Happy New Year

Hello Hello!!!

  Oh my goodness it was soo fun to talk to you this week!!!!! I was on cloud 9 all day!  I looked forward to it until it happened, and then afterwards I just kept reliving the beauty that was it.  If I had been thinking I coulda recorded it and then I could have relistened to it, because boy that time flew right on by, but it was the best Christmas present Ever!!!

  Hahahaha oh my goodness Mom, don't worry about spoiling the surprise!!! Hahaha I think it was a more exciting way to find out about it anyways! :)  haha I love it by the way!!!!  It is so fun to listen to a good variety of music, in the apartment, so Thank you thank you thank you!!!

  Alright my goal of this week is to make this a very legitimately awesome email bcuz I feel the ones of late have been lackluster sorts of deals.  I have 36 minutes to make this happen so we shall see if I succeed.

 

Monday we spent some time in West Milton, nothing much happened, but we got to meet some people, and we actually really scared this member.  So funny story: We knocked on her door, but apparently she didn't hear the knock and she came to her door to see if some things had been delivered and surprise! there we were.  Needless to say she was a teeny bit surprised and it was pretty funny.  Monday night we took Tiffanie to an appointment with us.  It was awesome!!! Tiffanie is a Recent Convert and it was perfect bcuz at one point Sister Anderson and I had absolutely nothing to say and she was able to jump in and testify thru some of her life experiences and it was killer cool to watch her in action!! One problem we were outdoors, and it was freezing.  But cold toes are not a big deal when it comes to helping someone feel the light of the gospel in their lives.  I have decided I gotta stop complaining tho.........I feel like I'm a big baby :)

  Tuesday I was w/ Sister Floyd all day since we were on exchanges and our day really did not turn out as expected but it happens.  We ended up singing Joy to the World to this family and let me tell you that thrilled me to use my less than stellar vocals, but they clapped for us anyways......I love kind people!! :)  Haha  Christmas Eve dinner was fabulous!! We were over at the Stucki's and when I say we I mean the other 3 Sisters and me.  That family is soooo cute.  Brother Stucki told us a really cool story about some Elder in Bulgaria....or somewhere.....I can't really rem. but anyways he was adopted by an LDS family they gave him a choice to be baptized (obviously he was ;) and then he also chose to be sealed and anyways he got called to serve in the country where he was actually born, and then his first area was the town he was born in and he found his birth mom and family.......it was better than that and you've probably already heard it but I just love it!! That story is direct proof that God is in charge of our lives.  There is always a divine path we just have to follow where it leads us!

  CHRISTMAS!!! It was fun to be w/ a young family in the morning to watch the little girls excitement! Opening my presents was pretty fun too!! I'll be honest when we went back to our apartment after the call I opened my special gift :) Hahaha I'm not patient enough to wait.  We had a good quick visit w/ Mike and we had a pretty good visit with the Spencers and Earl and Jennifer.  We talked abt the most random things tho..........Dinner w/ the Nybergs was fabulous!!!  But I think my favorite part was talking w/ Brother Nyberg abt what we can do to further the work in the ward and how we can spend more quality time w/ the members...we came up w/ some good stuff and I am excited to see it put into actual works....I'll let you know how it goes k?  Sister Webb made all of us Missionaries a gift...mine was a stormy blue scarf...it works pretty well. I've already tested it out.

  We had Sister Stucki come out w/ us on Thursday and one appt fell thru but JOHN!!!!!!! Ohhhhhh my heck I love him!   He is open to learning and when he reads the Book of Mormon he really understands it very well. He thought he was supposed to finish 1st Nephi by time we came back for the second lesson and he made it to chapter 16.  When we were there for the second lesson he was describing all these things that occur in 1st Nephi and he understood all of it.  It was so awesome to see! I am pretty certain he understands some of Lehi's vision better than I do :)  It is wonderful to see the Lord's hand in our work and to have it shown that it really isn't our work at all.  Basically it was fabulous....in one word.  Not too many other exciting things to report....plus I gotta move on for the sake of time.

  Friday was Sister Anderson's birthday.  We were walking since we are very low on miles.  We had a lesson w/ Mike, and he prayed!!!!! That was awesome, we were soooooooooooooooooooooo excited! Dinner with the Crumbs was great, she told us her and her husbands conversion story and it is pretty great.  They found the gospel over in England.....pretty darn cool I think.

  Saturday we had a lesson with Mrs./(Sister) Russell is what I call her!!! Haha I love her......I wish you could all meet her, I want to adopt her as my 3rd Grandma..........she is sooo funny.  But we had a good visit w/ her. 

  Church was awesome yesterday.  I took 4 sticky notes notes.   I shoulda taken more tho....whoops.  We had a really good visit w/ Sister McCracken and was able to find out abt her and her family..........we talked all abt what we had learned in church and it was soooo awesome to see it apply so directly into what we needed for the day.  PS go look up Alma 33:23 its a good one!

