Happy Birthday to my baby!

I can't believe how freakin' old I am getting. Really, really old. My baby is 9!

When I think what I was doing when she was born... trying to sell our house in TX and make the move (finally!) back home... I can't believe how much has happened and, especially, how quickly it happened.

I'm so in love with her, as I was the day she was born. She's a beautiful, talented, smart, sensitive, caring, witty girl. I am pleased and proud to be her mom.

Happy birthday, baby!

Frank's Letter September 14, 2009

Read Frank's latest letter here!

Here's a shout out about my favorite Blog

I am avant-guard... a trail blazer, of sorts... I am the harbinger of future coolness. If you follow my advice, you will be on the cutting edge of awesomeness. As proof, I offer this... I single-handedly launched the career of Stephanie Meyer. It is true. I personally exposed the entire northern half of Utah, as well as the Dallas/Fort Worth metropolitan area to a little old book called Twilight. I am expecting a check any day. I twittered before my kids. I facebooked and bittorrented--I INVENTED the internet.

I digress... what I came here to talk about is this really new cool blog I've been following. It is helpful and entertaining and educational and amusing So here's your chance to get in on it so you can say you were a fan before everyone else makes it trite. Learn how to make gravy, fix a hole in some jeans, make jam, can turkey... If it's old school, she'll show you how to do it.

Check it out... OLD SCHOOL

Frank's Letter 09/09/09

Dear Mom,
I'm down here a lot earlier than usual today, so I figure you haven't had time to write yet, and that's ok. We've had a real good week here. I think often you get trials to prepare you for the blessings ahead, because it's a lot harder to be faithful in times of prosperity than in times of trial. We definitely see that in the Book of Mormon. The work is going well, but we're not yet reaching the goals we were hoping for. I have been thinking a lot on patience, hope, and faith lately, on the difference between the two. I have faith that the Lord can bless us with the success we are working so hard for and hope that he will, but patience to accept that he may not yet. I'm looking and searching for how to understand exactly what it is I'm supposed to do in balancing all these things. I was a little wary to set the goals we did because they would be so difficult to reach, but they felt right when we did it. I guess the only thing to do is to keep going forward doing all that we can to reach them, having hope that we will reach them through the guidance of the Lord, and the patience to accept that we may not. It's still a difficult concept for me to grasp.

All of our progressing investigators from before have dropped off the face of the earth, but the Lord has blessed us with new ones that are coming along very nicely. We met a man last Thursday that came to church for the fast and testimony meeting and was quite impressed. We taught him again yesterday and felt the spirit was very strong. We're also working with a young Honduran named Carlos who has a huge desire to come to church. He's only been held back before by not coming to church, because he is in North Carolina most weekends to see his family and is only here during the week to work. We are working with him to get the missionaries involved down there and help him to go to church down there, but he is a great example of someone with a sincere desire to find the answers. On the converse, we talked with some Jehova's Witnesses yesterday who were just obstinate. They more or less flagged us down from their car and tried to bash us right there on the street corner. It was a reinforcement to me of how we have to teach the gospel. It is ABSOLUTELY NOT a matter of proving your point to someone by a methodical means. We can ONLY do it by the power of the spirit, or they will not feel edified, closer to God, or even pleasant. Past times I have wondered why people have no interest in the restored gospel after we share it with them. Now, reflecting on it, I realize that I haven't taught in the manner most accommodating for the spirit to really catch their interest. Of course there are people who are just plain not interested and stubborn, but I think a lot of it has to do with that. Being at the halfway mark in the same place I started has led me to a lot of reflection as to the areas I have improved and seen success, and where I can do more. Yesterday I had the opportunity to go on exchanges with one of our Zone Leaders and learned a lot from him. I also was teaching solo again because he doesn't speak any Spanish. It's a nice reassurance that I can do it, because my confidence in my Spanish had waned a little since I'd been with Elder Fishback, who has a lot of experience and very good Spanish, which makes mine pale in comparison.

Tomorrow I get to go on an exchange back up to Hampstead, my greenie area! I'll be getting to do a lot of exchanges this transfer, but the two up there are the ones I'm most excited about. We're set to have dinner up there with the first members I met there too! It'll be neat to get to revisit a lot of the old places.

Thank you so much for the package! It was great to get to hear from most of you. I hear from the girls so little, so packages are a real treat because they write. I'll be writing them back when I can, but it'll probably be a while because I won't have time today at least (we're going fishing with a member) and we can only write on preparation days. By the way, this is the last Wednesday preparation day. They will be on Mondays from hereon out, if I didn't mention that before.

Didn't you say that Cody was going to write me? That bum.

I love you all, hope everything is going well. Tell Hillary not to get overwhelmed by it all

Love, Elder Rob Christensen

Yeah! My computer's working again!

My computer is out of memory. Already. Bah. But I've fiddled and deleted and I'm able to post pictures again. Yippee.

Here's what I spent labor day doing... I have a very wonderful friend who used to live in my ward--who is my friend even though she knew me in high school--who is about to send a son on a mission (to Canada!). They went away for a long weekend to have one last "fling" before her son left, only to return to find her home completely flooded. A valve under an upstairs bathroom sink broke and water poured into their home for 3 days. They lost their ceiling and drywall in the basement, all their flooring except a few spots of tile, and all their bedrooms were soaked, as well as their home school area with all their books. They had to rip nearly everything out and deal with mildew. They are frantically trying to get their bedrooms liveable so they can move out of their family room where they are all sleeping now. Anyway, a farewell open house would be out of the question so I took the girls and went over to work on the yard so they could hold it outside. She has the most perfect garden that was overflowing with different varieties of zucchini and tomatoes and beans and eggplant and everything imagineable. But she doesn't have a kitchen right now to take care of it so I brought it home and processed it for her.

From the 8 GIGANTIC zucchinis, I made 40 baggies of grated zucchini (she adds it to hamburger or whatever she's making to add extra veggies to their diet) and 10 baggies of cooked zucchini and a couple of bags of roasted freezer maranara sauce. Yumm. It was a lot of work, but it felt good to give a hand where it was needed.

Frank's Letter September 4, 2009

Can you believe it is half over? Read all about Frank's mission experience this week!

Primary Quarterly Activity

We took the Primary children to the Church Museum of History and Art. I had done it with Primary kids a few years ago and it was wonderful so we were thrilled to be able to do it again. We met and carpooled everyone to SLC. Just so I remember in the future, walking kids across the street in SLC is like herding cats. They just wont go where you want them to go. And the stares... Drivers looked at us like we were polygamists!

We did a station where the missionaries talked about what was art and how to appreciate it.

Then the kids were ushered to another room where they learned about sculpting and were able to sculpt a bust. This is a cute little CTR 5 who was so proud of his sculpture. It looks just like him!

Lastly, we went to the basement where there was a stage where the kids were able to become part of a painting. It was good, but definitely too hard for the youngest children. And I don't like to be critical, but the missionaries were kind of harsh to the kids. Fortunately I don't think the kids noticed as much as the adults did.

(notice it is H wearing the beard)

After the museum we took the kids to the reflecting pond to take their picture in front of the temple.

It was a lovely day. Making it even better, I ran into Mom and elle_cosette coming out of the museum. What a small world!