Pictures from England

At the Feet of an Apostle of the Lord

My dear family!
I loved to hear from you today and I am doing SO well! I will reply to all of your questions in a letter today. I have been writing in a journal and I am going to send those pages to your in a letter as well. Mom, when you get them, will you just put them in a binder in the order they come? You are all welcome to read them. This way you will get a full experience since I don't have much time to write you.
What a week! I have been dying to write you all since Sunday and I think you will see why... So on Saturday night, my companion and I taught Kevin (a fake investigator). He knows the church is true, and the BOM but he won't read it and he won't get baptized for another twenty years. The lesson was only 20 minutes long but we did everything we could to talk to him and try to resolve his concers. We didn't get anywhere. At the end of the lesson, my companion and I just walked out of the room and started crying. We were so upset because we knew how important it was for Kevin to receive the gospel NOW and be baptized NOW. We were frustrated because we couldn't get that across to him. We sat in the cafeteria and cried for awhile together and then knelt down and prayed. I felt better after that prayer and was reassured that it was only week 2 and I can't expect so much out of myself. That was the first time I have cried since being in the MTC. Haha. It was definitely a learning experience. So I went to bed that night feeling a little discouraged. The next morning was Sunday and we prepared for sacrament meeting. It went really well but I was still feeling a little discouraged. We went on a church history tour after that and then came back to have a fireside. My district sang the EFY medley and we surprised the presidency by telling all of the missionaries to stand at the part where everyone sings together. They were all crying and they loved it. President Edwards stood up and said, "I haven't been able to put my finger on why this group is so special but now I can. It is because of your unity with each other. I've always seen unity in the districts but not unity all together. The Lord is so pleased with you all and he is choosing to show you that by sending an apostle here to the MTC. Elder Jeffrey R. Holland will be coming to speak to us tomorrow night." You can imagine what I was feeling at that point! I was so overjoyed and I felt that my heart was going to leap out of my chest. I immediately started to cry and I knew more than ever that My Heavenly Father KNOWS me and LOVES me. He knew I was discouraged and he found a way to show me that I am doing good and that he is pleased. Well, I will skip now to Monday night and tell your about our fireside with Elder Holland...
We ate an early dinner at 4:30 and then went to the chapel room to prepare ourselves. I was lucky enough to sit in the second row (well I saved the seat the night before...haha). We sat and waited for him to come for what felt like 10 hours but was more like 30 minutes. Finally, he came in, only about 4 feet away from me was an apostle of the Lord! The first ting I noticed was the spirit that flowed into the room. His presence was so powerful and at the same time, I realized that he was only just a man. The second thing I noticed were his piercing blue eyes. When people say that when he looks at you, it feels like he's looking into your soul, I can testify that is true! He walked onto the stand with the MTC presidency, the area seventy and Elder Kearon from the quorum of the seventy. Elder Holland, as he was taking a seat, blew us a kiss and motioned for us to sit down. At this point,I was already crying as the spirit was so strong and I just felt completely humbled in gratitude. Presidnet Edwards introuced. Elder Donaldson spoke first and just bore his testimony. Then the Abinidi district (that is me!) got to stand and perform the same EFY medley we had done the night before. How many people can say they have sung for an apostle?! I was so happy to be able to do this. Wee began to sing the song and I was so nervous that I could hardly sing. When it got to the point where everyone joined together, every missionary in the room, about forty of us, stood up and began to sing. At the same time, me and my district turned around to face the people on the stand. The spirit was SO overpowering, the strongest I have ever felt in