Today we have 10 wonderful missionaries who have finished their service in the Tennessee Knoxville Mission and are returning home. Each has made an incredible impact and influenced so many…people they’ve taught, strangers they’ve met and strengthened their faith, members of our church they’ve spend time with, and the many missionaries they have served with. How do you measure the impact of 18 or 24 months of this kind of service?

When a stone is dropped into a still pond of water, the water moves in ripples across the entire pond. The impact of the stone in one area of the pond has an effect on the water everywhere in the pond. That’s true of these missionaries, and the ripple effect happens in two ways.

First, there are so many ripples that extend out from their efforts to “go about doing good.” During His mortal ministry, the Savior served others. He went about “doing good” and “preaching the gospel” (Acts 10:38; Matthew 4:23), and as representatives of Him, these missionaries have done all they can to do the same. While they have given planned service each week, by far most of their service has been unplanned. Every day during their time in Tennessee, they’ve prayed for and looked for opportunities to do good. They’ve listened to the Spirit to recognize occasions for small acts of kindness they can offer, and as they’ve touched so many lives from this daily focus..

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But there are other ripples, and those are the ripples that will be felt in their own lives. How much sacrifice has been packed in to these 18 or 24 months? How many times have they been discouraged and wanted to turn back? How many times have they had to rely on their discipline to carry them when their motivation did not? How many times have they had to focus on what the Savior needed them to do, and not what they wanted to do? How many miracles have they witnessed? How much change have they been able to see in others? What skills have they gained as they’ve done this day in and day out for that much time? What attributes have they acquired and how have they had to change? And what lessons have they learned through all of this?

Those lessons will be the biggest ripples, and they will continue to ripple throughout their futures. Their entire lives will now be changed by this experience and by the lessons the Lord has taught them. We’ve only had the opportunity to work with them for the last 7 months of their service, but we can see the tremendous change and growth that has happened in each of them over that time. We admire and love each of them.

We held our 6th TKM Family Olympics with these 10 missionaries. They were divided into five teams and competed in four events:

• Cornhole
• Kubb
• Bocce
• Welcome Poster Contest

This group did an incredible job of making the welcome posters for our 19 missionaries who will arrive tonight. They took this part of the competition very seriously.

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In the end, Sister Cunningham and Elder Keller took home the gold medals for the 6th TKM Family Olympics. Congratulation to Sister Cunningham and Elder Keller!

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Before departing, we did have one final match of corn hole. Sister Maxwell would want to make sure I let everyone know that the team of Maxwell/Barlow defeated the team of Cunningham/Keller.

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We love these 10 missionaries! With each group that departs from the TKM, we’ve spend a little more time with them, and that makes it harder and harder to let them go. It’s hard to imagine what our mission will be like without them. We love them deeply. But we are look forward to the great things that now lie ahead for them in their lives. And we are grateful to be connected with them in a really powerful way because of this time together and the service that we’ve been able to give side-by-side.

They each leave changed for the better. The Lord has taught them powerful lessons that will help them with all He has planned for them in the future.

How do you measure the impact of their service? Ultimately it is now measured in their efforts to be life-long disciples of Jesus Christ. And thus the ripples that continue to go out from their goodness as they continue to “go about doing good” and following the example of our Savior Jesus Christ.

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by Elder McClellan

Our friend Jake was found through Facebook.

Elder Shelley and Elder McClellan were sending 20 second videos to people through Facebook Messenger when Elder Shelly got a response to a video. It was from Jake who reacted to the video with a heart.

Much later Jake told us that he usually doesn’t open messages from random people but felt like he needed to open ours. We texted him explaining our purpose and set up to call him the next day. We called him over Facebook Messenger and had a great phone call with him where we explained the Book of Mormon and testified of its power.

He then told us: “well I want one of them books!”

We set up to meet him at the church building a few days later so that we could give him a Book of Mormon. We began teaching him regularly at the church, and he was already very well acquainted with one of our members. A week or two later, we went to his house planning to read the Book of Mormon with him. At that meeting, Jake told us he had received a spiritual witness of the Book of Mormon and he knew it was true. We invited him to be baptized and he accepted.

Jake readily accepted everything we taught him after that experience. He has changed so much since when we first met him and has told us multiple times that the gift of the Holy Ghost has brought so much positive change in his life since he was baptized.

Jake was baptized on January 6, 2024 and confirmed a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on January 7, 2024.

by Elder Hurtado

Cedric was baptized in the Ooltewah Ward on January 20, 2024 and confirmed on January 21, 2024.

Cedric had friends who were returned missionaries who had initially introduced him to the Church two years ago. His friends have kept in contact with him on and off for the last two years.

