Week 24 - Romans 3:20

Loved ones,

It snowed! School shut down, people just pulled their cars to the side
of the road and started walking, and we saw many miracles! Really
though, it was nice to see the snow. It was so peaceful and pretty and
I loved it more than I expected.

The day before the storm went with this woman to the store that is old
and has a lot of problems. She's not super interested in the gospel
but we are happy to serve her once a week. She is from New York and
super feisty haha. Her back was hurting her when we got there and so I
convinced her to let me push her in a wheelchair cart. It was so fun.
She bossed us around the store and pretended to be miserable. The
store was packed! You would've thought the world was ending. Really
she loved every second and was more thankful than she has been before.
We just love her!

The snowstorm provided quite the miracle for us here in Allatoona! We
didn't feel comfortable driving around in the car that morning. We
both felt we should dedicate the solid two hours of our morning to
knocking doors in our apartment complex. So many people were home! It
was great! We talked to a lot of people on their doorsteps and even
sang a few songs but nobody invited us in. We would stop and pray to
see what building we should go to or which direction to go. Leaving
one building we both felt prompted to go left. We walked past this
couple playing in the snow. He had turned his skateboard into a
snowboard and she was chasing their puppy around. We felt we needed to
go back and talk to them. We taught them the entire Restoration. We
asked them if they thought there were many true churches or if
Heavenly Father would have one true church. He thought for a minute
and said "One". We testified that we are the only true church upon the
earth. We invited them to read the Book of Mormon every day and to
meet with us and come to church! They are excited to read, we are
meeting with them tomorrow with a young couple in our ward, and they
plan to attend next Sunday! We were walking away amazed at what just
happened and realized we forgot to invite them to be baptized! We
turned around, walked back and invited them to be baptized. They are
both preparing to be baptized on February 20th! Just when we thought
our toes were going to fall off Heavenly Father lead us to those truly
prepared for the gospel. He knows His children, He loves His children
and wants all of us to return to Him with our families! His plan is
perfect!

Also, when we were walking back we ran into another investigator of
ours. She asked us to help her quit smoking. We ran and grabbed the
Word of Wisdom pamphlet and a picture of the Savior and a quote on the
Atonement. We taught her and she handed us her bag of tobacco to throw
away and accepted to live the Word of Wisdom. We had a lesson before
church with our ward mission leader the next day. The lesson wasn't as
smooth as we had hoped but we had prayed before the lesson for
strength to invite her to be baptized and felt really good about it.
So we went for it and she was so excited to be baptized despite our
not so perfect lesson. She is now preparing to be baptized on February
27th! The Savior was able to make up the difference and the Holy Ghost
was able to touch her heart and truly be the teacher.

I almost forgot to say something about the worldwide missionary
broadcast! It was the best thing ever! I believe it was broadcast from
the MTC and the last time a broadcast like this has happened was about
10 years ago. I never wanted it to end! I thought of my little Trevy
in Argentina watching the same thing and it warmed my heart to be
connected to him. The Lord loves us and wants nothing more than for us
to be successful. I am seeing that evidence more and more every day.

I love ya'll!
❤️
Sister Christensen

This is my desk

We sync our iPads outside of our leasing office at night. This bush is right in front of the bench we sit on. Isn't it pretty with the snow?!

Snow

Week 23 - John 16:33

Dearest Familia!

It has been a wonderful week! Zone Conference was even more wonderful
than I could have imagined! Sister Bennion does choir practice
beforehand with whoever is willing while everyone else studies. I love
it. We sang Come Thou Fount. I can't help but cry reading those
lyrics.

Sister Hosman and I were able to sit together at lunch and it was SO
nice to sit and catch up with her! We were even able to role play
baptismal invites together! It brought us back to when we both did our
first role play ever with Kimo being our investigator in mission prep
class. Wow, we've come a long way! The Lord truly does strengthen us!
She is so poised and so bold and so loving. It was so fun to be with
her. We saw Elder Woodwell but he kept his distance haha. I don't want
to embarrass him either but we'll have to make sure to get a picture
of the three of us sometime.

We had the most amazing Sunday! It was Regional Conference for all of
the south eastern states. We had a local broadcast from our Stake
Center and then a satellite broadcast from a little room in the
conference center. How cool!! We met this woman outside our apartment
complex earlier in the week and invited her to church and all that fun
stuff. A few days later she saw us and asked if she could follow us to
church. We were so excited and because of the broadcast our meetings
were canceled so it'd actually work! We planned to go in a little
early so we could teach her about the Restoration of the Gospel of
Jesus Christ. It was a good spirit filled lesson and she accepted the
invitation to be baptized! We went in for the broadcast from the stake
and our stake president talked about how he had planned a few remarks
he wanted to say but it didn't feel right so he finally settled on the
promptings he was receiving. He testified of the restoration of the
Gospel of Jesus Christ.
We then heard from L. Whitney Clayton, Linda Reeves, Elder Ronald A.
Rasband, and Elder Robert D. Hales. WOW! Elder Rasband talked about
temples. He talked about how he and two of his children and his wife
were invited to do baptisms for the dead by the temple president of
the temple near where he was serving as a mission president. It was a
wonderful experience and his son looked up at him and asked why they
had never done that before. He also talked about how his granddaughter
went with her primary to go see the temple and meet the temple
presidency just outside the doors. His granddaughter got closer and
closer to the temple presidents wife until she was touching her white
dress. After they went back inside his granddaughter looked at her mom
and asked where the angel went. I couldn't help but think of how my
sweet parents took the time to go to the temple with me more times
than I can count before my mission despite the many responsibilities
they have. I also couldn't help but think of my mother who serves
faithfully in the temple and is nothing short of an angel.
Sorry to gush and I hope it made sense! It's been a great week and I
am so thankful for all of your emails and letters! They truly have
brightened my spirits and helped me push through in more ways than
you'll ever know!

