PHONECALL PHOBIA

"HOLA? HOLA?" "...." "QUIEN ES?" ".....oh, there we go, my headset is plugged in now" "NO HABLO INGLES!" "Sorry- I mean, Lo siento..." "QUE QUIERE?" "uh.... Hola, puedo hablar con... Ricardo?" "Si, de parte?" "uh......(hey, Elder, what's de parte mean? oh, ok, thanks) Uh, the, I mean, la Iglesia de Jesu Christo de los...."

I hate calling people in Spanish. BUT I DID DO ONE COMPLETELY IN SPANISH, THE WHOLE CALL, AND GOT THE GUY TO SAY HE'D GO TO CHURCH WITH HIS MEMBER PARENTS IN GUADALAJARA WHILE HE'S ON VACATION! At least I think I did. I didn't really understand him even when he tried to speak English, and I think he was maybe just messing with me, and I think I that was actually last week, and I probably already told you about it, but whatever, I DID do a whole conversation in Spanish, once... BOOM!

Well, this has been a week. Good stuff, hard stuff. Challenges and good times. I decided the best way to deal with this all is to follow the advice given in our Mission Conference this Sunday: One lady said "LIGHTEN UP" and stop worrying about everything. The Lord's in charge, just smile and work! That, and laugh lots -- both key parts of this work, the work of our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. This is after all the plan for us, to have eternal happiness and joy with them and our families forever, right? Start teaching people through a smile and a happy attitude, with a testimony of the truth right behind.

TWO MORE WEEKS!!!!!! GAHHHH!! ES LOCO!! Am I ready? I GET MY FLIGHT PLANS THIS FRIDAY!!! Ok, actually, I just get my bus ticket. Everyone else gets their flight plans. Plus side, I can bring luggage that doesn't have size or weight restrictions. Which means all the stuff everyone else can't fit in their bags.... More people left this week from our zone – it’s crazy, we are the "oldest" district in our zone, our 8 people. And all the others above us are gone. Quite sad, we had a 26 year old, Elder Clemmence, who was the coolest shower singer EVER, he'd put on concerts every night while he showered, we could hear him all over the floor, very good singer belting out "WHEN THE MOON MEETS THE SKY, LIKE A BIG PIZZA PIE...." or practically any song imaginable. Gone. Sad. And many more friends. Off to Chile, Florida, California, Mexico...

Hmm, well, other news... oh man, ok, missionary work this week (ha, ok, its ALL missionary work, but) on Sunday, I decided I wanted to make a phone call in the Referral Center, apart from the ones I HAVE to do in Spanish. So I did some in English. And I got one guy, Herman, from Ohio. Sounded quite Evangelical, 68 years old. His wife is basically in a coma I think, and he spends all day taking care of her. So, he has time to spare, and DEFINITELY has time to talk about God. I spoke to him for about 30 minutes. He accepted a Book of Mormon from missionaries 4 years ago, but didn’t let them in because he was busy. He says he's read it some over the years and liked it. We had a good conversation where he went off talking about God and the world and such and "I lik' what you sayin', exactly!" when I talked about following God. I shared the Joseph Smith story because he was talking about people interpreting the Bible all different ways. He only interrupted me like two times to tell an unrelated story. But I told him to read 3 Nephi (which he looked up while I spoke) and I'm calling him back tomorrow to talk more. SWEET!

Also, they have a teaching situation called "Progressing Investigators" here. There are a lot of practice sessions we do teaching other missionaries or a teacher or something, but to make it more realistic for us, they bring in 8 “actors” (who are actually people who are converts to the church). They "live" in one of the buildings, and act like normal people out in the real world, who we can go contact and teach. They NEVER break role - if you pretend to hand them a Book of Mormon or something, they look at you like you are stupid. They act like the hallways are their neighborhood and go visit each other. Way cool. HARD. Our guy is "from Italy" and we're teaching him in Spanish. He likes to argue, and last time he taught us a 20 minute history lesson of the Catholic Church. We managed to get him to take a book of Mormon at the last minute, but dang, it was hard. Very cool though. More about him later, we’ll see if we can get him to try praying and realize that God loves him...

