My Special Friend Chris!

So I am totally behind on blogging but this is the next thing that I need to blog about and even though I am late in doing so it is still close to my heart and will always be a special memory to me. I will always remember these special memories.

Chris Carlson and I moved next door to each other in the same weekend in August of 2005. The first day Marcus and I met Chris and her husband Rich we wanted to share the gospel with them. Rich had a teenage son that passed away a couple months earlier in a car accident and we could feel their pain so much our hearts hurt for them. We never really got the right opportunity but we always kept them in our prayers. After several years of living next to them and being neighborly friends Chris lost her job and started to walk with me and other neighbor friends in the early mornings. Many of the mornings it was just Chris and I alone walking and she got to be comfortable talking with me. I didn't bring the gospel up but I was praying hard to get the opportunity to share it with her. After a while Chris started to ask questions and I tried to answer them the best that I could. I invited her to meet with the missionaries and they could teach her better than I could but she politely declined and said maybe after the holidays she would have more time.

On Thanksgiving weekend Marcus and I took her a Book of Mormon and I shared my testimony with her and let her know that when she was ready we could help her with the missionary lessons. Still asking lots of questions and being more ready to receive the gospel than she new she was, we continued walking and talking. Then one day I decided to sign up to feed the missionaries in our home and I invited Chris to come for dinner and meet them. She accepted the invitation and I was so excited and nervous at the same time. I had never shared the gospel with anyone so this was so new to me and I had all kinds of emotions going on.

The missionaries (Elder Ayhcroft-the short one and Elder Welch-the tall one)were so excited to teach her. After dinner they ask if they could teach her a lesson and she was OK with that. After the lesson they ask if they could schedule a time to teach her again. She said yes and we continued to have missionary lessons with her once a week in our home.

In the beginning Chris was really thinking that she would find some excuse for her to decline and not agree with our beliefs, but the more she learned the more she came to the truth and believed herself. Chris was and is still an inspiration to me and so many others around her. She accepted the gospel fully and is so strong in her testimony. She ask Marcus to baptize her and was baptized on March 14Th and is counting down the days for her to be able to go to the Temple.

Four days after she got baptized we got to go with the youth group from our ward to the Temple to do baptisms for the dead. She now has quite a few names from her own family to take to the Temple to have their work done for them. She is one of the most amazing women that I have ever met and I am so blessed to be a part of her life and to have shared in some of the most spiritual experiences with her in my life. Thanks Chris for allowing me this amazing experience. I Love You!! Now we're all praying for her husband Rich and her son Kyle. ha ha They are truly an amazing family and we love living next to them!