Week #99

Brody is in the ZONE. We were getting worried about Brody getting a little too relaxed. According to this email, all that has changed. He sent us an email saying he couldn't chat back and forth today because he needed to stay focused. It's crazy, but he only has 5 weeks left. Thanks for all of your support.

He sent some other pictures that will be on his blog.
                                                                                                                                                               

Well Hello Everyone,
so it has been a really interesting week but a good one for sure! some of the week has seemed long but we have been super busy!! so on tuesday we drove down to the temple in fresno to the transfer hub and to get our new companions. so as i said last week i am with Elder Harrison. He is from Preston, Idaho. and he has been out one transfer less than me. we are in an english area but we both speak spanish so we can still practice together!!! Elder Harrison is actually cousins with the Barkers who live in santaquin! he likes to ball as well! we get along great.
last monday i had to say goodbye to some of my favorite people that i have got to know on my mission. it was really hard and sad. i really have come to love the people that i serve out here. i can't even imagine the feeling that i am going to have when i have to come home. i feel like California is my home now and i don't wanna leave the people out here! i am now about 15 minutes south of atwater in merced. so i get to see some of the atwater people once in a while. i cover two congregations here.... i cover an english ward and then i cover the stake YSA. yesterday at church was a long day. we are at church from 8 in the morning until 3 for meetings and classes. i really enjoy serving in the ysa with kids my age. i taught the lesson yesterday on sunday, we only get around 15 people to sacrament meeting but it is still fun! we actually have a ysa activity every tuesday night, this week we will be eating and playing volleyball. and then on friday nights we go to atwater to play basketball so i get to see my homies in atwater on fridays. we have actually played a lot of ball this week! i miss serving the hispanics so that is gonna take some time to get used to.
so my new apartment is pretty sick haha. i actually live in the basement of some members. they are retired so the house is really quiet. i will send some pics of my new crib!
so now i will tell you a little bit about what i have been up to this last week. so as zone leaders we are really busy. one thing we do is in the morning we go and see other missionaries in our zone and do companionship studies with them to help them out, it is nice to be able to go and see other missionaries! also i work a lot closer with the assistants and President Clark now, in fact i will be having a meeting for the mission with President and the assistants this friday in Fresno. one day this week we had to wake up at 5 in the morning to exercise and then go to a seminary and meet the seniors that will soon be YSA. also since we are serving in the YSA we can be out a lot later, so that day we were working from 5 in the morning until 10:30 at night. i was praying that my last transfer i could keep busy and not think about the time..... be careful what you ask for haha. but even though i am always tired and busy i am loving it! i am on like a spiritual high and feeling the spirit super strong in lessons. i feel exhausted at the end of the day but it feels so good! we talk with every single person on the streets. we chase them down even if they look a little sketchy haha. we even stop the car roll the window down to talk with everyone. most people are pretty nice but once in a while we get a mean one. it is a lot of fun even when they are mean though! we have quite a bit of investigators and one of them even called us up this week because she wanted to wax our eyebrows hahaha! so we went and it was a rather different experience haha.
we have been teaching a lot this week, we teach at the college campus somedays as well. we have set a baptismal date for June 11th and should have a couple more baptisms in the month of June. most of them are YSA. it is so amazing to see how the gospel can change peoples lives! i love sharing it with them and seeing them recognize the spirit! it scares me to think about the little bit of time i have left to share this message, so i just work hard to forget about the time! i encourage you all to do the same haha.
so here in the mission there is a term which is called "trunky" it means that you are too excited to go home and can't wait to get home. i would say that for some of my mission i was trunky but i truly believe that i am the least trunky right now than i have been on my whole mission! the mission is great and i don't want it to end really. it has changed my life in so many ways, i am so grateful for the blessings that i have and the miracles that i have seen! i wouldn't trade what i have learned and come to know out here for nothing! a mission is priceless!
everything i do is because i love the Lord Jesus Christ and i want to serve my brothers and sisters! i look forward to finishing strong!
i love and miss you all and hope that you have a great week!
-Elder Jensen
p.s. congratulations to camri for graduating this past week! and i hope you all have a great summer! 