Alright, time's going down. Hmm, OH GENERAL CONFERENCE IS ALMOST HERE! I'm not sure I've ever appreciated it like I do now. We have a prophet on the earth, and the 12 Apostles, speaking to us this weekend. We can watch conference on the internet or via satellite at our church buildings or our homes all over the entire world, translated in every language. It’s incredible. I extend the same invitation that my Seminary teacher, Sister Greco, gave me once: pray, and come to conference with questions that we want answered, and they will be answered in some way. It’s a promise, and I know it’s been true for me. I challenge all of you to do it!

All right, I must be go. Thank you all for your letters and love. Thank you Grandma Pat for taking all my stuff to OGDEN! Alright, Love you all, and good week to all of you! -Elder Christopher Thelin

STIR CRAZY

Halloo, out there... in the real world...

I must say, we are beginning to get a little tired of being here... the MTC is great, don't get me wrong, but we still are studying for like 14 hours a day... we're kinda at the point where we start laughing at a lot of things, and such, and simutaneously panic at how "not-native" we are at Spanish... but we're sticking together. It's weird seeing missionaries we know heading off. We've seen at least 3 districts of native speakers come in and out [the native Spanish speaking missionaries only stay at the MTC for 3 weeks]. It's kinda like a whole other missionary farewell kind of feeling, but it happens every week. This Elder to Korea, oh, you're off to Russia, Brazil, Florida, etc etc. Yikes.

Our English feast [I think he meant "fast"] is just about 100% of the time. Ok, yes, I'm kidding, but we are going to be awesome at it this week. We have figured out many wonderful things about Spanish, such as that all "v"s are pronounced as the English "b". A popular phrase one of our teachers says is "a ver" or "Let's see" which sounds like "a bear!". To which about everyone in our class shouts "WHERE?" or "DONDE?" or "RUN!" "Polar, or grizzly?" "Cual? A ver? a Verdad?" (Koal-a bear? a Bear-dad? Papa bear?) Hmm, maybe you just have to be here to understand... we have several bears one of the hermanas (Hermana Brodegard) drew that are taped up around the class to mock our teacher, cause he can't really speak without saying one of the "ver"s... yeah, ok, you just have to be here. Like I said, we need to get outta here...



But it's going pretty good. To our absolute terror, we are now in our 6th week, which means all of our phone calls at the Referral Center are entirely in Spanish. Yeah. Great idea.... So far this week I've misinterpreted the phrase "No hablo Eeenglish!" for "Oh, we can talk in English!", forgot my name (in both languages) and etc, etc. I DID do one ENTIRE call in Spanish though, so VERY satisfying. I hope the guy wasn't lying to me just to be nice, but he said he would have the missionaries come over in April, after he gets back from vacation in Guadalajara (spelling?) - while he's there he said his parents go to the LDS Church, and he'd go with em once or twice. I'm deciding to believe that.... in any case I talked about that in SPANISH, so I think the Lord will help something come of that success.... but YIKES, frightening.

Hm, I had a whole paper of cool stuff to write, and left it upstairs in my room. Phooey. Well, hm, lets see... Sunday was pretty good, we got to attend the Draper Temple Dedication service via satellite. It was actually surprising, seeing 2000 guys - I mean, Elders and Sisters - being that quiet for an hour beforehand and all throughout. The meeting was very good. Many talks about temples and their importance on the earth. Families can be together forever because of the Lord's power to unite them together after this life. Afterwards, as we walked out into the sunlight, I looked up, and the sun was lighting the clouds - you know, towards evening, late afternoon, when the whiter puffier clouds look like they are edged with gold? Hard to explain, but as I watched them while walking, I really felt that God lives, and that we came from, and are looking up and forwards to a brighter, lighter heavenly home, to dwell with our Father in Heaven someday.


(the Draper, Utah Temple)

Also that day, we walked up and around the Provo temple - beacuse we could, and, well, its a chance to see something else... at the time, Provo was having what I understand is like fog, but the clouds are dust... basically, brownish smog. Ugh. But we went up and walked around the temple, singing hymns in a quartet in Spanish (my companion is WAY into singing and music - EVERYWHERE). But while we were there, the sun burst through, and lit up the temple. The valley below and all around was in fog, but at the Lord's temple, it was lit by sunlight. It was like we had come out of the world and were on top of the world, surrounded by mountains, closer to God. Cool stuff.






