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.

#WhatsUpInTKM

by Elder Fisher

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I’m grateful to share the story of my friend José, and his miracle-filled journey to finding and gaining a testimony of Christ’s restored church. 

José’s brother Martin was being taught by missionaries in Loudon, Tennessee for a few months and was beginning to really accept the message of the Restoration. However, one night after meeting with the missionaries, he tragically passed away. His passing brought much grief and sadness to their family. 

About a month after his passing, José had found the missionaries number and knew that because of his brother’s experiences with the missionaries, Martin would have wanted him to meet with the missionaries.

José called the missionaries and set up time to meet with them. For months and months, the missionaries met with José frequently as they taught him truths of the gospel.

After 11 months of meeting with the missionaries, José was baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

A restored principle in the gospel of Jesus Christ is that the blessing of baptism can be made available to those who did not receive it in this life. Jesus Christ taught that baptism is essential to the salvation of all who have lived on earth (see John 3:5). Many people, however, have died without being baptized. Others were baptized without proper authority.

Because God is merciful, He has prepared a way for all people to receive the blessings of baptism. By performing proxy baptisms in behalf of those who have died, Church members offer these blessings to deceased ancestors. Individuals can then choose to accept or reject what has been done in their behalf. A living person, often a descendant who has become a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is baptized in behalf of a deceased person. This work is done by Church members in temples throughout the world and is referred to as “baptisms for the dead“. One of those temples will soon be built in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Two weeks after his baptism, José traveled to the Atlanta Georgia temple, where he was baptized for his brother Martin. Because of José’s faithfulness and desire to find truth, his brother Martin was able to receive ordinances and covenants he had begun to accept in this life. 

Martin’s decision blessed José, and José’s decision blessed Martin. A tender mercy between two brothers.

#TKMTenderMercies

We are so grateful for the senior couples who are serving in the Tennessee Knoxville Mission. It’s impossible to describe here the difference they are making and the great amount of good they do. Back in September we introduced you to Elder and Sister Jentzsch, Elder and Sister Sawyer, Elder and Sister Boyer, and Sister Young who all continue to serve in the mission. Since then, we have welcomed four new couples to the TKM!

Elder and Sister Chris

First, we want to introduce you to Elder and Sister Chris from Santa Clara, Utah. They started their mission in November and will be serving with us for the next 12 months. They are assigned to the Hendersonville (North Carolina) Branch where they work with the Micronesian members there. We love how they have fully embraced this assignment and jumped right in. They love the Micronesian people and they are greatly loved by them. They have picked up right where the Henningson’s left off in helping the youth in the branch prepare to attend the temple and serve missions.

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Elder and Sister Hillman

Elder and Sister Hillman, from West Jordan, Utah, are serving in the office and will be in the TKM for the next six months. We wouldn’t be able to survive without these office couples and the Sawyers and the Jentzschs couldn’t have been happier to see the Hillman’s arrive. We served with the Hillman’s in the West Jordan Utah Westland Stake and know them really well. At the October 2023 General Conference, they heard Elder Rasband’s talk titled “How Great Shall Be Your Joy” where he invited more senior couples to serve missions, and they immediately called us and asked how soon they could come. That talk was given on September 30th and they were in the MTC on November 27th. That tells you all you need to know about the Hillman’s, their desires to serve, and especially their commitment to respond to the invitations from prophets and apostles. We love them and feel so grateful they are here.

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Elder and Sister Christensen

Elder and Sister Christensen are from Hooper, Utah. They arrived November and will be in the TKM for the next 12 months. They have been assigned to the Lakeway Ward in Morristown, Tennessee. This ward has started up a Spanish group. Elder Christensen served as a young missionary in Chile, but said he could no longer speak Spanish. That didn’t stop them from being assigned to this wonderful ward with this little Spanish group, and Elder Christensen said he has been amazed at how fast his Spanish has returned. Sister Christensen has even learned to share her testimony in Spanish. We love the Christensen’s…and the missionaries REALLY love the Christensen’s. When they sent in their application, they said they felt impressed to put the Tennessee Knoxville Mission as their #1 preference (yes, you can do that!). We are sure glad they did!

