Emily sent the following email yesterday, Monday, January 13, 2014.  I had emailed her earlier in the day to tell her the news that Sam received his mission call to serve in the Phnom Penh, Cambodia Mission.  He will report to the MTC on May 14th.  

Querida Familia!

Estoy bien bien entusiasmada y agradecida a Dios por este nuevas que ha llegado a mi.  My corazon ha sido tocado mucho. 

(I am so excited and grateful to God that I received this news.  My heart has been touched greatly.  )

Dear Sammy, receiving a mission call is an incredible experience.  It takes so much trust in the Lord to hand your life over to him.  I am so proud of you and I love you very much.  I think I am still getting over the shock of reading about this news.  I had your email pulled up and held a paper over the word and read down each line just like how you would've.  As soon as I read the location I started to cry.  This is your mission and, again with your call, I feel like the randomness and the coincidence of everything shows that this call came from God.  I am so grateful that Jessa is there to be there for you.  She will look out for you and take care of you and you will have something familiar from home and to remind you of your family.  Sam, what are the chances of this happening?

You are probably in shock.  I was in shock for at least a week.  I'm almost surprised that you aren't coming to my mission, but this is still pretty crazy.   I know the Lord plans things.  I want to show you some of the letters I have from Jessa with her writing on it.  I'll take a picture of some of the script that she has written me.  I am so excited that you will get to learn that and stretch your mind in that way. I'm not going to lie, I thought the chances of you serving a Spanish-speaking mission were pretty high and I thought we were going to be able to speak in Spanish together for the rest of our lives, but it's ok.  How I see it is that you can learn Spanish from me and I can learn Cambodian from you.  When I get home from my mission, I'll study some of it.  :)

Sam, I know you will do such a wonderful job.  I am excited to hear about the miracles that you have.  Serving a mission has made me love God and his gospel.  I have grown so much conviction and passion and dedication for the work of the Lord.  I had a cool experience last night that I only could've had as a missionary, one called of God to preach repentance.  I am in the Newhall area just for this week and we had a dinner with the Secas familia.  I can't even explain or fully diagnose what exactly is wrong with the dad, but he needs to change.  After the dinner and sharing the message with just the wife, I felt that there was more that had to be done there.  I invited the dad from the other room to come because we were going to share a verse and head out.  He came and we shared a scripture and talked for a moment.  I know the things I said were guided by the Lord because they were a lot bolder than I would normally have found appropriate and the wife started crying and the husband responded.  Basically, the Lord had me tell him that we were representatives of Jesus Christ and as such, the message we were about to deliver was directly from God.  God loved him very much and was reaching out to him because that time has finally come when a change needs to be made.  He was nodding very much.  We invited him to read the scripture and pray with his family every day and come to church. There is a bit more of the story, but before we left I told him to think about how much love and trust God was showing him by trusting him with the spirits of his family.  About how God had trusted with him with his wife and his kids because he knew that he would take care of them during this short time that we are separated from Him and on this Earth.  The mom wants nothing more than to have the dad join them in her righteous efforts to raise the kids and she started crying at this point.  We let the spirit fill the room and left them with a prayer.  I was a tool in the Lord's hands.  That couldn't have happened to me and I couldn't have delivered a message like that from God if I wasn't a set apart missionary.  Sammy, I love you and I am so excited for you.

I experienced so many miracles this week.  This is undoubtedly the Lord's work. 

Jasmine

We received a referral with a return appointment.  Her name is Jasmine and she is 14.  She was with her best friend and met missionaries.  We met her for the appointment and taught her about the restoration.  We returned a second time this week to teach her about the plan God has for her.  She is a brave and valiant soul.  She has a lot of opposition from members of her family, but she is determined to give this a chance.  She told us that she had to hide to foyettos and Book of Mormon so that her grandma wouldn't get rid of them.  I told her about how prophets had been guarding those same words for centuries.  They carefully guarded the words and passed them down to their children so that precious truths could be preserved.  Finally, Moroni had to bury the plates so that God could keep them safe for a time and then bring them to light in a time when those words could never be lost or distorted or destroyed.  Those words have a long history and legacy or being treasured and guarded, and she will have to carry this tradition. 

