December 2024

 Dear Family and Friends,


I love Thanksgiving and Christmas.  It feels good to reflect on the things I am thankful for and then to follow that up with the spirit of giving, of peace, of helping others,  and certainly of our Savior Jesus Christ.  He spent His life in service and giving to others.  He shared His love and peace.  He encourages us to be like Him.


I love being with my family; with our children, grandchildren, parents, siblings, and all of the rest our parent’s posterity.  I love being with our friends, our Ward members, the missionaries with which we serve.  I love witnessing others as they give, love and serve.  If you are reading this, know that we love you and are grateful for the association that we have with you.


As we began November, we had a sense of urgency about being prepared for the week of Thanksgiving at the Bishop’s Storehouse.  We had heard that we should expect 3-4 times our normal volume of patrons coming there to get their orders fulfilled.  Having never experienced this, we didn’t know for sure what to do to prepare.    We had some ideas in mind and we held a couple planning meetings with 4 of our Young Service Missionary leads.  With their help, we put a plan in place.  Now that we are on the other side of Thanksgiving and that week is over, we are overjoyed with how it turned out.  In the end, our volume did in fact end up being 3-4 times our normal volume of patrons.  The orders to be fulfilled varied from small to large, and we did survive well.  The young service missionaries did an amazing job and we all worked well together to make it go smoothly.  We will definitely try to replicate the things that went well for our Christmas rush and then again next year at Thanksgiving.


One of the weekends while we are at home during November, we received a phone call from Toni’s mother that a relative, whom we had never met before, was at the hospital and could use a visit from us.  I had been working on things around the house and over at my mother’s that morning and was thinking of what I had wanted to do when the call came in so I’m embarrassed to say that I wasn’t immediately eager to go to the hospital with Toni.  We did go to the vehicle to leave for the hospital; Toni was ready to help.  Before we left the garage, I suggested that we have a prayer.  Personally, while I knew we would ask for what to say and how to help, I also knew that I needed a change of heart and attitude.


We arrived at the hospital and told the nurse at the entry that we were there to see Ryan and Breanne but that they didn’t know we were coming and didn’t necessarily know us.  The nurse went to see if they were okay that we come in and returned in a short time to invite us back.  They were in the emergency room quietly sitting and holding their precious daughter that had passed away.


Ryan and Breanne live on the East side of the country in North Carolina.  They were on the West side of the country in Idaho doing last-resort attempts to help their 4-month old daughter with her medical condition.  They learned that their daughter had a cancerous tumor in the brain at just 6 weeks after birth.  From that point and until the day that she had passed away, they had done everything they could to help their dear daughter to beat it.  This trip had been to do treatments in Idaho.  They had been there for the week of treatments and were now driving back to the airport in Salt Lake City when they noticed her not breathing and therefore went to the hospital.


For the next couple of hours, we visited with them in that sacred room.  While they were emotional about the passing of their dear daughter, they were calm and collected and we visited and became more acquainted with them and their situation.  Ryan is a second cousin to Toni.  We had met Ryan’s parents in our home a number of years back as they were traveling through the area.  Ryan works for American Airlines in Charlotte, North Carolina.  Breanne has been a stay-at-home mother to 7 children ranging from 17 years to this 4-month old.  They are both from Ohio.  They are Christian and firmly believe in Jesus Christ and in a resurrection.  We enjoyed getting to know them.


We stayed with them as the doctors and medical examiners went through the formalities as well as while the mortician visited with them.  Once they were ready, the mortician took their precious little girl.  We offered them a place to stay with us at our home.  They were not at all familiar with the area.  They did not know anyone else around.  Their immediate family is all from Ohio and North Carolina.  They accepted our invitation and therefore followed us home where we continued to visit and get to know each other better.  We had a bite to eat and shared the evening together.  The next day was Sunday, we offered to take them with us to church if they wished to do so or to take them for a drive to help distract their minds from everything else.  We drove up through Logan Canyon, enjoyed the view out over Bear Lake and then did a loop that took us to the North end of the lake and back through the mountains to Preston, Idaho and back home.  There was some fresh snow in the mountains that we all enjoyed along with just the beauties of nature and the wildlife.  We enjoyed the day together.


