No way!!!

So it is so surreal to know that this is my last transfer!!!

I am staying in Muncie, w/ Sister Jacobson, and I am so excited we will be staying together.

Our zone is going to be half different, and from the sounds of it, most other zones are the same situation as us. It is going to be a huge transfer!!

Monday: We carved pumpkins as a zone and then had fire w/ some people, so I got to have a s'more or 2. It was great!

  Tuesday:I was on exchanges in Elwood it was a good day. We had District meeting and I was able to go to see Elder Hampton's District meeting which was great. They have some sweet investigators.

  Wednesday: Temple day!!!!!!! It was soooo great, it was a revelatory day and I loved it. We ate in Columbus and it was fun.

  Thursday: I was in Dunkirk w/ Sister Ellis and we had a good time.  I almost passed out, don't ever eat Cream of Mushroom Soup plain it is gross!!!!!!!!!!

  Friday: We had a good day. Weekly planning and our new investigator invited us to go out to the bar when we were finished. Haha he liked Sister Jacobson lots :) We worked on our singing abilities and it was great.

  Saturday: We did some service and I realized the difference btw free labor and service. A new appreciation has been found for that :) We had a sweet last minute lesson w/ a LA and it was good. She needed it and it was good stuff.

  Sunday: Church we had dinner w/ the Brimhall's and it was delicious.

Monday: Crazy transfer day!!!!!

Happy Halloween this week!! I'll be spending mine in Cinci :) Fun stuff huh?

Love you lots!!!

Love, Sister Christiansen

Also those poor Aggies what is w/ that? 

Go Giants!!!!

Happy Belated Birthday TJ

Here we go again!

Happy Monday!

  Considering that I just emailed you all on Tuesday you wouldn't think that I would have too much to say, but I feel like this has been one of the longest weeks of my life!!!!!!!!!! No joke friends, it was incredibly long, but looking back I wonder what made it seem so long, and quite frankly I'm not sure.

  Tuesday: We took a nap and it was glorious....! I have such a profound appreciation for sleep it is ridiculous. I think of all the time I did not utilize for sleeping when I was home and I just realize how crazy that was.  So we went out teaching w/ Sister Solomon this week and after our last appointment w/ her we were going to meet up w/ the Muncie 2 Sisters for exchanges. We were late getting out of the appointment so I was going to text them to let them know that tidbit of info, I think this also goes w/out saying but it was really, really dark at this point in the evening. We were parked by a tree stump and I knew it was coming up, so I was being somewhat cautious, when all of a sudden my foot hit the stump, much sooner than I was expecting and down I went!!! Graceful, it was not!! I was walking one moment, and in the next moment I unexpectedly found myself on the tree stump. The worst of the whole experience is that I held onto the phone, but my scriptures were launched into the air. Like they literally took flight and landed a good few feet from me!! Nothing like abusing scriptures eh??? Anyways when I went to pick up my case, disaster struck, both of my straps broke, it was so sad. Don't worry I have lamented their demise all week long!!!!!! Sister Jacobson came and gave me a hug she was all worried about me, and I was just sad about the fact that I am back to not being able to hold my scriptures by their straps! Don't worry today I plan on finding some crazy/super glue and making everything right in my world again. :)

   Wednesday: I was w/ Sister Brown. I still got to see Sister Jacobson b/c we had District Meeting. We had a good time there, and afterwards, we went out to lunch all together, which was also a good time.  One word of advice tho, if you go to Fazoli's don't gorge on breadsticks..........their lasagna is pretty a-okay. We met some super nice widows, who are quite lonely but fun to visit.  Really nothing too exciting to say from this day except it was good.

  Thursday: Back w/ my compadre, and it was great!  We had our regular meeting w/ the Elders, and then did some weekly planning, but we had rearranged our living room, so our chairs were in the middle of the floor so that is where we did our planning. We had a Sister in the ward come out w/ us that I had never really spent time around, she was great.  We kinda ran out of things to do, and didn't want to drive somewhere else b/c we needed to be in the area, in for our exchanges so we went and visited some referrals that this lady had given us a while back. That my friends turned into a favorable experience. We had 2 new investigators out of it, so I would call it a smashing success! :) Sister Jacobson and I used our singing abilities on this lady who used to be a preacher. She loved the Primary songs, and Hymns that we sang to her. 

  Friday: I was w/ Sister Keil all day long and we had soooooooooooooooo much fun!! No joke that has been the funnest exchange I have ever had. She is so great, and it was so much fun.  We bagged frozen hot dogs, watched a member bake cookies, drove around the same areas, like 3 different times, (which showed me I really don't rem. this area as well as I should), gave a super spiritual chapel tour, she convinced me to eat OCTOPUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Eww huh? All I have to say is been there, done that! Never again my friends. I got some good advice before I ate it, just focus on the mechanics, don't think about the taste, it still wasn't great, but at least the advice helped. No but really we had a blast, all day long!!!!