And then on a random Sunday in September, Cedric walked into church. There he met the missionaries in Ooltewah and started having lessons with him throughout the week. A few weeks later, Cedric went to Utah to attend a wedding. While he was there, he decided to attend the open house for the Orem Utah Temple. That experience had a big impact on Cedric and helped him understand the truthfulness of the Gospel.

It is amazing how well the ward has welcomed him in and how much Cedric already participates in ward! Cedric is the weatherman for one of the local channels here in Tennessee, so he’s pretty well known to everyone in Chattanooga. Because of that, one of the first times he came to church, many people from our congregation came up to him and were so happy to see him because they watch him all the time. And I also believe that helped him realize how amazing Christ’s church really is!

by Sister Harris

Waylon was baptized and January 6, 2024, and confirmed on January 7, 2024 in the Rotherwood Ward. Waylon is the son of a returning member, Jason, who wanted to come back to church after being less active for 21 years. One day a church ad popped up on Jason’s phone and he decided to reach out to the missionaries. On their first visit, the sisters met Waylon, who wasn’t a member of our church.

The sisters invited Waylon and Jason to join them at the church where they could do a church tour. In that tour, the sisters explained the ordinance of the sacrament. Waylon loved the idea of the sacrament and how young men his age can participate in passing the sacrament. That was one of his first experiences where he felt the Spirit, and that started his conversion to the gospel

Waylon loves reading the Book of Mormon. He said he doesn’t have a specific scripture verse or story that established his testimony of the book, but that reading the stories and learning about modern-day prophets has been a huge comfort and testament to him that God truly loves His children and prepares a way back to Him.

by Sister Barrett

Josh was contacted by Sister Parry and Sister Barrett on a street near his home as he was on a walk with his niece. The only reason these sisters were in this neighborhood was because someone played a prank on a young girl by submitting a referral for her. After knocking on her door and finding out she wasn’t interested, the sisters were about to leave when Sister Parry saw a young guy walking a stroller down the sidewalk and decided that she should go talk to him. Josh accepted the Book of Mormon on the spot, pointed to his house, and invited the sisters to go talk to his family as well.

Josh had many experiences that prepared him for his path to cross with the missionaries. As he met with them, he knew he wanted to be baptized and began to make significant changes in his life. He gave up many things that were holding him back from baptism with little hesitation. Josh immediately showed his faith in the Word of Wisdom by giving up those worldly desires. Josh also took steps to resolve some legal issues that he had been avoiding in his life. His life has changed through his faith in Christ and his growing self-belief. His family says he acts like a different person now than he was before meeting the missionaries.

As the missionaries taught Josh the Plan of Salvation, he had a great desire to help his sister, Katy, who passed away two years ago. Two weeks after his baptism, Josh took her name and had her baptized in the Atlanta Georgia Temple. The temple trip was very special and the Spirit was very strong as Josh took these steps with his sister.

Josh has fully embraced the gospel of Jesus Christ and loves sharing it with his friends. He has invited many friends to come into his home to study with the missionaries and he continues to watch out for any new friend who might be new to our church.

The week of January 15, 2024 will be one of the most memorable weeks of our mission because of the powerful life lessons that we saw Heavenly Father teach these remarkable missionaries.

Our new missionaries arrived on January 11th, and the worst snow storm in Tennessee since 1993 hit us on Monday, January 15th. That night, we had 9 inches of snow at the mission home and temperatures were below zero.

That doesn’t sound like anything too bad to our friends from Utah, but Tennessee isn’t set up to handle this kind of snow or cold temperatures. Samantha’s school was cancelled for two weeks. The entire city of Knoxville – and much of East Tennessee – was completely shut down. Missionaries had to turn on all faucets at a light stream to keep pipes from freezing. Water was turned off that week at all of our chapels for that same reason. Frost bite is a real concern at temperatures this low. There isn’t the infrastructure to clear the roads, so roads were packed and icy all week long. Needless to say, there were a lot of obstacles to getting any missionary work done.

However…ask we’ve reported here before…this mission is GRITTY!!! We will fear no man! And we will not be stopped by the worst snow storm in 30 years!

We called the Mission Leadership Council together to talk about how we could help all missionaries be successful despite the obstacles. Our design challenge? “How can we make this one of the most memorable weeks of our mission?”

To help missionaries focus on what they could do, the MLC came up with a great idea to create a bingo card that the missionaries would work on during the week. The Bingo card included things like deliver cookies to a neighbor, shovel a driveway, ask to scrape someone’s car, heart attack someone, teach a lesson over the phone, call all uncontacted referrals, and make brief daily contact with all your friends you are teaching.

