CAT FISH (week 10)

Howdy! Y'all!

     Sorry for sending this out so late. I know you all missed my eloquent writing from last week. So, take note that this email is from the week of November 5th through the 11th or something like that. Or in other words the week I missed. Hopefully that made sense. If not then you can contact my agent. (I will provide the number at the bottom of this email :).

-The Catfish.

     Some of you may remember the story I shared about the Krugs and how they were scammed by Mr. Fake Shelton. Well the good news is they have officially called it out as a scam and have now safely put everything back into their house. All is well. Except... Now we have another fishy situation with someone else. Sunday, November 9th. We met with someone during the second hour of church. An older man probably in his mid sixties who is also a member. He comes up to us and says something along the lines of,

"Elders! I have a GOLDEN investigator for you!"

Us, obviously curious about what he's talking about, walk over and begin to chat. He claims there is a women he has been meeting with in Las Vegas who is supposedly flying into Eugene to come live with this man. She is not a member but is very interested in the church. Clearly this seems too good to be true so we started asking questions. We first ask,

"So, how long have you known this person?"

Now I believe he said only a couple months. Regardless we dug deeper.

"Okay, now how have you been talking to this woman?" We ask.

"Oh, only by email. Shes a little shy and doesnt wan't to talk."

The smell of fish is continuing to get more pungent. Now we still had our hopes. Maybe this man really wasn't getting scammed. But we had one final question to ask just to be sure to nail this one in the coffin. We ask,

"Has this women ever asked you for money?"

The man looks at us and says,

"Only in the beginning. But now she wants to live here! I mean she has brought up the money thing occasionally."

Welp. There you have it. Now I don't know about you but it sure seems like we got another interesting problem to deal with. I'll be sure to get to the bottom of this next week. Maybe its Fake Shelton getting ready to take his next victim this time in the form of a woman! Tragic.

Love it or hate it, its just the way things are out here. Old people getting scammed. It just breaks my heart. Why somebody would take advantage of someone who already has it rough. Its just pathetic. Especially to someone who has clearly been alone for a long time. Keep him in your prayers.

-The Friends!

Now, I am sure some of you want to know how the work is doing out here is Oregon! Well I am pleased to say we are kicking butt! One cool thing that happens nowadays are Social Media Referals. I remember my dad telling me a story about one of his companions out in africa who wouldn't want to leave the apartment to either public contact or go knock doors. Regardless my dad quotes him all the time because his comp would always say,

"I don't want to go walk around like a robot!" (make sure to read this out loud in a thick african accent).

His companion would say that so much to where it got to the point my dad said, 

"If you can get people to come knock on our door, then we can stay. But until then we're continuing to go out and work."

Well guess what. Now we can get people to come, figuratively, knock on our door! So we get to be BUMS and never leave the apartment! (just kidding). 

Social Media Referals are great because it is literally people putting in their name and phone number because THEY want to meet US. One of our favorite friends at the moment who met us through social media called us at 7:00 in the morning and said they wanted to "Be spiritually reborn." Now thats awesome. So we ended up getting to meet with her. We had a great lesson and invited her to church. She ended up pulling up to church the first week we made contact with her. Thats the beauty of social media referals.

We also had another one of our friends, who had been taught before, actually make the commitment to follow Jesus Christ's example to be baptized. We put him on date to be baptized on November 30th.God is good. Although, his biggest problem is he currently lives with his girlfriend right now and she is pregnant. So, hes got to marry her but he’s amazing so I have faith. 

Finally, our other friend who is on date seems to always be getting sick so she hasn't been able to come to church so we need to push her baptismal date back a little bit. But it’s alright. I have faith God will have it all get figured out.

-Conclusion

     Well thats it! I hope you enjoyed reading! I've continued to LOVE it out here and it just keeps getting better. I've been looking at all of the people who made it out to Korea and I honestly haven't felt any FOMO (fear of missing out) at all. In fact they should feel jealous they aren't out here in the boonies! 

I hope you all have recognized the Spirit in your life. Its always there even if you don't believe it. The Lord has provided so many blessings in our lives so make sure to recognize it. Please continue to send me emails. You don't have to wait until Tuesday to send them. I will still be able to read them, I just cant respond till Tuesday. Stay safe, Fake Shelton is still out there...

Love y'all! (x5)

-Elder Christensen

My Agent.

1-(800)-CAT-FISH. 😜