  I got to bring this to a close but I love you all so much and I am thankful for all your love and support.  I hope that you know how much you all mean to me!

I hope the end of 2013 and the beginning of 2014 is fabulous for you!

 

Love,

        Sister Julie Ann......aka Sister Christiansen

Merry Christmas!!!!!

Ho Ho Ho Merry Christmas everyone!!!

  I can't hardly believe its this time of year already! Time has flown quite on by and now it is the best time of year to just celebrate Christ and how important He truly is to each of us.

  I told you some crazy intense stories of things that have happened this week and I hope that you like hearing them firsthand instead of by written word, because quite frankly I didn't want to have to write some of those things out, I thought it would come better by me speaking to you.  I am so so soooo thankful for all of your prayers.  I want you to know how much I feel them and what a difference they truly make.  This week I was shown multiple times that God truly does answer our prayers and He can answer them very quickly and directly.  It is amazing to be a witness of such power.

  This week I met one of my very favorite people on planet earth!! No joke I felt an instant love for him and I know that God placed me and Sister Anderson here to help him, and so that he could help us as well.  I don't think I have felt such an instant love for someone in a while, so that was amazing to feel that, because I have been praying to have more love and charity, so I guess Derek is a direct answer to some of my prayers. (I'll have you know I just thought of this right now as I was writing to you!) Isn't inspiration an amazing thing?????? yes, yes it is.

  Yesterday we met a very nice JW. She was so cute she gave us a Watchtower, but I was also able to give her a Restoration Pamphlet, nothing like a good trade huh?  Haha I really hope she reads it, because she is so dedicated to her faith it would be awesome to be able to teach her and bring her closer to God and have a better relationship with her Savior.  I know that this gospel is truly the only way to eternal happiness and I really wish more people would take the time to listen to it, but all we can do is sound the trump and give them a chance.

  This week really has been phenomenal in terms of my growth and lessons for me to learn.  I feel like Thursday was a turning point for me, now I just hope that I can really follow through and act on it for the rest of my mission! It was a really important day and I know that when you listen to my recordings you'll see why. 

  I GOT TO SEE SISTER ROLFE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh my goodness my lovely Sister from Zion!! It was fabulous!! I have missed her soooo, sooooo, much!!! I spent as much time with her as I could and it was bliss!!! I loved, loved, loved it!!!

 

I want to leave you with my testimony. I know that this church is true, it is the way to complete happiness, and as we each take the time to read the Book of Mormon our individual questions about anything in life will be answered.  I know we have a living prophet on the earth today to lead and guide us, because Heavenly Father loves us just as much as He loved those in the past! I know that Christ is my Redeemer, Savior and Friend. He truly knows and loves me and He is the Light of this world.  May we each remember Him throughout our whole lives is my prayer.

 

I love you more than words can tell!!

I can't wait to talk to you in real life, its going to be great!!!! :)

 

Love,

        Sister Julie Ann Christiansen

This is a quick one

So I only have 14 minutes so sorry this is going to be super quick.  Those recordings took forever and a day to send so probably not so many next time round.

 

So I got 2 packages today, it was pretty fun I got one from G'ma an G'pa and then one from Uncle Larry and Aunt Becky.  Also I got my one from Grandma on Saturday and I opened it yesterday....I LOVE IT!!!!!!!!!!!

 

I can't believe its almost Christmas, time has seriously flown by!!

 

This week has been a fabulous week.  Sister Anderson and I have been able to witness the many small miracles that God gives to us daily.  I have truly been blessed.  One of the highlights of my week was indeed Zone Conference!! I absolutely had an amazing revelatory experience and I was able to receive answers to both of my questions.  Not only did I receive answers though, things really stuck out to me on action plans as well, because I know it is great to receive answers, but it is also important to know how those answers are truly going to help me out.  I also loved the opportunity to hear from Elder Christofferson, and then to be able to tell people things that he said that were relevant to them and their personal situations.  It reminded me of how Elder Bednar has said that the things you study will come into direct use each day if you are studying as you should.

 

There is a quick blurb for you...on to some stories.

 

So one time we were walking and these nice people said Hi to us, and so I wrote down where they lived.  This week we went for a walking journey and were going to go knock on their door, but Heavenly Father was smarter and had them be outside.  We were able to talk to them really quick like and gave them a Pamp, and then yesterday we went and dropped off some cookies and set up a return appt.  I love how the Lord works.  You can truly tell He is at the head of this work, because sometimes we have these little ideas that He totally magnifies.  I love it, talk about the best Boss ever!