Week #98

Brody is very sad to be leaving Atwater. He is very sad to leave the people there. They have been very good to him. He is looking forward to his new assignment. He did mention that he is only 15 minutes away from Atwater. I am sure he will find some reason to visit. He sent some pictures. Check them out on his blog at elderjenseninfresno.blogspot.com

Thanks for all of your support. Only 6 weeks left. 

Well Hello Everybody!! 

so this past week has been hecka crazy! a lot has happened: Elder Cardon from the 70 came, we got transfer calls, and so much more! i will save the transfer calls for the last of the email. 

so to start off Elder Craig Cardon came from the 70 this past week to visit the mission. it was a great conference. he is a great speaker and brings the spirit so strong. i really enjoyed the conference with him. i learned a lot of things about the scriptures and how to become a better missionary! it was sweet. i also got to see a lot of my friends from throughout the mission. i got to see Elder Smith again and i saw Elder Mo'o. he goes home in two days so i am glad i got to see him one more time. 

one thing that happened this week is that i got sick for the first time on my mission. it was only a one day thing but i was hoping that i could avoid being sick my whole mission. 

so now for transfer calls..... we got the call on saturday night and i found out that i am leaving the area. i am pretty sad but i knew it was coming eventually. on sunday i got a call from President Clark and he called me to be a zone leader. i will be serving in Merced. i will cover a family ward and the YSA. so i will still get to make some trips to atwater to visit the YSA's out here. i am going to be with Elder Harrison. i will be speaking english... so my spanish missionary days are over which i am pretty sad about. i am going to miss the spanish members and investigators so much and the food as well haha. i will have new responsibilities and it will be a good change hopefully. i am torn a little that i am leaving the area. i am super close with so many of the families and people. i can't really describe the feeling... the only thing i can compare it to is the feeling that i had at the airport when i said goodbye to my family. it is super hard to leave these people that i have come to love. as i have been going around and saying goodbye it has been sooooo hard. but i know that the lord has a plan and that i am suppose to be moved to merced. i am excited for my final transfer and ready to finish with all i got. i hope you all have a great week and that you know i love and miss you all! i will see you soon! take care! 

also i wanted to give a shout out to my homeboy Carson Hill on getting his mission call to the California, Redding Mission! he will be a great missionary and i am super excited for him! Congratulations Carson!  

Elder Jensen

Week #97

Brody has had another great week. It is crazy how fast time is flying by. He is doing great. Only 7 more short weeks left. His email says it all. He has one more transfer left. If he stays in his current area, that means he only served in three different areas during his mission. That is crazy to me but Brody said it is normal in his mission for the spanish speaking elders to stay in their areas a little longer than what might be expected. I know it is way early to be announcing this, but his homecoming will be July 10th, so you should can be back from your 4th of july celebrations. 

