Our Last Few Days in Tennessee

Dear Family and Friends,
          Soon we will be making our way back to Idaho.  We will be leaving Knoxville on Tuesday afternoon, June 6th.  It will be sad and happy at the same time.  How can that be?  I did look up in the dictionary the word DILEMMA.  It is defined as a situation that requires the choice between two equally undesirable alternatives.  In my talk last week in Sacrament meeting I mentioned that we are caught in a dilemma--the undesirable choice to leave Tennessee and the undesirable choice of not going home to family.  I guess that's how something can be sad and happy at the same time.
          This past Monday was Memorial Day.  We went to the Mission Office thinking we would spend the whole day there but our Mission President told us to close the office at Noon and go do something.  So we decided to go for a drive to a place that everyone talks about--The Tail of the Dragon.  This is an 11-mile stretch of Highway 129 south of Knoxville that is the most curvy highway in the USA.  It has 318 turns (many of which are hairpin) in that 11 mile stretch.  It is notable for many accidents and is used by many motorcyclists to race their bikes.  We went on a rainy day and the traffic was very light.  We didn't feel unsafe at all.  It was impressive.  The road continues on to the Cherohala Skyway that goes into North Carolina.  The highest point is at about 5500 ft. elevation.  These are beautiful places.
          On Tuesday morning all the office couples went to breakfast with President and Sister Griffin.  We went early, before the Mission Office opened.  We enjoyed our last social event with the President.  On Friday afternoon we went with all the office couples plus the Cleghorns, who were released a couple of months ago, to Calhoun's Restaurant down on Fort Loudon Lake.  They have a very nice lunch buffet on Fridays.  We enjoyed the conversation and socializing with the other senior missionaries who are now our good friends.  Besides us, the Coburns (from Montana) are leaving the mission in June.  It was a very nice good-bye dinner.  We will miss these good people.  The Cleghorns live in Knoxville and the Weatherspoons , who are from Salem, OR, are just new in the Mission.
          The rest of the week we have been cleaning and packing and getting rid of things we aren't taking back home with us.  We have been sending lots of packages home because we can only take what we can fit into the car when we leave.  Yesterday we were invited to lunch by one of the Ward couples(the Rankins) and we were invited out to ice-cream by one of the families(the Clarks).  Today we are invited to Sunday dinner by another couple(the Beelers).  Tomorrow morning we will have our last interview with President Griffin.
          We will be having a special Ward FHE tomorrow night at the church.  It is a farewell FHE for us.  They are making a big deal out of our being in the Ward.  We wanted to just slip away quietly but they are going all-out for us.  We feel honored by their kindness and thoughtfulness. Tennessee has truly become our second home and our second Ward family.

See ya'll soon.  Elder and Sister Christensen

The Cherohala Skyway (Cherokee name)

Cleghorns, Coburns, and Weatherspoons with us at Calhoun's Restaurant

Elder Nish pointing to his kidney stone in the little bag.  Elder Nish is from Canada and is one of our best missionaries.

Ya'll Come Back Now

Dear Family and Friends,

Down here in the bible belt we have been endeared to the phrases . . . ya'll and ya'll ya'll which means more than five people.  We will miss the southern drall and the common phrase that many say as you leave a check out line, "have a blessed day".

We gave talks today in church and said our good-byes in a formal way. My talk was entitled Sin Resistant Families and dad's was The Ways of the Lord.  If you want copies like some people in our ward did just let us know.  Dad still has such a good way of talking from the years of stake president talks.  He really talks from his heart and in his dad way, not flowery or hard to understand just simple truths with questions that he admitts he has and then he answers them in his talk.  I think that the simple convert saints like the way he teaches.  I know he has made a great impression with our eternal investigator Buster DeLaney.  Buster liked to just argue every thing the missionaries said but since we have been coming there his attitude has changed and he listens to dad.  And he doesn't take such a defensive attitude anymore.  In fact sometimes when we hear him tell us what he believes we are hearing some of our beliefs in his understanding.  We gave them our last gospel principle lesson on Wednesday.  It is sad to leave and not knowwhat is going to happen to these people.  But we know that the Lord will help the work if they are to have more He will make it happen.  We just have to wait on the Lord and his timing for everything.

  We have had many of the ward members tell us that it will be hard to have us leave.  We didn't think we had done that much for the ward but they have been very gracious in their compliments to us.  So many have told us that the ward is different since we came.  Some have said we know more people than they do and they have lived in the ward for a long time.  We have felt a need to serve and teach and to get to know the families of the ward.  There are many families but then there are alot of single older adults.  We have supported the empty nest FHE by inviting the older single adults.  I think that has helped our ward get closer to each other.  Getting the married older to look out for the older singles.  We had the young families come and do a FHE lesson for the empty nest FHE so they could get to know us and we them.  This has helped the familes know the older people of the ward.  We just have been guided by the Holy Ghost in our efforts and tried to obey the spirits directions.  

