After a life of service to her family and the Church, Sister Ruth Ann Wood Christensen, wife of the late Elder Val R. Christensen, died Sunday, May 25, 2025, in Bountiful, Utah. She was 90.
Although Sister Christensen was raised in what was then small-town Clearfield, Utah, and lived for almost 30 years in Cache Valley, Utah, Sister Christensen had the opportunity to share her testimony of the Savior, Jesus Christ, with Latter-day Saints around the world. During the six years Elder Christensen served as a General Authority Seventy from 1998 to 2004, the two lived and served in the Philippines, Australia, New Zealand, California and Hawaii.
From 1996 to 1998, she and Elder Christensen served as leaders of the Arizona Phoenix Mission, and then, in 2007, the two began serving as the first matron and president of the newly constructed Rexburg Idaho Temple.
Ruth Ann Wood was born March 5, 1935, in Ogden, Utah, the youngest of the six daughters of Melvin and LaVora Smith Wood. Her sister Mary Ellen Wood Smoot — who would become the 13th general president of the Relief Society — described their childhood as “uncomplicated and centered around home, church, school and the candy aisle in the local store” (BYU devotional, Feb. 10, 1998, “The Superhighway of Life”).
Their father would have his six daughters help plant and harvest potatoes, corn, fruit and flowers and help feed and collect eggs from the hens.
The summer after she graduated from Davis High School, Ruth Ann Wood worked in her grandfather’s canning factory and met Val Rigby Christensen, who was working the summer at the cannery to earn money for his Latter-day Saint mission.
Just six weeks before leaving for the Western Canadian Mission, he finally asked her on a date. “She didn’t know me that well but, thank goodness, during those six weeks she saw something in me,” recalled Elder Christensen in a Church News article at the time he was called a general authority.
Throughout his two-year mission, the two wrote letters to one another, and she attended Utah State University and Brigham Young University. Upon his return, the two dated for a year and were married Aug. 15, 1958, in the Salt Lake Temple. They had been married for 64 years when he died in October 2022. Today, their posterity includes five children (two sons and three daughters), 20 grandchildren and 21 great-grandchildren.
After earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees, Elder Christensen served in the Army, taught high school and worked at Brigham Young University’s Continuing Education Center in Ogden. The family finally settled in Logan, Utah, after he accepted a position in 1965 at Utah State University, where he retired in 1996 as vice president of student services. Soon after, the two were called as mission leaders.
Sister Christensen “often expressed love and admiration for the faith and devotion of the dedicated missionaries who served with her in Arizona,” her obituary says.
Besides her general Church service, Sister Christensen served in a variety of capacities — including as a ward Relief Society president, ward and stake Relief Society presidency counselor, teacher, family history consultant and temple ordinance worker. She also served in leadership roles on community boards in Logan, Utah.
As a family, the Christensens enjoyed camping and yearly family reunions at Bear Lake, as well as cheering on the Utah State Aggies at concerts and athletic events.
She is survived by her children: Kent (Cara) Christensen, Bruce (Lisa) Christensen, Valerie Olsen (Eric), Koralie Smith (Carr) and Sheryln Doyle (Jef). She is preceded in death by her husband, parents, five sisters and their spouses, and a son-in-law, Carr Smith.
Funeral services will be at 11 a.m. on Saturday, May 31, in the Latter-day Saint meetinghouse at 1476 N. 300 West, Bountiful. A viewing will be Friday 6-8 p.m. at Russon Mortuary, 295 N. Main, Bountiful, and Saturday from 9:45 to 10:45 a.m. at the meetinghouse. Interment will be at the Clearfield City Cemetery.
