Today we take Jeff to the MTC

It's been a few days since I've posted in here, but my heart is full this morning as we get ready to take our first grandson Jeffrey Jordan Christensen to the Missionary Training Center where he'll begin his journey of serving a mission for the next two years.
We've had many spiritual blessings this last two weeks as we've spent these this time leading up to today.  It's due to the blessing of early retirement that I realize we were able to be here for this entire time and be a part of each and every step leading up to today.
We arrived here in time for the first event which was his farewell at church where he was able to give part of the sermon and plan the entire service how he wanted it to be that Sunday. He had a special man who he loves how he sings, do a musical number of a Primary song that he loves, "Armies of Helaman", and some of the young kids who he's taught in his Primary Sunday School this last year sang with this guy in a really neat arrangement of the song.  A person couldn't listen to these kids, and this man singing and not be touched by the Spirit.  Our daughter and son in law Traci and Neil put on an open house for him afterwards and it was well attended by a lot of people wanting to support him.
My parents who live in Billings, and Jeff's great grandparents were able to drive down here from Billings to be a part of that weekend.  My dad is 85 and my mom 80 and it's not as easy for them to drive these long distances like it once was.  I thought about how wonderful this was for Jeff to have his great grandparents still alive and still in good health so that they were able to make this trip and be here for him on his special day.  A lot of kids at his age don't even have their grandparents still alive let alone their great grandparents, and then to have ones in good enough health that they were able to be here for him is an extra special blessing.  To have grand parents who value gospel principles and want their grand kids to be worthy active church going people following Jesus is another blessing of his.  Not only has he had parents who've taught him to follow the Lord, but he's had grand parents and even great grand parents who've all set a good example for him to follow and stay strong in the Gospel.
Then the next step drawing us closer to today was going with Jeff to the temple and being able to go with him a couple of times this last week.  It was very spiritual for all of us getting to be there with him, and he had a lot of family support with 17 of us there that first evening.
Now Casey and Ashleigh were able to be with us last night as we all went to with him to be set apart as a full time missionary.  His Stake President is a really wonderful man and he took the time to visit with all of us and with Jeff on the importance of hard work and living to have the Holy Ghost as his constant companion as he labors to teach and help the people he'll serve in the St Louis, Missouri area.
We all felt the Spirit so strongly last night, that there wasn't a dry eye amongst any of us, and Ashleigh commented that she hasn't felt the Spirit that strong in a long time.  Jeff bore his testimony to all of us about how he felt being a missionary, and when we came back to the house here he gave each of us a blessing, his first as a missionary.  It was very apparent that the mantle of a full time missionary was on him and a testimony to me of the truthfulness that God is our Father and Jesus our Savior.
When we were finished with that we all helped him pack for today.  He has to be at the MTC by 12:40 and we want to stop and buy him a black back pack and some of the last little supplies that we noticed he still needed as we packed last night.
His dad has written him a couple of personal letters to take with him and open once he's out there in the mission field and this morning I was prompted to write him one myself so I took the time to write down our conversion story and my feelings towards him.  I have felt the Spirit so strong this morning as we prepare to head out the door now, and I want to tell my grandson here in this blog how much I love him.  I'm proud of him and of his parents who have taught him correct principles and brought him up to be able to make these correct choices on his own.  They've brought all these our grand kids up to be very independent and make their own decisions, as they guide them to make good choices in all areas of their life.  I see this as we spend time here and sometimes it's scary for me, but ultimately I see the results and I'm proud of them all.  I love you Jeff!  I'll post a picture of you with all of us and in front of the MTC later today after I've taken it.

All of us as we dropped him off.

Now as a second part to this blog, we have returned back to the house now after taking Jeff and being with him as he entered into the MTC.  It was so neat for John and I to get to be a part of this last step as he began his mission today.  I love that we were here for every bit of the activities leading up to today.