February 2025

 Dear family and friends,

The time seems to fly by much of the time.  We are almost at 8 months which means in just over a month we are at the half-way point of our mission.  We are glad to be out here serving and feel so blessed to be serving at Welfare Square with all of these amazing young service missionaries.

One of the young service missionaries that we serve with at Welfare Square has been with us for a couple months now.  He had been serving elsewhere as a teaching missionary and started having seizures and had to be sent home to figure it out.  He has such a wonderful spirit about him and wants to still do his best even though he has had these struggles.  We were talking with the administrative assistant at the Bishop’s Storehouse one day and was sharing a little of his story with her.  She was very interested in his story and said that she too had once had a similar issue and wondered if it could possibly be the same.  She said that she had gone to a therapist who had experience with individuals like her and that he had had a lot of success helping them.  She was able to be helped by him.

Given that we brought this up, she visited with this missionary and told him of her story and that many therapists are not acquainted with the treatment.  When he discussed this with his leaders who are in charge of helping him to get counseling and medical help, they asked around and found a retired therapist who works with missionaries still.  Here is what this missionary has shared with us about his experience:

Over the past couple months, my mom and I have been praying and pondering a lot about my condition, and we've been able to make enough progress that I no longer have the big convulsing episodes (still some small shaking here and there, but it no longer spans hours and is no longer getting worse, thank goodness). That's the power of faith, revelation, and God for you. But I continue to have episodes of weakness that hinder my ability to live normally. Through a series of absolute miracles, we were able to get in contact with a psychiatrist who helps missionaries for free. Part of these miracles was learning that my condition may be "Non-Epileptic Seizures," which can only be helped by particular doctors and therapists because it is a little-known condition. This psychiatrist, Doctor Ferre, was one such professional. He has had many patients with this particular condition. I had my appointment with him, and I barely got through telling him my symptoms and story when he launched into a lengthy explanation of what's going on. There was no confusion or further questions. It seemed like, to him, it was pretty simple.

He told me that my body is hyper-sensitive to stress. It overreacts to physical and mental stress. With this, however, I have a strange disconnect where this stress is not being brought to my awareness. Normally, when we are stressed, we feel it and are aware of it. That enables us to do something about it, like take a break or change the situation somehow. For me, I don't realize I'm stressed. Or if I do realize I'm stressed, I don't realize the magnitude of the stress. This makes it so I can't do anything about it, and this stress just builds up. My body, being hyper-sensitive to it, then freaks out. He said that my autonomic nervous system puts me into fight/flight mode, and then weird stuff starts happening. He says that common symptoms of this is that the nerves will start randomly pulsing, which causes convulsing. Another common symptom of this is weakness in the muscles. Pretty spot on, I'd say.

He said that part of the reason that I've developed this is that I was under a lot of stress for a long period of time on my mission. There were no breaks. He said that by the time people get to 18 months, most are exhausted. Many are able to push through, but many others end up shutting down. Because my body had these other things going on, it shut down.

Fortunately, he said that there is a solution, and it doesn't sound like it'll take that long. He taught me how to start to practice the communication between my mind and my body to reestablish that connection. Part of reestablishing this connection is addressing my symptoms when they come. He taught me that when these symptoms come, I can talk myself out of them. The other day, I started to have an episode. Understanding that there was something that was causing my body stress, I was able to talk (like literally talk) to my body and actually figure out what it was. It was uncomfortable with a particular situation. I then talked through the emotions behind it, and then (very important) told my body that I had a plan. I then walked through that plan with my body. It accepted the plan, and then right then and there my body stopped freaking out. Dr. Ferre said that as my body learns that I will actually listen to it and do something about the stress it's feeling, it will stop freaking out so easily and start to build resilience. He also said that my body needs to recover from the exhaustion, and that that will also help build up its resilience. As I improve, I can slowly start introducing more stresses and things into my life, but I must go at the pace my body can handle and not the pace that I'd like to see.