Oscar

We had an incredible lesson with a man named Oscar De La Oya. ...turns out I'm too gullible and he is really just Oscar Garcia.  His story is a cool one.  He went to the Home Depot parking lot on Sunday to find people to help him move the next day.  I don't know why that seemed like a promising idea...definitely a prompting from the spirit.  There he found Elder Wilson...no idea what he was doing there.  Elder Wilson loves offering service and volunteered us to be there the next day.  We moved them the next day.  I told the mom that we loved to help people but that the most meaningful way we could help people was to tell them about the gospel.  It's so true too.  If you help someone in some temporal, physical way, that's cool and I'm sure they can be grateful for your time, but there is no comparison in value to helping someone learn and practice a true gospel principle or law and have the spirit confirm to them that they are finding the path. 

We didn't have too much time in my area because this week we are a tripan and are working both areas, but the hours we spent in my area were very quality.  We stopped by Oscar's house and found him home.  We taught him one of the most spiritual versions of the first lesson that I have taught.  I felt so much love of God in my chest and I felt so much love for the message we were carrying.  Oscar was interested and sincere and willing to learn.  I believe that he is very sincere and has the potential to really know this is true too.

James

James is incredible.  James wins the award for the most responsible, sincere potential.   I think I like him so much because if I was a sincere investigator, I think I would be a lot like him.  He listened intently to the first lesson, asked many questions, and understood everything we taught.  He has some critical questions, but he is asking them because he wants to understand.  After the first lesson, he read the things we left him and prayed to Heavenly Father twice about the Book of Mormon.  He didn't feel he received an answer. 

We taught him the second lesson.  He didn't see the need for religion. James is really cool because you can explain things to him and he'll really consider them and then look up and not because he's felt that it makes sense to him and then let us go on.  He said yes to being baptized the 2nd of February, but I think that will probably have to be changed. 

James by himself is a miracle because he is being prepared by God and I feel that he could make the journey to the knowledge that this church is true, but the real miracle with James is:

Adrian

Adrian came to the lesson we had with James this week.  I have had two best moments on my mission, and this is the second one.  The first best moment was when Francisca came to a lesson with Victor Torrez when she was still sub 1 week being a member of the church and she bore her testimony about the word of wisdom.  She is sweet and a bit timid, but she boldly assured him that he could over come his addiction to alcohol because her husband had done it with El Libro De Mormon and a priesthood blessing and she had given up her addiction to coffee because of the help they'd received from the Lord and because of El Libro De Mormon.  She bore pure testimony and the spirit confirmed every word she spoke.  It was that night that we set his baptismal date for 8 december 2013, the date that he later entered into a covenant with the Lord after overcoming his addiction. 

Adrian was sub 1 week.  Without acting the story out to you in person, and even if I did that, there is no way that I could do it justice.  When I asked Adrian to come, he immediately responded and said he'd be there.  We let him say the prayer before we went to James’s house.  Adrian pleaded with the Lord to be with us in helping teach another and bring them to the knowledge.  The plan had to change because James’s mom was there and she wanted to clash--she would cut in and interrupt.  We changed plans and told her we'd teach the restoration so we could answer her questions.  After changing plans and starting, she impatiently demanded an answer about the Book of Mormon and just as I was about to speak, Adrian leans forward and starts talking.  Adrian was a champion and shared exactly what needed to be said throughout the lesson.  He could understand some of her arguments because he'd been outside  of the church and ignorantly rooted only in the Bible for a while.  Adrian is very smart and he read the whole Book of Mormon.  Adrian talked about the Book of Mormon and what it is, its purpose, his experience with it at first, how it changed him, what it means.  She was concerned about only wanting to learn things about Jesus Christ and not Joseph Smith.  Adrian told her how the Book of Mormon was written anciently by prophets and talks about Jesus Christ.  Joseph Smith's role was to translate the book.  She had a very hard heart and Adrian obviously knew that. 