By the end of Sunday, preparations had been made for their return home along with their baby’s body.  They had booked passage for Monday morning.  We both left our home Monday morning at 6:00a, they toward the airport and home and we to our service site; also in Salt Lake City.


While it was a very difficult time for Ryan and Breanne, I'd like to think that we made a difference for good in this otherwise challenging weekend.  We feel that we saw the hand of God as our paths crossed for a short while.  We were blessed by them.  We shared sacred moments with them.  We felt of their hearts and spirits and because of that, we were blessed.


I do believe that God will bless our lives and guide us if we will let him.  I’m grateful that Toni was ready to follow that day.  I’m glad that I had a change of heart and that we were able to be with them for those two days.  I hope that our paths will cross again in the future.  We feel blessed to know Ryan and Breanne.


This past weekend, we were able to spend some time with some of our children and grandchildren as we shared a meal together and celebrated Thanksgiving.  Games were played, a lot of visiting occurred, and it was just good for the heart to be together with them.  We missed those that were not able to be with us.  We love our family!!!


Several years ago, our prophet Thomas S. Monson said that there were three books he liked to re-read every year between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  Since then, I’ve tried to do the same.  The three books are:


“The Mansion” by Henry Van Dyke

“A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens 

“The Book of Luke” in the New Testament


It’s time that I start that tradition again for the year.  I think they each help me to be a little better as I strive to live here in mortality.  While we are here on this earth, I hope we will each strive to live good lives.  I hope we will each strive to help others along the way.  Not for notoriety but because that is the right thing to do.  As you can see from the letter, I too need some more refining.  Let us all strive to do a little better each day, each week, and each year.


We love you all.  Thanks for your goodness and for the love that we feel from each of you.


Sincerely,


Mom & Dad, Grandpa & Grandma, Elder & Sister Christensen

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

December 2025 Letter

Image
 Dear Family and Friends, With trepidation we are at the last couple days of service as missionaries.  We have felt honored to wear a badge with the Savior's name upon it and to try to represent Him well.  What a blessing it has been to us personally to serve the people of the Salt Lake City area and to serve with the many young service missionaries that we often call "our missionaries". Tomorrow and Tuesday will be our last days serving at Welfare Square as missionaries.  Wednesday of this week we will be moving home and meet with our Stake President, President Shakespear, to be released.  We anticipate that he will instruct us to remove our badges at that time.  It is already a bit emotional to think of it ending our mission and removing the badge.  We will, however, be ready to find other ways to serve in our own community, amongst our family and neighbors. We have been taking a lot of pictures with each of our missionaries standing by us.  The...
Read more

September 2025 Letter

Image
 Dear family and friends, This past month has been filled with a lot.  Once again, a blessing of being close to home, we have had the privilege of celebrating several birthdays with grandchildren.  We have had the opportunity to have one-on-one time with each of Ellee, Weston, Lilly and Dallin.  Well, Lilly and Dallin actually helped us decide an event to do together.  It has been a joy to spend time with each of them.  In addition to this, we spent an evening at the 100th Anniversary of Box Elder County's Fair ... we went to the rodeo and as you can see from the photo, we were "tough enough to wear pink".  This morning we went to "Music and the Spoken Word"; we were joined by Toni's cousin Kerry and her son Mason.  Shout out to them for instigating it this week ... we love you guys!  We have been able to attend these several times while here in Salt Lake City.  They are always so calming and good for the soul. Our sweet Ellee Weston the...
Read more

November 2025 Letter

Image
 Dear Family and Friends, Each month seems to pass by so very quickly.  Our time as missionaries in the Utah Salt Lake Mission is drawing near to the end.  We are starting to participate in events and find ourselves saying that's the last time we will participate in this event.  For example, we went to our last missionary zone conference this past week.  We are on our last full transfer with our missionaries at Welfare Square.  This is the last pancake breakfast we will prepare for our missionaries at Welfare Square.  Etc. Zone conference was really good.  It was held just this past week.  President and Sister Gibbons who serve with our mission leaders, led the training that we attended and they did a really good job at it.  They spoke of the importance that we work on implementing the attributes of Christ in our lives.  I agree with that and sometimes forget to be doing so.  I do find that when I focus on an attribute of the S...
Read more