Letter 81 Mission Conference

Hey everybody!

This week was super awesome! We found a lot of new investigators, but nobody came to church unfortunately. We thought we were gonna have a bunch of people come but nobody made it. Next week for sure though. We are still working with the Cheng family and we actually found a new family to teach this week which is pretty cool. This ward is awesome and we’ve gotten some great referrals from them! 

Another cool event from this week was the mission conference we had on Saturday. Elder Dallin H. Oaks came and spoke to our mission and it was awesome! He is such a smart man and with the recent death of the prophet we were surprised he was still able to come. His life is full of experiences that you wouldn’t expect an apostle to have, but as we all know everyone has trying experiences in their lives.

I felt very edified from the meeting and truly feel that he is an apostle of the lord Jesus Christ. He is very bold and willing to speak the truth of God to anyone who asks. It was wonderful to shake his hand and hear him speak. I know that there are prophets and apostles on the earth today and they are special witnesses of Jesus Christ. I know that they are imperfect men, but they are humble and constantly trying to learn. I am so grateful for the opportunities we have to learn from their words and most especially their examples. I hope you all have a great week!

Pictures: Mission Conference with Elder Oaks. Armenian Elders including Elder McAllister the new Elder. Comp photo.

Letter 80 New Year's

Hey Everyone!

I’m sorry I don’t have a ton of time today because we had a zone activity that went kinda long but it was super fun. Just know that I am enjoying my time here in heritage and am excited with how strong the ward is here. The members are so willing to share the gospel and serve people around them.

 At the start of this new year I hope you all set some goals to accomplish more in your life. I know that goal setting and plan making can truly help us become better people, especially as we work as hard as we can to achieve those goals. I love you all so much and hope that you have a wonderful new year!

Letter 79 Christmas

Hey Everyone!

I hope you are all having a good Christmas! We are doing the typical missionary thing playing basketball because it’s p day. This week was a lot of fun! I love my new area a ton. The ward has a ton of youth and it’s just like a Utah ward. The members are super solid and willing to help so it’s great.

One of the members brought one of her friends to church and now her and her family attend. They are really interested in finding out more of what we believe. We taught them the first lesson this week at our ward mission leader's house and it was amazing! It started off a little shaky because Elder Boulette and I teach very differently, but the spirit soon came into the lesson and as we testified of the Book of Mormon it brought a lot of peace. They came to church this Sunday for the 4th time and plan on attending weekly.

Maggie has already read the intro and testimonies and Keney has read a little bit as well. Maggie is very interested and is helping her family come along too. I haven’t had the experience to teach families a lot on my mission and so I am super excited for this one and I really feel that they will be baptized as they continue to keep commitments.

I enjoy everything about this area (even biking, it’s actually kinda fun) and I can’t wait to keep working in it. I’m so grateful for this time of year as well. It took a little bit for it to hit Cali, but you can feel the spirit of Christmas in the air and I love it. I know the Book of Mormon is real and it can bring peace to your life by reading it. I know that Joseph Smith did indeed translate the Book with Gods help and I’m so grateful that God has prepared this tool the Book of Mormon in our lives to help us find truth and feel peace. I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas!

Elder Jensen
Pictures: Christmas zone conference and Christmas morning. Sorry for the bad photo quality.

Letter 78 Transfers

Hey Everyone!

It’s been a fun week but I got some news this Saturday. I am being transferred To Heritage in La verne. My new companions name is Elder Boulette and he is a really fun guy. I didn’t expect to leave so I was really sad but I feel really excited to work here in heritage at the same time. It seems like a great place! 

I didn’t have a lot of time in Armenian work so I hope I get to go back before the end of my mission. However, I am really excited to work in heritage. I just feel like this is where I’m supposed to be and I feel super ready to work. And bike. I stayed away for 18 months but now it is time to get that brand new bike out and get to work. I have never been so excited to bike.

I’m on the opposite side of the mission but I’m just really excited in general. They took out the two Armenian companionships so Elder Ebert and Elder Hansen will be trio training. Elder Boulette just finished training so it will be fun to greenie break again. Overall I’m just really excited to get things going again. That’s all for this week! Have a good week!

Letter 77 Light the World

Hey Everyone!

It’s been a pretty typical week and nothing new has really happened. Transfers are next week because this is a 5 week transfer so we will see what happens. We spent our time pretty balanced this week between finding and studies and teaching and service so it was pretty good. We have decided we need to have more faith and when we contact people we need to expect them to accept our message. 