Well, I have 4 minutes. hmm. I think all else I wanted to say was, THANK YOU for everyone's letters this week. They always seem to come exactly when I need them, with what I need. Baby Colton looks just like Mike, congrats Angela and Mike, he's awesome already. Heidi, THANK YOU for the family home evening letter! I haven't gotten to read it but I definitely will soon! I miss you all, and it's weird thinking you are all just living normal life, but I hope all is well for you! I know that our Heavenly Father lives. He loves us. He is aware of us, and wants to help us with all He has. Jesus Christ is our Savior. He always is there waiting for us to come, and He will heal us. This is His work and His glory.

LOVE YOU ALL,
ELDER THELIN

COMING TO CHRIST

Good day, all ye friends and family, on this fine Dia de San Patrick!

Feelin' green? THANKS for the St. Patty's package, with all the green candy and such - Thin Mints are amazing, mmmm... my little green hat was also a hit. (I didnt wear it for long, but it is truly amazing).



Well, what a week... Joey, you are right, the phenomenon holds true, Days are like weeks and the weeks are like days. So strange. We all feel like we were just writing emails yesterday... yet every day drags... WEIRD.

Missionary life is definitely unique. I'm again here in the laundry room, watching people as my like gazillion loads of white shirts get dry. In one corner, there are some elders stomping on top of dryers to Battle Hymn of the Republic while others rock out. In another corner, some Elders are trying to sing a 4-part cacophony- I mean harmony - to all the hymns in the hymnbook. My companion who has perfect pitch and can sing any note on command is trying to help out the tenor line... spirit that counts, right? A sign on the wall talking about how you can use half the soap for just as clean laundry has "graffiti" in every laungage that is taught here (like 150 different ones) scribbled on it. The graffiti says:

"It's a miracle!"

"a MILAGRO!!"

"Skdfjowe sldkf kdfj (probably means miracle).

Ah yes gotta love it.

We also are supposed to be speaking solo en espanol. Cough cough. Yes. Yes we are. Our "English-fast" is somewhat broken, over and over. You just really can't have conversations in Spanish about the deep significance of people gaining weight, fattening up on MTC food to feed the world like gospel ham. You CAN'T, i PROMISE. Spanish also makes all this teaching stuff harder. We are now teaching only in Spanish, even if the in between speech is a little Gringo still... we found out you can practice teaching people and the class can watch you from a one-way mirror room kinda deal. Way cool. While one group was "teaching" our teacher, Hermano Johnson, they mixed up two awesome scriptures. Mormon 8:3 doesn't quite say the same thing as Moroni 8:3, EVEN in Spanish.... but for the most part, we're learning pretty well. We've been doing something cool - practicing teaching other missionaries, but NOT using "scenarios" - not telling them to be pretend to be from a certain denomination, or have a problem with smoking or drinking - but to just be missionaries, and WE go and TEACH them as missionaries, to them FOR REAL, doing what we can to bring a fellow missionary closer to Christ. It's interesting. I'm finding I care a lot more about the people I'm teaching, because I'm actually helping a real person come unto Christ a little more. That's how every appointment in the field will be. Sweet!

Viva la Vida is a wonderful song. I miss it. Heard it while we were at Physical Therapy with my companion for his foot. I plugged ONE ear... but the other one may have gotten it stuck in my head... oops. Ahhh.

Kimmy: THANKS for the cookies, muy delicioso, galletas are awesome!
Family: SANDY'S SANDBOX????????? Fred and the other dude look pretty sweet, I laughed really hard at that blog...
Joey: you speak the truth. I take comfort in your district's lack of resolve to speak Spanish too. Hopefully we do better...

