Welcome Home Missionary Video

Click HERE to see Jase's "Welcome Home Missionary Video"

Jase's Homecoming!!

This morning Rick and I went with Jase to the church at 7:00 a.m. so that he could give his missionary report to the High Council. Sarah Kemp had come home the same day that Jase did and gave her report as well. They both did a great job! It was really neat to feel the spirit as they shared their experiences and testimonies. They also both gave their homecoming talks in church today and they both did awesome there too! Jase was happy that his trainer, Elder Michael Stucki, showed up to hear him speak. It was also neat to hear him share his testimony in Armenian!

We invited Michael over to dinner at the house after church and we had a great meal. It was fun to hear them both share missionary stories. It is always fun to hear another perspective on what actually went on in the mission field! Today was also Father’s Day! Janika gave her missionary farewell on Mother’s Day and Jase gave his missionary homecoming on Father’s Day! What a wonderful blessing it is to be parents of such amazing sons and daughters!

We feel very blessed for the Atonement of Jesus Christ and for Heavenly Father’s plan that allows us the opportunity to come to families to learn and grow as we help our family and others live the gospel and make the necessary covenants to return to our Father in Heaven someday!

Welcome Home Elder Jensen!!!

Rick and I went to the Institute for his Seminary and Institute inservice leaving the kids in charge of cleaning the house. We listened to the broadcast and then had a nice lunch. Jase had called right before the broadcast to say that his first flight was delayed and that he might miss his second flight (which would put him 3 or 4 hours behind). Needless to say we had a difficult time focusing on the broadcast since we knew we would be seeing him soon! After the lunch we hurried home to pick up the kids. We were wondering whether or not we should head to the airport when he called and said that he had barely made it on the second flight and hurriedly borrowed someone's phone to let us know. So we headed out to the airport!

Rick was embarrassing us all by telling everyone to "practice" jumping up and down while chanting "Jase, Jase, finish the race!" (It is an inside joke.) When Jase was in intermediate school and participating in his school triathlon the course went right by the Seminary building where Rick was teaching. So Rick took his entire class outside to cheer him on chanting, "Jase, Jase, win the race!!" Then years later Jase sang " "I Can Go the Distance" for our family Disney CD and in the end of the song Rick had all of the kids chant, "Jase, Jase, win the race!" Anyway, Jared started jumping up and down which popped one of the balloons and so he had to stop. Thus the goofy picture of him holding Josh's scribbled sign with a popped balloon around his neck. He figured that Jase would appreciate his humor. 

It was great to see Jase! We took some pictures and headed home. We still had an hour or so before he was to be released and so for his last assignment Rick had asked him to teach our family. He explained the three most important things that he had learned on his mission. He was really humble and emotional and it was a neat, spiritual experience for our family. We then went to the Stake President's house for his release. Jase had an easy time adjusting to being home. He even had a job interview set up for the day after he arrived home!  It has been wonderful having him home! We are grateful for the dedicated service Jase gave on his mission and have seen numerous blessings as a result. We love you, Jase!!!  

Departing Group!

 Elder Jensen with President and Sister Wells

Letter 103 Last e-mail and Dodger's Game!

Hey Everybody!

This week has been super fun! We have just been working on finding and we had a full day of service this week which was tons of fun. This Saturday we also got to go to the Mormon Dodger Night at Dodger stadium so that was so fun! That was my second time going to a Major League Baseball game and it was awesome. Unfortunately the dodgers lost 5-3 but at least I got a free bobble head and a bunch of pictures. 

This is the last email I will be writing because I head home this Thursday. It’s crazy to think about everything going on. I have grown to love this ward so much and I’m sad to leave it. I’m especially sad to leave my mission. I’ve made so many friends here, but I’m so grateful that I don’t have to leave them all behind. I’m definitely going to keep in contact with all the friends I’ve made out here. 