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Elder and Sister Markli

Elder and Sister Markli are from Clinton, Tennessee and will be serving as Temple Construction missionaries for the next two years where they will help with the Knoxville Tennessee Temple. We are so excited about this and feel so grateful to have the Markli’s in the TKM! In their new role, they are in the process of opening up a welcome center at the site of the temple where there will be a small trailer with information about the role of temples in the Church of Jesus Christ. As people come by the temple site, they will be greeted by the Markli’s who will be able to share more information about temples. The groundbreaking for the Knoxville Tennessee Temple is January 27th, so more to come about the Markli’s and their exciting role as senior missionaries. Click here to learn more about temples.

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Right after Christmas, we were excited to gather all \ the senior missionaries across the mission for lunch. We decided to meet in the middle at a little deli in Morristown, Tennessee. This group is a mighty army for good…and if you would like to join us, there is many more needs for senior couples in the Tennessee Knoxville Mission. We would love to have you join us! We are very grateful for every one of them.

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Elder Boyer took this picture of us at the Senior Missionary Lunch. We are happy and having amazing experiences as we serve with these wonderful people in Tennessee.

#WhatsUpInTKM

We were very grateful to have Lincoln, Rachel, and Connor join us in Knoxville for both Thanksgiving and Christmas. We’ve never lived apart as a family, and we’ve taken for granted that we could gather together anytime we wanted. Now that we live 1,800 miles apart, it was a special time to be back together.

Thanksgiving

Lincoln came into Knoxville the week before Thanksgiving, and Connor and Rachel joined us the week after Thanksgiving, which meant we were all together for one day…Thanksgiving Day. We packed a lot into that week:

• Tennessee/Georgia football game and Neyland Stadium
• Top Golf in a downpour
• Visit to Dollywood
• Thanksgiving!
• Visit to the Giving Machines in Turkey Creek
• Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga
• Tennessee/Vanderbilt football game

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We were very grateful to have a visit from our neighbors in Utah, Jay and Amy Despain. They planned a fun trip to Nashville and were so kind to make the 2.5 hour drive to Farragut to go to lunch together. It was fun to spend time with these great friends.

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Christmas

We had everyone back together for the week of Christmas, with more fun that included:

• Another trip to Dollywood (and more Cinnamon Bread…if you don’t know, look it up)
• University of Tennessee men’s basketball game
• Dolly Parton Christmas Stampede in Pigeon Forge
• Buccee’s (again…if you don’t know…look it up) for brisket sandwiches, Beaver Nuggets, and Texas Cheesesteak Burritos
• Kimberly’s new favorite restaurant…Chili’s (not sure how that happened)
• Two zone conferences with the entire family
• A family Christmas tradition: It’s a Wonderful Life

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Nothing better than being together as a family.

#WhatsUpInTKM

Our zone conferences in December turned out incredibly well, especially the hour that was dedicated to our Christmas program. It is always a powerful experience to gather groups of missionaries together to nourish our faith, build our skills, and strengthen our unity in the mission.

Our focus at this zone conference was to become “Master Planners”. Each week, missionaries spend 2 hours in weekly planning and 30 minutes each morning in daily planning. In these planning sessions, they plan to meet the needs of their friends they are teaching, how they can find more people to teach, and how they can unite with the leaders and members of their local congregations. We follow a specific process from Preach My Gospel of setting goals and making plans to reach those goals.

As these missionaries learn to set goals, make plans to accomplish them, and diligently carry out those plans, they begin to understand how a proactive mindset will bless them throughout the rest of their lives. These planning skills will help them to make and keep covenants with God, serve faithfully in the church, pursue education, grow in their employment, and build a strong family.

We also had a wonderful Christmas program to wrap up each zone conference. We read scriptures about the Christmas story, sang hymns, and enjoyed some incredible musical numbers as many missionaries shared their musical talents.

Cumberland and Knoxville Zones

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Chattanooga, Cleveland, and Cookeville Zones

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Asheville and Kingsport Zones

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The missionaries in the Tennessee Knoxville Mission love Sister Barlow! She has shared the most memorable messages in our zone conferences. In our last zone conference she talked about getting more gritty and “get gritty” has become somewhat of a slogan in the mission. In this conference she talked about the definition of a successful missionary, and steps they can take whenever they face discouragement in life.

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We prepared three gifts to give the missionaries. The first was a laminated daily schedule to remind them of our commitment to follow this schedule with exactness.

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The second was a special flip book of The Living Christ. Sister Barlow invited our mission to memorize The Living Christ by Valentine’s Day, and promised that memorizing this statement would help us to grow closer to Jesus Christ and draw the power of Jesus Christ into our lives.