This lesson could have seemed like it didn't accomplish its purpose, but there were some important things that happened below the obvious level.  First, I saw in James's eyes an apology for how his mom was behaving which grew to reflect a lot of respect.  Second, James got to hear about the restoration again, which is the most important and unique message.  Third, he heard Adrian's testimony.  I'd invited James to come to Adrian's baptism, but we couldn't, but he realized that it's only happened this week.  I watched him, and he was thinking very deeply about everything Adrian was saying.  Even if the mom didn't absorb much besides the very obvious logical points he made, James heard all the things he needed to hear. 

I will get a new companion on Tuesday and I will be back in my area and commuting much less.  Crazy thing, I actually went to the temple again this week.  One of my favorite parts of going to the temple is seeing all the faithful people that take their time to come and serve in the house of the Lord.  Another thing I realized is that no one is prayed for more than the missionaries.  I know that there is a certain day of the week that the prophet prays for the missionaries, they pray for us in the temple, families and children around the world pray for us.  It is incredible and I love being a missionary for Jesus Christ. 

I love you so much and I will talk to you soon!!!! :)

Con amor y besitos,

Hna. Christensen  

Emily sent us the following email and pictures on Monday, January 6, 2014:

Hi family!

I don't have a ton of time today because I went to the temple this week and that counted as most of my p-day. 

Adrian got baptized!  It was such an incredible experience.  He had so much faith through the whole process and once he was committed, I knew that he would do it.  He had told us that he wasn't going to enter into the church unless he knew that he was going to be 100% committed, AND HE DID IT!  I think they should call him as the gospel principles teacher here in the next week!

The baptismal service was so beautiful and the spirit was so strong.  There were about as many people at his baptismal service as there usually are at church.  (This is not a joke.  There were about 60 people.) All the missionaries sang Grande eres tu and it was really pretty.  Adrian bore his testimony after the service and testified to the people that " me siento bien.  Me siento bien" .   This is a simple and powerful testimony of baptism. 

Adrian has always been such a sweet and happy man, but I'd never seen him more smiley than he was after his baptism and especially the next day at church before and after his confirmation.  Adrian is so sweet.  I can't emphasize that enough.

I had an experience being guided where the Lord needed me when I was on exchanges.  I was with another Hermana and we were working in her area and we were lead to this house.  We knocked and asked to come in and teach more.  The woman was very humble and let us it.  Before we started teaching her, she went to get her daughter to listen too, when it became evident that there was some sort of medical emergency going on in the other room.  The woman has a son that wasn't breathing and that she couldn't get conscious.  Suddenly everything turned really panicky.  This was such a freak thing to happen and I knew that we weren't there at that moment by coincidence.  I immediately tried to discern the reason that God had put us there and what it was he was counting on us doing.  It was this moment that I wished I was an Elder and had the priesthood, but I knew that God would pick his tools and he would pick the right tools to accomplish whatever task he had at hand. 

We were waiting in the room next to the bedroom when one of the children was sent out to get us.  The mom wanted us to come and help.  We quickly entered and she told us that she needed us to call to God.  I bowed my head and offered up a prayer to Heavenly Father trying just to ask for the things that would be appropriate to ask for such as..recovery for the boy if it be Heavenly father's will, to help us be his tools, help her feel the spirit and learn through her faith, etc..

At the end of the prayer, it was evident that he was breathing.  From this point, he recovered until he could weakly sit up.  I love being a missionary because we really are representatives of Jesus Christ and it is natural to boldly proclaim the truth of the Gospel.  I told her that God had put us in her house because it was her time to know that the true church of Jesus Christ was on the earth and he wanted her to be a part of it.  We told her that God was aware of her and loved her and things would be ok.  She told us that she knew we were angels sent from God to help her.  We told her our message was true. 

