Week #67

Well we were expecting Brody to be a little down today. We were wrong. He was so excited to go play ball with his new companion that he was only online for about 40 minutes. He didn’t have a lot to say. He seems to be adjusting to his new area and new companion. Brody sent a lot of pictures this week of his time in Lindsay and of his new companion. Be sure to check them out. elderjenseninfresno.blogspot.com

Thanks for your support. 

                                                                                                                                                                            

Hello everyone,

how is it going at home? things here are going great! so this last week i came back up to Atwater. i was pretty bummed to be honest but now that i am here i am super stoked! my new companion is awesome!!! we have so much fun together and get along great! he grew up in Parker, Colorado. his name is Elder Olsen and he is like 6'6''! he plays basketball as well so that is a plus! 

it is nice to already know all of the members up here. i was really surprised that all of the members remembered me! we have a couple progressing investigators here. it is really funny because we cover the spanish branch but we are teaching a teenage girl that is super white and doesn't know spanish. she likes to come to the branch with her friend though. we went and watched a play this last week that she was in. she wants to get baptized but her mom is making her wait until she turns 18 in a couple of months! another cool thing that we did this last week is we had sports night on friday, we played volleyball at the church! it was sweet. 

the only bad thing that is going on is that our apartment is flippin haunted! like it is legitimately haunted. lets just say i heard screaming in the night and looked up and saw a black figure standing there... it was freaky! i told my companion and he told me that he had seen it before too. i guess some pretty weird stuff has happened! but it is whatever, we will live! that is about it from this week! i love and miss you all! have a happy halloween! 

Elder Jensen

Elder Jensen and Elder Olsen

Week #66

Brody is finally leaving Lindsay. He had very mixed feelings about  the transfer. He said saying goodbye to everyone he loves in Lindsay is going to be very hard. Amie and some of the kids got to meet some families from Lindsay. They told her that Brody was an excellent missionary and that he is being fed well. They said that he had found a replacement for Brennan. He is a 15 year old boy named Fabian that he has been playing basketball with. There are three pictures attached to this email and several more will be posted to his blog. elderjenseninfresno.blogspot.com

Thanks for all of your support. 

                                                                                                                                                                        

Hello everyone, 

so this past week did not seem to go as planned... it was nuts and some of the craziest things happened!! so first of all we did have a baptism, Lynda got baptized and i got to give her the Holy Ghost yesterday in church! it was a really neat experience, her baptism was awesome! Rey and Beto (two of the hispanic members) got up and shared their testimonies, so we translated for them and it was really powerful. 

something crazy happened with our investigator CJ, so we found out that after he started meeting with us he really wanted to get his life back into order. so he had some legal things that he had to clear up. so we got a text this last week that he had court and then he ended up going to jail for the next 6 months... it was the week of his wedding and baptism. it kind of came out of nowhere. 

now for the big news... so we got transfer calls and i am going to be getting transferred. i am going back to my previous area up in Atwater. i am pretty bummed to leave Lindsay. at church yesterday they had me share my testimony in the 2 sacrament meetings. it was really hard to say goodbye to all of the members. i am going to miss Lindsay like crazy! that is about all that happened this past week. i love and miss you all, have a great week!

Elder Jensen

Week #65

Brody had a great week. He is looking forward to this upcoming week. He may have as many as 5 baptisms by the end of the week. He seems to be keeping really busy. A group of friends from his ward is coming up this week. He asked us to please meet up with them. Amie asked him if was ready to work at Mi Rancherito when he gets home since he has experience now. No, and that is not real mexican food. We are pleased with the work Brody is doing. Thanks for your prayers in his behalf. 

                                                                                                                                                                                     

Hello Everyone,

so this past week was another crazy one! A lot of good things happened this past week here in Lindsay! So first off we went and did some more service with the member that owns the restaurant, it was awesome! We go once a week to help him out, this week was crazier than the rest though! We got there and found out that he had a big catering job to do so we helped him prepare all of that food. Plus they were packed so I went and waited a table! I was filling up drinks and like working at a dang restaurant! It was crazy but a lot of fun! He always gives us free food, and the food there is so good! I always look forward to going there and helping out.