We are surprised that it is going to be hard to leave.  but we also know that the Lord does not want us to serve a mission forever.  We need to come home and take what we have learned and help the missionary work at home  And just so you know all we do is missionary work.  We are all investigators and all are being converted everyday.  Our children our the most important of our missionary work.  We are looking forward to coming home and seeing our children and grandchildren.  We are excited that we will have Rob and Megan's family so close that we can drive to see them and just do a weekend visit.  That is quite a blessing since we us have had children scattered.  We just hope that someday Susan will see a need to be closer.  In the mean time we will be patient and let the Lord take care of our concerns.

Our next week includes a trip to Nashville where we have to get the car checked out before we make the long trip across the country.  While they have the car we are going to the temple and we are meeting Christine Sirrine, she is driving over from Memphis to see us.  She will also go to the temple with us.  So we do that on Tuesday and Wednesday.  Then we have a dinner with the office on Friday and then on the next Monday just before we leave we are doing a breakfast with office and mission president's wife.  The day before we leave we are taking the car out to be transported to the west on a trailer.  Then we will pack up the Tesla that night go to the office the next day and help serve lunch to the MLC missionaries.  We then will come back and check out of our apartment the maintance office wants dad to come in and say good bye before we leave.  Dad has been their advocate as he has always put a good word in for them.  We have had our apartments painted on the outside these past few months.  Dad visits and talks to the painters most do not speak english but he decided that they needed doughnuts and so he bought three dozen doughnuts and took them to the apartment office for them.  He is always thinking of the little guys that work hard but don't get much credit for the work they do.    
We had some cooler weather this past week and last night had a hurricane like rain storm where the wind blew and it rained sideways.  Lots of thunder and lightening and we though we might lose power but did not.  It was quite the rain storm.  It reminded us of Michigan and it's rain storms, the kind that rattle the windows and light up the room.

We are looking forward to seeing you again and hugging and kissing your little faces off.  Not sure what we will do after that but somehow we will find a place to fit in again.

Love Mom, Grandma, Sister Christensen

ps I don't have many pictures except we did some inspections so we take pictures of the missionaries when they get what we call celestial housing.  these are some of the good cleaners of the mission.            

We're Going to Miss This Place

         
Dear Family and Friends,
          We only have about 2 weeks left before we go home to Idaho.  I've decided that this is the Church definition of a dilemma.  We miss home and want to go home, but we have grown to love Tennessee and will miss this place too.  We surely are thankful that we've had the opportunity to be here to serve.  We have made so many new friends.  We have begun to feel the reality that we will be going home and we've started to send things home in packages because not all of it will fit into the car.  I guess we've accumulated a bunch of things while here.
          We had our West Hills District meeting last week and we decided to take them all out to lunch for the last time.  We have become very close to some of the young missionaries.  Many of them are going to BYU-I for college and we'll probably get to see some of them.  I'm sure we'll get some wedding invitations from some of them as time goes on.
          We visited with the Delaney's--Buster and Debbie--this last Wednesday.  We have been teaching them the Gospel Principles lessons and taught them about the need for a Savior and the need for agency.  It went very well.  Buster is not a member and Debbie is a member but does not come to church.  Buster spoke of his feelings for the Savior and we knew that we have been making a little progress.
          A week ago Buster told me that he happened to have a welder for sale for $300.  I don't even know how the subject came up but I've been wanting a new welder so I bought his and had it shipped home to Idaho.  I guess that it will be there when I get home as a project for me to get it set up and to begin to use it.
          President and Sister Griffin presented us with a beautiful statue of The Christus.  This is a very nice gift which was a total surprise.  We didn't expect any gift, let alone one of this expense.  Anyway we had it shipped home this week too.  I'm sure it will look nice in our living room or den.  We are thankful to have had the opportunity to work with President and Sister Griffin.
          Yesterday we went on a little adventure to see Bald River Falls.  It is about 75 miles south of Knoxville in the Cherokee National Forest.  It was so pretty there.  We didn't stay long but we did take a few photos to remember this beautiful creation.  These are the kinds of activities that we're really going to miss.

