Another week in Tennessee

Dear Family and Friends,

It started to cool down finally here.  It has been so wonderful to go walking outside again and have energy because it is not so sauna like in temperature.  We even went for a bike ride along the long rode that is called Westland.  There is not one road in Tennessee that is straight and flat. This up and down hill road gave us a little bit of a challenge especially since we have not ridden bikes for awhile.
We borrowed bikes from the mission we have a storage place with bikes that Elders and Sisters have left.  Some are not bad.
This week I went with Sister Griffin to a place called LaFayette Georgia to see if the apartment was clean.  It was a place we shut down for two transfers because we didn't have enough missionaries to cover all the areas.  But we get 22 new missionaries in the next week so we can open it up.  Sister Griffin was just going to go on her own but I didn't have a lot to do so I said I would drive over with her and help if it was not clean.  Well guess what it was not clean and so it took us about two hours to get everything clean.  The missionaries didn't even vacuum the floors or clean the bathrooms when they left and they have been told and trained to do so. We now know that who ever goes into that apartment got the super mom cleaning job done on their apartment.  I hope they appreciate it.  But they won't.  Most of these kids are so lacking in cleaning and decency.  Not most but a large part of them you can tell they have mothers do it or they have not been made to take care of things.   The Elders seem to be better at cleaning than the sisters.  That surprises me but it is true.
Any way it fun to spend some time with Sister Griffin ( mission president's wife)we went to a fun little lunch place in this town that has seen better days.  It is an old antebellum town that had a cool southern plantation home in the middle of the town we walked around the grounds and went down a little lane to the slave quarters that was part of this families way of life because they owned a cotton factory at one time and of course had cotton fields that provided the raw resources for the factory.  The home has been in the family for 150 years.  The last 75 it has been part of the national homes preservation projects.  It gave a story that when the Union soldier  came the family fled to another town and when they came back they found blood and horses hoof prints on the hard wood floor of their home.   Most of the pictures come this time come from our short little tour of LaFayette Georgia.  We have not seen much as far as color changing here but I think it will something spectacular when it comes.
One day this week I took  Sister Wagner to a doctor's appointment.  She had burned the end of her nose badly from the sun sometime ago and a plastic surgeon in the area she works in said he could fix it for her with a little lazer treatment.   She is going home this coming week but she decided to do it here since this doctor was kind enough to do it for her free.  Anyway sitting in a doctors office waiting reminds me that we will now have to do this.  We also got our flu shots and had to wait for an hour to get one 3 minute shot.  It is going to be hard on us but we will try to be grateful for all the years we did not have to wait for a doctor.  I think it will be hardest on dad.  He wanted a flu shot he just got one out of the office fridge and asked one of the nurses to give it to him.  I have loved the first session of conference and look forward to tomorrow.
Another event this week was our bishop's wife Erin Pickett.  Did a Lularoe party for Susan and I went to show them how the fabric felt and let them try on some of the clothes.  Susan did such a cute job of the party from so far away she did three recorded fashion shows with friends and their girls.  Then she had all the clothes up in albums and it was so organzied it made it so easy to see the clothes.  I have a friend and the sister missionaries coming over tonight for the priesthood session.  Dad has gone to the church where the men were going to have mexican food and then watch the preisthood session.  Another funny thing last night dad stayed up until 2:00 in the morning listening to the BYU game.  I couldn't believe he stayed up that long.  He said it was the greatest game.  I was to sleepy so I went to bed.  Well we love you all thank you for reading and keeping track of us.  We seem to have things to do.  Mostly we our grateful for the opportunity to serve a mission at this time.  We feel blessed to know that the Lord trusts us enough to let us be here.  We trust Him as we know He is watching over all of you while we are gone.  Love you all.  Mom Grandma and Sister Christensen