  Saturday: We ate some pretty good homemade Salsa, from a hilarious investigator.  It was a pretty gray day which was not so fun. Ohh I found out our WML is from Blanding, funny huh? Ohh so we went to go visit an inv, and were waiting for the member to join us so we were sitting in the car, in front of this house for like 20 minutes when this lady comes out and asks us why we were sitting in front of her house.  We said we were waiting for a friend so we could go visit our other friend, and she looks at us and said are you Mormons? We responded yes, and she invited us into her house while we were waiting. Turns out she is a LA, but she said that she is looking for a church but is not interested in coming back to our church. We invited her to a fireside at the church on Sunday. (As it turns out she actually went to the fireside, we weren't there, but she was, crazy huh?)

  Sunday: We had dinner w/ the LaTour's and they are just great. I really enjoyed being there w/ them it was fun. Oh man one quick thing, church was a zoo!! It was a restless day for a bunch of kiddos.  We met Nick's girlfriend, and hopefully helped her to see that we are pretty normal people.  We met some crazies who are very nice. They were trying to help us find our way to an address, but in the end we gave up and decided to search it out in the day light. Ohh it turns out those really nice crazies are some of the Elders investigators. Funny!!  Oh and if you are looking for a good scripture on brethren Psalms 133 is just what you are looking for.  Apparently Sister Jacobson and I have been drafted into the "brethren" club.

This week I am sooo looking forward to being able to go to the Temple!! I know that it is a place of peace and serenity from the world, and I am so excited about that. We will have a bit of a crazy week, b/c we are doing exchanges on Tuesday, and Thursday. Got to love the last week of the transfer!!

I just pray that Sister Jacobson and I stay companions she is awesome and I love her lots!!

I hope you have a splendid week and remember "God doesn't care where you go, He just wants you to work!"

That was one of my favorite quotes of the week :)

Love,

         Sister Christiansen

Whataweek!!

Hey everyone!

  So there has been sooo much that has gone on this week, and I want to try and fit as much in as possible, so there is a big chance it will just turn into a big word vomit of......everything important as it comes to my brain.

  First off: I am emailing today b/c we had a Sisters Conference yesterday, please stay tuned for more details.

  Monday: We had voice lessons. It was great, and happy day!!! I was able to actually touch my toes. Who knew that the only way for me to be able to finally touch my toes was going to be by going to voice lessons. I even sang a little something something in Italian.... We heard some real life music when we were out and about and we both missed hearing it on a regular basis...but no worries we love ourlds.org stuff too......

  Tuesday:We saw 10:30, and we taught Mitch, who I love a lot. Sister Kleeburg fed us dinner, and I ate some super delicious cheesecake!!! Then we visited a few other peeps. Exciting story of that day is that Sister Jacobson made chocolate cupcakes all the way from scratch......as in w/ flour, cocoa, and extra baking soda.....! We did not have any baking powder so we called a member and she was a little worried about how our cupcakes were going to turn out. Turns out baking soda is 4xs more powerful than baking soda. She even called and left us a voicemail to find out how they turned out. No worries, they were delicious!!! We even gave her some to taste as well.

  Wednesday: Interviews day!!! We were at the church from 10:30-6 minus the time that we left to go get some Papa Murphy's pizza for the Porter's and the Assistants....... Lets just say we are their favorites..... :) We got to sit in and listen to the other missionaries teaching, which was good. Kind of monotonous, b/c we would watch them teach and then we would re-watch it w/ them.....I kept hearing Sister Jacobson out in the hall, and I missed being w/ her so much....Lets just say we are kinda attached to each other :) But no worries we did see each other occasionally. Isn't it weird how you can be such great friends w/ some people so fast??? I love it!!!! Poor Brian was sooooo sick of being the investigator "Woody Forrest" But hey guess what? He leaves for his mission the day that I get to go to the temple. Cool story huh?  I had a great interview w/ President and he just made me feel like a bajillion bucks as always. We had a good little chat :) We met a super cute dog named Lucy. Sister Jacobson got attacked by mosquito's. My favorite quote of the day, "Stupidity. Ohhh yes, there's lots of that going around in the human race." haha day made right there.

  Thursday: We had Zone Meeting, it turned out lovely.  Which is a good thing, we always like when the things we put some effort into turn out well. We went to a yoga studio and I videoed a Sister in our ward teaching us our cardio-kickboxing routine. Sister Jacobson learned it so that she could teach it to me, and everyone else as well.... :)  Good thing she picks up on things quickly.

