Week #78

Brody didn't have a lot to say today. Not a lot has changed. He is staying in Atwater for at least another transfer and pointed out that he only has 4 more transfers left. On to week 79. Thanks for your support. 
                                                                                                                                                                       

Hello everyone, 
so this past week wasn't super eventful so it will probably be a short email today... so to start off we got the transfer call this past week and i will be staying here in Atwater with Elder Hopkins again! i am happy with that. the night of transfer calls we got with some other elders and have some fun and drank sparkling cider. some of the district is leaving so we are getting split up. we had a lot of success this past week with finding new investigators, we found 8 new investigators and had a lot of good lessons. Yesterday at church Hermano Villalta (the one who found out he was a member last week) got the priesthood and blessed the sacrament! we bumped his wifes baptism to next week so that he can do it! it is going to be awesome! Next Sunday we are going to be having two baptisms. Ashley is going to be getting baptized next sunday! it will be a great day. that is about it from this past week! i hope you are all doing well, i love and miss you all! Elder Jensen

Week #77

Brody was on earlier today than usual. He had a trip to the mall and a basketball game with some other elders scheduled. He was in good spirits and is doing really good.  Transfers are coming up so we will see if he gets to stay or go. He also informed me that he had a laser shined in his eye a few months ago and now he has a small blind spot. He asked me what he should do. I told him to get to an eye doctor. He wanted to wait until he got home. I informed him that he may be blind by then. Haha. Hopefully he will listen and get that looked at. It sounds like he will have another baptism this week. He is definitely focusing on the positive at this point in his mission. Thanks for all of your love and prayers in Brody's behalf. 78 is coming up.                                                                                                                                              

Hello Everyone, so this past week has just been all around a crazy week. it has been full of happy experiences and many tough trials. i won't get into all of the tough trials but i will sum them up. it is just so hard when i see the people that i am teaching and coming in contact with are sad and don't have a desire to live, to become better, and to try harder. it is so hard to see people suffer and go through a bunch of trials. it's so hard because i love these people, i want them to be happy and to know that things can get better and that God loves them. i have seen a lot of sad things this week and it has been tough, but i have learned so much from these trials. it has really strengthened me and my testimony. i am so grateful for my mission and have had so many experiences that i will never be able to deny. i have found who i am on my mission. i love my mission. so there was a quite a bit of good things that happened this past week. we are teaching a couple (Villalta family) and we were planning on baptizing the husband next sunday. Yesterday at church we searched for his records because he wasn't sure if he was baptized when he has 8 years old in Guatemala. it turned out that he was baptized at 8 and just didn't remember. He is now almost 50, but he got up in sacrament meeting and shared his testimony, it was amazing. He talked about how he has been searching for the truth for his whole life and how he had it when he was younger but lost it and couldn't remember. He said as the missionaries were teaching him little bits and pieces started to come back to his memory and the spirit told him it was all true. He said that he is so glad that he found it and that he is so grateful for the missionaries and knows that God sent us to his house for a reason. then after sacrament meeting his wife told us that she is going to get baptized next sunday! we are super excited, not only for her but for her husband as well because his experience and him coming back to church is just as sweet as a baptism! i love seeing people happy and smiling! i love the people out here! i can honestly say that i care about all the people that i teach and that's what makes it so hard when i see them sad. but it makes me want to work harder. and i am ready to keep working hard for the months that i have left out here! that is about all that happened this  past week, this next week we will be getting transfer calls! i can't believe they are already here again! i love you all! have a great week! -Elder Jensen

Week #76

Brody is doing better than ever. He had a great Christmas Day. In fact, he didn't want it to end. He wanted to tell everyone thank you for your thoughts, prayers, cards, and gifts that you sent him for Xmas. He  told us that skypeing on Christmas was like a dream. He said that it was weird and that he felt like he was in a different world than the rest of us. He is hoping the next 6 months go by fast. On to week 77. 

                                                                                                                                                                       
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!
So this past week was super crazy! it flew by and was a really busy week. first of all we had zone conference and it was sweet. we had a couple of trainings and then we played games for the rest of the time!Christmas eve was super fun. we went over and saw our new investigators that are teenagers and played games with them and ate dinner. they are so cool, i love seeing them and teaching the gospel to them. Christmas day was awesome! i got to skype with my family and that was really good! it was almost like a dream haha and it went by so fast. i also got to watch a movie, i watched Big Hero 6. Christmas day was just pretty much a party! i thought that the day after christmas was going to be a really hard and bad one, but it wasn't! i actually had an awesome experience. so we went and saw our new investigators Maria and Mario. they are like teenagers and early twenties. we taught them the Restoration. and before the lesson i was kind of like "oh great i get to teach the Restoration, i have only taught this lesson like 500 times so far on my mission." and i kind of started to get bored but we taught the first half of the lesson and then we watched the video of the restoration. during the video it hit me that Mario and Maria had never heard of anything having to do with the Restoration. and right then i stopped complaining in my head and learned a super valuable lesson. these people have never heard of the gospel, they don't know that there is a prophet today, they don't know where their loved ones or they are going after this life, they don't know that Heavanly Father and Jesus Christ are 2 separate people, they don't know that they are children of God, they don't know why there are so many churches in the world today, and some of them might not even know that Christ suffered for them. i can't even imagine if i did not know those things. it helped me to love the people more that i am serving and teaching. and that is my job as a missionary, i am here to share all of that good news. after that experience we had a great rest of the lesson.  After the lesson we played a cool game with them.... haha so there are jelly beans that come in a box and some of them are good flavors and some of them are bad flavors but you don't know which is which. so you have to spin a little wheel to find out what you have to eat. the flavors were so gross. some of us even puked haha. but it was a blast! i hope you all had a great christmas and that you all have a great new years! i love you all! Elder Jensen

