This week has been very very busy with traveling all over the mission for Zone Training Meetings.  We have been to Asheville, Kingsport, Chattanooga, Cumberland, and then here in Knoxville.  We enjoy the association we have with the young Elders and Sisters and our president, President Griffin.  We learn lots and we are strengthened by the teachings and testimonies we hear.  We get to participate in lots of role-plays as we practice giving sections of the lessons, especially the Restoration and the Plan of Salvation.  These two lessons are given most often.  People that don't join the Church usually don't get past these.  One of the most powerful parts is to talk of the First Vision in Joseph's own language.

Friday night we has the opportunity to go to the "Music Man" put on by Karns High School, a local high school where Caren Marlowe (Amy and Wally's sister in-law, Phil Marlowe's wife).  Our Bishop's daughter, Elise Pickett, was in the play and we were invited.  They did a really good job.  At the end the High School Band came down the aisles in the auditorium playing 76 Trombones.  What a fun night.  Afterwards, Caryn came to thank us for coming and supporting her.

On P-Day this week we did a bunch of fun things.  First we went downtown to the University Commons and caught an old fashioned train.  It traveled along the Tennessee River out to the countryside where we watched a vintage baseball game.  The game has old fashioned rules (you're out if the fielder catches the ball after one bounce and you can't overrun first base and the fielders don't have a baseball mitt).  It was fun to watch the Knoxville Holstons play the Highland Rim Distillers.

At the baseball game we met a man named Mr. Griffy.  He is 82 years old and was dressed like a man from Revolutionary War times.  He was helping at a nearby historical house from the 1790s called the Ramsey House.  He had met Mormon Missionaries before and accepted a pass-along card from us.

          After the baseball game we were still downtown so we went to the Rossini Festival in Market Square.  Susan went to this when she lived here.  It is a very large street fair where there are hundreds of vendors along the streets and traffic is closed off.  At select locations they have performers including bands, opera singers, dancers and individual musicians.  We ate supper there and enjoyed the music.
          One of the most exciting things that happened this week was that Ellen Long, our investigator from the Bank, called us to schedule a dinner where we can have the young missionaries help us teach her the lessons--at least get started.  She has already been to Church with us before she even has had any lessons.  She needs the Gospel so badly and we are praying for her every day.  We love the actual missionary work more than anything else.  We are busy with administrative things and medical things, which are important, but nothing beats doing "real" missionary work.
          We love you all.  Have a wonderful week.  Love Elder and Sister Christensen

Mountains and missionary miracles

This week has been busy with travel for missionaries because 11 missionaries go home and that means journals and travel needs to be ready. Sometimes it goes smoothly and other times things like missionaries need to go home at a different time than with the group for weddings or family events close to their returning.  Sometimes the parents plan to come pick up their missionary and then plans fall through and you have to get busy picking up the pace for those that you weren't planning on with the travel.  I do a journal for each released missionary that has pictures letters and his or her assignment history. Letters from the president to them and their letters to him that is suppose to happen each week so, I print out about 100-200 pages of their mission letters.  Anyway April 28 is the release so that is why it is busy.  Plus this next week Dad and I go to zone training which is the whole week and some of that is two to four hours of travel plus the meeting.  We did find out that the mission office is not moving so we were glad about that.  Though it would have been a nice building to move too. It is probably a good thing not to push the institute out.  They just need to work at getting more students to take institute, because the building is not utilized very well. 