I shared my testimony in sacrament meeting today and I want to leave a challenge with everybody reading this that I also left with them. The challenge was to pray about serving a mission. I invite each of you to think about it, ponder, and pray over the idea of serving a mission. Not just the youth either. You can all be involved in missionary work and can make the decision to serve a mission later in life as well and so I would encourage you all to actively think about it. It may not be the right step for everyone, the most important thing is that we become what the Lord wants us to become and that is by following his guidance. 

The mission has changed who I am and how I think and I’m so grateful for what it’s taught me. I’m still the same crazy guy I was before, but now I feel like I have a purpose and the Lord has helped me see that. I love you all and I’m so grateful for your support. See you soon!

Pictures: Dodger game!

  

Letter 102 Zone Activity and Awesome Stake Conference!

Hey Everyone!

This week was pretty average, lots of finding and street contacting but it was lots of fun!  We have been working hard to find new people for the Sunland area and it has been going pretty good. I think the Lord has some great blessings in store for this area and I’m glad I got to be here for the beginning of it.

One of our new investigators is Vivian. She is super cool and on splits this week we saw tons of miracles. It was our first time going on splits with our ward, we have been trying to get it set up for some time now and finally got it going. It had been difficult trying to set up appointments with Vivian and her son Carlos.  However, Elder Pate found her home on splits and had a great restoration lesson! They had to cut it a little short because it was late, but we are excited to teach them more. 

On my split we also caught two less active families, one of which the children were recent converts and we just haven’t been able to keep in touch. Today however we caught them both! I think when members and missionaries work together we really start to see a lot of miracles. Oh I almost forgot! We also had stake conference this week and it was awesome! The Armenian Elders let me do some of the translating to so that was lots of fun and even though my Armenian is bad, I’m so grateful I had one last time to translate and I felt like it went well, for my standards at least. That’s it for this week! I hope you all have a great week! 

Pics: Last Zone activity! Had fun spending it with some of my favorite missionaries still alive in the mission. 

Letter 101 Baptism!!!

Hey Everyone!

It was a great week last week! Sonia was baptized and it was so amazing! We haven’t been working with Sonia for very long but she just soaks up everything we teach and has made amazing progress! That same day we also got to go to the temple with Mayra and do baptisms for the dead. I had the opportunity to be baptized for Mayras brother and it was a great experience. It was so amazing and the spirit was just so strong for me that day. I’m so grateful I had the chance to come on a mission and meet these people. It has been such an amazing experience to watch people come closer to Jesus Christ and to see their lives change. I have learned so much from my mission and I’m so grateful I came. It’s really changed who I am as a person and who I want to be when I come back. Serving has truly changed me and I want to keep being service minded when I come home. I challenge each of you to go the extra mile and serve someone else. Give of yourself and it will change who you are. Have a great week!

Pics: Baptism! And a super Bomb Armenian dish

Letter 100 Zone Conference

Hey Everyone! Not much change here except for some great news! Sonia passed her interview this week which means she will be baptized this Saturday! We are super excited for her. Other than that though we didn’t have a great finding week. We are starting to face the post baptism blues but we did have a great zone conference on Tuesday. It was a great meeting and I learned a lot from it! 

Hopefully even with things being busy for the baptism we are able to find some new people to teach and prepare for June. We did have some great people at church this week as well and that was awesome! Some of them we have been working with for a while and so we were glad to have them and we had a bunch of returning less actives too. I love our ward so much, it’s so different from the stereotypical Mormon wards. This ward is always willing to help and serve those around them and I think that’s why they have such good attendance. They truly understand how to minister and people want to be there. Anyway, that’s about it for this week! Have a great week!

Letter 99 Mayra's Baptism!!

Hey Everyone!

It was a great week because Mayra was baptized! She is so awesome and prepared and we had such a wonderful service. I’m so grateful I got to be a part of her journey. I will put some pictures below. It was also a great Mother’s Day and really fun to see family! Everyone is so old now so it will be weird to go home, but it’s good to see that the same sibling jokes and teasing have not changed at all.