  Friday: We began the day by doing the kick-boxing routine so we could teach it to others. Had a meeting w/ the Elders. Talked w/ Nick at Christian Ministries, and he decided to meet w/ us and start to legit learn about the church.....happy day!!! Sister Denison and Sister Jacobson had been working on him for awhile but now he has decided to learn so we are super excited. I used my sweet knife skills on some veggies for service, and thats about it for that day.

  Saturday: I couldn't hardly get out of bed.....I was soooo stinking sore!!!! We had a good lesson w/ Nick and Brother Kirk at the church. Our cute family that speaks Spanish are sooooooooo cute I love them. We had a bilingual lesson w/ them b/c of our sweet member. It was such a cool lesson. Sooo spiritual. We saw Jake after having not seen him for sooo long we were so happy to build bridges w/ him again. It was also Ball State's Homecoming and traffic was soooo ridiculous!! I have never seen tailgating as such. Talk about a whole new world.

  Sunday: I fasted for our special cause.....it was good. We went to part of a baptism, and I met someone who reminds me so much of Kent it is crazy!! In looks, mannerisms, and soo forth.

  Monday: We went to OHIO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I was sooo happy I almost cried! No joke there is no place like Ohio to me. It was weird tho, b/c we did the conference in Englewood. I never thought I'd be back so that was interesting. Sister Jacobson and I did the routine and it went pretty well.....but only b/c Sister Jacobson had it down so well. Our day was super revelatory and I loved it soooo much!!! I just wish you could all hear President and Sister Porter speak b/c they change my life......w/out fail every time!!!!

  Tuesday: It is raining and Sister Jacobson and I have matching hair....life is good!! 

I love you all! Hope your week is super fab :)

Love,

         Sister Christiansen

PS We are Sister Montrose's fan club :)

Revelatory Week!

First off I have a humongo apology to make!!!!

  Dad I hope that your Birthday was simply spectacular!!! So sorry that I forgot to say anything last week! But Happy One day late Birthday! If its any consolation your day was much more beautiful and warm than ours was. Whenever they showed Salt Lake Sister Jacobson and I were like...."Oh look how beautiful and warm it is"

  Also as long as I'm doing late Birthday's Brianne I hope that your day was super as well! Happy Late Birthday to you as well! It sounds like you had a good time going to the Temple!!!! 

  Monday we taught a lesson to my favorite named investigator 10:30. There was a bit of drama going on as we were teaching him, so I don't think much sunk in. Problems of other people fighting.  I must say I have learned quite well the importance of marrying the right sort of person.....there are simply some interesting couples in this world.  We also set up voice lessons w/ a professional singer in our ward. We are doing those today so hopefully I will be a new and somewhat improved singer by time I come home.......I'll let you know how it goes. (its okay if you want to pray all goes well for me, :)  I'm somewhat terrified to sing in front of her....hahaha)

  Tuesday we were on exchanges w/ Dunkirk and I got to be w/ Sister Ribeira, she is a Sister from my MTC district and this is the first time in my mission that I have served around her so that is fun.  We got to go to Christian Ministry and do some volunteer work there which is a nice change of pace. Some of the other volunteers were curious about us, and asked lots of questions as we worked to fill the orders. I think being out in the community volunteering is definitely something I want to keep up.  It is good times. Then I got to be w/ Sister Jacobson for a few minutes before we were off to go do exchanges w/ the Muncie 2.2 Sisters.  We had a grand time in the car, and then off our separate ways we went.  That night I got to plan a day.....all by myself, and that was a bit interesting. I was looking around for my scriptures and couldn't figure out where in the hannah banana I had put them, so I moved on to doing other things, and then inspiration hit me..........and it was not good inspiration. I had left them in Dunkirk's car!! Holy moly how unfortunate. So I called them and the first thing Sister Riberia says is, Yes we have them. I asked her if she would give them to Ball State the next day at District meeting and then I would get them from them. She said yes, and I was much relieved.

  Wednesday I was w/ Sister Driesel and we went to District Meeting and our whole district was there, so that was exciting. We talked about promising blessings to our investigators thru the scriptures. Good idea eh? I had to use these regular scriptures, and it was significantly harder to figure out where things are, w/out my markings. We  had a sweet chapel tour w/ 10:30 and Brother Inman. Brother Kirk came w/ us to teach April. Cool side story his Mission President was Tad R. Callister. How awesome is that. I am pretty sure that one day President Porter is going to be a general authority of some sort.....my guess is an Apostle tho!!!!!!!!!! He is seriously the most inspired man I personally know. We got to decorate some Halloween cookies and I was put in memory of our pumpkin parties that Gina does, so that was fun. Then we met back up to exchange back to our regular comp. but we had some fro-yo to celebrate Sister Brown's 6 month mark.  Boy oh boy I was sooo excited to be back w/ my comp. Not that I don't love the Sisters but there is nothing like spending time w/ your own comp.

