The "Alku" or Beginning

Hello Friends and Family,

We hope you enjoy keeping up with Zanhin (Elder) Christensen as he serves the Lord in the Helsinki Finland Mission. He entered the MTC on July 22, 2009. We took a few pictures by the main entrance sign before driving in to drop him off at curbside. We had a great time taking pictures with two other missionaries from Logan. One of Trevor's best friends, Ryan Clawson, was there, as well as Nick Borgogna. They were supposed to report at the exact same time on the same day. We were excited to see these 3 awesome guys ready to serve the Lord. It's amazing that they can coordinate all the missionaries arriving all day long. We hope the "swine flu" doesn't affect many more missionaries. However, the drop-off arrivals are supposed to be permanent. There wasn't much time to think about being sad. You pull up to the curb, unload suitcases, take one picture in front of the MTC buildings, give everyone a hug and off your missionary goes into a maze of buildings....and (drum roll) never to return...at least for two years. I liked it better when the missionaries could go to the University Mall and discreetly meet their family while they did their shopping on P-Days.

We received our first letter from Trevor on Saturday. It was short and sweet, but Trevor seemed excited that they had starting learning Finnish on his 2nd day. We asked Carol Armstrong to share a few Finnish phrases and words. The first one we learned is "Zanhin" means "my eldest brother" That is the official title for the missionaries in Finland. So feel free to address your coorespondence to Trevor with it. "Kuinka voitte" means How are you? and "kseksi kirjeeseenne" means "in answer to your letter". I'm sure he would love to use that phrase....letters are a missionary's best friend.

He would appreciate any letters or packages from you. We are including his mailing address for the MTC. He will be there for the next three months. His departure date for Finland is October 13. Since he survived at home on peanut butter and honey, we've already sent him a loaf of bread a jar of peanut butter and one of honey to get him past the midnight snack hunger attacks.

His mission president instructed Trevor to ask his family and friends to pray that he would receive the gift of tongues as he strives to learn Finnish and get ready to teach the gospel to the people in Finland. Please join us in seeking for this blessing in his life. The people of Finland are kind and supportive of the missionaries that come to their country and are so impressed that they are willing to learn their language. There are only 50 missionaries in the entire mission so they have a big work to do.