Christmas week!

Decorating our little Christmas Tree

So this was one heck of a week. We had 2 exchanges this week. One on Wednesday. I got to go to a place called Lucerne Valley. Its comparable to Glenwood and Hill Spring .... or Vauxhall. hahahah. In all sorts of ways: people, location, population, smell, geography hahah it was super cool. We had some awesome lessons with investigators.

At our Mission Christmas devotional

Then on Christmas Eve we had a bunch of shenanigans delivering packages (christmas gifts) to everybody in the zone. We completely filled our poor corolla... Like the whole trunk we packed tetris style and the whole back seat to the roof and I had a box of letters to be sorted and delivered on my lap and we still didn't have enough room. So we had the office elders deliver the two closest companionship's their packages. Then in the evening we saw an amazing miracle with our investigator, Taylor, in the YSA ward. We hadn't been able to get a hold of him and he wouldn't text us back. But at 8 in the evening he texted us and asked if we could meet that night, with a specific member. He lives in Victorville and we were in Apple Valley, so we weren't going to go because we realized would wouldn't have a lot of time and would probably would be late getting home and we didn't want to bug anybody on Christmas eve night. But we prayed about it and decided we needed to go, but we didn't take a member. We drove from the far end of AppleValley down a road we will call Bear Valley road( because that is what it is called) to somewhere in the middle of Victorville in 15 minutes( normally that would take somewhere along the lines of an hour.) We managed to only hit 2 red lights (there like 20-25 not even joking... its worse than Mayor Magrath in Lethbridge) on the way to his house without getting tiwi (our little car monitor that doesn't let us speed) mad at us! We had an amazing lesson with him. We then traveled home and were in before curfew. It was truly a Christmas miracle.

Christmas was awesome... we brought a companionship to our house and us and our roommates and them opened Christmas gifts and had Christmas breakfast. then we went for second breakfast with the members. then we delivered thank you's to people and skyped... then we had christmas dinner ... it was ham and potatoes and candied yams (so good) and pecan pie... so good! then we went for second dinner.. this time prime rib! so good!!

At the devotional with Elder Gunnerson

Then on Boxing day I was on exchanges with Elder Neilsen in my area. We were supposed to have a bunch of lessons... but they all fell through. So we used up a lot of backups and alot of time was spent trying to find people... and at last at 7:30 at night on the last planned backup we got in with a guy we had talked with over a month ago. We managed to teach him the restoration, even with his bird flying around the house. hahah it was great.

Elder Markham and our tree

Love

Elder Jensen

The tie I skinnied

Pretty nice now eh?

CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!

WELL it was an interesting week... while everyone else goes on Christmas break... we as missionaries keep working...

But we still managed to have a good week. We found a new investigator. Her name is Tracy and  she has already been to church in a different town!... she has some really interesting views of Mormons... but she has it in her mind that she wants to be a Mormon already... so it should be a pretty easy win!!! We also taught Mario and Liz again... We were actually on exchanges with the AP's when we did. So a year ago Elder Findlay was my zone leader in Hesperia... and a year Dec 19 ago I was on exchanges with him...well exactly a year later we are on exchanges again with each other! so that was cool. Anyway... we were on exchanges and we got to teach Mario and Liz...they were out in their garage while their neighbors were having a birthday party so it was really noisy, but we did manage to teach them. They hadn't read from the book of mormon because their life is hectic. But we read with them and testified of how it would bless their lives. They commited to read and they promised to be at church on the 3rd of january. So we are hoping... 

sorry kinda rushed!

Excited for Christmas!

Love

Elder Jensen

A crazy Week

SO this week was nuts busy... we hardly were able to keep up with everything we had to do.

Monday was super cool. So after all of our p-day stuff. We went to dinner and then to FHE in the YSA ward. Elder Markham was kinda dragging his feet about it...didn't really want to go and all I really cared about was having something to do in the evening. We get there and the lesson is average and the treats are average and I am still thinking to myself "well at least we weren't wandering around outside in the cold. that would suck." when a member says to us "hey Elders come talk to this guy he isn't a member!" So we talk to the guy(his name is Taylor) and ask him when we could meet with him. He says "would now work?" OF COURSE!!! so we had a quick 20 minute lesson with him and committed him to baptism on the @ of January! We had two more lessons with him this week, both of which we were able to take members to. He is super willing to learn and to change! Turns out he has already been taught so we just have to review some things with him and help him live the commandments! He committed to be at church and came! He was super fellowshipped at church. It was awesome! He was a minute or two late and we were waiting for him in the hall. Right when he was showing up one of the members (Dallon) we took to see him walked out and started talking to him. We walked in and sat down and Taylor tried to sit down with us, but Dallon wasn't having any of that. He pushed his row of 6 friends and his older brother over to make room for Taylor !!! It was super awesome! Needless to say we both have better attitude toward FHE now.

On Tuesday we had our Zone Meeting! It went Super awesome! especially considering this months chapter out of preach my gospel is super dry.

We met with Douglas and took Br. Hume again. They get along really well and we are hoping to get him to church next Sunday. If he doesn't come we will probably drop him.

We also met with Tim again. We read the introduction to the book of Mormon with him and committed him to church.. but he didn't come so we have to figure out where he was...

Nothing else miracle wise. Just a lot of running around trying to meet everyone. 

Love

Elder Jensen

PS. So you guys may or may not remember an Andrew  that I was teaching in my last area. He got BAPTIZED!! I was able to make it to the first half of the baptismal service, but had to leave after the ordinance. I have pictures... but not my sd card reader... so I will get them to you next week!

The beginning of Missionary work in a YSA ward

So this week was nuts... we had a lot of meetings and planning to do for our zone. We had a training meeting with the AP's and President and then we led a training meeting with our district leaders. We also planned for our zone training meeting that is coming up. We did, amidst all of the meetings, manage to make it to the YSA FHE and to Institute Thursday evening. We also managed to find a new family in our family ward. The mom was a self referral and we managed to teach her and her daughter! It was an awesome lesson! We took a priest from our ward and he bore an awesome testimony of the Book of Mormon... otherwise he was pretty quiet hahah Poor guy. it was only his second time out with missionaries and the lady had some questions... (normal to us, crazy to the young man) like do we have crosses in our church? and how we pray? how she should pray? the identity and existence of our mother in heaven. Hahahah it was a great lesson though!

I love this season and the spirit it brings! If you want that spirit check out this awesome video at 

christmas.mormon.org !! you will love it!

Love

Elder Jensen

Wow.....

So this week was nuts..... today is transfer day... so we are super busy. this will be a short one.

Me and Elder Markham are the same... but we are taking over a YSA ward and another zone... so we are busy and more busy.

We had to drop Joe and Alicia... they don't want to get married and Joe pretty much told us that if he could drive he wouldn't go to our church anyway... so that was sad :(

We found a new investigator his name is Tim. He is cool. He wants to get baptized and come to church!

On thanksgiving one of our investigators had us over to his family dinner. We met his wife officially for the first time and she was really interested in what we do as missionaries! The turkey was the best turkey ever so juice and tasty!! And then at the dinner a guy for my first ward walks in! It was super cool!! hadn't seen him in like a year! Also had another dinner with a ward member that day... and pie at another member's house who had us over... so much food.. so good...

Sadly my second companion is going home to day... so that is me and him! 

and this is most of my MTC group... first time lots of us had seen each other in awhile!

Love

Elder Jensen