I received a text from the sister I was on the exchange with that they'd returned to the house and there are at least 2 baptismal dates that are pretty solid in that family.  God is preparing people and we are doing everything we can to find them.  I've learned that so much of being a missionary is just making sure that you can always have the Holy Ghost with you to guide you and let others know that you are representatives of Jesus Christ. 

If there are any new or recent converts in your ward, will you make an effort to be a genuine friend to them and help them to feel comfortable at church?   

Church members need to take care of these precious and new souls that have been brought to the truth. 

I love you all so much! 

Con amor,

Hna. Christensen

This is from Christmas eve when we went caroling!

Here is our wonderful district family.  I really love these people so much.

This was us when we went to the temple as a zone.  

All the Spanish missionaries go once every 6 months.

Emily sent us the following email on Monday, December 30, 2013:

Hola Familia! :)

You are wonderful and I loved hearing from you for Christmas!  That was the best thing that could've happened!  I am so excited that everyone is loving the things that I sent to them.  I love you guys very much and know that family is the most important thing EVER.  SAM!  You put your papers in!  That is absolutely incredible and I am so proud of the decision that you've made to serve the Lord.  You will love being a representative of Him.  I always feel so much pride when we come to doors and introduce ourselves as representatives of Jesus Christ.  Being a member of the true church is never supposed to be easy because there is a lot of responsibility that comes with that calling and association.  It is exactly like being a part of a family.  You are born into responsibility that you are going to fulfill, with the end result being more joy than you can realize. 

So it turns out that I love contacting!  I feel more like a missionary when I am contacting than almost anything else.  We have been analyzing different strategies and trying different things.  We have had to adapt how we contact people so that we can make contact with more souls.  I have realized that right now the efforts in the mission are more on finding the ones that are ready than on convincing everyone.  I think at different times and in different places missionaries play different roles, and I am ready to accept all the inspiration and guidance that our leaders have for this mission and do the work in the way that they want it to be done. 

We had an exchange with the sister training leaders and I feel that our companionship is doing a very good job contacting.  During weekly planning we analyzed everything and compared our numbers with our vision and we sought out the point of disconnect.  The biggest problem sources down to the fact that we have potentials that frequently don't progress from that state.  This usually seems to happen because when we call to confirm they cancel or when we show up they are not home or tell us that they are busy or just about to leave.  To diagnose this specifically, we have a plan.  There are two things that we are going to start trying:

1) When we show up for an appointment that we have with a potential, we are going to be bolder in telling them that we came to share with them a message that is very important and will only take 10 minutes. 

This message is very important and should be made a priority.  I am going to show my confidence in this message by telling people of its importance and insist that it needs to be shared.  (always with love, always with love)  There are those that reconsider.   (this one directly addresses the problem we have with flaky potentials)

2) Inspired questions.  I love this because they are so powerful.  I am not very good at asking inspired questions and I think that is because a good question takes thought and is harder to form on the spot in Spanish.  I'm going to do the same thing with this that I had to do with contacting.  This is a weak area, but I'm determined to make it one of my strengths.  I have been thinking of inspired questions for contacting and different parts of each lesson.  (This more addresses contacting and lesson teaching--We are working on becoming gospel wizards.)

Also, Adrian is one of the most wonderful, faithful people I've ever met and he is going to get baptized on Saturday.  My testimony has grown through teaching him and addressing his concerns.  He had his baptismal interview on Sunday and he passed with flying colors.  President Mendez is going to baptize him and it is going to be a joyous moment. 

I love being a missionary.  I love feeding His sheep.

Love, Hna. Christensen

We were able to Skype with Emily for about 40 minutes on Christmas Day.  She is SO HAPPY!  She loves being a missionary and a representative of Jesus Christ.  She loves sharing the gospel and witnessing the way it touches people's hearts and changes their lives for the better.  Peter and I are so grateful for the wonderful experiences Emily is having as a missionary.  Her service is blessing all of our lives.

