Serving with your best friend

Dear Family & Friends,

Week 1 of the transfer! It's already been a great start. Sister Gardner and I are basically the same person so we get along SO well. It's great. It's like serving with your best friend. This week we started out the week with District meeting and interviews with President. He asked us to tell him about a time when we resolved someone's concerns. I always love interviwes! President is so full of wisdom and love for each missionary. I don't know how he does it! I also got to chat with Sister Rasmussen which is always a treat. We love talking about Eagle :) Haha. We had some lessons after that and we also did some finding. The Elders passed us some of their investigators, as the lady fancies one of the Elders. Haha. So we taught them for the first time this week. They are super nice. On Wednesday we got to teach Leevoy who is still set for his baptism on the 17th of May. We taught him Law of Chastity and it was probably one of the best lessons i've had in a while! The spirit was so strong and Leevoy was so humble. By the end of the lesson he was almost in tears telling us that he had broken the law of chastity already. We told him that he didn't need to worry, and that he could repent now. It's so amazing to be able to testify of the atonement to someone who has never used it. It is such a blessing to be able to do that every day. We are also teaching this guy, Lamar, who is convinced that he just needs to find a "woman" that will turn him around. haha. Sister Gardner and I were having a hard time not laughing during the lesson. We're trying to explain to him that NOW is the time to repent, and you need to do it for the right reasons. We'll keep working with him :) Edison is doing great. He has been very busy lately with coursework and exams so we haven't got to teach him as much as we would like. We stop by his place every now and then though just so we can keep contact with him. We're starting to build relationships with some of his housemates as well and one of them came to church yesterday! On Thursday we drove to Peterborough, which takes about 2 hours for the first exchange of the transfer. I drove back to Coventry with Sister Williamson (Sister Gardner doesn't have her license yet, so I will pretty much be doing all the exchanges in Coventry this transfer). Haha sister Williamson and I had a VERY interesting night!! So, we had been asked by the YSA to help out with an outreach night- to go visit YSA who haven't been out in a long time. So they gave us a couple addresses to go by and we took 3 YSA girls in the car with us. The first one we went to, we just took one of the YSA with us inside, Brenda. We knocked on the door, and a lady in a blue bathrobe came to the door. She looked so shocked to see us and invited us in. Haha. She tells us to sit down and then the first thing she does is goes to the electric piano and starts playing us this song. It was on like the organ setting and she was really getting into it. hahaha She did like three more after that and then she would look at us and say,"One of you plays the Cello. Which one is it?" and we were like, "None of us..." She said, "Well, if you look back in your families, you'll find someone who does. Didn't know that did ya?" Haha. Oh man this lady was so not all there but she really enjoyed our visit. That is one fun thing about missionary work... You never know what to expect. Every day is a new adventure! haha. Well, the next day, we taught a couple lessons and then drove back to Peterborough. That night we got back around six thirty and then had to do our weekly planning. Saturday we had to help out with a family history fair at the church. We were also asked to do the relief society lesson and then i got a phone call asking if i would speak in sacrament meeting! so we had to go to the library and do a little bit of preparation. We had a first lesson with a girl called Amy, who is seriously the nicest thing ever!! She told us that she had no belief in God. During the lesson we just talked about how God is like her earthly father. Her earthly father is in China, she can't see him right now, but she knows he is there and that he loves her, and she can communicate with him over the phone. In the same way, we know that God is there and that he loves us, even though we can't see him and we can communicate with him through prayer. She told us she gets approached a lot by people in the streets who give her religious books to read. She said that she never reads them but she doesn't throw them away because she wants to be respectful. And she said that normally she wouldn't agree to meet with people but because of how bubbly and friendly we were, she wanted to see what it was all about!! How cool is that??!?! Then we committed her to pray. She asked if she could pray even though she drinks alcohol? haha it was so cute. We said, of course, you can pray anytime. So she texted us the next day and said that she prayed for the first time and that it actually wasn't bad! We are so excited for her! She is willing to try and so I know that she will gain a testimony. I'm so thankful for my personal testimony and i realize more than ever how important it is that we are constantly nourishing our testimony. It's through establishing those patterns of daily scriptures study and prayer that lead to our conversion. I hope you are all taking time out of your day to have those meaningful studies and prayers. I promise they will make the biggest difference. I love you all so much! Have a fabulous week!