❤️
Sister Christensen

It's getting cold here!

I love Sister Hosman!

Week 22 - Mosiah 2:34

Loved ones,

I don't have a ton of time to write but it's been a pretty great week!
A picture's worth a thousand words right?

The Delahunty's!! This is the family I met in Independence Missouri with Grandma Jenson! I was thrilled when we went on exchange with the sister training leaders and found out where we'd be having dinner that night!!

We worked with our family history consultant in our ward to try to better use family history to find people on Thursday morning. I love her. She's almost 90! Her husband was born on September 12th! And guess what? He's a twin!!

Not as thrilled when I found out we'd be serving on a farm the next day haha. But the Lord took care of me and a showered right after and washed all of my clothes just to be safe. It was so fun though!


It all worked out for Angelina to be baptized by her husband in our ward. Sister Hosman had a baptism right after us in the same building! It was so good to see her. Yesterday as I was leaving church I heard Elder Woodwell speaking in his Sacrament meeting. Who would've thought we'd all serve so close together? We'll all see each other at Zone Conference tomorrow. Should be wonderful!

Quick cool spiritual story! Sister Gray and I were pulling into our apartment complex Monday and we saw a man sitting on a bench. It was pretty late and we were a little nervous so we said a prayer asking Heavenly Father if it was safe for us to talk to that man. We both felt we should. We walked up to him, introduced ourselves and told him that we had prayed to ask Heavenly Father if we should come and both of us felt we should. He immediately started crying and told us how his heart was breaking. He asked us to sit down and to pray with him. He told us how he and his family had come here from South Africa and all the troubles they were having since arriving. We listened and testified of Heavenly Father's love for him and his family. We taught him the simplified and intensified restoration. As I looked into his eyes and related the first vision the spirit was so strong. We both testified of that experience. He looked into my eyes and said he knew it was true because he could see the Holy Spirit in my eyes. We invited him to be baptized and he accepted. We explained the Book of Mormon to him and he related in an amazing way to Lehi and his family. He is so excited to read it!! We are blessed beyond measure here!
I love you all!
❤️
Sister Christensen

Sent from my iPad

Week 21 - Ether 12:4

Family,

Happy New Year!! Did you enjoy it? I sure hope so.
Nothing too exciting happened this week. I did meet someone that has
been investigating here with the sisters and he reminds me so much of
my uncle Greg! It's weird! More so looks than anything. I had no idea
what he had been taught and Sister Gray didn't seem to remember
either. So we just started talking to him and figuring out why he's
been letting the sisters come over for so long and if he has any
desire to learn if we have the truth. We shared the restoration with
him and when Sister Gray was giving the account of the first vision
the spirit was so strong it brought him to tears. He knew we were sent
to him that night and started talking about how we had saved his life
and he knew what we were saying was the truth. We left and Sister Gray
was floored because they had never really been able to get any kind of
a lesson in with him in the past. We sent out a text to everyone to
remind them of church that said "I am a witness that there is a spirit
attending the administration of the sacrament that warms the soul from
head to foot; you feel the wounds of the spirit being healed, and the
load being lifted. Comfort and happiness come to the soul that is
worthy and truly desirous of partaking of this spiritual food." -
Elder Melvin J. Ballard with Moroni 10:32-33 & 3Nephi 20:8-9. He
called us right after and said he was coming and his daughter and her
son were coming as well. We were so excited! He didn't come to church
because he was sick but he said he will come for sure next week. We
pray he does.
We hopefully have a baptism Saturday! Her name is Angelina, I think I
might have mentioned her my first email from Allatoona. What could
throw a wrench in our plans is that we're not sure where she lives...
Her husband used to live in our ward boundaries and she has dragged
him to church for the last few years. She has developed a testimony of
the church through trying to help him return. He received the
priesthood last week so he could baptize her. We always meet at the
church and I wasn't aware that we had no idea where she lived until
recently.... The most important thing is that she will be baptized but
we sure hope and pray that it will be into the ward that has welcomed
her and her husband in the last year. We love Angelina!!
I love you. This week was hard but I've learned a lot. I'm thankful
for a loving Father in Heaven who knows me and those around me
perfectly and loves us perfectly as well. I am thankful for church. As
stressful as it can be as a missionary sometimes I always leave
feeling that peace, strength and renewal I need. I love being a
missionary!
❤️
Sister Christensen

Sister Gray wanted pictures in front of some of the church signs around town. We saw this sign as we were leaving one of the churches! I love it!

We were knocking on doors in this cute farming area. I had to have Sister Gray snap a quick picture.