my life. I tried my best, but I couldn't finish the song. I was so choked up to see every person on the stand with tears streaming down their faces and I felt that I was going to lose it! My shoulders were doing that shaking thing and I couldn't even sing at all. I eventually had to look up at the celing to calm myself down. Haha. Elder Holland has his eyes closed with his hear back and tears down his face. I am so amazed at the ability that music has to bring the spirit. It's the language of angels, and a language I don't think me or anyone fully understands. Elder Kearon then spoke and thanked us. AFter his message was Elder Holland. He got up to speak and oh was it amazing! At times he would just grab the pulpit and speak with such authority! I couldn't take my eyes off him. The first thing he said was, "53 years, 5 months, and 11 days ago, my life was changed forever. That is the day I stepped onto british soil for my mission. Every blessing I have now came from those thwo years. My mission meant everything to me." He could hardly finish that phrase. At one point he got really fired up like he does in general conference, and said with so much authority, "You embrace your mission--give it your heart and soul. You cannot be half hearted! You must hit the ground running! You don't know  a lot, but you know enough to start. Don't miss a moment of it! If you do, the church will survive, the mission will survive, what's irreplaceable is what's lost in your life. If you're any kind of missionary at all, you will weep and wail when that release letter comes. MAke sure you are God's investigator. He wants you to do what you want your ivestigators to do. He is trying to make sure that you are converted. I can demand and insist that there will be one convert. That is you! You WILL be a bliever regardless. You will have this! It will become your DNA and you will be converted to the marrow of your bones. This is your rebirth, that mighty change. You embrace it! You give it all you've got. Jump into the pool, there is water in it and the Lord wants you to swim. Give the Lord a littlel bit and he will give you his all. Don't be a missionary that checks this off the list. Don't say, "I can't wait for real life..." THIS IS REAL LIFE! Capital R, Capital L. (Imagine him saying this with his hands holding onto the pulpit,almost shouting), There is NOTHING more real than what you're doing right now! You are NEVER to set this experience aside. It is to be a part of your soul forever. I can deal with a lot of things but I cannot deal with a missionary that comes home less active. You will NOT come home early. You will serve 18 month to two year misisons. It is up to you how long your mission lasts, it can start now, or it can start when you only have 3 weeks left, but for your benefit, I hope it starts now!"
WOW!!! I know that was all a little jumbled but that is what in essence he said. It was so powerful. So powerful. I wish you all could have been there to feel of the spirit that that man has. I will never put this experience aside. I will do my very best and be the tool that Heavenly Father needs. And when I get out into that mission field, I will hit the ground running. I will jump into the pool, because I'm not afraid to get wet. I am so excited to be going to Birmingham in 3 days. I loved my experience at the MTC but it is time. I'm ready to do the Lord's work.
After Elder Holland spoke, we all got the opportunity to shake his hand which was an experience I won't forget. I don't really know if I even said anything to him because was just in awe the whole time. It was so amazing. I also got to shake Elder Kearon's hand and he looked at me and said, "You just look like a missionary! You are so bright and so happy! Keep it up." That was a great compliment to hear.
Well family, Sorry i wasn't able to tell you about all my experiences I had this week, but I thought i'd just tell you about the most important one. I am so blessed! This was no coincidence. Elder Donaldson told me that night that a coincidence is when God wants to remain anonymous. How true is that! I am so blessed to have experienced this and it has strengthed my testimony to know that the Lord loves me and that he is in every detail of my life!
Well, I love you all. Have a great week and don't forget to read your scriptures every day and thank your Father in Heaven for all he has given you!
Love,
Sister Jensen