Here are a couple of photos of Emily with her companion, Hermana Larsen:

Em sent the following email on Monday, Dec. 16, 2013:

Hey Familia!

I did get my birthday package and I felt so much of your love!!  I love everything!  I sent you a Christmas card and I'm guessing it could get to you today or tomorrow. 

You'll get to read about Adrian.  He is absolutely wonderful.  

People who have been prepared by the Lord will be able to recognize us as servants of Him and will be ready to act according to the invitations that we make.  We are looking really hard to find these families.  We are knocking lots of doors and testifying of the Savior.  It's such a cool thing to be able to proselyte and preach the gospel.  There isn't another time in my life that I will be able to knock an apartment complex and tell people that I am a representative of Jesus Christ.  I won't be set apart at any other time to do that.  I won't have charge over an area like this at any other point in my life.  I like this privilege and I do recognize that it is a privilege even though it isn't in the past yet :)  Privilege is a hard word to spell. 

The mission really is changing me and helping me to be more Christ-like.  Dad, that talk that you send me about us being dually co-creaters and masterpieces in progress really hit me.  There are lots of things from that talk that I think about and refer back to often.  My absolute favorite part is the part where is says that one of the most Christ like things we can do is unexpectedly forgive someone.  

Ok, I'm going to just type this part from the article:

Esau is another unheralded example of one who showed us how to shape our lives in the image of God.  When his brother, Jacob, tricked him out of the birthright, Esau was enraged to the point of seeking to kill his brother.  After many years of avoiding each other, there was a dramatic moment when Jacob encountered his brother.  Jacob, fearing for his life, prepared gifts for Esau.  When Jacob met his brother, Esau unexpectedly forgave him.  Looking into Esau's forgiving face, Jacob exclaimed, "For therefore I have seen thy face as though I had seen the face of God."  The image of God is forgiveness.  As Brother Nibley always used to remind us, "the two things you can do in life are to repent and forgive."

Ever since reading this when you send it to be months ago, it has been my goal to unexpectedly forgive someone.  I'm too imperfect, and Heavenly Father has forgiven me so I want to always forgive people too. 

Love, Em

We got the following email from Emily on Monday, December 9, 2013:

Hola Familia!

Hay algo Nuevo que es empezando en este mission.  We can feel the urgency and the hastening.  I can feel the urgency for the salvation of souls.  We have to bring more people to the fold.  We are the hastening.  Not only is the work being hastened by the number of missionaries, but also there is hastening that is happening within every missionary.  We have to be the best teachers we've ever been. 

If we want to baptize more people, we have to teach more people.  If we want to teach more people, we have to find more people.  If we want to find more people, we have to talk to more people.  Our efforts in this mission are being focused on contacting.  We are going to become a mission of excellent contacters.  We role play and we practice different strategies and we are honing our skills so that people will hear true and powerful doctrine and accept the invitation to learn more about the truths that will change the lives of them and their family. 

There are high expectations and we are setting our goals so high that it is making us  change the way we work as missionaries.  In the valley missionaries can set goals to contact over 100 people a day.  This is incredible.  It is a little different in this valley because we contact by knocking doors, but I have knocked more this last week than I have my whole mission combined up until this point.  I love it.  We have to find the people that are prepared.  

I wish I could let you feel what it feels like to approach strangers and testify of Jesus Christ.  My heart bursts with pride to be a representative of him.  I love introducing myself as a representative of Him.  I love having his name on my plaque always above my heart. 

This last week we found 6 new investigators and two of them came to church yesterday.  Meliton also came to church with his little son.  He brought him on the bus and dropped him off in the primary.  Adrian also came to church.  His baptismal date is the 5 of Enero. 