Every missionary focused on getting a “Black Out” on the bingo card…and great things happened as these wonderful missionaries kept working. And what did our MLC decide to name it?! “GRITTY WINTER BINGO!”

We are so proud of these missionaries! With all of the focus, effort, and diligence from these Elders and Sisters, we ended up having a better week despite all of the challenges.

During the week, we ask missionaries to share “Tender Mercy Videos” on how they’ve seen God work in their life. Sometimes these are small…and other times they are miraculous. By looking for His hand in our lives, we see Him everywhere. That was especially the case this week. Here is an example of the many Tender Mercies experienced in the Tennessee Knoxville Mission during the week of the worst snow storm in 30 years!

Here are a few important lessons we learned this week:

• “The Lord loves effort, because effort brings rewards that can’t come without it.” – President Russell M. Nelson
• Faith is a principle of action and power. Faith will always lead us to act…even when you don’t feel like it.
• We can do hard things!
• Agency is really powerful. We are “free to choose” and can “act for [ourselves] and not be acted upon.” Don’t let challenges stop you. You can still act to overcome any challenge.
• Focus on the things you can control (“What can we do today?”) and not the things that are out of your control (10 inches of snow).
• Choosing to be diligent even in difficult circumstances is a statement of faith and an expression of our love for Heavenly Father.
• Missionaries are happy when they are acting in any way that fulfills their missionary purpose.
• “The joy we feel has little to do with the circumstances of our lives and everything to do with the focus of our lives. When the focus of our lives in on Jesus Christ and His gospel, we can feel joy regardless of what is happening – or not happening – in our lives.” – President Russell M. Nelson
• Missionaries in the Tennessee Knoxville Mission are GRITTY!!!!

We held another wonderful round of zone conferences the week of January 22nd. There were a few important areas of focus for this zone conference:

• Get passionate about our Missionary Purpose
• Unite with members to find people to teach
• How to build trust with members

Sister Barlow shared a great message about our missionary purpose and encouraged all of us to think about this purpose more and connect everything we do back to our purpose.

She gave us each a little clip to put somewhere on our clothes each day so when we see it, we focus our missionary purpose and that influences more of our thoughts and actions.

We also memorized 3 Nephi 5:13, with some personalized modifications:

Missionaries were invited to begin every meeting with reciting their missionary purpose together, and to say it together as a companionship, along with 3 Nephi 5:13, as they head out the door each morning.

We talked about how Preach My Gospel teaches us that in order to find through members, we have to work hard to earn their trust, and reviewed the different ways Preach My Gospel teaches us to build trust with others:

• “As you live with integrity, you will have inner peace and self-respect. The Lord and others will trust you.”
• “One of the greatest things you can do to gain people’s trust and love is to respect and embrace their culture in appropriate ways.”
• “Strengthening members’ understanding of the gospel will increase their trust in you and build their excitement to share it.”
• “One way to earn trust is when people feel the Spirit with you.”
• “Create a relationship of trust by being honest with them, maintaining an appropriate missionary relationship, and showing respect.”
• “Build trust and genuine friendships with local leaders and members…When you visit, do so with a purpose. Show that you are anxiously engaged in the work of finding and teaching. Respect their time and schedule.”

To further build trust with members, all missionaries accepted the assignment to be sacrament meeting greeters. The committed to learn member’s names and greet them by name, greet them with enthusiasm, and to extend a warm welcome to everyone who enters the building for sacrament meeting.

In the afternoon, we had three workshops to build our skills:

• Creating M&M Moments: improving lessons with members
• Ministering assignments for all missionaries
• Improving weekly missionary coordination meeting

We concluded with thinking about planning and our desires to set goals and make plans, but also to be more willing to do the things we have committed to do, and to be disciplined about doing them consistently. “Will you be disciplined enough to follow through even when you don’t feel like it? What will you stick with even on your worst days?” We are striving as a mission to increase our diligence as an expression of our love for the Lord.

January 23rd: Chattanooga, Cleveland, and Cookeville Zones in Hixson

January 24th: Cumberland and Knoxville Zones in Lakeway

January 25th: Asheville and Kingsport Zones in Arden

It was a cold and very wet week for zone conferences. Want yet another example of our mission focusing on being GRITTY?! Check out Elder Jentzsch ready to go with vehicle inspections out in Arden, North Carolina. We love Elder Jentzsch!

One of the greatest blessings of serving a mission is having a companion to share the experiences of missionary work with. It takes a lot of courage to talk with everyone, it takes a lot of study and commitment to develop the skills to effectively teach others the gospel, and it takes a lot of mental strength to handle the disappointment of rejection.