Other than the baptism we didn’t have too much going on. Sonia has made some wonderful progress too and we are excited for her baptism coming up! I love this area so much, I love being a missionary so much. It’s such a wonderful opportunity to see people changing their lives and learning truth. I’m so grateful for the gospel of Jesus Christ and the impact it’s made in my life. Because of the savior, I can change and I don’t need to keep making the same mistakes. There will always be hope for me and each one of his children because of the sacrifice he made.

I have been so blessed in my life to be raised in such a good family when families all around me are falling apart and I want to bring those same blessings to my children. I know the gospel blesses families and I’m so grateful for all that the lord has given me. I have one request for all of you and it’s a request that many of you have fulfilled already but I invite you to fulfill it again. Please read the Book of Mormon. Whether you have never read it or whether you have read it 200 times. I promise you that it will increase your understanding of the Lords love for us and it will help you find the happiness and peace that you might be lacking right now. I know it is true and it will bless your life more than anything. I hope you all have a great week!

Letter 98 Grateful!

Hey Everyone!

Sorry no pictures again this week I will try to get some before I go home but it’s Mother’s Day next week so who needs pictures anyway. Well this week has been awesome! Unfortunately we were dropped by a few people this week so now we don’t have a lot of prepared people for June. Hopefully we can find some more soon. However, Mayra passed the interview so that’s what matters! We are super excited for her baptism this weekend it’s going to be awesome!

Sonya is progressing super well also and so that is really good. Overall I’m enjoying this area a ton and things are going great! I’m so grateful for the restored gospel and you can clearly see the change it has had in Mayra's life and many others lives. I’m so grateful I got to be part of this wonderful journey of hers. There were some hiccups along the way, but she was willing to work through them and gain her own testimony of the truthfulness of this gospel and that made all the difference. I hope you all have a great week!

Letter 97 Temple Visitor's Center

Hey Everyone!

Well this week we had a lot happen. Good news and Bad news. Unfortunately, Sophia is too stressed with the move going on and so she has decided to postpone the baptism until after they move to Arizona even though she just needs 1 more lesson and the interview. I just hope she chooses to get baptized when she gets there. I just know it will always feel too busy and so I hope she chooses to do that. 

For good news though, the same day Sophia dropped her Baptismal date we set another one with a lady named Sonia! We had dinner with her and a member and she is just going through a lot right now. She is really willing to learn and we already met with her 3 times last week. Her date is for May 26th which is a little rushed, but if we meet with her often we know that it can work! She also came to church this Sunday and it was a great meeting!

We also had a great trip to the temple visitors center with Mayra last Saturday. Her husband accompanied her and that was really his first exposure to the church and it was a great experience! Mayra is still on date for the 12th and we are super excited for her baptism. Not only that, but her husband who didn’t want to meet with us before is now showing some interest and he even came to church with Mayra this week! 

It was awesome and it’s amazing to see the gospel bringing families closer together in the Sunland ward. This area has some awesome potential and many of the members are actually convert families. It just goes to show how much the gospel blesses families and it’s amazing to see that. Over all things are going wonderful!

Oh I almost forgot! We got transfer calls this week and Elder Pate and I will be staying together for my last transfer which should be pretty fun! Anyway, that’s pretty much it for this week, I hope you all have a wonderful week!

Letter 96 Evening Zone Conference

Sorry I don’t have a lot of time to write again, but we had a great week! Both of our investigators moved their dates to the 12th of May and so we are super excited for them! It’s gonna be a great weekend!

Other than that, we have struggle to find this week but we hope to make next week better with some new goals. We also had an awesome evening zone conference with the members and we got to do a role play in front of all the stake leaders which was really cool. Anyway that was it for this week! I hope you all have a great week!

Letter 95 No Time!

Hey Everyone!