We are still doing missionary work on top of the office work. So the miracle! When we first came to TN we opened up a bank account at a bank close to the mission office.  A teller Ellen Long helped us.  We started telling her why we were here and a little about the church. We asked her questions which was not easy for here to answer because they were personal like about her family ect.  She was very reserved and did not give information very comfortably but we could tell she had deep feelings that were buried under hurt and anger.  She had lost her husband four years ago to the war.  She had a teenage daughters and from what we could tell not a strong understanding about way this happened. We just shared our feeling that God knows her hurt and her loneliness.  We could tell that emotions were close to the surface. We gave her a pass along card with the Mormon .org website on it.  Well months have gone by and we have prayed for her have seen her afew times at the bank.  Taken things to her to just let her know we care about her.  Found out her father in law passed away.  Gave her the dvd Finding Faith in Christ. We have just tried to follow the spirit in what to do for her.  We decided it was time to talk to her more than at the bank when she is working so we invited her to lunch on her lunch hour.  This we did this past week. She came and we talked more about things like the plan of salvation.  Dad asked her if she was looking for a church.  She said no.  So we just gave her our testimony of why we are here and that there was life before we came and there is life after this time on earth.  We again tried to listen to the spirit.  We found out she loves to garden.  We talked about gardening.  She then said that she is person that has to see to believe.  The thought came to me that I did not see her husband so why should I believe he existed.  I also thought that we take seeds put them in the ground and depending on the seed expect plants with produce to come.  Why should we believe that when we don't see how a small see could produce a watermelon.  So we talked about some things we learn from not seeing and just trusting.  Soon lunch was done she went back to work we went to the office.  That night she called us and asked if she could come to our church this Sunday.  

I told her we would love it. After getting off the phone we did a high five missionary dance.  Not a pretty sight.  Then we thanked our Heavenly Father for helping us say the right things that helped her want to take such a brave step as to ask if she could come to our church.  Most people listen to lessons then they might come to church if you beg them.  So today we waited at the door to see if she would come and she did!!!!!!!  The sacrament meeting was perfect for an investigator.  A young man spoke that is going on a mission.  A youth spoke on making decisions and a high counselor spoke about Moses and children of Israel not looking to the serpent to be healed.  He said you can't quench thrist with water you don't drink or satisfy hunger with food you don't eat.  The missionary going read a testimony he had written when he was younger and it was so strong in his promise to follow Christ. She said she liked having speakers that were not preachers.  She liked the smaller numbers of people.  They have huge churches in the south.. Some congregations are into the thousands or least 500.  It is cultural thing to go to church.  We hope she gets more feelings about listening to the things we have to teach her.  We told her she did things a little backwards. Usually there are lessons taught then you come to church.   

Sorry this is a long story. Pray for Ellen Long,  we hope to be able to teach her.  The miracle is that I wanted to have someone by my birthday to have the missionaries teach. So I decided to make it a matter of prayer.  Well it is not to far from my birthday and at least we have an investigator.. 

Here we a few pictures from a beautiful drive we took this week end.  Love you all.  Have a great week mom grandma and Sister Christensen

 

Sister Christensen in front of the Church Building

Elder Christensen in back of the Church by a beautiful dogwood tree.

Chattanooga Choo Choo Hotel

Lookout Point overlooking Chattanooga

Hello everyone,
          It is so beautiful here in East Tennessee this time of year.  We learned that the average annual rainfall here is about 48 inches, which explains why it is so green and beautiful.  We are staying busy, both at the mission office and in the West Hills Ward as Ward Missionaries.  We just finished a great weekend Senior Missionary Couples Activity in Chattanooga.  We were in charge of the activity.  On Friday afternoon we all met at the Joseph Standing Memorial Park in Northern Georgia (just south of Chattanooga).  The Church maintains this little park in honor of Joseph Standing, who was a 24 year old Mormon missionary who was shot to death by a mob in 1879 on that site.  He was companions with Elder Rudger Clawson, who was not killed and later became the President of the Quorum of the Twelve.  Next we went to the Chattanooga Branch building, which is a Civil War era historic building that the Church leases.  There we had a tour of the building and a local brother gave us the history of the building including how it relates to the Civil War.  It has been restored and is such a beautiful building.  We arranged to have dinner and a program there at the building.  We had a discussion with the other couples and two of the couples who are leaving the mission soon bore their testimonies.  We then went to the Chattanooga Choo Choo Hotel in downtown Chattanooga to stay over night.  On Saturday then we went to Lookout Mountain to see underground Ruby Falls and the Rock Gardens.  We also visited the Civil War battlefield of Lookout Point.  We had such a great time.
          We are enjoying the missionary work too.  This past week we were able to participate in teaching an investigator out in Sevierville (close to Dollywood Theme Park).  This is a lady who has cancer and interested in the Church.  She was referred to us by a person in Salt Lake City who is her friend.  We taught her and then had the young Sisters and Elders help us with a service project to clean her house.  It is exciting to be directly involved in missionary work.

