Week 37 - Alma 44:5 What's your verse?!

Loved ones,

All is well here with Sister Beazel and I! We've had a couple more
nights of good rain and that makes for gorgeous mornings! I love it!!
Sister Beazel got some amazing pictures of the lightening I'll send.

We had a lot of people turn us away this week. That can be
disheartening but it just means we're that much closer to finding
those that are really prepared to accept the restored gospel of Jesus
Christ! What a blessing!

We have been helping a single less active mom in her yard for the past
few weeks. It's been amazing to see how service truly does soften
hearts. On Friday we were able to help her in her yard and during the
lesson after she got really involved and bore her testimony to her
children. It was a beautiful thing to witness. She came to church on
Sunday and it was so good to finally see her there!!

We just were looking around at Old Navy and one of the employees came
up to us and told us she liked our name tags. Haha we NEVER get that
response! She told us she was attending services for another religion
but didn't agree with what they taught. She invited us over to come
and share our message with her! So cool!! We are excited to see how it
goes with her!

I love you all! I love being a missionary! The church is true!

❤️
Sister Christensen

Southern hospitality. It's real most of the time haha.

These last three pictures were taken within seconds of eachother! Amazing!

Sister Kang is from Taiwan and goes home this transfer! She is so
amazing! We found this funny cane while helping Sister Eide clean out
her garage. We asked her if we could take a picture with it and she
wanted to have her picture taken too haha. She is 89 👵🏻💕

She snuck pictures of me instead. Thunder storms ease our troubles at the end of the day 💕

I wanted to take a picture together... Haha

Week 36 - Isaiah 40:31 What's your verse?

Loved ones,

We thought it couldn't get any greener... But it has! I love when we
drive on a higher hill and can see some of the rolling hills with all
the different shades of green in the distance. I'm in love with
Georgia if ya'll couldn't tell!

Sister Beazel and I continue to see miracles here in the Allatoona
ward! A few months back our bishop gave us a referral for a woman
named Amy. We only had her phone number and she had every excuse in
the book not to meet with us. Two weeks before we ran into her at the
church on a weekday. We met her briefly before she needed to leave.
This past week... We had put an address for a less active member we
had never met into our GPS. As we drove around we soon realized it was
leading us to an Irish pub haha. I have had experiences with crazy
GPS's in the past and knew that it oftentimes is still leading us to
where we need to be. We decided to pull into the nearest residential
area and say a prayer to be led to whoever was in need. We looked up
and saw a two doors with cute floral wreaths (I'm a sucker for
anything floral). We knocked on the door before it because it had a
rose bush in from of it. No one answered. We knocked on the first door
with a floral wreath and a nice woman answered the door. We introduced
ourselves and she said "I know who you are! I met you the other
night." It took us a minute before we realized it was Amy!! We told
her what had happened and she was speechless. We testified of how
aware Heavenly Father is of her and how the gospel of Jesus Christ is
the answer to her concerns, whatever they might be. She said she felt
the chills all over and how Heavenly Father works in mysterious ways.
He truly is leading us and guiding us!

There is a talk called "But if not..." By Dennis E. Simmons from a few
years ago. He talks about faith and the example of Shadrach, Meshach,
and Abed-nego in the Book of Daniel when they won't bow down to
worship an idol set up by wicked King Nebuchadnezzar. The testify that
Heavenly Father can deliver them out the fiery furnace. But they show
true faith by stating “But if not, … we will not serve thy gods, nor
worship the golden image which thou hast set up.” I love applying that
to my own life. He also says in his talk:
"He has the power, but it's our test."
"We must have the same faith as Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego.
    Our God will deliver us from ridicule and persecution, but if
not. … Our God will deliver us from sickness and disease, but if not …
. He will deliver us from loneliness, depression, or fear, but if not.
… Our God will deliver us from threats, accusations, and insecurity,
but if not. … He will deliver us from death or impairment of loved
ones, but if not, … we will trust in the Lord.
  Our God will see that we receive justice and fairness, but if not.
… He will make sure that we are loved and recognized, but if not. … We
will receive a perfect companion and righteous and obedient children,
but if not, … we will have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, knowing
that if we do all we can do, we will, in His time and in His way, be
delivered and receive all that He has. I so testify in the name of
Jesus Christ, amen."

I'm thankful to be a missionary. It's hard and trying but it's also
such a joy and blessing to realize that, thanks to the Savior, I can
do hard things. I love the gospel. I am thankful for the knowledge and
testimony of its truthfulness that Heavenly Father has blessed me with
and what a wonderful experience it is to share that joy with everyone!

I love all ya'll!
❤️
Sister Christensen

weet Sister Pardieu knew how much we loved her back porch and surprised us with dinner out there! It was the best!

I know you can't really see me... But I like this picture.

Week 35 - Moroni 4:3 What's your verse?!

Loved ones,

What a beautiful week we've had here in Allatoona! It's becoming more
and more green and I love it! We've had a few days of absolute perfect
weather. You'd be in heaven dad! Even a little a little rain at night
to make our morning runs just the way you like them.