It’s so comforting to have someone by your side through all the joys and struggles and everything in-between. In D&C 42;6, the Lord says, “And ye shall go forth in the power of my Spirit, preaching the gospel, two by two, in my name, lifting up your voices as with the sound of a trump, declaring my word like unto the angels of God”

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We declared February 7th as TKM Companion Appreciation Day! We had so much fun expressing gratitude and doing acts of kindness for each other. We saw a lot of pancakes, ice cream, homemade treats, doing dishes, making beds, even giving an insulin shot.

Our senior couples expressed love for their spouse with flowers, a poem, chocolate cake, a foot rub, and our dear Sister Young put some pretty flowers on her husband’s grave.

We shared pictures all day long across the mission and it brought such a sweet feeling of love and unity. We love and appreciate all of the wonderful missionaries, young and old, who we get to serve side by side with. They are a joy in our life.

On January 11th we welcomed 18 new missionaries to the TKM! This is always an exciting day. Flights were delayed and many of these missionaries just barely made their connecting flights. They start early in the morning, so it ends up being an extremely long day for them. They arrived tired but ready to get to work.

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After loading up at the airport, we brought this new group to the mission home to get something to eat, give them a short message and instructions for tomorrow, and then off to the hotel to get some sleep.

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We get started the next morning at 8am. After watching videos that provide background on the TKM, as well as a few required safety videos, the orientation for these new missionaries begins. Half of the group heads to the UT campus to do their first finding in public. The other half goes through a rotation that includes time with Elder and Sister Jentzsch on cars , Elder and Sister Hillman on phones, Elder Sawyer on apartments, Sister Sawyer on finances, Brother Taggert on Adjusting to Missionary Life, Sister Young on health and medical, and separate interviews with me and Sister Barlow. We also get pictures of each missionary.

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By far, the most exciting part of the day is announcing the assignments to their trainers. Not only exciting, but this assignment is incredibly important, and is where Sister Barlow and I feel the greatest direction. We look for the very best missionaries to be trainers. We feel it is the most important leadership role in the mission. Trainers help these new missionaries adjust, set the standard and expectations, set an example of obedience and hustle an diligence, and help build the skills of these new missionaries. It’s a big job…and a really important one. It is so much fun to get to announce these assignments.

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I had to share these pictures of Daisy. She always finds the person she knows she can guilt into sharing. This time it was Elder Jenkins. He’s becoming her favorite…

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Last week we gathered all of the new missionaries back to the Farragut building for New Missionary Follow Up. This day is filled with skill building around finding people to teach. We teach them a finding flow and work to build their confidence and commitment to talk with everyone. After lunch we do workshops on Facebook finding and how they can do that effectively. We are really excited about this new group of missionaries. They are going to make a tremendous difference in the Tennessee Knoxville Mission.

Every transfer brings another group of missionaries who have completed their service in the Tennessee Knoxville Mission. We had 7 missionaries depart this transfer:

• Elder Elijah Backstein
• Elder Iain Beevers
• Elder Caleb Hansen
• Elder Eli Hill
• Elder Juan Lopez
• Elder Dalton Rencher
• Sister Azelyn Ruf

This always brings a feeling of “How is the mission going to continue without these missionaries?!” While we’ve served with them for 6 months of their mission, it is remarkable to see the growth and change in these missionaries just in the time we’ve worked with them.

Departing missionaries brought our 5th TKM Family Olympics. It was cold and wet outside, so we had to improvise for this round. With a smaller group, we decided to pull the Olympics into the basement where we competed in three events:

• Sequence (a board game)
• Corn Hole (a must for every round of TKM Family Olympics)
• Welcome Poster Contest for our missionaries who arrived the next day

Teams were Elder Backstein and Elder Hill vs. Elder Beevers and Elder Hansen vs. Elder Lopez and President Barlow.

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Competition was fierce, but victory was won based on the strength of their welcome poster. Elder Hanse and Elder Beevers took home the gold for the 5th TKM Family Olympics.

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It has become a tradition that these missionaries film their final “Tender Mercy Video” from the mission home to share a brief final thought with the rest of the mission.

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The mission has a Facebook page called “Believers of Christ” where we share thoughts, music, and videos that build faith in Jesus Christ. (While you are here, please take a minute to give our page a follow as that helps to make our page more visible to the audience we are trying to reach.)

On his last day of the mission, we published the conversion story of Elder Lopez. Since we first arrived in the mission, Sister Barlow has been urging Elder Lopez to get his experience documented and we are grateful he did it before he left the TKM. His story is remarkable and we invite you to watch it.

We love these Elders and Sisters! They will be missed but we look forward to the great things that now lie ahead for these lifelong disciples of Jesus Christ.