First Companion Picture

                                     

                                     In the MTC, eating dinner with Sister Hanks from Logan Utah. She is my first companion.!

                       

First Letter!!

Krysta's first letter from England  2-20-2013

Hello everyone!!!

How is everyone doing? I'm doing so great!!! I have to type fast because we only get 30 minutes to write and it is timed. So I printed out your emails and haven't read them yet. So I will just begin from the beginning...
After passing through security, i got ahold of my emotions and was feeling much better. I met a girl from Slovakia who was returning from a catholic mission in the United States. I shared my BOM with her and she read from it for a bit and then returned it saying that she didn't have room. First rejection. The plane ride was pretty awful but I was asleep most of the time. We arrived in Amsterdam the next morning and I could figure out how to use the Calling card so I just ended up throwing my phone away. Haha. We flew from Amsterdam to Machester (there were about 5 of us now) and we were picked up by Brother Mount. He took us to the MTC. It was beautiful! It's exactly how you would imagine it be here. I love it. It is cold but not as cold as I would think. We got to the MTC and they told us that the group of 20 more missionaries were going to arrive later that night because their plane had problems and they were stuck in an airport in London. So that day we basically unpacked and got used to the MTC. The MTC president is President Edwards. They are SOOO nice. When the other missionaries finally arrived, we went to sleep and then the next day we were assigned companions. My companion is Sister Hanks from Logan, Utah. She is my age and is the sweetest thing ever. We get along great. The food here is really good but it's not at all like the Provo MTC. The MTC here is TINY. There are about 40 of us I think, so we are all growing very close. I am in a district called Abinidi with my companion and another companionship of Sisters with three companionships of Elders. There are the ESL missionaries which means english is their second language. There are some from Spain, france, Samoa, Italy, Uraguay, Albania and Tahiti. It's a wide variety and I love it!  So a little bit about my day... I wake up at 6:30 am and then we get ready, eat breakfast and then have personal study for an hour. We meet with our districts and have classes. We have been assigned investigators that are actually our teachers who pretend to be investigators. Right now, Sister Hanks and I are teaching Julian, who is our golden investigator, Tom, who really doesn't know what he wants or cares about, and Moritz who questions everything we tell him and has no belief in God. So it is very interesting! I'm learning that as long as you have the spirit, you can't go wrong, because he spirit is the teacher! My district teacher is SO great. His name is Brother Huemos. He is from Germany and is about as tall as me and very skinny! He is so funny but he brings the spirit so quickly. He does something caleld horse gymnastics- where you basically do vault gymnastics on top of a living horse. Crazy! This morning we got to go the the temple which is so beautiful. It was great being there with all the missionaries. There is a strong spirit that comes from that. This past Sunday we got to listen to a devotional from 2009 by Elder Bednar. It was amazying. He addressed the question- Is it just me or the Holy Ghost? Basically he said- stop worrying about it! You are spiritually paralyzing yoursel when you just sit there wondering where that thought came from. Be a good girl and a good boy, obey the commandments and keep your covenants and it doesn't matter. Get moving and the Lord will direct your paths. How true is that! I feel like I need to repent for all the times that I have questioned where revelation has come from. It doesn't matter! I am learning so much here at the MTC and I am the happiest I have ever been. The spirit is so strong wherevery I go. One thing that I have found so cool is that while I have been teaching investigators, I am becoming an ivestigator! I think of new questions every day and my testimony is just growing so much. I love this gospel more than anything and it brings me such peace. I have found myself slipping into an English accent from time to time without thinking about it! haha. All my teachers and leaders here have English accents so you hear it all the time. Another thing about England is that the word "awesome" is despised. My teacher cringes whenever we say it and says, "that's such an american word!" Haha. He tells us to use words like "eic" or "brilliant" instead. Another thing is that Nutella is HUGE here. Everyone eats it. I think we go through like 10 jars of it in a week.
Tomorrow we will have the opportunity to go to a square in Manchester to do some finding. I'm excited to use what I have learned so far on real people! A little scared too but I know that the spirit will be with me. We got to go to what is called ASDA today which is basically the England version of WalMart. I got my money converted into pounds and I bought a straightener, an alarm clock, some envelopes, and a diet coke. Haha. We don't have that at the MTC so i've been missing it! The store was pretty cool. I could barely understand the cashier lady, her accent was so thick! Most of the scottish accents are difficult to understand. On Sunday of next week we are going on a church history tour around Preston to see where all the beginnings took place. I'm way excited about that. And then a week from this Saturday I will leave the MTC and be transferred to my mission! It's amazing how fast this experience is going by. I'm learning tons and my testimony is growing each day. I love you all so much and I know that this gospel is the only way we can experience the most happiness. I have personally felt that. I know it is true. I know the scriptures will help us to come closer to God. There is one thing that I'm getting really good at, and that's extending committments. So I want to ask you all a question. Will you commit to reading your scriptures every day? I hope that's a yes. Well I love you all and hope that you are doing great. PLEASE send me letters!!! I'm dying to get one! They only take 4-6 days to get here so you still have time. Alright well I love you all so much. Talk to you in a week. I love you,

Sister Jensen

Arrived and safe

Dear Mom and Dad, I have arrived safely at the Preston MTC! All is going well but I am extremely tired! I phone card didn't work because I was supposed to call a number before I left the states which I didn't realize I needed to do until I was already in Amsterdam. But anways, they are letting us email our parents just to let them know that we are safe and that P-days are on Wednesday. You will hear more from me then. You will also be recieving an invitation to a Picasa Web Album today that will have pictures of my MTC experience. Look for it because it may be in your spam mail. Please let me know when you have accessed the site and you have seen the pictures. I love you guys and can't wait to tell you more about my experiences on Wednesday! Love, Sister Jensen

Welcoming Sister Jensen, President Rasmussen and Sister Rasmussen

Get to teach to the people of England Picture

So happy to get to teach the people of 

England!