Merry Christmas from Elder Jensen

Week #75

Brody is still doing well and making good progress in his new area. He sent us a box of mexican candy. There is enough here for all of you. Feel free to stop on by and grab some. You should come and get it while its fresh rather than wait until next Halloween. We are looking forward to Skypeing with him on Christmas day. He wanted to thank each of you for your support and wish each of you Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

                                                                                                                                                                     

what up everyone!?

so this past week has been a pretty good one! it was super busy. to start off we found some sweet new investigators. it is mario, maria, and ivan. they are like 20 years old and they are awesome, they came to church and invited us over for christmas eve. we are excited for that! this past week i went to fresno for a meeting for the district leaders and it was really good, there were trainings from President Clark, and the assistants, sister clark, and a couple of other missionaries. this next week i have the Christmas zone conference on wednesday. 

this past week i got to go and interview someone for baptism, it was one of the coolest experiences of my mission and the guy i interviewed was sweet, he was so prepared. i took a picture with him, i will send it home. 

the branch had a christmas party this past week, it was awesome! we ate mexican food and a lot of people came. like 15 investigators came!
i have a lot of cool plans this next week for christmas! i look forward to hearing all about all of your christmas's! i hope you all have a great week! that is about it from this last week. i love you all! 

Elder Jensen

Week #74

Brody is doing well. He is finding success in the mission field. He said he really misses Elder Olsen. It was nice to see him at the baptism. Amie asked him if he likes being district leader, he said he has to help other elders with their problems. He recently had to comfort an elder that found out his cat back home had passed away. Hahaha. One of his good friends Elder Guereca just came home. Amid and I went to his homecoming. It was at spanish branch. We were fortunate that a young lady sat behind us and interpreted the entire meeting. Elder Guereca said that Brody was one of his favorites and will be at the airport when Brody arrives home. Brody sent some pictures that will be posted to his blog. Make sure to check them out. He is in some real nice joggers. I only hope he sends me a pair for Christmas. We can't even decide what his current style is. We are in the process of setting up Brodys Skype with a young man from Livingston named Nacho. Only 11 more days until we Skype him. Thanks for all of your support in Brodys behalf. 
                                                                                                                                                                          
Hello Everyone!
so things here have been pretty crazy as of late. i have been really busy! but it has been a good week! this last week i went on exchanges with an Elder in my district. i have to go on a lot of exchanges now because i am district leader. exchanges are pretty fun though. this past week we had zone meeting and i gave a training on "Fire in the Bones" which is pretty much motivation and desire. it was a lot of fun. i also gave another talk in sacrament meeting, that is back to back weeks now haha. one really cool thing that i got to do last week was go to a play. we went and watched one of our investigators in a high school play. we had a lot of fun, i took some pics so i will be sure to send some in this email. yesterday Gloria got baptized, Elder Olsen came back for it and baptized her! it was sweet to see him again and to be able to see Gloria get baptized. this next week is going to be pretty crazy as well, i have to go up in the mountains to do a baptismal interview and i have a district leader meeting with President. also this week is the branch's christmas party and since i am kind of the only white one... i got stuck with being Santa Claus hahahaha. it should be fun though! that is about it for this week. i love and miss you all, i hope you have a great week. Elder Jensen

"I'm flying Jack!" 

Week #73

Brody was very brief this week. He did open up a little during our conversation. He didn't admit it, but I wonder if he is thinking about being away for another Christmas. I am sure it is very difficult for missionaries to be away from their families this time of year. He was upbeat an positive about the work that is going on there. It sounds like much success lies ahead. The other two cities he is covering are Winton and Livingston. He spent a short time in Winton a few months back. He was excited that his little sister has decided to play basketball this year. I only wish he was here to coach her. Thanks for all of your love and support for Brody and our family. On to week 74. 

                                                                                                                                                                           

well hello everyone! 

so this past week was not too eventful. so on tuesday we went to the mission office and i got my new companion. his name is Elder Hopkins, he has been out for about a year and is from Virginia. 

the work here in Atwater is going great, we are going to have a baptism this sunday, her name is Gloria! this past week i also went to the farewell and saw some members from my old areas. i will send some pics with them. i also said goodbye to Elder Guereca at the farewell. so i now cover two other cities other than atwater. yesterday we had stake conference and it was pretty cool! 

we are working with a couple of families right now and we are excited for them. that is pretty much all that has happened lately! i love and miss you all! i hope you all have a great week! 

Elder Jensen

P.S. Happy Birthday this week to the best sister in law ever!