Dear Everyone,
Man, oh man. If I could just head-butt you all so that everything inside my head could just be instantaneously transferred over to you that'd be so much easier. My time today is a little more abbreviated - which I'll explain in a minute - so I'll start with the most important things and move down the list. First and foremost, I'm currently not in Saratoga Springs. I underwent an Emergency Transfer this week and I'm actually serving in Albany! Crazy! So an Assistant to the President went home, was scheduled to, on the first in order to get home in time for a semester of school. Because they knew this in advance they had called 3 Assistants at the start of this transfer so there'd still be two when he left. On top of this, though, I found out an additional single missionary came here the start of this last transfer as well - he was serving in Ivory Coast, got sick, and is here now! So long story short, he had been working with the Assistants, 4 elders together/splitting up, etc. Once the one went home for school there was an odd number of missionaries; and, in the end, President had him come to Saratoga Springs with Elder Stratton! President Bulloch called Elder Stratton and I on Thursday night at 9:15 and told us the news. He told me I was going to go serve as a Zone Leader in a tri-panionship here in Albany. It utterly shocked us. It was out of nowhere that this happened! I couldn't believe it; Elder Stratton and I really were working well together and he was stepping up big time, it was great. But the Lord called. I wish I could go over all of the surrounding events and everything about this all but it's pretty intricate how it all happened and the tender mercies seen and witnesses that took place testifying that this needed to happen were pretty great. So Friday we just went about our work as normal and at night I saw some people I wanted to say bye to and things. Saturday was when I was to leave at 5:00pm. President and Sister Bulloch came to Saratoga with Elder Kitchen. We then proceeded to have Sandra interviewed for baptism by president (which was one of the tender mercies that fell into place as we found out she needed that to happen before her baptism). I then was picked up by my new companions, Elders Johnson and Elder Boyakin. They're awesome and I was already really good friends with them. E. Johnson is awesome from Cali and has only 2 more transfers. E. Boyakin came out with E. Miller, and was recently made a Zone Leader this transfer; he' sweet. So, as bummed and shocked I suppose as you may be or that you'd think I was/am I'm really actually content with it all. There is incredible work going on here that I am truly excited about. It's funny, too, when I was on exchange here with E. Boyakin the week of Christmas I really felt comfortable here and enjoyed it a lot. I'm stoked. Being a Zone Leader definitely is bringing on a whole lot of new responsibilities but I'm learning and it's been great. Being with 2 other companions is new too; it's basically a party, ha. So that is some crazy news. Oh man, it was quite the day to say the least. One I will NEVER forget. Anyway, the work is great in Saratoga. I'll get to go to Sandras baptism on Saturday which is so exciting! President is letting me. We taught some incredible lessons this week too that went really well. With Tom in Saratoga. And yesterday we taught 2 part-member families that are investigators which went really well! It's awesome here! I'm way excited! President told me it's likely E. Johnson will leave and I'll be here with E. Boyakin next transfer but you never know. Regardless it's likely I'll be here.
So, I'm emailing in downtown Albany with the Elders serving here, too. There's five of us. We're all together and leaving at the same time, etc. So I have to run but know I am happy, excited and love the work!
I love you all so much and wish you a great week! Thanks for the support.
Love,
Elder Christensen
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