A Letter From Elder Brown

Elder Christensen,

Let me say first of all that I'm proud of you.  I'm pleased and feel grateful to have been your companion at the MTC.  I'm thankful for the example you've set for me.  You've kept me relatively close to the rules, much closer than I would have been otherwise.  I really think it took a lot of guts to give C-1 on the plan to Miami tonight.  I really admire that quality.  I'd like to bear you my testimony.  I know without any hesitation or doubt that we are doing the Lord's work here on earth.  I know the Lord helps us to do our jobs if we are trying our best and asking for His help.  I know that the Church is true.  I really felt the spirit at the temple during our last testimony meeting.  I could not possibly feel such a love for people I've only known for 8 weeks unless we were doing the work of the Lord.  I've felt the spirit many times at the MTC - perhaps more than ever before in my life.  I have gained a greater testimony of Joseph Smith also at the MTC.  I really now fully realize the greatness of that man.  I know that Spencer W. Kimball is a prophet of God today.  I have no doubt.  I know that if we follow his guidance we'll be prepared for The Second Coming.  I have a testimony of missionary work now like never before.  I know we can be as saviors for thousands if we only do the work.  The Lord is preparing the world for the end by sending us to all parts of the globe.  Let's do it!  I'm thankful for your advice and counsel.  I'm working on those weaknesses as of now.  Thanks for everything you've done for me.  I really appreciate it.

Tu companero,

Elder Ed Brown

Love & The Real Honest To Goodness Cookie Monster

I got a letter from Linda today.  It was a pretty good one.  I am getting a little worried about her though.  It seems to me as though she is getting it cemented into her head and that I am the only one for her.  I am afraid that I will have to write her a letter to try and shift her to a slower speed.  It is scary dealing with a young lady's state of mind.  Especially in these circumstances.  I hope she will take what I have to say and not read in between the lines and think that some horrible change is coming over me.  I really do love that redhead with the gap in her teeth!

Tonight in our branch meeting during the prelude music I felt really close to our Heavenly Father.  There is a certain elder in our branch who has composed some beautiful music.  I really had to struggle to hold back tears.  I don't consider myself a crybaby in the least sense of the word but here at the MTC with the spirit that is here it is just impossible not to find yourself crying now and then.

The kind of love that I felt from my Heavenly Father tonight was very special.  It wasn't the excited joyful feeling that you receive after working with all your might, doing what's right and succeeding.  The love I felt tonight was the love of charity like the kind a boy feels from his father even after he has been slothful or done something wrong.  I could say that it was love that accompanies our Heavenly Father's forgiveness.  Even when we don't deserve it.

I know that the Lord loves us because I have felt that love.  I think that I might even have a minuscule amount of it.  At least at times, like when I think of telling my family goodbye, or looking at the elders in my district in the temple and wanting to hug the lot of them.

On a lighter note, it is really amazing to me to watch Elder Brown when I offer him one of my cookies.  His face really lights up.  He reminds me of a little kid at Christmas.  I told him that and he even agreed with me.  I think that I have found the real honest to goodness cookie monster!

Loving The MTC District At The Temple

The temple was really neat today.  I felt great.  I really felt love for each one of my companions in the district.  It took me a good part of the day to write six letters.  I surely hope that they are appreciated.  It's not that I don't like to write.  It's just that I sacrifice a lot of the Lord's time to do it.

I think I am losing my voice a little bit.  I have been kind of sick the last few days with a sore throat and re-passing charlas doesn't help it a whole lot.

I got two care packages today from home and Linda.  I thought I saw a glint of jealousy in a couple of the elders' eyes!

Linda sounds as though she is doing pretty good.  I sound good in my letters to her (as far as not missing her is concerned) but sometimes I really wish I could just see those big brown eyes looking at me with that special look that she has.  Luckily for me those times are pretty few.  There is just too much to do to let my thoughts get away and start daydreaming.

I passed off C-10 today to Elder Brown.  It is the longest concept in all of the charlas and I learned it in a day and a half which is pretty good.  It gives me hope for the other long concepts!

The Foot Race Talk: "A Proud Grandson"

I am truly on a spiritual high today.  My day didn't start out in a very promising way.  Our door was "pennyed" so that we couldn't get out.  We also didn't wake up until 6:45 which was real late.  However those were perhaps the only things that went wrong with my day.

I gave my talk on the importance of journals.  For perhaps the first time in my life I have prayed for inspiration on a talk and then exercised the faith to receive it.  I had an entry to read out of my journal (my foot race).  I thought that it would be of some inspiration to someone.  However I didn't quite know how to read it without feeling as though I was bragging.

