The towns in my area are Littleton, Acton, Ayer, Harvard (pronounced Havad), Bolton, Boxborough, Stow, Pepperell, Townsend, Shirley, Groton, and Lancaster. It is the area of Salt Lake City Proper.

LIttleton is so beautiful! The leaves are so colorful and bright, a nice mix of orange, red, and yellow which makes the trees look like they are on fire! It is so pretty.So I have a few noteworthy experiences this week.

1. We met with a very less active sweet lady, L. She loves missionaries so she immediately let us in. When we talked about it in ward council not many of the leaders even knew who she was. But as we were sitting in her living room talking and getting to know her, she immediately said she reads the bible everyday, so I asked her if she reads the Book of Mormon, she said she hasn't read it in a long time because when she does she feels "unfaithful" to the bible. So we talked to her about that a little and convinced her to read a few chapters before we come by again on Wednesday! I am so excited to work with her; we had such a good time!

2. While we were filling up our car this week, we decided that we really wanted to pass out some pass along cards. So we went inside the shop and got a candy bar so we could give a pass a long card to the cashier. She seemed to appreciate it. and then there was a sales guy outside trying to sell some car cleaning and wax spray so he demonstrated it for us and (though we didn't buy the stuff) we gave him one too! It was so fun. It reminded me of how easy it is to share the gospel and to give an invitation. It might seem scary at first but once you put yourself out there it is so easy!

3. We did some service at R’s this weekend. R is one of our ward missionaries and she owns the ranch with the 30 horses. The Elders do service at her farm every week and we tag along sometimes but we actually talked to Rita to see what she would want us to do there. She said she really just wants us to be around the girls that work there. She calls her farm a place for misfits, all the girls that work there come from really difficult backgrounds and they really need the gospel. So it is a perfect place for us to be. So this past Saturday R had a horse show and we went to help stack some old fence posts. We always have a lot of fun at R’s, it is just a great place! We were there earlier in the week as well and (since R provides so many of the investigators in this area) one of the investigators that work there was talking to the elders and they were trying to get her to pray with us. Finally Elder Holt said "well, would you pray if we all said a prayer" she said yes to that. So we went around and all said a prayer. There was another investigator in the circle who is getting baptized in December and he prayed, and then the four of us missionaries and R's son. Then she prayed!! The Elders said that was the first time she had ever prayed in front of them! I think it was a success. It was a really neat experience too.

                                                                     
                                   

4. Last of all the Primary Program. We had a wonderful primary program yesterday! We had gone around the past 2 weeks encouraging the kids to invite friends and let me tell ya... there was a TON of non members there!! The total number of attendance yesterday was 344!! There were so many people there it was insane. I loved it :) we have lots of follow ups to do with the members.

I love this place. It is beautiful and the people are amazing. I hope you all have a wonderful week! Love you all. Please please please tell me of your missionary experiences!

Love Sister Christensen

                                        

                                       

                                       

                                       

AMAZING FIRST WEEK IN LITTLETON, MA

I have too much to talk about!! I don't know if I can get it all down. I am so sorry if it is confusing or disappointing because it is too short or not exciting enough :)

So it's been a really busy, crazy week. We are trying to get to know everyone in the ward and visiting as many people as we can. But we do have one of the biggest wards in the mission so it will take some time. But I love being here! It is so beautiful just how I imagined New England to be.

One lady we visited this week is from Zimbabwe. We were trying to get a hold of her for a while but she was actually out of town until the day before we actually got in to see her. She was a really nice lady, but at first we thought she was trying to throw us off guard or something. She kept saying "is there something else you want to talk to me about?". Then she randomly asked "do you know that God answers prayers?" and "how does He answer them?" and "how do you know its from God and not from the Devil?". The way she was asking us seemed like she didn't like us at all. We answered her questions and she immediately said "show me where it says that in the scriptures". So we did and she definitely softened up afterwards. She then continued to explain that she was trying to explain these same questions to someone else and just wanted our help with her missionary work. IT was so awesome. Our visit turned out to be one of the most uplifting visits I have been in. Probably because I haven't had the chance to really teach someone in a few weeks and it was just a nice refresher. Not only did it help her but it really helped me and Sister Grant. We learned how we taught together and how we needed to listen and help each other out. It was amazing.