Eventually, he says, this communication between body and mind will become natural and I will build enough resilience that this will no longer affect my life at all. What a miracle!

This missionary has only seen this therapist one or two times and already has learned how to employ these methods which in turn has helped him to no longer have seizures.  He has also been doing well enough that they are again allowing him to drive a car.

Think of it, he has a condition that is not well known.  He decides to serve at Welfare Square.  We have a woman who previously had the same condition and gave him the notion to look for a therapist that could see if his was the same issue and if he could get the same successful help.  A therapist was located and happened to be one that is well aware of this condition and how to treat it.  And now his is rebounding.   Our God is a God of miracles!

We have been able to work with the teaching missionaries again.  We enjoy going to lessons with them.  They do such a good job teaching and sharing the hope of Jesus Christ with people.  This coming week, we will have the opportunity to be with two sets of teaching missionaries, each with a different friend that is learning about the gospel.  What a joy.  When we find ourselves in such places, we have always felt an immense joy and a good spirit.  Hopefully we will continue to have these opportunities.

Something that you may find interesting … we have security guards that work on Welfare Square.  From time to time we call upon them to deal with disturbances or whatever.  This past week we called upon them for such a case.  It turns out that one of the patrons left their car unlocked while they were in the store.  Another couple walked towards the car and the lady opened the door and sat inside it rummaging around. The owners of the car saw this from inside the Bishop’s Storehouse and rushed outside to confront them. The lady got out and handed her the car keys that they had left inside. She said "you left your car turned on and I just wanted to turn it off so it wouldn’t get stolen". Then they went into the Storehouse. The car owner woman went back out to see if her wallet was still out there and it was missing. So a dispute started inside the Storehouse. When the car owner's said they would call the cops if they didn’t hand over the wallet, they fished it out and handed it over. By the time security showed up they had left the building and made it to the gates. Our favorite security guard likes to tell people “You are Trespassed from Welfare Square” this is spoken with his French accent. It makes it much more memorable.  When we see him at the end of the day, we like to ask him if he trespassed anyone that day. He gets excited when he has a good story to share with us.

We do unfortunately have a few challenges from time to time with patrons.  We’re glad that for the most part, the patrons who come are grateful for the assistance they receive and they don’t make trouble.  For the times when we do have challenges, we are also grateful that we have security onsite to come to our aid when they are needed.

Last week, we invited a couple of friends to go with us to "Music and the Spoken Word” on Sunday morning.  One of the friends is one who joined the church last Fall, another of the friends is one who is being taught right now by the missionaries and with whom we join in on the lessons when we can.  That was a nice experience with them.  I believe they enjoyed it.  After it was over, we toured the conference center with them.

We have enjoyed attending “Music and the Spoken Word” each week this year thus far.  I think that Toni is hopeful that it can continue to be a weekly thing each Sunday morning.  It really is delightful.  Today, it was in the Tabernacle.  It has been in the Conference Center.  I’m not sure if I prefer it in one over the other … perhaps if we keep going, I will form an opinion on that.  The seats are definitely more comfortable in the Conference Center.  The acoustics are really quite amazing in both.  Regardless of where it originates, their music and the message are both moving and inspiring.

Toni and I were talking this morning about the coming of the Savior in the latter days.  I know that He lives.  I also believe with my whole heart that He will come again.  I’m hopeful that I will be here still and be able to be a part of the work that will go on during his millennial reign on Earth.  I hope to ever be one of his disciples and one that he can count on.  I also hope to be with each of you eternally.  Let us all live our lives so that we can live together forever.  Let us learn and keep his commandments.  Let us help each other along the way.  We love you, our dear friends and family.  We pray for each of you regularly; for your health, for your safety, for you to be guided in life.

Well, we hope you can all have a wonderful week, filled with joy and accomplishment.  We hope that we can all reach out and touch others for good.  To uplift, to assist with needs.  May we ever do so.

Love Grandpa and Grandma, Mom & Dad, son, daughter, sister, brother, neighbor and friend

Elder Eugene & Sister Toni Christensen