 

So another story...I was told I looked tired at Zone Conference....Probably yes I was, but thats a bummer that I looked it.  We had to get up at 5 to make it there on time since it was down in Middletown. But it was so worth it and beyond.  I loved learning from President and Sister Porter, and then Elder and Sister Perkins were absolutely fantastic.  THey are inspired people and I love hearing people who truly let the Spirit work thru them. 

 

Stake Conference was phenomenal!! Elder Smith and Elder Christofferson spoke so wonderfully.  At the end yesterday it was really cool cuz Elder Christofferson gave the people a good 2 or 3 minutes worth of blessings.  It was so cool to be able to be there to witness it.  One thing that really stuck out to me was how He talked abt Faith being an action and how sometimes we have to repent before we gain the faith we need.  Insights He gave were so fabulous!! I just wish that I had my notebook so I could share more with you right now. 

 

This next week is going to be a week of miracles, I am throughly convinced that I need to step my game up so that I can receive all the blessings God is willing to give me so long as I do what I have covenanted to do. 

 

In Zone Conference they talked all about how our obedience brings us so many blessings and that is definitely something I have seen over and over again, and the reason we always talk abt it is because you can always do better.  There is always something to increase some step that we can reach a little farther for.  I am so grateful for each and every one of you.  Your love, support, and prayers truly make a difference in my life, and it makes me want to be so much better, because of your examples to me.  I cannot tell you how much my testimony has grown, and my understanding of the Atonement and tho it is something I will never understand or comprehend I know that it is for me, and you specifically.  Jesus Christ was born so that I can be born again, so I can be made clean.  I know that He is the only Begotton of the Father and I am forever grateful to Him and His sacrifice for me.

 

I love you!! I hope you each take some time to study the Atonement and what it means to you as we all take time to Celebrate the true meaning of Christmas!!

 

Love,

        Sister Julie Ann :)

SNOW!!!!

Hello hello from Snowy Dayton!!

  Yes my dear familia it did indeed snow this week.  It was a bit chilly too but you know such is winter, and I think I'll take my degrees over yours, however I could do w/out the humidity, seeing as that can make things a bit more chilly.

  Sorry to have worried you, but I love my companion.  She is super cute and quiet, but we have lots of fun together.  We are working on each other getting to be all boldsauce and everything.  Sister Anderson is from Orem, and she has been out a bit longer than a year.  She doesn't like to drive in the snow, so the official driver for now is yours truly.  Basically I love to drive, and the weather really doesn't bother me.  

TIME OUT!!!!

  Cole, Jordan, Robyn, Kent, Jessie, Colton and Dillon Good luck this week!!!! I know you are all going to do fabulous on your finals, because you are all the smartest people I know!! :)

Time In!

  I know nothing about how Christmas is going down.  Sorry about that, but I am as in the dark as all of yall.  President is a little busy right now, seeing as this week is a mission tour with a member of the 1st quorum of the Seventy...Elder Perkins....I think....actually I'm almost positive.  You'll be the first to know when I find out tho, I assure you.

  This week we have had a few set-backs with people not being there for the appointments we had scheduled, but I know that this week there is going to be a lot of change.  We are very determined to do everything we can with the Lord to see miracles.  I know that He is in charge of this mission and I need to give Him the opportunity to lead me.  I love that we have the opportunity to speak with Him whenever we want, and that we can receive very direct answers.  This week I had a blessing and the  words that were spoken were exactly what I needed to hear.  I love that our church has the Priesthood, and we can be directly blessed by the same power that created the Earth.  My testimony is so strong on how the Lord gives us exactly what we need, in the exact time we need it.  I am so excited for Zone Conference this week and Stake Conference as well.  I know that everything is going to be amazing! 

  So that is some of what I told President this week, I decided to insert it just in case I'm not able to give you full details of everything that happened this week.

  Monday I lost our phone.  It was a bit of a problem, but hey that is what prayer is for right??? We did indeed find it again with the Lords help so no worries all is made right in the  phone life....t'would have been real awkward esp since we had a very imp call that night.....our Conference call.  

  We also met the coolest guy ever on Monday night and set up a return appt for the next day and we got a member to come with us and everything and he has been going thru a bit of rough time and so we weren't able to actually go in and teach him, but he did accept the BoM and the Restoration and PoS pamphlets and he said that we could go back and visit him in a few weeks.....so I'll keep you posted on him.

  We tried a bunch a people all thru/out this week and the common theme was that people weren't home so not as much turned out as we were hoping, but hey there is always a new week right??....at least until there isn't!

  We had dinner w/ Sister Terry this week and I love her, she is so sweet and she does so much for all of us missionaries, I feel bad that she does so much but I really appreciate all she does for us.