My best traveling companion

Bald River Falls (much larger than it looks in this photo)

          We are looking forward to seeing you all soon.  Don't be surprised if we speak a little "southern" when we get back.
Love, Elder and Sister Christensen

Our last outting in the Applachians before we go home

Dear Family and friends,

On this mother's day I express my thanks for the wonderful women that are in my life and have influenced me and my family.  My own mother I continually thank the Lord for sending me to her.  I ask Him to bless her with what she needs as she has given such a great example for us to follow in enduring to the end.  Though I do not want her to leave I know that she wants to be released from the body that does not work like it use to.  Her mothering has influenced our children through me and through her role as grandmother to them.  I hope that I can follow her faithful ways to the end.  I also love having wonderful daughters and daughter-in-laws who influence our family through their bearing and nuturing our grandchildren.  How blessed we are to have good mothers in our family.  Mothers that share themselves with their families and others.  We know of the righteous influence they have on the Christensen Family.

My mother as Mrs. Santa

Every Halloween since 1983 we have a party with costumes.  My mother and father started this fun tradition.
Here is my mother not many years ago with my brother Gregg and his wife Barbara as character's
in Mary Poppin's.  Mother is the little old bird woman that calls to the birds
on the steps of St. Pauls.  Still such a love for her family and getting them together.



We had wanted to finish out our mission with one last trip to Abingdon Virginia to ride the Virginia Creeper.
So we stayed Friday night in a very fun hotel called the Carnigie Hotel.  The hotel  was furnished as if it was built in the early 1900's.  It has some interesting pieces of furniture and some beautiful windows of stain glass in the ceiling.






















Here is some nature as we rode the 17 mile trail on bikes.
We love these beautiful moutains and we will miss the places we have come to know.
But most of all we will miss the people we have come to love.













Dad is hiking the whole width of Applachian Trail

Happy Birthday to Cecile

Dear Family and Friends,
          We had a wonderful week!  The time is going by too quickly, however.  We only have four weeks left before we head home.  The good news is that we get to go home and see our family and friends.  The bad news is that we have to leave our Tennessee home and leave our friends here.  We are so thankful for our experience here in Knoxville and all over Eastern Tennessee and parts of Georgia, North Carolina, Kentucky, and Virginia.  If anyone wants to have a very rewarding and rich experience go on a senior couple mission.  Missions are amazing.
          We celebrated Cecile's birthday this past week.  I won't tell you how old she is because of confidentiality protocol.  However, I can say that she had to sign up for Medicare.  What a treat that was!?  When I think of Medicare I think of the old saying, "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em."  We had to do what we had to do.  Cecile is loved by everyone in the mission.  And thank you all at home for remembering her.  She got so many flowers that it was almost like a funeral.  There are flowers all over our apartment and at the Mission Office too.  She loves them.  Thank you, thank you.
          We finished up our last series of Zone Conferences this past week in Kingsport and Asheville.  We will be returning home before the next round occurs.  I have enjoyed teaching the whole group and talking to individual missionaries about their health issues.  Cecile didn't come this week because she had to escort a sister missionary to Salt Lake City who is very ill.  She couldn't travel alone and needed to have someone with her.  Cecile left early morning on Thursday, delivered the missionary to her parents at the Salt Lake Airport, and then turned around and flew right back to Knoxville.  She got home very late on Thursday night.  It was a long and tiring day for her.  We are praying for the sister missionary to be able to be diagnosed and treated properly.  Maybe she can return to Knoxville.
          Yesterday we spent some time with a brand new couple in our mission--the Bowens.  They are from Burley, Idaho.  It was fun to be with Idahoans again.  We had them over for breakfast at our apartment and then took them down to the World's Fair Park in downtown Knoxville and showed them around town a little and then had lunch with them.  They will be Self-Reliant Missionaries.
          We love you all and hope you have a great week.  We'll be seeing you soon.
Love, Kay and Cecile

Rhododendrons next to the Mission Office

Happy Birthday Cecile!  We love you!

Greener than green here in Tennessee

Dear Family and Friends

Because of the rain we have had the green explode here.  I am sending a few pictures to show you.  We have been told that we need to soak up all the green we can because there is nowhere even close to this green in the west.
We have so many people telling us how they will miss us and how about extending or how about moving to Tennessee.  The bottom line is that we will miss them but we signed up for 18 months and it is almost done.  We also have family that have now moved to the west and it would be ironic for us to change locations just as we get the majority of our children and grandchildren near us.  We are so looking forward to not having to fly to get to see them and to see them more than once a year.  We might even be able to see some ball games, some recitals, some school programs, some graduations etc.  We will miss Eloise's graduation we think.  We missed Emma's baptism.  But there are great blessings that have come with those sacrifices. Let me just tell you a few we have talked about.  When Porter had his bike accident we thought about it after the initial news and decided that Porter was protected so we could stay on our mission.  We feel that Uncle Gregg has had blessings in his treatment so we could stay on our mission.  We feel that we were to go when we did so Meg and Justin would have a place to live while Justin found work and they figured out how and where they were to live.  We have had financial blessings come while we have been serving.  Grandma Baker has had good care even more than before since we came on our mission.  She is still with us so we could stay on our mission.  We have had friends decide to go on missions since we have come on a mission.  They were probably going to go anyway but we feel blessed that we could encourage and now encourage from home as they serve knowing what they are experiencing.  Those are some of the blessings we feel have come to our family and our friends.

