The Lords Pasture (week 7)

Natalie Christensen
6 days ago
9 min read

What up!?!?

It's your favorite Elder back at it again! Week 7 at the MTC I think... honestly, and I say this every week, I've been here so long I've stopped counting Ha! That being said, I want to let you all know that I have one week left and then I am off to Korea! Well, maybe... Later in this email you will learn of a shocking discovery about a pretty significant change. But for the right to break the ice let's talk about some spiritual and funny moments!

-Choir/Evening Devo (Spiritual).

You know what time it is, it's time to talk about the wonderful message shared at the Tuesday devotional and Choir as well! This week's speaker was drumroll please...

President Emily Belle Freeman of the General Young Women's Presidency. For those of you who don't know her, she is the one with the short blonde hair. That's all I'll say about that... you can piece together what type of haircut she has haha. Anyway, she is a phenomenal speaker and she had so much "zeal" when she gave her talk which made it very special to listen to. One of the most memorable things of her talk was when she told this story of these 7 sheep she had lost as a kid. Her father, who just so happened to present at the meeting, had owned these 7 sheep and one day they had all escaped through this gap in the fence and had run into their neighbors field. But that wasn't the biggest problem. The problem was that their neighbor's field had around 200 other sheep and now there were 207. So, President Freeman and her father walked over to this neighbor of theirs and told them what had happened. Obviously the neighbor wasn't going to just give them 7 of his sheep as he didn't know if this was actually true. But her father just told the neighbor that he could call his sheep by making a distinct "Bah" sound. The neighbor was now even more confused. So her father stands up on the neighbors fence and lets out this loud "bah" sound, and sure enough, 7 sheep run directly toward him. The best part of this story was when she told her father who was sitting front row to come up to the microphone and give an example of what it sounded like. So, this 90 year old man I kid you not practically runs up the steps to the stage and excitingly gives out this loud "Bah" sound for all of us to hear. It was pretty awesome ha! Okay but what was the point of this story, why did she tell it? Well the main theme she wanted to tell us was that we should be focusing on that gap in the fence. What does that represent? Here is how I look at this: We represent the sheep in this scenario and sometimes we wander off from the field through a gap in the fence. The field represents The Lord's presence/home and the gap represents the choices we make when we fall off the covenant path. Hopefully this makes sense so far. Okay so how do we avoid this gap? Well, President Freeman gave us a scripture,

Ezekiel 22:30 Old Testament. It reads, "And I sought for a man among them, that should make up the hedge, and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I should not destroy it: but I found none."

President Freeman then asked, "Who is this man that should stand in the gap of the fence for the sheep? It's the Prophet."

Now part of me thought that it should have been Christ that stands in the gap, and maybe I'm right, but here is what I think. As latter day saints we should be living as close as we can with The Lord and God, in his field, and sometimes there are gaps in the field. The Lord and God know that some of us will make the choice to leave. To prevent that they gave us a Prophet to follow, to listen, and to stand in the gap. It's a cool way to view the Prophet of our church. So, that got me thinking, what are some things that the Prophet and/or the Apostles have told to do or follow?

Neal A. Maxwell of the twelve in his talk "Swallowed Up in the Will of the Father" during the october 1995 general conference said this, "The submission of one's will is really the only uniquely personal thing we have to place on God's altar. The many other things we "give," brothers and sisters, are actually the things He has already given or loaned to us. However, when you and I finally submit ourselves, by letting our individual wills be swallowed up in God's will, then we are really giving something to Him! It is the only possession which is truly ours to give!" (Thanks Dad for sending me this talk Neal A. Maxwell is definitely one of my new favorites). Now obviously I am not perfect at submitting my will to God. But apply what Elder Maxwell said, to how we should view the sheep [us] in The Lord's pasture. The ground, fence, food, and home, is all given by God. How do we repay him? By making the effort to not leave the pasture.

-Funny moments

Here is a funny moment that happened this same Tuesday during our choir rehearsals 30 minutes before the actual devotional. Me and Elder Ratsachak are sitting in the tenor section with around 50 or 60 other Elders about 5 rows up from the floor. Everything is going as normal. We are singing and figuring out how the song is supposed to sound. Until the director focuses his attention to working with just the bass section for a specific part of the song. When this happens everyone who isn't singing just sort of relaxes in their chair and quietly converses or does sort of their own thing. Well, here is where the weird thing happened. There is an Elder on the row right below us about 3 seats to the right of me and Elder Ratsachak. This Elder pulls out this crumpled up piece of lined paper and blows the largest snot rocket directly into the paper, crushes it back down in his hand, and throws it back into his bag. Me and Elder Ratsachak were dying laughing just because of how out of the blue it was. But hey, gotta do whatcha gotta do I guess.