SO last week we had the most amazing devotional, like always. Way cool. Elder Hamula of the 70. Best speaker ever. He clearly showed us why this Gospel needs to be preached. I'm not sure I've ever understood like that night. Everyone in this world has two "deaths," so to speak, because of Adam and Eve. We all shall physically die, and we all spiritually die, or are separated from the presence of Heavenly Father for a time. Jesus Christ is our Savior - He overcame these deaths. Physical death is overcome for ALL, ALL are resurrected, the righteous and the wicked. We all receive an immortal body. EVERYONE overcomes this separation and returns to the Father--to be judged. The thing is, NOT everyone can STAY. This is so powerful. It is only those who have been cleansed through Jesus Christ, baptized by His authority, and made perfect through Him that come home to Father and can stay. All else must leave, forever. How awful that is to think about - and how important is our work - to prepare all men to be able to stay and live with our Heavenly Father and our family forever in joy! This is what I am doing. It's intimidating, but it's so exciting too.

On Sunday, our Devotional was about music. At the begininng we sang "We Are As the Army of Helaman" like we all used to at EFY and stuff. It was so cool, because as the words came up on the screen, the words were changed from "we will be the Lord's missionaries" to "we ARE NOW the Lord's missionaries." And it was cool, because we were 2000 strong, an army like Helaman's army of young righteous men in the cause of the Lord, now finally His missionaries, fulfilling the dream we sang about as kids. Way cool.

Yup. Good week. It's been rough. But I know that when we choose faith and move forward, God will be on our side. He lives. He is our Father. I challenge everyone to read Isaiah 54 in the Bible (or also, 3 Nephi:22 in the Book of Mormon, where Isaiah's words are read to the Nephite people of Ancient America). It's beautiful - these are the Savior's words to all of us. After it's all over, the Lord will gather us with everlasting mercies, and His kindness shall not depart from us. Beautiful. This is His work. Christ lives. He is our Savior, our Friend. I'm grateful to be here.
LOVE YOU ALL,
ElDER CHRISTOPHER THELIN

TODO EN ESPANOL Y UNICORNS

Hola mi familia!
Como estan? No puedo hablar en ingles, es un regla de mi distrito. Este es semana cuatro, y tenemos un ayuno de ingles.

Hahaha, but it doesnt matter cause I'm TYPING this. Ok, so, this is finally the famed FOURTH WEEK: NO ENGLISH. Ok, so we've only done that about half the time so far, but the idea is, we begin our "fast from English" for the next 2 years starting yesterday. Intense. I really wish I could say more in Spanish, but I guess that's why we need to ditch the English... won't learn until we do! But man, annoying. It's crazy to think that the Lord has called me to TEACH in this language, it's going to take a lot of work and praying for the gift of tongues! I'm also convinced that whatever I learn here is going to be NOTHING like the Spanish I hear in the field. I had to make a call IN SPANISH at the Referral Center (hard enough when its in English!) and I managed to ask to speak to Maria so and so, and felt cool, when she said: "De parte?" "Que?" "De parte.....? De parte, de parte... lsdkfjowiejhfgosiehfgowejf de parte....?" "Uhhhh, un momentito..." take the headset off and chuck it to a native speaker in the room with a Heeeellllp.... Luckily our weekly goal of one call in spanish a week didnt specify a conversation or not, just the call... muy scary...

So, this week, hmm.. well, after the last email on Tuesday, we had our Weekly Tuesday Devotional, which was amazing. Elder Yoshihiko Kikuchi of the Quorum of the Seventy spoke(our church is organized like the church Christ set up anciently --see Luke 10:1) . Never heard of him before. And of course that means he is now like my favorite speaker. He talked a lot about some really cool things, which I don't have enough time to tell, but he really highlighted Christ. We should picture the Savior in all we do, watching over us, - because He IS always there! He is watching us, guiding us, leading us always, even when we don't always see or recognize it. Elder Kikuchi shared a ton; he told his conversion story - as a young boy in Japan, during WW2, his father was killed by a torpedo. He had to work for his family, still in middle school, and barely slept. He worked so hard he got very sick, and should have died. Though he was a Buddhist, in the hospital one night he prayed "Great Spirit, save my life and I will repay you." He lived. One week later, two American missionaries knocked. He hated them for what their country had done. He told them so. They began to share their message, and asked for 10 minutes with him. And look what happened: that boy grew up to be not only a member of the restored Church of Jesus Christ, but a leader in it even, guiding others to Christ. It was an extremely powerful evening, followed by an amazing district testimony meeting. Muy bien. Gotta love Tuesdays.

