Emergency move and Bre got baptized!

Hands down one of the most intense rad, weird weeks of my mission, life is just life haha.

So to start things off this week we had to do an emergency move! So I changed addresses. I live at 1550 Arizona Dr. #25 Portales NM 88130 if anyone wanted to write me a letter. If you sent one this week no worries cause the sister missionaries live in our house now haha. So this week we get a call from the APs saying we need you to switch apartments with the sisters. And we were like okay we can do that, why? Apparently there is a mice infestation in the sister’s apartment and the sisters can’t stay there anymore and we get the marvelous opportunity to live there in their stead! Haha it is awesome, when I say infestation, I mean I/we caught twelve mice in one day on two different traps hahaha. It’s always a nice unsettling feeling when you hear another trap snap, but ya I think we have almost got them all, there are a few left, but we can live with that. What a week. I kinda feel bad, but I know I will never be able to look at Mickey Mouse the same again!

Also this week was one of the best weeks of my life because Breanna Marie Jones got baptized. It was a journey to get to this point, but it was so worth it.  Her family didn't come, but she was so happy none the less to get baptized on her 18th birthday!.

So another miracle came from her baptism. It was at 8:00 a.m. Sunday morning before church. And there were so many people there to support her it was so amazing. But she got baptized and while she was changing Elder Marchant and I taught the restoration to everyone there. And in the crowd was a non-member who had been taught by Elders in the past a few years ago, and the Elders railed him too hard and shut him off to the missionaries for years... after Elder Marchant and I got done instructing and the baptism concluded, his daughter came up to us and said my dad wants y’all to come over to our house on Tuesday and teach him........wow that was such a humbling experience to me to know how much the Holy Ghost is working through me at this time. How all of this studying and all of this work is not in vain. I am so blessed to be who I am today and for all of the talents and gifts God has given me.

Then after the baptism during sacrament meeting, I gave Bree the gift of the Holy Ghost. Wow was that so cool. After I was done she looked up at me and I promise you I could see the light shining through her. I could hardly keep from crying. The gift of the Holy Ghost is real. Bree has always had a strong spirit about her, but now that she has the gift of the Holy Ghost she glows! You can see it in people. That’s how people can tell you are worthy member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day-Saints or that there is something special about you. The priesthood is real.

Then after the confirmation, Bree and her sister Alisha got to bear their testimony. I was humbled once again to hear how much the gospel has changed her life and her relationship with God and how I was a part of her conversion. Then after that, we all sat down and listened to the Bishop speak, then Bree stands up and goes up with Sister Christiansen and sings “Come Thou Fount”. They had heard that I had that sung at my farewell and wanted to do that one..... at this point I could not hold back the tears anymore, nor did I want too. Bree is a vocal performance major at Easter New Mexico University. And she single-handedly brought the spirit into that whole day and that whole week. I truly remember why I came out on my mission. I truly know how blessed I am to have met the people I have met. I know that this is the true church of Jesus Christ and that the authority to baptize and the give the gift of the Holy Ghost is on the earth, if you don’t agree with me I am sorry. Because I know that this message is perfect, I know that the fullness of Christ’s gospel is on the earth and I know that the only way to have complete and utter happiness is by coming to the knowledge that I have come. I love you all so much. I love you more every day, I hope you know that..... I am blessed.

love elder keeg

Burned a shirt and married a couple....

What is up world at large!

Portales, New Mexico has been so blessed this week, a perfect year mark present for the young 19 year old missionary. Congratulations everyone for pushing forward in life and making it through the hard times one more year!

So this week has been so rad. Breanna J. is preparing to be baptized this week on the 27th of July on her 18th birthday. She had to wait till then because her parents are very against it, but she has been such an example of light and love to the whole world. I am so excited for her to make this step early in the morning before church :). So pray for her this week because Satan is real and he is going to be doing everything in his power to stop this daughter of God from getting to the waters of baptism. But as we know, we all are stronger than Satan. We all have so much power within us already, but when we get the spirit of God within us we are adding another layer of protection and armor to help us fight all the hate in this world. I am so sick of hate, man I just want peace and love to surround us all in our lives. 

Also today has been a glorious day for our investigator Kandy and her new husband (picture attached). We have been talking to them for a little while now and Kandy wants to get baptized so bad, but we told her in order to get baptized you have to be married, you can’t just live together, so right then and there they proposed and got married by our hand on July 21st 1:01 pm. It was one of the coolest moments of my entire mission to help these two people come closer together and help them come closer to their Heavenly Father. It is the first step in their long journey, but she is preparing to be baptized on the 2nd of August, so please keep her in your prayers as well.

I am one year older and wiser too. I never in a million years would have ever thought that I would do half of this stuff that I have done on my mission. It is seriously so rad. If any of you are thinking about going on a mission, all I can say is that if you want to truly figure out what you want in life, if you want to become the husband, father and friend you need to be, then go on a mission. I know it sounds cliché, but I am being 100% honest. You get to refine all of your skills and see life for what it truly is and learn from others situations.