VICTOR TORRES GOT BAPTIZED YESTERDAY!!!!!!!  Do you remember that date I set with him when I was back in El camino?!  What a champ!  I know this is a miracle. 

Emily sent us the following email on Monday, December 2, 2013.  (I'm sorry to be so late posting it on her blog!  It's December and there's SO much to do!)

Hello!

Guess what!  I am going to transfer meeting tomorrow!  I actually know though that I am going to be staying in the branch and just moving to the other area.  This is going to be good.  My companion is going to be Hermana Calderon and she has a really thick Spanish accent. 

WHAT THIS MEANS IS THAT MY ADDRESS WILL BE CHANGING.

I had a miracle yesterday!  Hna Larsen and I have this investigator named Meliton and he is the cutest man ever.  It's just him and his 5 year old son.  He loves God so much and has more faith than anyone I've ever seen.  He loves to read the Bible and he writes alabanzas.  (song-praises)  He wrote one for one of the verses in the Book of Mormon. 

I met him the first time I taught the English class here and immediately fell in love with him.  We wanted to take him to the Los Angeles Temple and let him feel the spirit at the visitor center and also, they are having musical performances every day of December.  There is no better place for Meliton than the temple visitor center.  We had everything fall through last minute and we had no ride and no plan.  Randomly and half-heartedly we asked the old ward mission leader and his girlfriend if they would want to drive all of us up there in 30 minutes and minutes later we received an "esta bien".  WHOOOOO!!!!

30 minutes later we have Meliton, and a bit later we are on temple grounds.  He adored EVERYTHING!  He loved the lights and the people and the feeling.  There were trees that looked like they had fruit of life on it, so I read him some verses of 1 Nephi 8 about how the fruit, or love of God, is the most desirable above anything else. 

He loved the Christmas songs.  He wanted to know if he could find them online and put them on a CD.  They sang all classic Christmas songs, but they must've been new to him.  And I mean, he doesn't understand the words, but that is besides the point. 

HERE IS THE MIRACLE:

I walked into the Temple Visitor Center after having almost not made it out of Santa Clarita and after meandering around the grounds with Meliton and just when we were about to leave the entrance way to walk into the back on the left,

I SEE SOMEONE WHO LOOKS EXACTLY LIKE FRANCISCA CHAVEZ walking from my right to the main entrance way.  YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  This really happened!  I stopped mid-sentence and ran to her and we hugged for so long!  We were all letting out excited noises!  And then I hugged German Grande!  I was probably breaking every rule, but It didn't matter!   Like this one event was almost more coincidental than any other event I've experienced in this mission and that statement carries weight!  30 seconds either way and we would've missed each other.  That was the first time I'd been back to the LA Temple visitor’s center since I was there with them!  That was their first time back since they'd been there with me!

German received the priesthood.  They are all doing well!  They looked happy and good!  Most of all, they looked like a Mormon family.  They came on their own and were just walking around.  They saw the 5:00 performance and somehow had been in the visitor center until almost the second performance which we were attending.  I think about them pretty much every day and it was so good to be reunited even for just that short time.  Something about being with them makes everything in the world seem happy. 

I'm sending you the picture evidence of this miracle :)

I love you all so much.  I LOVED the thanksgiving CD!  And the turkeys!  It rained here on thanksgiving and we knocked on a ton of doors!  It was wonderful.  I love singing the other parts of the rounds with you guys!  Really, you should just see the joy it brings to me. 

Also, there is a weird bear noise on one of the songs.  I'm pretty sure it is Nate, and I just want to congratulate him on his realistic bear sound.  It is the "Indians in the forest" song and it is at the second "Shhhh".  You guys should listen to it.  I get a kick out of it every time :)  So does Hna. Larsen:)  She noticed the noise first and now we wait for it.

I spent most of today trying to deep clean our apartment because they are shutting this apartment down.  They are breaking the lease early and we are turning this apartment in. 

I love you!!!

Love, Hna. Christensen