. He was watching his grandkids and couldn’t leave them alone. So we say to him, bring your grandkids. They can play while we talk. So we are talking and they are being rowdy so I say to them “hey be quiet. We are trying to baptize your grandpa. Take these markers and go to the other room and draw on the whiteboard.” That was my first mistake because these kids are 8 and 6 years old. So we leave them alone and have the lesson for like 30 minutes. At the end of the lesson we go and get them and they come running. I didn’t see the room where they were playing, but Elder Santos did. Jose asks if there was a problem and Elder Santos says no, so Jose and his grandkids leave. Then Elder Santos is like “Elder, there’s a huge problem” and we go into the room where they were playing and these 2 kids had drawn all over the walls with the markers. I almost had a heart attack. So we spent the rest of the night scrubbing the walls trying to get the marker off and it kind of came off, but oh well.

Tuesday in our district meeting Elder Savage made pancakes. Then after I went w Elder Loarte the Zone Leader for divisions. At the end of the day we played soccer in the church with a ton of investigators who were Peruvians. So it was me and 15 other Peruvians, but I actually scored 2-3 goals so I felt cool. Oh Thursday we had the interview for Jose’s baptism with President Feduska, who is President Smith’s councilor. So it went well but President Feduska told us he had to talk with President Smith to see if Jose could get baptized. So Thursday night and Friday morning were very stressful but then we found out on Friday that he could get baptized the next day. So we scrambled to get everything organized.

Saturday was a super special day and everything went super smooth with the baptism, which is a first. All Jose’s family came (all of his kids are members, but only 2 are active). His son Franco baptized him and Jose was so happy. Sunday morning gave me a scare too. We call Jose at 9 to make sure he comes on time to church at 9:30 to get confirmed and he’s like “yeah don’t worry”. So its 9:25 and all his kids show up without him. So we sprint to his house to find out where he was and then get to the chapel at 9:45. But luckily he was able to get confirmed after the sacrament. It was a relief and I was so happy.

Very good week.