Here is another funny thing that happened during this same choir rehearsal. So if you didn't know they like to broadcast these devotionals over into another building here on campus because there are so many missionaries. The way they do this is that they have 4 massive cameras that are operated by what we assume to be college film students. But they film these devos exactly like a general conference. One cool perk of being in the choir is they film us singing as well, again exactly like General Conference. I mean it's so legit that they have a dude with a shoulder operated camera getting a zoom in shot on the guy playing the organ. They also have these two massive screens where we can see ourselves on them while they film us. Sometimes this can be a problem for some Elders but when we are actually performing everyone locks in. Well, we do 2 run throughs of the song with the camera on us before our actual performance and after being in the choir 6 times by this point I've never actually been focused on by the screen. However this time was different. Because I was sitting right next to the Alto section they love to do these shots where they get both genders singing with each other and I guess I was the lucky one for this moment. At the end of the song, the Tenors gave a section by themselves and we had to hold a note for about 12 counts or something crazy like that. Mind you this song is a hymn so it has a crazy slow bpm (beats per minute). So I basically had to stagger breath the whole time or I was going to straight up pass out. So I thought to myself about halfway through this note that I am just not going to sing and catch my breath. Well I made the rookie mistake of closing my mouth and it just so happens that right as I did that the camera guy decided that this would be the perfect time to get a nice close up of literally just me. So everyone in the choir just looked at me awkwardly, look at the screen not singing, glance back at the director, and immediately act like nothing happened and sing while laughing. Don't worry though that was on the rehearsal that wasn't broadcast. Not like it would matter anyway because they don't actually save these devotionals for anyone to see after they happen sadly :(.

-The Reassignment

That's right! If you haven't already heard, I got reassigned to a different mission because I have yet to get my visa. However, If I get my visa before wednesday October 22nd 3:00pm then I will be able to go to Korea. But for right now I am now going to be serving in... Place your guesses now...!

The Eugene Oregon mission speaking, whatever my mission president there says.

Pretty cool right...?

Honestly, I am not actually bummed about this if I actually do end up going there. I truly believe that the experiences that I will have there will be just as impactful as Korea. I also believe that I will leave a lasting impact on the people in Eugene Oregon as well. Because let's be real if God needs me, am I really going to argue with him? Of course not. I'm going to give it my all no matter where I am going. I hope I can pass that same faith on to some people in my district as a couple of them are struggling with that haha. I mean Elder Faux literally got reassigned to Syracuse New York speaking Spanish! Safe to say he's a little worried and I don't blame him. Actually I am a little jealous.

-Shoutouts

I want to give some quick shoutouts to some people who have made an impact on me this week. They are as follows:

Elder Jack Ence: Truly an amazing Elder. Serving in the Czech Slovak/Republic mission is going to be such an amazing experience for you and your family. You are genuinely one of the best missionaries and people I've ever known. The MTC has made me know you as a person even more and it has been so fun being able to chat with you about bountiful and just really building our testimonies together. I wish we would have spent more time together back home. I could've learned a lot from you! Thanks Elder Ence fly safe on Tuesday, you're going to make a huge impact. See ya in 2.

Luke Meikle: Thank you for the encouraging words about reassignments in your email you sent me. I never pieced together how wild being a COVID missionary was for you. The fact you were reassigned to Las Vegas not even knowing when you would actually be able to go to Argentina is crazy. But I loved how you said "Looking out over the valley, I had this overwhelming confirmation that I was exactly where God needed me to be at that moment." and that you felt that same feeling when you did eventually make it to Argentina. Even though I am not crazy stressed or bummed about this reassignment I am so glad you took the time to give me some great advice which I will use often. It really did make me feel like everyone back home is rooting for me. Thanks Cuz!

-Conclusion

And with that I want to thank all of you back home who have continued to stick by my side and keep me in your prayers. I've been returning the favor. I love you all so much and I hope all of us can continue to stay in The Lord's pasture and avoid the gaps in the fence. I promise that if we do this we will be blessed immensely. Look at me for example, I am living the best I possibly can by keeping my convannents and having faith in Christ. I am being blessed with so much knowledge and love for people.

Also, Thanks Mom and Dad for talking with me for around 9 hours. I had the district record for longest screen time because of that ha! But honestly I needed it. This last week is going to feel so slow.

Love y'all,

Elder Christensen