There are other blessings that have come as we think of the things we have studied learned shared and taught.  We have many people that we have learned to love.  That is a blessing.
We have learned to love the young missionaries.  We have so much hope for the future of the church and the gospel.
We have some great ideas about the future.  They are not set in stone but are in the mind and we are prayerful about the future.  Please let us know how you are doing.  We love you.

Spillway at Norris Dam

We had a senior activity this weekend after four zone conferences we were ready for a little rest and relaxation.  Elder and Sister Christensen were in charge and we decided that it would be fun for the outlying senior couple to come into Knoxville area and do something connected to the Smokey Mountain National Park.  So stayed a night in Townsend a little resort town otuside of the entrance to the park.  We then tookthe mission van and went to Cades Cove.  A beautiful mountain area with meadows hills mountains creeks and of course some bears.  The other thing interesting about Cades Cove is that in the 1800 it was a community and so there are cabins and barns and churches through out the area.  There is even a grist mill and blacksmith shop still standing.  As we came to one of the old churches one of the sister's had been there and knew there was an old piano in it.  So we decided as a group we would sing and record our music for posterity.  Telling everyone that we sung a song in a Methodist church while on our mission.  I played and we sang Nearer my God to Thee.

See the little black bear cub there were four of them and the momma

When we got back from our senior retreat dad and I went to see a big dam that backs up the Clinch River which is part of the Tennessee water ways.  There is so much water in this area that they had to place dams in order to help the flooding that would occur downstream.  This is the first one they built back in the early 1900.  Somewhat like the Palisades dam.  They have had a lot of rain so they are sending a lot of water over the spillway.  Have a great week.  Our family has been so blessed please remember to thank our Father for these blessings.  Love Mom Grandma and Sister Christensen

greenest state

Silly missionaries

It's Raining, It's Pouring

Dear Family and Friends,
          This is definitely the wet season in Tennessee!  It's raining and has been doing so for the past week.  There are little rivers everywhere.  It makes things so green and beautiful.  I think I said this last year but I'll say it again this year--even the weeds are beautiful and green.  We are both so grateful to be in such a beautiful place.  Most of the blossoms are falling off the trees now but we are expecting more blossoms on different kinds of trees--empress trees, crepe myrtle trees, and mimosa trees.
          This past week I went to my barber for a haircut.  I had been talking to him about the gospel a little at a time in the past.  This time I asked him if he would like to visit with the missionaries at his home.  He said, "yes."  So we are arranging for the young sisters in his area to go to his home and teach him.  I think Cecile and I will go too.  Last year I started going to him when our Ward High Priests Group Leader told me he wanted me to go to a different barber.  I thought that my hair looked awful or something but then he said, "I want you to go so you can preach the gospel to him."  I was glad because I didn't think my hair looked that bad.  Anyway, now we'll see what happens.  We have been fortunate enough to meet a lot of new people and plant a lot of gospel seeds.
          Yesterday, for our P-day activity we went downtown to the Rossini Festival.  This was our second time, as we went last year.  We only spent a short time because it was raining.  Mom passed out several pass-along cards to people we met.  We ate "street" food--crab-cake sandwiches, which were very good.  We listened to several singers and groups of singers and tried to stay dry.  It's a really fun street festival.  Next Saturday we will be with all the senior couples in the mission for an activity in the Smoky Mountains.  Cecile and I are in charge of it.  We hope if goes well.
          It's been busier than usual in the medical part of my responsibilities lately.  Many missionaries are having medical difficulties.  But many are having mental difficulties--mainly stress and anxiety issues.  I'm not sure parents are preparing their sons and daughters to be away from home and to take on hard things.  I think we should make that a point of discussion with our families.
          Last Sunday was Easter Sunday.  We had a great Sacrament Meeting.  We were invited to our Bishop's home for Easter Dinner.  It was also a birthday dinner for their youngest child, Anderson, who turned one year old.  He is the cutest little boy.  When we are around families it makes us a little homesick for our family.  Our time is drawing close however, we won't be much longer in Tennessee. Our President has said that we will be released on June 7th.

Anderson Pickett, 1 year old

Everyone watching Anderson dig in to his cake.  Bishop Picket is taking the photo

Two of our favorite Missionaries, Elder Cushing and Elder Tevaga