It’s been a pretty normal week here, sorry I don’t have a ton of time to write but I hope you are all doing great! Mayra is doing great and changed her date to the 12th of May which we are excited for. Sophia hurt her back so we couldn’t meet but hopefully this week we can. Anyway, things are still going great! Have a great week!

Letter 94 Awesome Week!

Hey Everyone!

It’s been another awesome week for us! We were able to find a lot of new investigators and we were able to set Mayra on date for May 19th! She is doing super awesome and she will definitely be able to make her date. We are so excited for all the progress this area is making! 

We also found Robert again, another investigator we had on date who disappeared so that was good. His phone broke so that’s why we couldn’t find him but we have an appointment tonight! Sofia is doing well too. We met with her on Friday and had a great lesson on the commandments. Her date isn’t until May 27th because it’s her birthday
and she wants it to be special although she could seriously be baptized in April if she wanted to! We are going to go to the temple visitor center with her in a few weeks which will be fun. That was pretty much it this week since Wednesday! 

Remember to go to church, pray, and read always! CPR keeps us spiritually alive so don’t forget church, prayer, reading. If you aren’t doing one of those things or even all three, I invite you to start doing them and you will be able
to feel the saviors love in your life and find answers to your revelation through the scriptures, and revelation through church attendance and I promise you it really does work. Have a great week everyone!

Letter 93 Temple!

Hey Everyone!

Wow what a week! Sorry for having p day later. First if all, congrats to my little brother Jared who received his mission call to Chicago Illinois! That’s so awesome! Well, this letter is gonna be a little long because this week was amazing!

General Conference was amazing! I’ve never quite had a conference like that! I felt so strongly during that conference though that President Nelson is a prophet of God and he is prepared to lead the church. I knew before that he was, but I especially felt that spiritual witness during this conference. So many crazy announcements, but I feel like they will help the church so much, especially combining the Elders and High Priests. And a temple in Russia! That makes me so excited! That will be a lot closer to Armenian and I’m super excited to hear more about it! I especially loved President Nelson’s talk about receiving personal revelation and I would encourage you all to look it over again or if you haven’t seen the conference yet, watch it! It answered a lot of my questions that I didn’t fully realize I had but I’m so glad he spoke on that because it really helped me out and strengthened my testimony.

Also, we went to the temple today! That was so amazing and I’m so grateful we have a temple nearby to visit. We have 7 new temples and I’m so grateful for them. When I get home I really want to take the challenge to visit the temple more often. We also taught Sofia this week and she got to watch conference which was good. She is on date for the End of May on her birthday. It’s been great to see so many people progress. I love this area so much! I hope you all take the time to ponder the messages from conference again! 

Letter 92 New Area

Hey Everyone!

It was an amazing week! Holy cow this area is amazing! I got transferred on on Tuesday and my area Sunland is right above Glendale so I got to see all the Armenian Elders at Zone breakfast which was super fun. There are tons of Armenians up her too so I get to practice speaking again. 

On Wednesday we brought Elder Stucki to the office to go home and that was crazy. He got picked up by his mom Thursday morning and they stopped by to see us and get his stuff that he left behind so that was fun. I can’t believe he is home now it’s so weird, he has been there my whole mission. 

My new companion Elder Pate and I got right to work though and this area just has tons of prepared people. They have some pretty cool people they have been working with and we will definitely see some baptisms in May. I haven’t met everybody, but we got to teach a lady named Mayra this week and she has tons of potential. We invited her to pray about a Baptismal date this week. She doesn’t want to be pushed, but at the same time she has been loving everything we teach and so we want her to think about baptism. 

We set another guy on date named Robert this week and so we are excited to keep meeting with him as well. Another great thing about this ward is the bishop is amazing! He has us over for dinner every week and is super missionary minded! He comes to each if our lessons with Mayra and he is just awesome! I don’t think I’ve had a better bishop so this is just awesome. I’m just so pumped it’s crazy. This is gonna be a fun way to end the mission! (Pictured: Elder Stucki and Elder Pate)

 Farewell to Elder Stucki!