Janell Christiansen

On a beef-steak ranch in Bern, Idaho, Janell Christiansen grew up climbing haystacks with cousins. The seasons in the small community, located just north of Bear Lake, followed the cattle: springtime was labeling season. “I was the sorter,” says Janell, meaning she was in charge of crowding the cows into the alley shoots to be sorted and branded. One favorite cows was Sideways, who always looked sideways. “And then there was Skunk,” says Janell. “She was black with a white stripe down her back.”

Summer was haying season. “That’s when my parents would get really busy,” says Janell, who’d help cut hay or maintain the home. Summer was also the peak of raspberry picking. “I have a grandma still in Bern,” says Janell. “She’s have lots of raspberries for us to pick. . . . We’d pick them by the case. We’d earn our money for school.”

                Janell loves returning to Bern with her husband, Cameron, and two kids, Lydia and Ryan. “We call it our Disneyland,” she says, a week of relaxation and riding four-wheelers. Janell joys in anything outside, from corralling cows to camping to hiking—which she did a lot of in Young Women.

In Bern, the girls went on High Adventure too with a leader “who knew how to live off the land,” says Janell. They did a 36-mile, true no-trace, filter-your-own water, fish-for-your-dinner trek through the Bighorn Cracks mountain range, a 3.2 million–acre expanse outside the Tetons. “It was fun to see how strong you can be,” says Janell.

Janell met Cameron in 2005 at BYU-Idaho, where she was studying elementary education. He was her religion teacher. “Since he was my teacher he was very cordial . . . he wasn’t extra friendly with any of the students,” she says. A year and a half later they ran into each other on campus—when he wasn’t her teacher anymore. They were married in July 2007 in the Salt Lake Temple.

Two months later they moved to Arkansas, where, like Utah, there was a church on every block, just not an LDS meetinghouse. “It’s a big Bible belt,” says Janell, who loves southern hospitality. The tornado warnings, however, not so much. The sirens went off every Friday about 1 p.m., for testing, “but my heart was still pumping,” says Janell. The threat did make their ward a beacon of emergency preparedness. In fact, they’d put on a giant emergency event annually for the entire community that was a great missionary tool.

In Arkansas, Cameron worked for Walmart, they bought their first house, and they had their first and second child, putting down roots up until his decision to get a master’s degree, which brought the Christiansens to BYU. They’re enjoying having family on both sides close to Provo.

In addition to being outside, Janell likes to craft, from painting to sewing. She made Cameron a full-size jellyfish Halloween costume last year, that, with a built-in umbrella, also provided shelter for Lydia, the cupcake, and Ryan when it started raining.

Janell serves our ward as a visiting teaching coordinator, and she says she loves the power of hymns. “They can bring a lot of strength.” Her favorite right now is Be Still My Soul.”