As for the rest of the week, hmm, ALSO that night, I was sitting there at dinner when the two Elders that get our mail walked to our table. "I almost puked when I saw it," said Elder Regehr. They both were hysterical. They started passing out mail. They looked at me. Then passed a few letters over to me... and passed a small one around the group. MY letter. There it went. Elder after Elder, either hysterical or slightly sickened. Then it got to me. It was innocently 5 by 3 inches or so, quite small, but it was no innocent letter. It was a letter from a set of Lisa Frank UNICORN stationary, with MY name written in GelPen on the outside. "ARENT THEY PRETTY??" was conveniently placed next to one of the hideous creatures. I opened it cautiously, with all looking on. I half expected glitter to pour out (DONT GET IDEAS) but instead, a page... big surprise, same stationary. "HOPE YOU GIVE AWAY LOTS OF BOOKS!" same gelpen, written in Kayla Smith's [Christopher's cousin] best preschooler handwriting. I had to explain to the entire district that yes, this is an intelligent albeit sadistic 19 year old girl going to Brigham Young University, and yes, I am related to her. They loved it. Really. I'm glad Elder Regehr didnt puke on ME. The infamous letter has been sent, received, and Kayla, you woulda been pleased, it probably matched the dreams you had for it exactly. Gunorknash.

OH I went to the Eye doc today - I thought I couldn't see well, had trouble seeing with my contacts the other day. After an hour, he told me that my perscription is pretty much right - but I have a stigmism as we know, and soft contacts cant help that, as well as soft contacts have a tendency to just be not as sharp. So, whee, false alarm, I DONT need new contacts, but I am getting the new perscription anyhow, just in case i need it. Fun, right?

THANKS for the package! Good stuff there! Loved it!

Alright, I hope everyone is having a good week! The Church is true! This work is the Lord's. Annnnnnd I'm signing off!
Love you all!
-Elder Christopher Thelin

LETTERS FROM THE LAUNDRY ROOM

Week 3.

Once again, I find myself sitting at a computer in the laundry room, detergent powder spilled on my hands and shirt, nice and toasty from all the dryers by me, and heart already pounding as I read 27:03 minutes left....
It's intense!

Alright, so, once again, THANKS to everyone who is sending me mail, its really awesome getting letters. My district has begun to assign points for the one who daily gets most mail - 1 point for a dear elder letter, like 2 for a snail mail, and 5 for a package. I've won every time, and they are jealous. Thanks everyone!

Well, it's starting to feel like a routine now - getting up at 6:30, falling out of bed, studying our tails off, etc. It's a good thing - just wish I'd learned how to work harder while I was at BYU and in school and stuff... but, no Facebook here, so work shall prevail!

Let's see, what happened this week? Well, the Advanced district that came in with us is leaving today - weird, if I had been on an English speaking mission, I'd be gone now! Kinda glad to have the extra time to learn how to teach - its fun, but a difficult skill to learn. Me and Elder Rindfleisch are working hard, and teaching often to try and figure it out. Lots of good experiences with that. Consistently, people tell us our unity is really really good. We pick up where the other one left off, cover things, testify of each other's words... last week we had several good teaching situations. My companion was feeling down on Wednesday, and we had an appointment practicing knocking doors with our teacher. I was worried it wouldnt be good because he was feeling so low, but, when we got there, it all changed. We simulate what it will be like to knock on doors out in the real world: Knock on the guy's door, he shouts for us to go away. Knock again, he's a different guy, but will only open the door 5 inches, and only speaks in Spanish. Stuff like that - well, somehow, doing this a bunch, and teaching someone who was being quite realistic - it completely flipped his mood around, and my companion was way excited and charged.