Love,

Sister Jensen

Baptism went perfectly!

Dear Family & Friends,

So sorry it's taken me so long to email! Today we had zone p-day so it's been a bit crazy this morning! It was a good time though. I have only an hour so it might be a bit short today! This week has been SO amazing. The people we are teaching right now are doing so well. We FINALLY got a polish restoration pamphlet so we can really start to teach Artuar. Edison and Leevoy and both doing great and are preparing for baptism. The biggest challenges with all of our chinese investigators at this time is the word of wisdom. All of them smoke and drink so we are trying really hard to focus on prayer and coming to church to help them with those temptations. This week we had another zone meeting and Sister Hanks and I were asked to do some training on Charity and Love. Those are my favourite topics to speak about! And I realized the other day that I gave my farewell talk on Charity. I think it has been one of the overwhelming themes of my mission. The best part of this week was Sarah's baptism!!!! She has been preparing for it for so long and it was amazing to see her progress! My last companion, Sister Muller, is home now, sent me what she wrote on her facebook. Here it is:

"Today is the start of a journey for me. I am going to be baptised. In undertaking this covenant with Heavenly Father I promise to live in his spirit and the character of Jesus Christ our saviour - knowing me I will need help with this bit! Lol. This will mean setting good intentions for the day, loving thy neighbour, helping, listening and caring. My journey starts today with my friends and loved ones at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I believe Heavenly Father has sent some wonderful people to help me on this journey whether you have hugged me when I lost faith, advised me in doctrine and helped me strengthen through trials please know I have so appreciated you Sandra Cirino Kate Taroni Kristina Gjoni Rachel Wicker AmieDenise Lewis Carol Robinson to name a few "

She is just amazing!! The baptism went PERFECTLY. There were loads of nonmembers and they all loved it. A couple of them were even crying during the service and the elders gave them Book of Mormons! It was so good. Sarah was absolutely glowing. I've never seen her so happy! Kristina was able to watch the baptism and it helped her to be more motivated for her own. Hopefully she will follow suit within the next couple of weeks. I'm so proud of Sarah and it's been such a joy to watch her on her journey!

Well, tonight is dodge night so we'll be having transfers on Wednesday! I will most likely be staying here in Coventry and will probably get a new companion. I'm a bit nervous but I'm sure it will be exactly what Heavenly Father has planned for me. Please send your prayers this way! I love you all and I'm so grateful for your love and support.

Love,

Sister Jensen

Full of Gratitude

Dear Family & Friends,

My heart is so full of gratitude today for the marvelous blessings that my Heavenly Father has given to me! Especially for my wonderful family. Mom, Dad, Jake, Kayla, and Brayden, you will never know how much each of you has influenced me in my life. I love you all SO much. 

It has been another fantastic week! 

Monday: P-day! We had a lesson with Dani in the evening. She is from London, about 22 years old and SO nice! It was a great lesson. 

Tuesday: Leadership council! It was such an amazing meeting. President shared with us some things that he learned from Elder Teixeira while he was here. We learned that sometimes we think investigators aren't progressing because they aren't "golden" but in reality it's just because they don't know how. We learned how to teach someone to pray and read our scriptures. We should give them an example of a personal prayer during one of our lessons for them to listen to because public prayers are different than personal. SO cool!!! After the meeting, we went on exchanges to Rugby. I stayed in Rugby with Sister Warner. We did a lot of finding and found some awesome people! It was just really good to get to know another sister and learn from her as well. 

Wednesday: Exchanged back in the afternoon and headed back to Coventry! We had a lesson with Dani. It was SO good. We decided to implement what we learned in leadership council and say a prayer. I said a personal prayer out loud. It was really weird to do it but the spirit was SO strong. Dani thanked me after and said that it helped a lot because the first time she tried to pray she didn't do it like that. SO COOL! After, we had a dinner appointment and then had a SECOND dinner appointment with our investigators, Sarah and Kristina. Haha. That was fun. We taught them after, and did the same thing with the prayers. It was AMAZING. The spirit was SO strong and I was crying and so was Kristina. It was so powerful. It made me realize how important it is that we say our personal prayers out loud as often as possible. 