We found out this last week that the two sister missionaries here in Lindsay are both going home... they have been sick for the last 8 weeks and they don't know what it is. So it has been a really crazy week, we will be the only missionaries in Lindsay now until transfers atleast. Transfer calls are actually this saturday, so we will see what happens!!

yesterday was an eventful day at church! So Adrian Vega gave his farewell talk, he would come out with us like 3 times a week so we are going to miss him! We combined the spanish and english sacrament meeting so we translated it into english for the english members. Also at church I got to have the privelage of giving Ken (recent convert) the priesthood! It was a crazy good day!

We are going to have a baptism on Thursday! Her name is Lynda and she is 72, she had a concern about there only being one true church. We weren't sure what to do with her so we watched a talk by Elder Tad R. Callister called “the blueprint of Christ's church”. It was amazing, it answered all of her questions and now she is ready to be baptized. I would invite all of you to watch that talk, it is awesome and will strenghthen your testimony so much!! we are also going to have a weddingthis saturday with CJ (one of our investigators) he will be getting baptized next sunday (maybe with 3 other people as well) it is sure looking like this upcoming week is going to be great! That is about all going on here! I love and miss you all! Have a great week!

-Elder Jensen

Week #64

Brody sounded really good this week. He didn't happen to mention that there was a huge gang bust in his area. So we asked him about it. He was out jogging and ran around a corner into about 15 cops with rifles. They told him to turn around and get the heck out of there. They busted over 50 people. He is still really happy in his area and finding a lot of success. We were a little confused when we read how much he loved conference and didn't want it to end. We thought someone was typing the email for him. But he cleared it up shortly after that by asking about his NBA teams. Whew. He is doing great. Thanks for all of your prayers that have lead to Brody's success. We ask that as you pray for Brody, also please pray for his cousin Jace Harmon, who left this past week for a different kind of mission for a year in Kuwait. 
                                                                                                                                                                           

Hello Everyone,

This past week was really really busy! There was a lot that went on! So first of all, we have 2 investigators with baptismal dates... I will tell you a little bit about each of them and what happened this past week with them!

So one of our investigators is named CJ, he is 22 years old and girlfriends family are members. CJ told us a couple of weeks ago that he would be honored to take the lessons and to be baptized. So we started teaching him and he asked us to tell him everything he needs to know to get baptized. So we went over the baptismal interview questions and there were two things he needed to work on... one of them was to get legally married, and the other is to stop smoking. He told us that he would do that! Then the next day we saw him again and he came to the priesthood session of conference with us. On the way there he told us that he proposed the night before and that his soon to be wife also wants to take the lessons! It was such a miracle and we are still working hard with him. He enjoyed conference and was taking notes and everything. For the priesthood session all the members met up early and we had carne asada tacos! CJ's baptismal date is for the 25^thof this month!

Another one of our investigators is Lynda or “Mama”, she is an elderly lady and she is so nice! We see her quite often. Her baptismal date is for this saturday (10^th), as of now it is not super solid but we are going to pray for a miracle! Everytime we go over to her house she always has a snack for us and we have great lessons. On saturday morning we went over to her house with the sister missionaries and made omelets, cinnamon rolls, biscuits, cinnamon covered almonds, and bacon for breakfast! Then we watched 4 hours of conference with her! She loved it and said “there is something different about you Mormons” haha she is so funny. She watched a total of 8 hours of conference and loved it all!!

Another thing that happened this past week is that we got to see our investigator again that is going through a lot of problems (the one that we felt needed help from a certain member and we couldn't sleep until we figured it out). As we met with him we were with the member that we felt inspired to be with and it helped out so much. Elder Lybbert and I sat in silence for like all of the lesson because the topics he brought up were not able to be answered by us. We were right, and we would have been inadequate without the member there. 

This past week we also had President Interviews. We have those about every 3 months or so. The member here in Lindsay that set me up with that possessed girl a while back tried to set me up with another possessed person! Hahaha I told him I wanted no more of that stuff and to call the bishop!! hahaha Lindsay is so crazy.

And now for the best part of the week... Conference was awesome!! I didn't want it to stop! I learned so much and it was so fun to listen to all of the speakers! I can't pick a favorite talk because there were so many good ones but I do have a favorite quote.... “Exaltation is our goal, Discipleship is our journey.” I hope you all enjoyed conference as much as me and had a great week! I love and miss you all! Have a great week.

- Elder Jensen