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

Week #94

We didn't get to talk much with Brody today. He was on only for a short time. He was headed to play in a basketball game with some elders from another area. He sounds great. For those of you that really know Brody, this email must be saved forever. Haha. On to week 95. Thanks for your support. 
                                                                                                                                                                    
Hello Everyone!!! 
First of all i would like to congratulate my awesome sister on winning Miss Payson!! i saw a bunch of pictures and i am sure she did an amazing job! so this past week was SUPER busy! i saw President Clark 3 times in a week! that is the most i have ever seen him. i saw him at zone meeting, the district leader meeting, and at a fireside which we sang at. it was a good week though, i got to go down to fresno and see some missionaries that i haven't seen for a while! it was a really good week! we also did some service in the city of atwater, we cleaned a park! i got to go on an exchange this week as well. i am keeping really busy which is a good thing. we taught a lot of lessons this week and have been working hard! i am not quite sure what to talk about today so i think i will share the second most important thing i have learned on my mission. which the first is my conversion to the gospel. but the second most important thing that i feel i have learned is attitude. everything in life is about attitude. we can't control what situations we get put into or the trials we go through but we can control our attitude. it can be hard to have a good attitude sometimes though, throughout my mission i have learned how to be positive and have a good attitude. as many of you know before my mission i was pretty negative and didn't have a great attitude about things. even at the start of my mission i was not good with it which i want to apologize for. i was reading through my old group emails and i can't believe how negative i was, i bet it was hard for my family to read those things and my struggles. but it has been a great learning experience. i feel like as soon as i got rid of my bad attitude time started to fly by. and i have learned to do the will of the Lord instead of my own on my mission. i wouldn't trade it for anything. i love my mission! i have never been so happy and positive in my life. and i love to see other people happy, that is why i continue to serve. i love the people here and i love the Lord. i can't even describe the feelings and the joy that i feel as i see others feel God's love and really make huge changes in their lives. i love these people. there is a quote that goes like this.... "others won't care how much you know, until they know how much you care" i have learned to love everyone out here! time is going by so fast and i don't know if i am ready for it to end, because i feel that i still have so much more to learn. a mission is crazy, but it is the best thing i have ever done with my life. it has changed everything about me. i wasn't that strong in my testimony when i first came out but now i can say that i know this is the true church and that Jesus Christ is my Savior. i am so grateful for my mission! that is about all i got this week. i hope you are all doing well. have a great week! i love you! Elder Jensen

Week #93

Brody's email was pretty short today. He didn't have a lot to say. I think he is trying to get the most out of everyday while serving his mission. I'm not quite sure what he means in his email when he says, "the new Atwater feel of things." He has been there for several months. One would think he is use to it. Hahaha. Its hard to believe that we are sneaking up on his last Skype home. He is continuing to work hard. Thanks for your support. On to week 94. 

By the way, he better cut that hair before he gets home or I will remind him what a pocket knife is really used for. 

                                                                                                                                                                    

Hello to All, 

first of all i want to apologize because this email is gonna be really short. this week hasn't been too busy! we have been hitting the streets a lot and trying to find. we haven't had too much luck so far but we will soon enough. we have some investigators but nothing solid right now. this last week we had stake conference and two Elders from the 70 came! it was awesome. it was probably the best stake conference i have ever gone to! i have got to play some basketball this past week a few times with some investigators and members it has been sweet! i also heard the NBA playoffs started so go Warriors! 

so up here in Atwater we got a few new missionaries and one of my favorite Elders left... Elder Smith. so we are still getting use to the new Atwater feel of things. 

this next week i am going to have a lot of meetings, i have a district leader meeting in Fresno and we also have zone meeting this week. i don't know if i mentioned it before but a 70 is coming to our mission next month. i am looking forward to this week! i love and miss you all! have a great week. 

Elder Jensen

Week #92

Brody said time is flying by  and he is not going to do with himself once he gets home. He said he is really going to miss the mission life…go figure. 

He was fortunate to stay in the same place with the same companion. It looks like he might just finish out his mission in this area. Today while chatting with his mom, he wrote part of his sentence in spanish and didn't even realize he did it. Amie had to ask him what the heck he was saying. He asked us if we were getting trunky. I replied, maybe a little. He answered and said to keep busy so it doesn't seem so long. I am sure proud of the attitude Brody has gained while on his mission. If you want to check out a video of Brody, go to his blog. Chris Cook ran into Brody this past week and took some pictures and a video. Thanks Chris. Now, on to week 93. Thanks for all of your support. 

Hello Everyone!! 

so this past week was great! i got some really big and good news! so we got the transfer call and to our surprise Elder Hopkins and i are staying together for a 4th transfer! that like never happens! that is a fourth of my mission with one companion! we are gonna keep going hard up here in Atwater. i totally thought we were gonna have a change! some of our district got transferred though. but i am pumped about staying especially because there is a family here that is active now! they weren't active a couple of months ago. but they are like seriously one of my favorite families that i have met on my mission! i stinkin love them! 

this past week we got some new investigators and they fed us some tacos and we had a great time! also one of our investigators got back from Arizona after being gone for a couple of months! it was great to see him! his name is beto! 

this next week we have stake conference! we also found out that in May we are going to be having a 70 come to the mission! is is Elder Cardon. 

this last week i ran into a family friend! Chris Cook haha, we had a great time. we went to a taco truck and i gave him a tour of the city of Atwater. it was so weird to see someone that is from home! it was like unreal! i will send some pics! well i love and miss you all! i hope you all have a great week! 

Elder Jensen

BatElder "It's not who I am underneath but what I do that defines me." ;)