Our investigators aren’t progressing really well right now and we are hoping to find someone who is prepared and wants to be baptized. I know they are out there and so we are just going to keep talking to as many people as possible to find them. The light the world program has been lots of fun. I think service has a lot more impact  around this season so don’t waste the opportunity! That was pretty much it for this week! I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas season and a good week!

Elder Jensen

Letter 76 Birthday

Hey Everyone!

It was a fun week for us. We’ve been doing lots of finding and service for the light the world theme and it has been going great so far I have really enjoyed it. We also are easing into Facebook right now so don’t be alarmed if you see me on haha. It has been super weird to go through it but I think it will be a great proselyting tool. After all, follow up is one of the hardest things I feel like with missionary work. We have so many people to contact and call and text in a day and we often don’t remember and so I think FB messaging will make it a lot easier. I’m excited to start!

Elder Stucki and I also celebrated our birthday together again this year and we went all out. It was our birthday and so no excuses, we had to eat a bunch of unhealthy food. It was awesome but I felt terrible after. We ate a ton of donuts in the morning and then we weren’t even that hungry for lunch but we got a bunch of Little Caesar's extra most bestest pizza with the crazy crust because we said we had to. 

For those of you who don’t know it’s a pizza with extra pepperoni and cheese and then they smothered a ton of the stuff that they put on crazy bread normally on it. By this point I was utterly disgusted with myself but we had a deal and so for dinner we went to red Robbin. What a party. Bottomless fries is just what I need when I’m not even hungry but we ate as much as we could and it was worth it. Fast Sunday was the next day too and so I was actually super prepared. Anyway, the church is true have a great week!

Letter 75 Light the World

Hey everyone!

It’s been a great week this week. I already mentioned the things that happened earlier like zone conference and thanksgiving so I won’t go into those. However, we did have some cool things happen these last couple days. On Friday we got to go to the temple with the sisters and their recent convert Michelle to do baptisms. Michelle asked Elder Hansen to be baptized for her father and it was a super cool experience. Another thing I learned is how needed Melchizedek priesthood holders are in the church. They needed help in the temple and put us right to work and it was super cool. 

However, it shows just how much the church is lacking willing priesthood holders to serve. With the new initiative to light the world a second time coming up. I would encourage you all to serve everyone around you but not only that. It is important that we express our gratitude for access to the priesthood by living worthy at all times and keeping Gods commandments. I am so grateful for the gift of the priesthood I have been given to bless the lives of others. It has been an amazing experience for me to be able to serve in the church and bless the loves of others. I would encourage all of you this Christmas season to go the extra mile in your service, whether you are a priesthood holder or not. The church needs willing hands to help and there are many others around us who need this help. We have a great responsibility as members of this church to fulfill our church callings and serve those around us. 

Also last Saturday I got to go on exchanges with the zone leaders. Elder Thornton came to my area with me and we had so much fun contacting people. He just came from Puerto Rico after the hurricane and had a lot of new ideas. We talked to so many people that day and served many people around us and it felt so good. Our numbers weren’t very high at all this week, but I felt like a true servant and representative of Jesus Christ. I have learned so much from my mission so far and have come to realize what a blessing  it has been to be here serving in California. There are so many people here who need help and so many people to talk to. All of these people have so many needs that only the gospel can meet. It will take every ounce of consecration we can muster if we want to successfully help those around us. 

I am so grateful for this church and this gospel and the many blessings of happiness it has brought to my life. I know it is true. I know without a doubt in my mind that the Book of Mormon is true, that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God, and the Jesus Christ is the messiah and has redeemed us from this fallen state we live in. I am so grateful for him and because of this I want to do everything I can to serve him. I invite you all to do so as well. Have a great week lighting the world and serving!

Pics: Zone pics and temple 

Letter 74 Thankgiving

Hey Everyone!

It’s been a pretty regular week here just a little bit longer. Happy Thanksgiving! Because it’s been a 10 day week I can’t remember anything that happened but just know that it’s been lots of fun and it’s flying by super fast!

We have done lots of finding this week but we have had a lot of fun doing it. Oh just remembered. We had zone Conference the other day and big news. Our mission will be opening Facebook next week so if you see me on my Facebook account don’t be alarmed.

It will be an adventure for sure and I’m kinda nervous. Just when I start to get good at something the mission always springs up something new haha. Well talk to you all Monday, have a good thanksgiving!

Elder Jensen