Our ward mission leader got a call from a lady that was a member of
the church but lived outside of our ward boundaries. She had a friend
that was moving into the ward that was not a member of the church and
needed help moving in. We went over Friday and helped her clean out
her new home before they brought the moving truck the next day. She
was so sweet to us the second we got there. We cleaned her cabinets in
her kitchen and in her bathroom and the baseboards and doors. We loved
it! She asked us if we wanted to take a break and sit out on her front
porch. We gladly said yes. Her home has a big white porch and she had
two of her grandmothers old rocking chairs out there. She lives on a
quiet street. We had the best few of the bright blue sky with a few
clouds in the air. There are so many birds around here it's hard not
to smile when you're outside listening to them sing. We started
talking to her about her family and she had some amazing stories about
her grandparents and great great grandparents. She has the spirit of
Elijah. It was so natural to talk with her about the restoration of
the gospel. As Sister Beazel shared of Joseph Smith's experience in
the sacred grove we couldn't help but feel we were experiencing a very
similar spring morning with the beauty all around us. She loved our
message. She is praying to know if what we've shared with her is true
and has agreed to read the Book of Mormon. I don't know if I can fully
express how amazing that day was. I'm so blessed to be in this
beautiful place sharing the most wonderful message of our Savior Jesus
Christ.

Friday morning as we were going over our plans for the day we really
wanted to have a member at one of our lessons. We have been struggling
with that for some time. We tried to find a few different ways to have
one come and it didn't work out. We had dinner scheduled with a recent
convert that night who is on spiritual fire and shares the gospel with
everyone. My sweet faithful companion said "Let's teach someone at the
restaurant tonight!" I had my doubts but said we could sure try. We
had a busy day and we're trying to come up with courage to open our
mouths at dinner. When we walked into the restaurant we saw our recent
convert sitting there with a man we'd never seen before. She had met
him the day before. He was giving her a ride to dinner when she had
the idea come to her mind to ask him to stay for dinner and told him
who we were and that we'd share a message at the end. While we were
getting to know him we were a little intimidated because of how much
knowledge he had about religion. We boldly taught him the restoration
and he was shocked he had never heard of any of that before. When my
companion shared the first vision it was as if everything around us
had stopped and the spirit was "tangible" (according to our recent
convert). He looked at us and said he knew what we were sharing was
true. He agreed to be baptized and come to church! Our recent convert
wanted to give him one of her copies of the Book of Mormon. As he was
dropping her off at her home he asked her again for the Book of
Mormon. He said, "I really want to read that book!". As we set goals
and do all that we can do the Lord will magnify our efforts and bless
us according to our faith.

Something that Elder Holland said during his visit here has been on my
mind a lot lately and I want to share it. Sorry if I've shared it
before but I love it!

God loves broken things. It takes broken clouds to nourish the earth.
It takes broken grain to make bread. It takes broken bread to nourish
us. God can fix everything.

I know the Atonement of Jesus Christ is real. We have full access to
it through the priesthood authority of God in the Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints. What a blessing! I want everyone to feel
that healing!

All my love ❤️,
Sister Christensen

Marietta East Zone

Sent from my iPad

Week 34 - 2 Nephi 33:9 What's your verse?!

Loved ones,

I love General Conference! We are helping a woman in our ward get back
into coming to church. She was introduced to the gospel when she met
two young missionaries over 30 years ago. Her husband is not a member
and missionaries have tried to teach him multiple times. He usually
runs to another room when missionaries bring up gospel topics haha. We
taught him and invited him to watch General Conference this weekend.
He watched multiple talks from each session! His wife called overcome
with joy! She said she could see in his eyes he was watching and
listening! We are so excited to go over and find out how he felt as he
watched!

We were preparing for our ward roster review by looking over names of
people we didn't know to go and visit. As we were looking through a
name stood out to both of us. I had met them before but we knew we
needing to follow the prompting to go see this less active part member
family. We were sad when we knocked a few times and nobody answered.
We tried a few more houses in the circle and got a door slammed in our
face and more no answers. We saw we hadn't quite been in the area an
hour yet and so we tried another house. We met a young man and shared
with him the joy of having a living prophet. He was excited by the
idea and we showed him the video "He lives: testimonies of Jesus
Christ". He said he felt the spirit and he had only ever felt it a few
times before and never this strong. He knew what we were sharing was
true and he agreed to watch conference and tell his family how he
felt. We were feeling so moved by the spirit and so thankful! We
figured we had found our purpose and were about to head back to the
car when my companion felt inspired to try a few more houses. The
first house nobody answered but the second house we met a young man
that was pretty strong in his beliefs. We shared the message of the
restoration with him and it was so cool to see the light go on and
have it all make sense to him. He was so excited for General
Conference. We invited him to be baptized and he accepted the date of
April 30th. He then offered one of the strongest heartfelt prayers
we've ever heard! He asked to know for sure if the message we shared
was true because he really felt it was. He also asked that we have
success so everyone would really come to know Jesus Christ! It was an
amazing experience. We found out that he was a very old looking 16
year old at the end of our meeting. We asked him to make sure it was
okay with his parents if we met with him and them as a family. No more
than 10 minutes later we received a call from him letting us know that
his parents were very against him meeting with us and to delete all of
his information. That was heartbreaking. Sometimes agency and
opposition are not fun. But they are a necessary part of Heavenly
Father's plan. We are hopeful for the first young man and continue to
pray for the second and his parents.

As we enjoyed this weekend and hearing from our beloved prophet and
apostles I couldn't help but feel real grateful for all Heavenly
Father has blessed me with. I have the restored gospel of Jesus Christ
in my life. I have the best family in the entire world. I am set apart
from the world for this time to share the most simple truths that can
heal every heart.

I love all ya'll
❤️
Sister Christensen

Sorry I was a slacker about taking pictures this week. I'll send some next week!


Sent from my iPad

I spotted Don Stahlei and had to take a picture. Oop