We came to the meeting and just before we walked into the room I received the inspiration on how to do it.  I treated my journal as if it had been my Grandfather's.  I pretended that I found it, then I read the part as though I was a proud grandson reading about his Grandfather's mission experiences.  I felt the spirit with me when I read it so I read with confidence and emotion.  I think it was well received.  I got a lot of compliments from the elders in my district on the talk.  I felt totally unworthy of the praise because I know that Heavenly Father provided the inspiration for the talk and the spirit was there while I was giving it.  There is no way that it could have gone wrong.

In our culture class I learned a great deal.  Our instructor Elder Reed Harris talked to us on the importance of having charity for the people in Bolivia.  I came out of class with a new feeling towards that word.  The spirit again was in that class and it taught me a great deal.  I felt so good.  We then went to family home evening.  I felt the spirit there again and very strongly.  All the contributions of them members of my district fell upon my heart.

I was finding (with directions by the spirit) things in both The Book of Mormon and New Testament that worked right into the lesson.  Tonight I felt love for my district, true love.  I wanted to hug the sisters like I could the elders but just had to settle for a good handshake.

To top off the night, Elder Brown and I had a real good companionship inventory.  We talked more freely than ever before.  It is now 10:30 and time for bed.  I wish I could write more but it is a rule.  I can't wait to pray!

The Little Girl & The Popsicle Stand

I have a little time before our branch meeting.  I was reading a letter that Linda sent me.  She asked me what my vision was of missionary work.  She also asked me what I thought of when I hear the word 'missionary'.

Well, one thing that I think of when I hear that word is a little girl.  Elder Brown and I were walking back from the barber shop on Wednesday.  Right in front of the mailbox at Carroll Hall, a little girl was selling popsicles.  One half for a dime and a whole one for twenty cents.  Elder Brown gave me a quarter to buy one.  After giving us our popsicle and taking the quarter, this sweet little child of God realized that she didn't have a nickel for change.  Instead of trying to sweet talk us out of the nickel (which she could have done with just one gapped tooth smile), she held up a dime in her hand, and with a big grin said, "Here, because you're missionaries!"  Well we told her to keep the change or give it to her brother for his mission fund.  The point that came across to me was the love and respect that even small children have for missionaries.  A nickel isn't much, especially in this day and age but to her it was a good chunk out of her income and she offered it so willingly.  At the time that this occurred it didn't seem like a big deal but I have thought about it since.

Right now I have a very respected and loved title.  Missionary!  However I am still old John Christensen.  I am really unworthy of all the respect.  It does give me a lot of growing room however.  I hope and pray that I will never do anything that might not uphold the ideal of "the missionary".

The Lord has really blessed me.  I am beginning to translate fewer words in the concept and I believe that I am learning them faster.  Right now I am on schedule to get all 8 discussions.  I hope that I can keep it up.

Sleepy Elder Brown & Spanish Mishaps

Well it is 6:00 in the morning.  I have been sleeping a lot better the last few nights.  The Lord has blessed us with a few cooler ones.  The temperature has been from 80 to 85 degrees in our room.  They said that they are working on the air-conditioning and trying to get it fixed soon.

Some pretty funny events have occurred in class.  Usually they happen when someone either mispronounces a word or uses a different word altogether.  Elder Nelson called himself "a burrito".  The word he was trying to say was "aburido" which means boring.  Elder Laycock called our teacher Hermana Hurtado "a bore".

This morning when I woke up, I realized that another group of missionaries would be leaving.  This week has gone by really fast.  About the only things that don't go by fast are Language Class and dinner lines.  Elder Brown and I had to wait one whole hour for breakfast yesterday.  You would think that we were standing in line for a BYU Basketball game or something.

Elder Brown sure is funny sometimes.  I can predict what happens every morning.  After we get up and shower and get dressed we have 30-45 minutes to read the scriptures.  Anyways we both start reading at our desks.  Soon after that Elder Brown moves over to the air vent by the window.  He usually read there for about 10 minutes.  Then he lies down on his bed and about 5 minutes later I can hear contented snoring.  This event occurs every day.  I don't even have to turn around to see what he is doing.  I can hear what he is doing.

Elder Brown is a really good guy though.  Maybe I'd like him so much because he is about the only person I know besides Linda that whistles worse than I do.

Elder Brown just woke up to turn a page.  I think he will be sleeping again within five minutes.  Whoops, sooner than that.  This must be a record.  Either that or he is learning how to turn pages in his sleep.  I guess I had better wake him up so that we can be ready to go to class.

"I know now that Joseph Smith is a prophet of God."

I just read some of the journal entries that I have made.  Some are good some are bad.  But I feel proud of the fact that I am getting my life story down in print.

I feel as though Satan is working on all of us.  Last night was a bad night.  It was the second time that Sister Ortado taught us.  I went into class really depressed.  We took a break and I just thought of my folks and family and of Linda.