                                                                                                                                                              
Hello Everyone!this past week was a great week. so at the start of the week we had our last district meeting of the transfer because the transfer is ending here pretty soon. we get transfer calls this saturday. it is my last one and i am hoping to stay here in atwater with elder Hopkins, that would be absolutely crazy if it happened but i guess you never know! i also went on exchanges with the zone leaders this past week. i got to go with Elder Harrison from Idaho. he is really cool, they cover the YSA in Merced. so for most of the day i was on a college campus teaching kids my own age. it was a lot of fun. i felt weird walking around a college campus, everyone was really nice and would talk to us. i found a kid and talked to him while Elder Harrison talked with some other kids and now the kid i talked to is going to be getting baptized in Merced in a couple of weeks. at the college it was the week of finals so everyone was stressing, it made me not excited to go to college. we even like ate in the cafeteria with all the kids at the college. it was really cool! this past week we celebrated mother's day here in the branch. we had a party and all ate tacos it was a blast. the branch is awesome and i like serving here. one of my buddies that i got close with from the english ward left to idaho today to work. he is a big warriors fan and will be going to college at uvu next fall. he said he will try to make it to utah for my homecoming. he is a great guy! i have made so many great friends out here and i love talking with the people of california! california is awesome. it is starting to heat up again! this morning we were at walmart and some guy tried to hardcore bash with us and told us to repent for believing in the wrong jesus christ and a whole bunch of other stuff. it got pretty heated and so we just threw doctrine at him and he didn't have an answer so he would change the subject, after he did that i told him we didn't have time for his bashing and that we wasn't going to shake our faith then we walked away. he was pretty mad and said he was gonna pray for us to change so that on judgement day we will be fine. i don't like bashing but sometimes they need to be put in their place. this guy has been doing it since i got to atwater and drives past us on the road and says, "hail satan" it was crazy that he just did it in the middle of walmart. this week we have zone conference with a 70 so that should be uplifting. the work is going good and the time is going fast. i can't believe that i have been out for 22 months today! i hope you all have a great week and know that i love and miss you all! Elder Jensen
p.s. GO WARRIORS!!!! #backtoback

Week #96

It was great to see Brody yesterday for mothers day. He looked great and seems to be doing better than ever. He was happy and very talkative. He is loving his mission and really feels like he is where he is suppose to be. We were able to meet some of the people through Skype that have been taking care of him. One of the members said, "this is my angel."  Who would have though?!!

We also saw the baby that he has threatened to bring home with him. I can see why he wants to smuggle her home. She was a cutie. It is hard to believe, but he only has 8 weeks left. He didn't have any pictures to send, but Rachel or myself will try to round some up from his Skype and put on his blog. Thanks for all of your support for Brody. On to week 97.

Well Hello Everyone!

this past week was a really good week! the highlight of the week was when I got to Skype with my family. every time I Skype it is like I am dreaming! I feel like I am in a whole different world. I loved seeing my family and it was just a really good time. I am to the point where California is my home and that's all I know haha. it really scares me to think about coming home so I just avoid thinking about it and work. I have realized that I had to leave my family two years ago to come on a mission... and that was so hard at the time but when i come home i am going to have to do the same thing here. i am going to have to leave my family here in California. it is a bitter sweet feeling.

another highlight this week was that i had my last interview with President Clark. it was a great interview, i love President Clark. he cares about us so much and really helps us to become more converted to the gospel of jesus Christ. i also went on another exchange this past week with an elder in the English ward. we were on bikes and we talked to a whole bunch of people in the streets. it was a lot of fun... street contacting can be fun because you never know what type of response you are going to get out of anyone. 

we have a couple of progressing investigators here and are working on setting some baptismal dates! i am excited for this next week. we have a lot planned, we are going to be having a party for mother's day and are going to celebrate by eating tacos. we are also going to be holding a funeral here at the church. i am going to be going on exchanges with the zone leaders.

time is going by super fast and i am happy and loving my mission! things are going great! i love and miss you all. i hope you have a great week!

Elder Jensen

Week #95

Brody is working hard and doing great. We are all excited for our last Skype coming up this Sunday. We have so many things to ask him. Thanks for all of your support. Week 96/104 coming up. 

                                                                                                                                                                 

Hello Everyone! 

so this past week was pretty busy! i went on two exchanges with Elders in my district which was pretty fun. we also got to go to the temple.... it was my last temple trip until the day before i come home! i went with Brother Wilcox! it was a lot of fun! 

we have been working really hard here in Atwater and we set a baptismal date with a boy named Alonzo! he is so smart in the gospel! he is ten years old and his family are members. he has been coming to church for a long time now and finally decided to choose a date. his date is for june 4th which is his birthday! so we are excited for that! we also found some new investigators this week and it has just been crazy. we have been teaching a lot. 

i can't believe how fast time is going... i swear it was just mother's day not too long ago and that i just barely skyped my family but that time is already coming up again. i don't really have anything else this week! i love and miss you all! have a great week! 

Elder Jensen