Same thing happend to me on Friday - we train all week for a teaching situation where we teach volunteers who act like people who want to know more about the church. I wasn't feeling optimistic, feeling a little lost - but when we got there, it changed. We were supposed to knock on a door and talk to a lady in spanish for 7 minutes - we did, and found ourselves facing a little old lady who was a native spanish speaker, which was a tad scary. Against the prompts, she invited us in to her "home" and began to talk to us, in some language that only seemed to be spanish, and certainly wasn't any spanish I could understand. After mentioning Christ, she launched into some questions about, as far as we could figure out, "caballos, gainas, burros" and "nacido" (horses, chickens, donkeys - birth) - so, something about the Nativity? She wouldnt let it go, and called in our teacher, who excused us while he tried to sort it out. A volunteer run amuck. It was rather entertaining. I can see this happening a lot in the future, only no one to save us...

Then we went and taught the lesson of the Restoration of the Gospel to a "young couple"(volunteers again). It was really cool. We were about to start the lesson with point one, but they began asking questions about prophets, and other things, and we began to answer their questions instead of just rattling off a lesson. It felt like we were teaching PEOPLE not teaching a LESSON, and it was awesome. Somehow we followed the Spirit, and taught them better than we ever had before. We were on a high of spiritual excitement for like an hour after.

So, yes, teaching is what its all about here. It happens in class, in teaching appointments, over the phone at the Referral Center, and all the "street contacting" us missionaries do to each other randomly as we run around... good stuff.

Hmm, well, lets see - OH, I go sheared. Yup, sheared. I evaded it until yesterday - one of the counselors walked into our class to make an announcment, and when he left he said "I'm not pointing fingers, but there are haircuts needed here." Guilty as charged... so I went to go get one. 15 minute slot. I sit down. Young lady, probably going to BYU. Probably not for Hair Care...
"Long or short?"
"Uhh... well shorter... no, LONG."
"Sides?"
"Shorter than the top....?"
Bzzzzzzz.... put the razor on the side of the head, run it all around in the back and sides - it was impressive. I've never seen so much hair fall off of someone so quickly - I think my sides and back were done in less than 15 seconds. (dont worry, she trimmed it up nice). Then she used the same thing on the top, but with a comb to maintain some length... it was frightening. But, it actually looks good, not mega short or anything, just, SHORTer. SCARY. But alright. I'm gonna put off the next one as long as I can....

Well, its good here, as I've said. Learning much all the time. The apostle Elder Ballard told us a few weeks ago that if we have a positive attitude and internalize the priniciples of Chapter 3 (the missionary lessons) of Preach My Gospel, we would be able to carry through anything life hands us. I know this is true. I encourage everyone to read this chapter, not so much read it, but evaluate - do you have a testimony of all these things? Solidify it. Love it. Study it. It is the Gospel of Jesus Christ, plain and simple.

Alright, 1 minute again. Real quick, I wish I could write to everyone, but I just can't. Mom, I did send a package, with pictures and letters to the sibs - look for it. I'll send the check separate, I forgot it. OK, LOVE YOU ALL!!!
-Elder Chris


Our district's building, where we spend every day studying, taking spanish lessons, holding meetings, teaching each other, planning, etc.


They put these signs up on the way from the MTC to the temple, because family and friends always write messages in chalk to missionaries...

THINK POSITIVE

HEY FAMILY Ok, so I'm a missionary. It's all true. I learned some stuff. Ok, BYE!

Just kidding. I OFFICIALLY HAVE 26:05 MINUTES TO FINISH THIS LETTER, AND WASTED 2 OF THEM FORGETTING MY LOG-ON STUFF... GAHHHHH!! Alrighty, so, here I am. Now what to say?? Well, for starters, Mom and Jeff and whoever was in charge of the "Send stuff to Chris" Campaign, it has worked. I am the envy of my district [missionaries are divided into small groups that work and study together] with all the letters I get all the time - last night I got not 1, not 2, not 3, but 8 PAGES of dearelder emails. It was a bit ridiculous, but I loved every one of them!

Thus, some responses: Aunt Jill, good luck with the skunk. Steven, nice on District Choir.
Roses: HOLY COW IS HE HERE YET? Good luck! Say hi to baby Colton! I'm sure he won't cry at ALL Angela, ha...
Melissa Kirby: Sry I missed you at the Y by a week - well, technically I am on BYU run property...
Madeleine: GERMANY? WHAT THE HAY? Oh and tell Megan that if she's going to wait for me, I give her permission to go to dances and date people, as long as its not serious. Tell her to get a life too. Lol.
Kimmy: stop dying at Mafia. Like, nevah...
Maguras: don't know if i did it last week, but THANKS for the package! Good stuff, big hit with the food here, haha! glad Stefan's doing well!