When we got back to class I, Elder Laycock and my companions got the giggles.  I haven't had that bad a case for a long time.  Anyway, we weren't doing very well and I think that Sister Ortado took it as kind of an insult.

She had to leave early so when we got done with our assignment we talked about it and I think that we all felt pretty bad.  Things just kind of heaped up on me so I just let go when I prayed last night.  I haven't let my heart out to the Lord in a long time and I really laid it on the line.  I said that I would need to know what the spirit felt like.  I wanted to know how many people I would have to hurt, insult, infuriate before I could humble myself and become a willing and submissive servant of the Lord.

I felt a lot better after shedding quite a few tears of anguish.

Today is Sunday and I have received some answers to my prayers.  I prayed to know how to tell when I felt the spirit and what it felt like.  Well this afternoon for family home evening we had a lesson on prayer that fairly rapidly turned into a discussion on the Holy Ghost and how to know when it is there.  Thoughts and ideas really flowed forth from everyone and now I know that those feelings that I have had in the past are from the Holy Ghost.

I also prayed for a testimony of Joseph Smith for it is through his revelations and ideas that the Church was brought into re-existence.  The answer to that prayer came in part this morning in priesthood when we had a lesson on Joseph Smith.  This lesson prompted me to think about him.  I also pondered about him and my ideas about him when I read The Book of Mormon today.  Well I was thinking to myself that he would have to be pretty smart to be able to write a book that hasn't contradicted itself or been disproved in over 150 years.

I know now that Joseph Smith is a prophet of God.  Tonight President Pinegar spoke at a 10 day fireside for all of us who came in on the 21st of June.  He spoke about obeying mission rules.  My testimony of Joseph Smith's divine calling came when we closed by singing "Praise To The Man".  I sang with all I could and while I was singing I saw in my mind a picture of the prophet Jospeh Smith being martyred.  I could almost hear him crying out, "My Lord, my God."  That very same spirit that I had thought and learned about this afternoon filled my whole body with the knowledge that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God.

After that meeting we went to our culture class.  That class really gets me excited.  I have a feeling that it has the opposite effect on Elder Brown.  He is from a city and I think that he would rather proselyte in the Washington D.C. (He is an intellectual Government man).  I am not trying to take anything away from him.  I think that, that is how he is inclined.  However, I am sure that he will learn to love the people as I hope I will.

My writing and spelling are failing me and my hand is about ready to fall off so I will call it a night.

All About Elder Brown & A Funny Dream

It is about 5:30 on Wednesday morning and today is P-Day.  I hope that I can budget my time wisely enough so that I can make this day profitable.

I am trying to adjust to the long hours and I must say that the Lord is sustaining me.  Monday night I think that I dreamed that an alarm clock went off because I woke up.  Elder Nelson got out of bed and walked out of the room.  I got up and got all my things ready for a shower.  When I walked in the bathroom I felt proud of the fact that I was the first one up.  I looked at my watch to see what time this memorable event was taking place at.  To my amazement it was 11:30 pm!!  That was quite a shock.  But it did feel rather good to be able to climb back into bed.

I feel as though we are in a very choice district.  There is not one bad apple in the whole bunch.  Every day I see many examples of love.  Everyone wants the district to succeed.  Last night in our room prayer the four of us elders placed our arms around each other as Elder Nelson thanked the Lord for our countless blessings.  I felt loved and I felt love for them.

Last night Elder Marion D. Hanks spoke in a devotional.  He emphasized the importance of really learning to love the scriptures.  I was truly impressed with his knowledge and ability to use the scriptures.

Elder Brown and I have decided to try and get up at 5:00 am every morning.  We will see how it works out.  While on the subject of Elder Brown, I would like to write some impressions of him.  He is pretty big.  From Cincinnati, Ohio.  He has had four years of Spanish and he really picks it up fast and speaks it well.  This ability is sometimes frustrating to me.  I feel as though we get along well as companions.  I feel that we can both give and take a little so that we compromise rather well.  It is hard for me to really describe him.  Maybe I will try again later.  I do feel that the Lord inspired this companionship!!

Elder Christensen's First Day In The MTC

Wow, what a day.  Today was my first day in the MTC.  This missionary life is going to be different.  I feel as though I better start humbling myself and repent so that I can receptive to His spirit.  I will truly need His help if I plan to make it.

I held together all week long until I said goodbye to my family this morning.  Perhaps I could have made it if I would have said goodbye to each member at different times.  All together it was too much and the tears came.

I met my companion Elder Brown.  He is from Ohio.  He seems to know a lot of Spanish.  I hope he can help me.

I saw quite a few people.  Jeff Smith, Eric Dahle, Jep Hunter, Mitch Klaich, Bruce Johnson and others that I can't remember.

I am tired and I am going to bed.  I will read scriptures first.