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A new version of Preach My Gospel was released in June of this year. Our missionaries have been studying their digital copies while making it very clear that they prefer the paper copy to study. Our print copies have been on order since July, and everyone has been patiently waiting for the books to come in.

Just a few days before zone conference, we received our shipment of Preach My Gospel books, and we decided to surprise the missionaries with the books at zone conference.

Likely, only missionaries will understand their reactions:

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We love these missionaries. Zone conferences are a highlight of each transfer and we are so grateful for every opportunity we have to gather together with them.

#WhatsUpInTKM

At the mid-point of their first transfer, we bring new missionaries and their trainers back to Knoxville for a day of training called “New Missionary Follow Up”. With 23 new missionaries and 23 trainers this last transfer, this meeting was the size of one of our zone conferences.

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In the past, the main focus of this training was “Adjusting to Missionary Life”. But since starting our Missionary Resilience Class (which is based on the Self Reliance: Emotional Resilience class), we’ve been able to change of the focus of this training.

Of all the topics we could choose, we’ve felt that one of the most important skills these new missionaries can have is finding new people to teach. This is because Preach My Gospel teaches us that “Nothing happens in missionary work until you find someone to teach.”

But this is a challenging skill to learn. It requires overcoming fear and replacing it with the faith to find. It’s not natural for these missionaries to open their mouth and have the courage to talk with everyone. They are asked to initiate conversations with strangers, which isn’t a skill they typically start their mission with, so we focus all of New Missionary Follow Up on building the faith to find.

How do we do that? We take skills taught in Preach My Gospel and role play those skills over and over again. For example, skills like sharing our missionary purpose, asking inspired questions, using the Book of Mormon to answer questions, and inviting friends to learn more.

Role playing is another skill that usually has to be learned. In the beginning, missionaries are usually uncomfortable in role playing these skills. We remind them there is no growth in the comfort zone! We build skills through practice and repetition, and that practice for us as missionaries is role playing. This gives them the opportunity to practice themselves and hear the language others use that they can adopt.

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All morning is spent doing these role plays. After lunch, we take a couple of hours on learning how to find people through technology. Investing a day with these new missionaries helps them to learn these important skills, which leads to them feeling more confident in doing the things they are asked to do.

This is a really great group of missionaries and we are excited to spend the next 18 and 24 months with them.

#WhatsUpInTKM

Christmas is an amazing time to be a missionary. While it is common for missionaries to be missing home and thinking about family traditions that make Christmas special to them, it is remarkable to be a representative of Jesus Christ at a time when everyone is celebrating His birth.

To celebrate Christmas as a mission, we invited each zone to plan their own Christmas party. Zone leadership did a lot of work to get everything prepared. Every party was different yet a ton of fun as missionaries gathered together to celebrate in these smaller groups.

What did the missionaries do? Here are a few highlights:

• Devotional that included Sister Barlow reading a Christmas story and sharing our family’s Christmas traditions.
• A great devotional where we watched “The Christ Child” and missionaries shared thoughts on the perspective of Mary, Joseph, the angels, and the shepherds. The impressions missionaries shared were really powerful.
• Dinners that ranged from pizza parties to a Mexican fiesta to a traditional Christmas ham. The homemade tortillas some friends made for the fiesta were especially good. And shout out to the Kingsport Relief Society for offering to prepare the meal for the Kingsport Zone.
• Decorating gingerbread houses, but often with a twist. While some did gingerbread houses others recreated stories from the scriptures.
• A Christmas piñata.
• A visit from Santa Clause.
• A corn hole tournament.
• A pickle ball tournament, included a huge bracket to track the winners.
• White elephant gifts.
• A game from Elder Jentzsch called “A Dog. A Cat.”
• An egg nog chugging contest.
• Ugly sweater contests.
• Basketball, spikeball, and volleyball.
• Lots of other music and games.

We also had the opportunity to attend the Nativity that was put on by the Chattanooga Stake. It was absolutely incredible! For three days they completely transformed the stake center into a walk through experience of the nativity, beautiful displays of art, and so many talented stake members who provided music. We are already looking forward to attending it again next year.

#WhatsUpInTKM

At the beginning of each month we meet with the Mission Leadership Council. The mission is divided into “zones”, or geographical areas of missionaries, and each zone has four leaders: two sisters who are “sister training leaders” and two elders who are “zone leaders”.

These leaders spend time with the missionaries in their zone doing training, most of which is being side-by-side with them while doing missionary work. They set goals for zone and work with all of the missionaries to achieve those goals. They work hard to inspire their fellow missionaries and build their skills.