Jada: Thanks for the letter! It was really good, your advice is awesome - have fun, and all that - I need people to tell me stuff like that once n a while :)
Jack and Cindy: thanks for the letter! Hope the Iraqi woman situation turns out..

If I've left anyone out, you have a whole week to chew me out for it and me not be able to respond till Tuesday...

SO, after I wrote that email last week, the day just got better! We went to the MTC devotional, where I sang "How Great Thou Art" in the choir, which was awesome, and we were surprised with a visit from...Elder Ballard [an apostle in our church]! It was way cool. His advice was amazing, and the Spirit was really strong. One of his greatest pieces of wisdom was the key to success in life and the mission is... a positive attitude. Surprised me, but it's true! I got discouraged for a day because something seemed beyond my abilities - we were taking phone calls in the Referral Center, where people who call in for a free Book of Mormon and such call, and I just didnt seem good at it. I began to doubt myself and my ability to do this in person. Then I just wasn't as effective for a day or two. But I realized on Tuesday that a positive attitude is really the key. ever since I've been trying hard to do that, and its been a good week!

Speaking of positive attitudes... Thursday night, we were all running to the gym. My companion began jumping and stuff trying to touch the ceiling. Suddenly he slowed up a lot. He kept running for a few yards, but then realllly decided that wasnt smart. When we got inside, his ankle looked like it had like 3 golfballs under the skin. Not good. Within a few minutes he was outfitted with crutches and such. Great. My companion is a cripple. Right off the bat. But, he had a good attitude. The next morning we actually got to GO OFF the property(hence the picture of us leaving the MTC!) to the BYU HEALTH CENTER, which was WEIRD being out in the world, especially on MY college campus... it was also weird because there were TV's, and stuff like that... anyhow, they took xrays and sent us back to the MTC again.

The rest of that day, Elder Rindfleisch wasn't doing well. Felt awful, suffering in pain... he asked me for a blessing[a special prayer for healing of the sick that Elders of the church have authority to give--see James 5:14-15]. I've never given a blessing before, and was very nervous. But we said a prayer and the district gathered around him, laid our hands on his head, and I began to give a blessing. I was so afraid I'd say the wrong things. It was an interesting experience. I felt all sorts of feelings come into my mind, and like I needed to say things that Heavenly Father was trying to get me to say to him, but nothing was coming. I said a few things, then paused... and couldn't articulate what I was feeling. So I closed it, and felt like I had failed. I wasn't sure how to do it. I didnt know what to do. But my companion said thanks, and had faith in it. The Lord is merciful to me, and the next day, he showed me that he accepted my effort and the blessing was indeed effective despite my inabilities - my companion was able to walk without both crutches, he felt great, and the pain was very much lessened. It was a great experience for me. His ankle was not broken, and he is doing well now.

This is kindof a template for my mission. I'm beginning to develop the faith I need for this mission. It is not my mission. The Savior paid the price for us all, and it is His mission. Though I am inexperienced, He will make up the difference if I devote myself to Him completely. Read the words of "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing" These lyrics have been on my mind (everyone hums it here) and I think I really mean them now. The Lord is making me into what I need to be. It's way cool.

Come Thou Fount of every blessing
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;
Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
Sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I'm fixed upon it,
Mount of God's unchanging love.

Here I raise my Ebenezer;
Hither by Thy help I'm come;
And I hope, by Thy good pleasure,
Safely to arrive at home.
Jesus sought me when a stranger,
Wandering from the fold of God;
He, to rescue me from danger,
Interposed His precious blood.

O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I'm constrained to be!
Let that grace now like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here's my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.

Another word: Grandma and grandpa, when I was feeling down, one of the best things to cheer me up was you two. I wondered why people would want us to come along and change their seemingly content lives. But I remembered you two, and your faith and how the gospel has blessed your lives... and consequently all of ours, making mine even possible. Thank you for your great faith. I love you both so much.