Have a great week y'all.  Love Elder and Sister Christensen

Another Beautiful Spring Week in Tennessee

April 3 2015

Dear Family and Friends,

The weeks are flying by and it is hard to remember what has happened since last letter.  The dogwoods are out but the blossoms from other trees are gone and most everything is that spring green color.  I know that in Idaho you are just awakening to spring and I want to be there also because I love the spring in my yard.  The lilacs and blossoms that come remind me of my favorite season.  I love spring.  We had to say goodbye to Susan and boys on Tuesday.  It was so fun to have her here and we enjoyed everything we did.  We even got a babysitter from our ward and took her to dinner without the boys.  We thought she might like a little time alone with us.  We talked of her goals and desires to marry again.  So if you have any thoughts make sure they come with inspiration and then pass them on to Susan.  I think she is ready to step into relationships just to get her feet wet a little.  She is to sure how she is going to find the time to do this.  But as we know the Lord always qualifies you for the work.  Her business is picking up and she is a little stressed with that because she doesn't know how she is going to keep ahead and take care of the boys etc.  Keep praying for her that peace and calm will be part of her life even though it is very busy.  She did get a father's blessing when she was here.  It was a beautiful comforting blessing and I think she felt better after it.  But then we drove them to the airport and dropped them off.  Loved seeing her and the boys.  Finden  is really starting to talk a lot and I can even understand most of what he says.  Grayer got to go fishing in the little lake by us.  We found out they stock it with fish and that some people fish there and have caught fish and turtles.  We didn't have a pole but Grayer has never gone fishing and he really wanted to do it.  So I took Finden and Sue shopping and dad went and bought a small pole and then he and Grayer fished because it is private you don't have to have a license.  Dad said Grayer got really good at casting and they did that for about an hour.  No luck on the fish but he had fun just going through the motions.
So that is a little of what we did with Sue after Sunday's letter.
    We are still doing the same things we told you about at the office.  Dad gets calls for the sick or injured missionaries.  Then he calls SL medical and gets things approved.  He does a lot on the phone with these class from the missionaries.  Then he has to report all of it into the data bank of the missionary which helps the medical mission department of the church.  I have been working on travel for three different groups of missionaries going home the first group goes at the end of April the next group goes in June and then I have two groups going in July.  The office staff has been praying for missionaries to come into the field.  We have 8 going home and only 4 coming in.  We have 4 couples going home and only 2 coming in.  That leaves areas that might have to be closed because there are not enough missionaries to cover.  This means the housing person we help will be moving out of apartments in various places and that means she has to find places to store the furnishings of that place and also move.  That makes her job busier and so when she is really busy we help her.  The biggest concern we have is that the Thurgoods (she is the secretary and he is the vehicle person) are leaving and we don't have anyone coming to take there place yet.  So we really hope someone decides to come on a mission.  The missions really do need couples at least they do here.  We have 4 couples that are serving from their homes.  Meaning they live here in Knoxville.  There are only 3 couples here from other places.
     Just a little miracle from a previous week.  Dad and I try to get into the office at 9:00.  We were ready to go and some missionaries that needed to get to a doctors appointment called and said their ride fell through and wondered if we could get them to the appointment.  Dad then went to get them which we knew would take about a half hour in extra travel.  He left me home and came back to get me after.  We were just ready to leave for the office an hour late when dad decided to empty the garbage in the bathroom.  as he bent down he saw water on the floor around the toilet.  Which by the way was not there when I was in the bathroom.  He found the tank was leaking.  If we had gone on time the bathroom would have sat in water all day and probably damaged the floor and the apartment ceiling under us.  As it was we got the maintenance on it.  Which brings me to another miracle.  Amy and Mike came to our house for a few days to help us with trimming the trees.  While there they notice water leaking under the kitchen sink when they used the sink.  Jon and Melinda had used that sink in previous visits to the house no problem.  But while someone was right there the leak became apparent and Mike was able to fix it.  I have a testimony that the Lord watches over his missionaries in every little thing.  So remember that you are part of what the Lord is watching over for us.   We love you all and pray for you always.  Love Mom Grandma and Sister Christensen