April 2025 Letter

 Hello dear friends and family.

Yesterday and today we have been listening to and enjoying the counsel of our church leaders as we have participated in the April General Conference.  There has been great counsel shared.  Some of the things that stuck out to me have been:

• We need to be humble, even as a child - Jeffery R. Holland (Apostle)
• We can be whole while waiting to be healed of physical or emotional problems - Camille N. Johnson (Relief Society General President)
• Take a careful look at how we spend my time.  Give equal time to the Lord.  Let God prevail in our lives.  Jesus is always the answer.  - Ronald A. Rasband (Apostle)
• The prophet is always giving us invitations to do things.  We should accept these invitations because we love Jesus Christ.  - Ricardo P. Giménez (a member of the Quorum of 70)
• When we pray for something from God with the same intensity that we seek for help if we are drowning, we will get the help or answer that we seek. - Sandino Román (Quorum of 70)
• With His loving assistance, he expects us to be the best version of ourselves that we can be. Seek God’s guidance in how to help. - Dale G. Renlund (Apostle)
• We all are to change our hearts to align with the Savior.  We are one, not because of where we’ve been but because we are all facing towards Christ.  - Dieter F. Uchtdorf (Apostle)
• We are magnified as we serve beyond our abilities as we act in faith. - Steven D. Shumway (Quorum of 70)
• While God cares about our mistakes, He cares more about what we do after our mistakes. Your worth is not tied to obedience.  Your worth is always great in the sight of God.  If you could hear the Savior praying for you, what do you think He would say?  - Tamara W. Runia (Young Women General Presidency)
• What does worshipping God and Jesus Christ really look like? explained by D. Todd Christofferson (Apostle)

... and many more.

Well we have many ideas from those who are our leaders to work on.  May we all seek to do a little better over the next 6 months.

We have been participating with the teaching missionaries on some evenings and have been helping them as they have been preparing another woman for baptism.  Her name is Rosa.  She is from Angola Africa and speaks Portuguese.  She is not related to the previous woman that we also helped with but it has been nice to participate.  This time, we have had a missionary who is from Brazil and is serving his mission in Salt Lake, teach the lessons.  We have both been able to share some of our feelings about the gospel.  She was baptized this past weekend and Eugene was able to perform the baptism.  That was a wonderful experience for Eugene to again perform a baptism.  To do so in the Portuguese language was also very heart warming.  Our friend Rosa had a big smile and seemed so very happy to be getting baptized.

Some of Eugene's siblings brought his mother down to Salt Lake City to see a play at the Hale Centre Theatre.  We were able to join them to watch the production and then we went to dinner together.  The play, "Prince of Egypt" was done very well, however, they really downplayed God's hand in it.  The whole of the freeing the Israelites from slavery under the Egyptians was by the hand of God yet that was not depicted.  We did, neverthess, enjoy the production and the company of family.  Dinner afterwards was delightful to share time with Eugene's siblings and mother.  We love spending time with family and friends when we have the opportunity.

We were given tickets to attend the Easter Musical production "The Redeemer".  It was excellent.  The music, the talent, the feelings and emotions that were stirred as the music reflected on the Savior was great.  We are grateful that we had this opportunity.  There were several renowned individuals that were part of the production as you can see from the program.

We are most grateful for Jesus Christ in our lives.  We know that He lives!  We testify of His redeeming role as Savior and Redeemer of the world.

We were able to join other senior missionaries at the monthly senior get together/luncheon.  The person who was invited to speak to us was Latter-day Saint historian Karl Anderson, whose specialty is the Kirtland period of church history.  He was fascinating to listen to.  We could have listened to him for much longer.

We also had a mission Zone Conference this past week.  It is always good to go to these.  Our mission leaders are always inspiring and encouraging to all the missionaries.  President Condie shared a message from a friend of his who had written him an email.  He had served a mission in Germany many years ago and felt like it had been a waste of time since he had 0 converts during his mission.  Now, several decades later he has learned that in fact they had had an impact on someone and because of that impact, there were indeed converts to the gospel of Jesus Christ on account of his labors there.  

We never know when we will impact someone for good.  We also do not know when the impact will take effect.

This past week at Welfare Square the number of people and groups that showed up for tours increasesd significantly.  This is due to the number of people and groups that come to Salt Lake City to attend General Conference.  We both had the opportunity to help with a couple of these tours.  Two of them that we participated with were a group of elected officials and a youth group from Bora Bora that has been saving up for a couple years to be able to come to attend General Conference in person.  That was fun to be with both of these groups.  One of our neighbors from Bear River City, Kyler Mecham, was one of the people helping to host the group of elected officials.  It was fun to see him and join with them for that tour.

On April Fools day, one of our missionaries brought in a bunch of missionary badges, all with his name on it.  He asked several missionaries to join with him in all wearing that same badge.  We had a lot of "Elder Gordon's" (see picture below) at the Bishop's Storehouse that day.  Some of the Sister missionaries even joined in on it.

We love serving.  We love the young missionaries that we have the pleasure of serving with.  They are amazing!  They love the Lord!  They are happy to serve and want so much to do their very best.  How we ever got so lucky to get to serve with them we do not know but we are so very grateful.

We love you all.  We are grateful for your love and prayers.

Enjoy this week and do your best to bless the lives of those around you.

Love Grandma, Grandpa, friend, neighbor, the guys down the street,

Sister and Elder Christensen.