Well, 1 minute now! So much to say, so little time! Rest assured all that I am the same person, just as clumsy and weird as ever - but the Lord is using me now, and I'm devoting these 2 years to him (thanks Carl and Joey and Jada, your letters helped this too) Shall we not go on in so great a cause? Yes we shall! Its all true. I know it more than ever. Love, Elder Chris Comments in green have been added by Mom for explanation!

My companion and I vacuuming our dorm building with space vacuums...

A DAY IN THE LIFE

HEEEEEEEEY familia y amigos! Como estan? Cough. Excuse me. I shall speak English for all the gringoes out there. Since I'm like all fluent and stuff now... Well, I AM A MISSIONARY! It is true. I have the suits, the shoes, the books (books to study, little books to tell me the rules, books to give away, books that tell me how to give the books away...) nametags for pockets, nametags for lapels, etc etc etc.... it's all pretty impressive, 'cept everyone else has the exact same image... but hey, that's the MTC for you, 2000 of us heading out to all parts of the world. It's pretty exciting when you start meeting people - you see nametags that are in Spanish, French, Mandarin, etc. It's crazy. When we all gather together, you see young people (and some older couples, they are pretty cool) from all nationalities and places, headed out to, well, teach all nationalities and places. K, that was redundant.... but you get the idea. Weeeeell, hm, its hard to choose what to say with this stupid timer going up there... 15 minutes left on here, and someone is probably hating me for not changing my clothes over to a dryer. So, let me walk you through my day here. I promise, its exciting. 6:30- wait, no, let's start at 6:29, gotta start on a good note. 6:29- Sleep. Ah, blessed sleep. Most likely a dream about home, or friends, or both (I have a had a LOT of interesting dreams here, I should be writing them down...) and just when I'm about to turn on the radio and hear Coldplay blasting "Viva la vida".... BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP 6:30. And that's when I start "living the life..." Well, not until 6:32. Its usually necessary to fall back on the pillow and psyche yourself up for the day. Ok. Ready. I sit up, and then proceed to pretty much fall off the top bunk (quietly, though, because the Elder below has decided he needs quite a few more minutes to psyche up for the day) and I almost die. The adreneline is good though. Enables me to brush my teeth... So, 30 minutes of get-ready-ing, then go to the classroom. 45 minutes of quiet, personal study. Breakfast. Mmm (oh, and everyone, I really appreciate the candy and all that has been sent - thank you Maguras too for the Cheetos and candy!) (and all the Valentines) After breakfast, gym. Whee... ok, done. Now, class. Noon already? lunch. Then, CLASS. Then Dinner. THEN CLASS. THEN PLAN TOMORROW (hey, Elder, wanna go to class tomorrow? Yes? Great.) Go to our rooms, brush our teeth (hey, kinda deja vu like...) and go to bed, start a dream.... It's way intense, I promise. I think we figured out we average 14.5 hours a day sitting in the classroom. This work is not for the faint of heart. And only 10 weeks more! April 14th better come quick.... And then there's all the Spanish speaking... mm, so good, can't comminucate much (but its improving insanely fast...). Whenever I get down about being here for 10 weeks, I try to speak to Elder Casillas or someone who's a native speaker, and then am thankful for the extra time to learn... Well, I only have 4 minutes and 14, no 13, no 12 seconds... no 8!!!! AHH! Ok, well, I guess I'll wrap it up kinda. Sorry this isn't full of more interesting stories. Mom, if you want, you could put some kinda highlight from my snail mail letter up on the blog, which i hope is working out. I'll have more time next week. I know this is where I'm supposed to be. There is a strong Spirit here - the Spirit of the Lord. I feel charged with it. I feel called of the Lord, with His power, confidence, and strength behind me. I know what I'm doing is right. I am training here to bring many souls to Christ. I love you all, and hope to hear from you soon! -Elder Christopher Murray Thelin P.S. dearelder.com - tell everyone about it, its instant mail for me!!! 10 SECONDS!

(Elder Marlow, Elder Regher, Elder Rindfleisch, Myself, Elder Jimenez (later moved to the Advanced Spanish district), and Elder Nelson visiting the Provo temple)