These leaders make up a council…the Mission Leadership Council…that leads the mission.

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As we meet each month with the Mission Leadership Council…or MLC…they set the goals for the mission, determine the training needed most, and are responsible for the culture of the mission.

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As we are closing in on six months here in the Tennessee Knoxville Mission, we decided to check in on key strengths and opportunities that the MLC sees in our mission culture.

We did this when we first arrived in the mission in July by using the question, “In the Tennessee Knoxville Mission we ___________.” Missionaries were invited to fill in the blank to help identify key attributes of our culture. Here is how the MLC completed that sentence in December 2023.

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We also gathered input on other questions like, “What do you see as the strengths in our culture in the TKM?”

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We counseled together about the biggest opportunities in our mission and decided that the most important opportunity we could focus on was planning. Preach My Gospel has an entire chapter on planning titled “Accomplish the Work Through Goals and Plans” that helps missionaries follow a process in setting goals, making plans, acting on those plans, and following up.

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In this chapter, missionaries learn key principles like:

Goal setting and planning are acts of faith.
Goals reflect the desires of your heart and your vision for helping yourself and others come to the Savior.
Carefully considered goals and plans will give you clear direction.
Make your goal setting and planning an inspired experience.
Pray earnestly, exercise faith, counsel with your companion, and follow the promptings of the Spirit.
As you plan this way, you will feel the Lord working through you to bless others.

After reviewing these principles, we made plans on how we could train missionaries and build greater skills with planning in December. Our goal is for every missionary in the TKM to become a “Master Planner”.

I look back on my experience as a missionary and recognize it was the first place I began to learn important leadership skills that would help me for the rest of my life.

It was on my mission where I learned leadership principles like, “Assume people are doing the best they can, and if they are going to improve, it is up to me to help them to do it.” And “You can’t ask someone to do something you aren’t willing to do yourself.” And how to use principles like repetition and high love, high expectations in leading others.

These are leadership principles I’ve used throughout my life that I first learned as a missionary where I was assigned to lead others. And now these missionaries are learning many of those same lessons, and we hope these lessons will help them for the rest of their lives.

#WhatsUpInTKM

On November 30th, we welcomed 23 new missionaries to the Tennessee Knoxville Mission.

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These missionaries were greeted by the welcome posters created by the departing missionaries who had returned home the previous day.

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On their very first day, we teach these new missionaries skills around finding people to teach and then take them to the campus of the University of Tennessee to put these new skills to work. And these missionaries were amazing!

We shared with them that with the last group of new missionaries who arrived in October, when they visited the campus on their first day they found a man who was then taught by the missionaries and was baptized just the week prior to this new group’s arrival.

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We are really excited about this new group of missionaries. Welcome to the TKM!

#WhatsUpInTKM

We said goodbye to another incredible group of missionaries on November 30th. This group has made a tremendous difference in the Tennessee Knoxville Mission: We’ve spent more time with each group who goes home now, so it continues to get more difficult to see them leave.

It was a very competitive 4th TKM Olympics with four events:

1) Corn hole
2) Bocce
3) Kub
4) Poster decoration

The poster decoration was a new event, but will likely stick because of the impact. These returning missionaries were asked to create welcome posters for the new missionaries who would arrive Thursday afternoon after this group had left Thursday morning. It was a beautiful day and we had a lot of fun.

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The poster decoration was very competitive. We were impressed how much effort these missionaries put into the assignment to welcome these new missionaries who they would not meet. It actually was really powerful.

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After all events were completed, Elder Putt and Elder Johnson were awarded the medals for their 1st place finish in the 4th TKM Family Olympics. It would have been more appropriate to get their picture taken while they still were wearing their Tennessee checkerboard overalls…but missionary attire will have to do.

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Before heading to the hotel, this group recorded one last “Tender Mercy” video to send our to their fellow missionaries in the TKM.

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We love these missionaries and wonder how we will be able to continue on without them. They are outstanding missionaries and have served incredibly well, and we know there are great things that lie ahead for them.

Front Row: Elder Johnson, Elder Klein, Elder Smith, Elder Putt, Elder Criddle, Elder Nelson
Back Row: Sister Sincich, Sister Hurley, Sister Parry, Sister Nuttall, Sister Griffiths, Sister Chan, Sister Dean, Sister Phillips, Sister Oldroyd, Sister Georgeson, Sister Stroud

We love you!

#WhatsUpInTKM