  Thursday Weekly planning. Service at an older mem house, and then she gave us floats for helping her. Diet Cherry 7 Up is not nearly as good as reg. Cherry 7 Up, but no worries the vanilla bean ice cream was top notch. I had to go this whole day along w/ the previous w/out my scriptures b/c Ball State never got back to me about meeting up to get them back. They dropped them off at the Institute and so Sister Jacobson and I went to get them for the last stop of our night. Man ohhhh man was I excited to see them again.  It was no fun to miss them. I am very, very attached to them! It was such a joyful reunion!! I also got to see the new iPhone 6 plus. That thing is ginormous!!!! But super cool how it is opened w/ your fingertip. 

  Friday We were supposed to get up at 5 b/c we had to be out the door at 5:30 to meet up to drive down to Cinci. Sister Jacobson woke up at 5:29 we got up, she had a shower and we walked out the door at 5:40. Pretty darn impressive eh? Then we spent 3 hours all in all on the way down, it was sort of unfortunate that we had to go meet up w/ another Sister b/c it gave us a whole extra hour both ways in the car, but the good news was I got to see Sister Hall b/c of that. Mission Leadership Council was super-de-duper! I would suggest that you all read "The Answer is the Doctrine" by Elder Bednar, it will change your life. I took sooooo many notes down there. I also got to see some of my favorite people again.  Such as President and Sister Porter, Elder Tavake, Sister Rolfe, Sister Summers, Sister Colton and Elder Campbell!!! That was super fun!! Elder Campbell was invited to give all of us a special training that was fabulous!!! But hearing from President was spectacular, and changed my life once again.  We didn't get home until 9:30 so our whole day was taken up by super revelatory experiences and then 6 hours in a car. We about both went insane.....!

  Saturday we had a miracle of having 2 investigators at church. We watched it at the church, all four sessions. Sister Jacobson and I were only able to sit by each other for 2 of the sessions. My goodness we were taught some fabulous things. I liked that everyone stressed the basic things that so often get overlooked. I feel like there is something very big coming in the next few years and they are trying to help us all have a very firm foundation so that we cannot be shaken. It made me question how strong my testimony truly is in all the important things. Do I do all I can to make sure that I am changing each and every day? Am I doing the very best I possibly can?  That night we went and taught this super cute family that speaks Spanish. COLIO!!!!!! I wish you had taught me some Spanish! Sister Jacobson and I want to bear our testimonies to them in Spanish sooo bad, but neither one of us know how to. Also there are no Spanish missionaries here in Muncie. Oh also they are both Professors at Ball State.

  Sunday happy Birthday Daddy!!! We did a planning session w/ the Elders for Zone Meeting and then took breakfast to 10:30. Watched Conference w/ 2 more investigators. It was once again super fabulous. I was soooo ready for President Monson to get up and tell us this big new thing w/ how much every single speaker was focusing on our Prophet. I thought we were going to get some new revelation. But then he got up and talked on Christ, yep building on our foundation is sooooooo important.  I cannot tell you how glad I was that we got to hear from Elder Bednar, he did sooooo fabulous, and his story was simply the best. It was cool that people got to speak in their native tongues, I don't know what it was like for you but we didn't get to listen to them and have subtitles we had a voice over in English....I was somewhat disappointed. We decided to skip having dinner b/c we really needed a new investigator and guess what? God blessed us that is for sure. A few weeks ago this guy referred himself to us, and we went back once and he wasn't there, and then we went back yesterday and he was there, and we taught this sweet lesson. Sister Jacobson and I are sooo excited to be able to teach him. He knows a little about the church, but not much so we are helping him rediscover his connection to God.

  Random sidenote: Our heater does not work so last night we went to bed in an icecube and woke up to still being in an icecube. We should be getting it fixed tho, b/c I'll tell you what I cannot live my life in that freezing abyss. Haha but really!

In closing I know that this is the true church on the earth. I know that Jesus Christ truly is at the head of this church and that he guides us thru our living Prophet President Thomas S. Monson. We each have the right of personal revelation and it is the only way we will be able to truly strengthen our testimony.

One last thing: We almost got sprayed by a skunk this week. I have never accelerated so fast!!!

Love you,

  Love Sister Christiansen