Yesterday we had an amazing day at church! Elder Holland showed up to our ward and we got to shake his hand. Sister Grant and I didn't want to rush up to him like everyone else and overwhelm him so we waited a little while. There was a nice break in between people shaking his hand and he sat all by himself for a few minutes. The meeting was about to start so we decided to say something. He thanked us for the service we were doing and told us to "put our shoulders to the wheel" it was pretty funny. His son is in our ward, they live maybe a 1/2 mile away from us. It is pretty cool to have them in our ward.

Anyway, those are just two of the many highlights of this week but I don't have enough time to write all of them! I love you all and hope you are doing amazing.

Love, Sister Christensen

From Homeless to Celebrity

                                   

                            Saying good bye to my trainer Sister Ford.  She went home this transfer.

                                                 (with Sister Jones)

Yes, I was homeless for two days. We went to Transfer meeting and it was wonderful until we got all our stuff together (sister Grant and I) and tried to figure out what was going on that day. I had heard the night before that our apartment was not ready and we were going to be staying the night with the Billrica sisters who are in our district. But after transfer meeting we talked to the Littleton Elders and they said that they heard that morning that the apartment they were getting for us was not safe. So then we didn't have an apartment at all. The Elders told us to meet them at the mission home to talk to sister Packard about it. President Packard said he would rather put us in a hotel than have us stay in Billrica because then we wouldn’t have to commute in and out of our area. So that night we had dinner with the Relief Society presidency and the Elders went out to find us a place to stay temporarily. They found us a place at a members home. She is a single woman who owns a horse ranch with 30 horses! We stayed there for the first two nights in Littleton (well the town she lives in is actually called Acton, but it's right next to Littleton). Her house was built in the 1700's! like many of the homes in this area, it's so cool!

We are so lucky to be here in Littleton. The Elders really took care of us! They are amazing Elders. Finally, we got an apartment (the first apartment that was "dangerous" but it actually turned out to be pretty decent. and really nice). We moved in Saturday! And the members are incredible here! They gave us all the furniture and supplies and everything for our apartment! I have never had anyone do that before! We are usually the ones who have to buy everything except the furniture! But the members have taken great care of us. They are way too excited to have sisters here.

So for the past few months President Haight has been coming to this ward fast and testimony meeting every month. He has been doing that because I guess to check up on the missionary work in this area. The members have been praying for sisters and I heard that President Packard told them that if they want sisters they have to do their missionary work and use the Elders more. The missionary work has gone up quite a bit before we came here. They really wanted sisters.

On Sunday, we had a wonderful church meeting. We were asked to teach Relief Society and come in for sharing time with the primary for a few minutes. That was a crazy meeting. The Young Women 2nd counselor asked us to come to young women’s as well but we were already booked! When we walked into sacrament meeting there were a few young women who ran up to us and seemed so excited to have us there! We seriously feel like celebrities in this ward! Everyone is so excited to have us here! Everyone we visit with keeps telling us that when the bishop announced that they were getting sisters there was an audible gasp. It makes me laugh. But I love it here so much. I am so happy! and the ward here is huge! There were over 200 people at sacrament meeting! It's like being in Utah again! I haven't seen such a full meeting in over 9 months!

We have been so blessed in this area already. I am so grateful for my wonderful companion Sister Grant! We are going to have an amazing transfer! I am so excited. I can't wait to start teaching people, there seems to be a lot of potential here. We actually taught someone our first night, with the Elders. It was so great! I just love helping these people feel God's love! It is an amazing thing and an incredible experience.

Love Sister Christensen

p.s. You have NO idea how nice it is to have only one ward to focus on! It is such a relief!

pps. I want to hear more missionary experiences from all of you! :)

 
Side note:  Yesterday I was unable to email because we went to the Temple and then into Boston for p-day! For some reason the Elders made us leave at 7am to get to the Temple when our session wasn't until 9:30. We got there at 7:40.... so we went down into the baptistery and did some confirmations and then went upstairs to go to our session. Our Elders missed our session because they were came up too late from helping in the baptistery. So they went to the 10:30 session. Luckily we didn't have to wait too long for them because we talked to a lot of missionaries and took some fun pictures in front of the temple.

