Chapter 9 - Tennessee

Tennessee-Nashville Mission 1990-1992

 

July 1990, Jeanné and I received our mission call to the Tennessee‑Nashville Mission.  We entered the MTC on 5 September 1990.  After completing our training, we drove to mission headquarters in Nashville.  Senior missionaries who serve in the States are asked to take their cars to their mission field so, as we had several days before we were scheduled to arrive, we stopped at Independence, Missouri and visited nearby Liberty Jail and Farr West.  Then we drove to Nauvoo and visited there for a couple of days.  Many changes had occurred since our last visit to Nauvoo, when Mom and Dad Baird were serving their mission there.  Jeanné's brother, Steve (who had been the architect for the Nauvoo Restoration,) had given us permission to stay in the little Crooked House that he bought while he was there with his family.  It is located on the road that leads north out of Nauvoo along the Mississippi River.  It is so quaint.  It was built without a single 90° angle in the whole place!  Steve has since sold that home, so we were pleased to have been able to stay there while he still owned it. 

 

We then drove on to, Tennessee- Nashville mission headquarters.   When we reported to Serge Woodruff, our mission president, the first question he asked us was if we liked to fish.  When we answered that it wasn’t our favorite pastime, he assigned us to the Marion Branch in Marion, Virginia where we labored for 9 months. 

 

After arriving in Marion, we soon realized that the reason President Woodruff had asked us about fishing was that our home would be a small, two-bedroom red cabin right on the middle-fork of the Holston River which flowed right past our cabin.  I know he was concerned that we might spend time fishing on the river as some previous mission-aries had.  It was only a short distance up the hill to the Branch chapel, and about a mile drive from our cabin into Marion city.  It actually seemed more like we were living in a canyon cabin, like many do in Utah, being on the river and completely surrounded by trees.  While there we served the many small towns that comprised the Marion Branch; we also were able to visit several of the nearby cities outside the Marion Branch area, including Abington, and Wytheville, as well as the city of Bristol, (which straddles the state border of Tennessee and Virginia -- half of the town is in one state and half in the other,) and Kingsport, Tennessee, where the Stake house is located, some of which are some 50 miles north and south of Marion.  We had many interesting experiences in the Marion area; we kept a mission journal of day to day activities, so if you want to read more about our mission experience and travels in and around Marion, please refer to it. 

 

After nine months in Marion we were transferred to the Chattanooga Valley Ward in Georgia.  Jeanné and I were given permission to visit Smoky Mountain National Park, during our drive from Virginia to Georgia.  While at the Park we visited the Blue Ridge Mountains, as well as Gatlinburg (where the resort, Dollywood, is located,) and the neighboring city of Pigeon Forge.   The second half of our mission was served in the Chattanooga Valley in Georgia; 5 miles south of, and across the boarder from Chattanooga, Tennessee.   The Ward covers many small towns in northern Georgia.  The Tennessee-Nashville mission at that time covered a wide area, including portions of four surrounding states:  Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina and Kentucky.  We got to visit a town in North Carolina, where a Senior Couple lived who served in our district.   Later, after the mission was divided, we would have been in the Tennessee-Knoxville mission.

 

When we arrived in Chattanooga Valley, the ward mission leader first took us to see an apartment on the top of Stone Mountain.  Stone Mountain is a large mountain that acts as a long, high ridge which runs through the middle of the Chattanooga Valley.   It extends all the way from Chattanooga, Tennessee, down through Georgia quite a ways south, the entire area being in the Chattanooga Valley Ward.  There were several ward members living on the mountain and I believe the bishopric felt like it would be useful to have us living up on top with them. The day we arrived was very hot.  The apartment we were shown was reached by climbing an open stairway on the outside the house. There were no screens on the windows (Jeanné hates flies and bugs.)   After Jeanné saw it, she was so disappointed with it, she actually cried; the first time I ever remember seeing her cry.  The ward mission leader could see she wasn’t too happy, and so he quickly showed us another apartment, down off the mountain, in the little community of Flintstone, Georgia.  This was more appealing to us:  A lovely apartment, above a grocery store with screens -- and was air conditioned!   It was a more expensive than the other apartment would have been, but we gladly paid the difference.  We loved it.  It took a few days for the owner to get the apartment ready for us, and while we waiting we stayed with Ellis and Leanne Forrester who live in Flintstone.  They had a spare bedroom that we could use.  They are wonderful people, and very special to us.

 

Both of the apartments we lived in while on this mission were very nice.  We also felt that we were blessed to serve in two of the nicest areas in this mission.  In fact, President Woodruff admitted later, that they were his favorite areas, too!  We loved our Tennessee mission, and the people who live there. We were blessed to have several baptisms during our mission and felt closer to our Heavenly Father than at any other previous time of our lives. 

 

One of the special things to us during that mission was to be able to meet periodically in what Pres. Woodruff called a "couples conference."  All of the senior couples in the mission would get together for two days every two to three months.  The two areas that we served in were both quite a distance from the mission home in Nashville, so it took us several hours to drive to there.  But the ride was through a beautiful countryside.   The senior missionary couples would gather at the mission home, and then would travel together in the mission bus and visit various interesting sites within the mission. We would tour an area during the day, have dinner together, and then return to the mission home for the night.  Following a good night’s sleep and a lovely breakfast at the mission home the next morning, we would have a testimony meeting until about noon, and then drive back to our own districts.  While at these "conferences" some of the very interesting places we visited were: The Parthenon (a beautiful reproduction of the original in Greece,) the Grand Old Opry (and the beautiful hotel next to it – all beautifully decorated for Christmas when we visited it,) Carter’s Farm (where one of the most horrific battles of the Civil War took place,) a building in Atlanta where they have a remarkable crèche exhibit (Mary, Joseph & little Jesus), obtained from all over the world, and the Mammoth Cave, (one of the largest caves in the world.)  Jeanné and I had the pleasure one time of hosting the group at Lookout Mountain, and the surrounding areas in Georgia that were all located in our district, and were part of famous Civil War battles.   We got to really know both Pres & Sister Woodruff and the other couple missionaries by meeting with them this way.  We surely did enjoy those “conferences.”  Sadly, Sister Woodruff passed away not long after our returning home.  (President Serge Woodruff remarried and moved to California, so we don’t see him any more, nor have missionary reunions,)