I only have one year left without my loved ones, but I am gaining a new bigger family every day.

I am Keegan Christensen and I am me.

Love Keegan

Oh ya and I burned a shirt for my year mark! Haha peace…

Not good-bye to a year, but hello to the new year in front of me...

“You say yes, I say no, you say stop and I say go go go, don’t know why you say goodbye, I say hello.” Okay so this is rad, I have come to the half-way mark of my mission. I hit one year on Thursday. I’ve decided to not let last year die and say goodbye to it, but instead say hello to a new year in front of me. Welcome it with a warm song courtesy of the Beatles. Which I miss haha.

Also the minivan that we used to roll around in had to be taken back to the dealership, so we are back to bike here… yaaaaah.

This week has been a strange one; I can’t really explain my emotions right now about how I feel about being half way done. All I know is that I feel emotion of some kind haha. It is weird. I am forgetting the lyrics to songs I knew back home and I can only remember hymns haha. Don’t waste time in this life. It is too short, my mission is so short and I am so glad I have not wasted the Lord’s time. A weird way to look at my mission is that the two years I serve add up to 10% of my entire life so far. So by the end of this I will have been a full time missionary for ten percent of the time haha.

Right now I am sitting in a library in Portales, New Mexico as a 19 year old kid serving a mission. I was thinking the other day and there are roughly 405 missions in the entire world and within those missions there are over, idk, like 20-60 areas. And right now out of all of those places I could be, the Lord knows I will grow the most here. This world is specifically designed for you, for your situation and God is going to put you exactly where you need to be to help you grow the most.

This last year I have learned so much about who I really am and what I really want in life. One thing that I have learned is that you can be the smartest man on the face of the earth, you can know so much but still be so stupid. This last year I have studied and studied the Bible so I would be able to compete with these preachers that seriously live in every other house down here. But after all of that studying and all of the knowledge I gained, people still weren’t getting baptized, or converting. But the second I realized that it is not about knowing every little detail about everything that makes you smart, it is having the spirit, it is having God on your side. It’s good to gain knowledge, don’t get me wrong, but I would trade that for wisdom any day of the week.

Have a good week everyone… be safe and stay strong!

Love elder c

Independence Day and 2 funerals...

Hello my friends hello,

So it is so weird that I have a new niece and nephew that I won’t get to meet for an entire year, the fam bam is just getting bigger every day. I am so happy for both of my sisters and am looking forward to meeting the new family when I get home in a year! This is so weird.

So this week I have grown more than I think I have ever grown in my life. Spiritually and mentally. This week has been very hard and I have had to do things that no 19 year old boy should have to do, but I know that the Lord is preparing me for the future, preparing me for something so great that I can’t even imagine.

But to start things off the Independence Day was awesome! People down here are all about it, haha so we got to talk to a lot of awesome people about how awesome our country is. Man this county is amazing. Except it was weird to me that when I would tell everyone “Happy Independence Day”, like no one knew what I was talking about? They were like; it is the 4th of July? So I hope everyone back home may learn about why we celebrate the Fourth of July, because if it didn’t happen the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ might not have happened yet!

So to celebrate this wonderful day I wanted to blow some crap up like the whole U.S.A. does, but we found out that we aren’t allowed to handle an open flame in this mission, so we just got some little pop fireworks and went to town haha good day. We also watched the city fireworks from our roof which was legendary. I love our country.

That aside this week was different. This week I truly gained a testimony of how we are never alone because Christ is always with us, he will never leave us and he will buoy us up when we need his help. I gained a greater testimony of the Plan of Salvation and God’s love for little children. This week my companion and I were asked to attend two funerals...  One for an elderly woman and one for a little boy, for the little boy we were asked to help dedicate the grave site.... I’m sorry if this letter doesn’t make sense but I am feeling a lot of emotion right now… When we were there I felt the spirit of the Lord.. Yes when death is present there is always mourning and it is okay to be sad and to grieve. But God is always still there. I personally would not be able to handle death, or handle life for that matter, without God’s perfect plan of salvation. His plan is perfect, it is not just heaven and hell, it is not fire and brimstone, it is his plan of happiness where families can be together forever. It’s the hope of a better place. I know that that little boy is with his Heavenly Father right now, I know that he is okay I know that God needed him for a reason. And he is so blessed; he didn’t have to go through all these hardships and trials that come with life. He gets to dwell in peace. 

I was also made aware of my friend Matt Palmer this week (he passed away on his mission). I testify to you that he is sitting with our God in heaven right now as we speak. I know that he is safe and I know that he is okay. I am so blessed to know him. I am so blessed to know that he is truly with our Heavenly Father.....

Life is hard. We don’t understand it, but God does so take every situation and learn and grow, try not to give up, and become the person God needs you to be. Love you all so much and I love God and His plan. Never forget who we are. 

Love Elder Christensen