Once the Elders were out we went to Boston!  We didn't know we were going to go until we had arrived at the temple and the other part of our district said they were going. So we went and got some p-day clothes and went into Boston. I rode the T for the very first time! I don't know if I liked it or not. It was a cool experience though. We walked so much that day, my feet hurt so bad! But it was really fun to walk around downtown Boston and see all the cool sights.

We had to hurry back to Littleton for our dinner appointment. All four of us went to the Christensen's to have homemade cider!! Which was so neat! There is this cool machine that grinds up the apples into a sack and then there is a round lid that goes over the sack and a metal bar that pushes on the lid to squeeze all the juice out. The Juice comes out of the sack and runs down into a pan. It was really good.

Tree by Littleton Chapel

                                                       Sister Christensen and Sister Grant

                                      With  Elder Holt and Elder Ripplinger (our Littleton group)

Famous burial site in Boston. Burial place of John Hancock, Ben Franklin, John Adams and Paul Revere

                                                            (John Hancock Memorial)

Washington Statue

                                                                  Downtown Boston

A Littleto(w)n for a Little Me! Many Good-byes! 

So I know you have all heard about my being transferred! But I am so excited. I am going to Littleton, Massachusetts, in the Nashua, New Hampshire stake. It’s between Boston and the border of Mass and New Hampshire. I am so stoked!

I am sad to leave Bridgeport and Trumbull though. There are many memories of this area already. And many people I will miss. It has been such a wonderful place. It will always be a tender spot in my heart. It's tough when you get so attached to people!

We had a pretty funny experience this week. This is with Sister Marsha Piper. She lives on the World's smallest reservation. This story starts a few months ago. We were on splits with some members and Sister Hinton didn't know where to go so she and the bishop’s wife went to Marsha's. Little did they know that Marsha hadn't let anyone from the church in her house for many years. They thought that the Elders visited her regularly. But the truth is they only tried to visit with her once in a while. They were not able to get in the home. But on this one night, Sister Hinton and the Bishop's wife were able to go in and have a nice visit with her. Not knowing any of this information. The Elders were astonished when they found out.

So going on I haven't ever met with her until this past week and let me tell ya, we had a ball! We went over to re-teach her the Plan of Salvation, because she doesn't remember a lot of the doctrine of the gospel, because she has been less active for many years. She had just told us how she had fell down her stairs the week before and got hurt pretty bad. And since we were talking about the Plan of Salvation we accidentally shared some scriptures that talked a lot about the fall of Adam. Our mistake. She looked at Sister Hinton and asked "you are mocking me aren't you!”?  I wish you all knew dear Sister Piper. She is hilarious! We sat laughing all night long. She made fun of me quite a bit too.

She had such a good time with us that night that she wanted to set something up where she would have all 4 missionaries over at the same time. The Elders would go over pretty regularly because Sister Piper's son is Little Eagle, who just got baptized. So she would call us every day and tell us when the Elders were going over. Finally, we were able to go. She wanted to surprise the Elders so they had no idea what was going on. We went over when Little Eagle and the Elders were having a bonfire. You should have seen all three of their faces. And man, that night was so much fun! Sister Piper laughed so hard the whole night! It was great.

Sadly, I was unable to get a picture with her. She was put in the hospital yesterday and she obviously didn't want me to take a picture then. But she was pretty upset to find out I was leaving. We visited her in the hospital (conveniently right by our apartment) and she was upset she couldn’t buy ME flowers!  The hospital didn't have any. It was sweet of her. But she was sure to get my mailing address so she can write to me. I just love that lady. She is a true New Englander, which makes her so unique and fun.

Well, that's about it. I move to Littleton tomorrow and I will get my new mailing address to you on Monday! Love you all. Have a wonderful week!

Love, Sister Christensen

New Haven Zone

Birthday Celebration with Fuzzy Socks

New Haven Zone

Saying Goodbye to all the wonderful people below!  Thank you for being so good to Sister Christensen!!

The Sullivan Family 

                                                             Bishop's family in Trumbull Ward

Bishop's family in Bridgeport Ward

New Member 

We are teaching the investigator in the green shirt