DREAMING OF A WHITE CHRISTMAS (week 16)

Dec 22, 2025
3 min read

Hi!

Merry Christmas! I cannot believe its already here! I hope all of you have some things planned and that each of you spend as much time as you can with your family. As for me, I'm not entirely sure what I will do for Christmas. Hopefully it will involve inviting people unto Christ. Because that is what Christmas is all about!

It’s been kind of bittersweet knowing I won't be home for Christmas, but I feel so much more satisfaction and purpose teaching of christ and delivering spiritual blessings. So, its weird. Do I wish I was home spending my time with family for Christmas? Yes of course, but thats not what The Lord needs me to do. He needs me to serve. So that's what I plan to do.

White Christmas

So, just recently we had a ward Christmas party! It was awesome! The entire ward plus some extra people we invited came. It felt like there were 100 people there that day but honestly it could have been more. Basically how it went was, we mingled around chatting (Albeit I had no idea what anyone was saying), had dinner, Which by the way was absolutely fabulous, and then watched a bunch of christmas related performances. One of which was a lip sync solo of "White Christmas." by yours truly (check it out on my Google photos). I am not entirely sure how I got wrangled into that but all I remember was the bishop saying something in korean to us and the only words I heard him say were "White Christmas" and "Lip Sync".

I performed and it was actually pretty fun. I just messed around in front of everyone and everyone seemed to really like it ha! The other American Elder who was there with us was told to be Santa for all the little kids. So he put on the Santa costume and handed out presents to all the little kids. It was so awesome. A couple of them even got selfies with him. Quite the fun night and was for sure the highlight of my week.

Other than that the week was about as typical as missionary work has been. I had my first lesson out here in Korea. However it was unique because the guy we were teaching was French, spoke zero Korean, but was fluent in English. So, it was actually pretty cool to show just how slightly refined my English teaching has been thanks to Oregon. My companion was actually blown away at how well I taught the lesson. He said,

"You are a really good teacher. Most trainees tend to stay quiet even when they can teach in English."

So that was definately a confidence booster. I just hope the words and the lesson I conveyed were able to touch the heart of our French friend haha.

Conclusion

I am still trying to figure things out while I've been here. I don't understand a word of Korean or really where I am. It’s all been so much so fast but the work and the spirit I have been feeling and sharing has all been the same. That’s the beauty of this work, no matter where you are, no matter who you are serving, the spirit and the work never changes. Things may feel discouraging for a lot of people who are away from home right now and won't be able to spend Christmas with family, trust me I'm one of them, but I know The Holy Spirit will continue to brighten and lift us up if we let it. One of the ways I have let The Spirit in my life has been by serving others and sharing my testimony of Christ. Elder Brown of the Seventy put it perfectly.

"A testimony is not a temporary gift!"

So why should we be afraid to share it. a testimony is "Eternal because the giver is Eternal."

I hope you have a Merry Christmas.

Share your testimony and continue to love one another!

Love you guys!

-Elder Christensen