  We had an awesome companionship study this week.  On Wednesday we worked on using the pamphlets more and it was awesome.  There is definite power in using them, because those pictures and the simple statements speak wonders.  Elder Barnett started us off, and then Elder Thompson came in for a few minutes until Elder Elquist got there, and then Elder Thompson actually came in to teach us.  But then at the end Elder Elquist had us tell Elder Barnett he was going to hell for smoking....he was trying to get all of us Sisters to be bold.  I tried to get away with using a scripture about damnation instead....(since all damnation really means is that your progression is stopped) but they didn't let me do that, they made me be bold and call him out.  But to make a long story short it was a really good study time, I learned a lot and Sister Anderson and I are trying to be better at teaching simply and using the pamphlets.

  We had a visit w/ a LA who says that she has been thinking about coming back to church, but she would have to change her work schedule, but she sounds serious about it so that would be phenomenal ya know....she has already talked to another girl at work about switching days after the end of this year.  So I'mma pray for that.

  We taught this really awesome lady on her porch this week and tried to set up a return appt but she was like I'm expecting in two weeks so I don't know when would be a good time.  I felt like that was a legitimate reason to not set up a return appt but we have her address and we are planning on dropping back in sometime she took the BoM and pamphlet so we can check up on that and her and the baby.  4 birds one stone sorta deal.

  This one LA that we both adore we met her BF this week. He is really awesome and I feel like he has potential but we gotta work up to that point I suppose.

  Zone meeting was good.  I got to be companions w/ an Elder during a RP which is always slightly awkward....but it all worked out.  I learned lots and again it was stressed to us to use the pamphlets.

  Friday night all the cars in the mission were grounded, so we met some neighbors.

  Saturday the Elders had a baptism and then I had Elder Barnett give me a blessing.  It was just what I needed.  I am so grateful for the Priesthood.  Also I am glad that I already knew Elder Barnett, because its always nice to have someone you know give you a blessing.

  Church was good and the Devotional was fantastic!!!

I hope you have a killer good week!! I love you all :)

Love,

        Sister Christiansen....aka Sister Julie Ann

Englewood Ward Newbies!!

Hey you beautiful people!

  I'm going to start off by saying, Ohhhh my Gosh!!!!! I can't believe that Paul Walker is dead! That is horrible!!! But I really also can't believe the irony of him dying in a car and all........weird.  Sad day tho! I think my heart broke a wee bit.

 

On to other things now.......I don't mean to be insensitive to him or anything but yeah.....

 

Tuesday I cried when I had to say bye to Sister Summers, it was very hard, she is like another legit Sister to me.  But crazy sauce.  She is the Senior comp to Sister Ashby nowadays.  Crazy huh?  I was really sad to leave the Cincinnati East Zone, but now I am in the Dayton Zone so that is exciting, and I have been able to be on a campus for a brief moment.  Cool for sure.  So Dayton is very proud of the fact that the Wright brothers are from around here.  We see stuff about them around many places. 

  Like I said in my other email, we were doubled in. We now have a beautiful 2014 Silver Chevy Cruze....its so nice.  Sister Anderson and I are over Vandalia, and we have a ton, a ton, a TON of Less Actives, that we are going to fire up about coming back to Church.  The ward is pretty small, as in attendees on Sunday, the roster is huge tho.  We are going to do our very best to rekindle the fire of these people's conversion tho, and bring them back, because you never completely lose your testimony, so I know its there....somewhere.

  Also there is a new sister from Grace Idaho. cool huh?

 

We have met a ton of cool people and I am way excited to continue to keep meeting the children of God that He has prepared for us. 

 

The Church is true and I love each and every single one of you!

 

Have a great week!!

 

Love Sister Julie Ann

I am quite sad about the Aggies, but it looks like it was killer fun to be there at the ESA! You lucky people you! :)

I am with Sister Anderson and we were doubled in.  We are now the 3rd set in this ward.

Sister Anderson was the first Missionary that Sis. Ward trained cool huh?

We actually live in Vandalia! Which is right next door to the Dayton International Airport.  Cool beans eh? 

We have the cutest couple that we have gone and visited twice since we got here and I love them to absolute pieces, they are so sweet to us.  We have gone thru and visited a ton of the Formers and we found one investigator out if it so far, but I'm optimistic something else is going to come of them.  They all seem to be awesome people. 

  Ohhhh also guess what?  Elder Barnett is one of my Zone Leaders nowadays.....so that is kinda fun.  We get to serve in the same ward again.  Also we are in the same ward as the Zone Leaders, and the Sister Training leaders.  At this last transfer they put almost all of the Sister Training Leaders together.  Mine are Sisters Floyd and Schmitt.  Sister Schmitt is so sweet, I really really like her.  Also I do like my new Companion she is really quiet and very nice.  I love you all!!!

 

Love, Sister C......because everyone here seems to think that Sister Christiansen is much tooooo long and complicated to say.....hahaha