Thursday: We had district meeting the morning. Elder Packer asked me to train on the 5 love languages and how they relate to missionary work. it was such a cool district meeting because Elder Packer asked 3 of us from the district to speak on things that we are passionate about and relate them to missionary work. One of the Elders in our district, Elder Unice is 24 years old, has a business back home and spoke about what makes a good salesman. Then, Elder Watt, who's 22, from Scotland talked about football, as he played semi-professional before his mission. We learned that if you want to "sell" something to someone, like the gospel, you need to be passionate, persisent, have knowledge about your subject and be confident. We did finding after that and taught Leevoy. We had a DA after and then came back for weekly planning. 

Friday: crazy day of lessons and finding! Sorry, running out of time to email.... haha so just imagine a fun-filled day of missionary work!

Saturday: In the morning all the women in the stake went to the church for brunch and then we all watched the women's conference. It was amazing!!!! Sarah came and absolutely loved it. We were all in tears. After that, we went to Nuneaton to help the sisters in their area. We did some finding with them and then all drove back to Coventry for General Conference at 5:00. We taught Edison before that the Gospel of Jesus Christ and he committed to be baptised on May 3rd! That was awesome. 

Sunday: We did a couple hours of finding in the morning then came home for lunch and then went to the chapel at 1:00 to watch conference till three. It was SO good again!!! We stayed at the chapel after that to watch the session from 5-7. 

Some insights/things I loved from Conference...

I LOVED elder Holland's talk. So true that people want smooth Gods- they want a god that won't rock the boat, if even row it. I'm so grateful for the opportunity to defend my faith. I know what it feels like to have people criticize you for your beliefs, tell you that you're brainwashed, that it's just a nice story, or a crutch. Some people are so angry at God for the things that have gone wrong in their lives and are so blind to the MANY things God has blessed them with. They deny the existence of a God because they don't want to accept the consequences of their decisions. They want to live their lives without responsibility... and then they wonder why they're unhappy. If there is anything that I know for certain it's that God does live! He blesses us immensely! Obedience to the commandments brings happiness in this life and eternal life in the world to come! There will always be consequences for our actions and responsibility. But only through consistent good decisions can we progress to become like our Heavenly Father and experience true and everlasting joy! The Gospel of Jesus Christ is more than just a good fable. It is truth and it will never change. It is a beautiful and perfect plan. I love it and I love that I can experience it alongside with some of the most wonderful people in all history! I love you all so much. Remember to defend your beliefs with courtesy and compassion- but defend them! 

LOVE YOU ALL!! 

Sister Jensen <3

One hour makes a difference!

Dear Family & Friends,

Well the clocks have moved forward and I am definitely feeling it! One hour can make such a difference!!! I'm sure it will catch up to me soon though. And it's General Conference weekend so that is something to look forward to. Well, this week has been a bit crazy! Here's the rundown...

Tuesday: We had a lesson with Artu in the morning. He's doing well! Still struggling with the language barrier but he is continuing to keep his committments so that is great! We had to leave straight after the appointment to drive to Nuneaton for an exchange. I stayed in Coventry with Sister Gardner. It went SO well. We did some finding during the day, taught a lesson and then had a Dinner appointment. We did some stop-bys and then taught Agus in the evening. We taught him the Restoration again- good thing because it appeared that he didn't really understand it the first time! haha.

Wednesday: We had to leave in the morning to pick up the sisters in Nuneaton and go to Zone Meeting at 10:30. It was such a great meeting. Sister Hanks and I did some training on the Restoration and how bearing testiomony using personal experiences can help our investigators desire to know. A member from the ward also gave some training as well as all the district leaders. After, we had an appointment that flogged so we did a bit of finding and then stopped by Sarah's house. It was great because her boys were home and we got to talk to them for a bit. They are pretty anti- everything religion and they really tried to rally Sarah up. Haha it kinda reminded me of growing up with two boys ;) She handled it well though and we all had a good laugh. We had ward coordination after that and then came home for dinner.

Thursday: we had a lesson with Artu in the morning and then had to drive again to another exchange. This one was in Peterborough. I stayed there with Sister Mackay. I had been to Peterborough the previous exchange and we had found a couple of cool people. One of them, was Alice who is from Portugal. The first time we met her on exchange, she came up to us and asked for our number, and said she had been taught by sisters in Portugal and wanted to be taught again. So I got to see her again, now a month and a half later! It was SO amazing. She is on a baptismal date for April 12th and it was such a powerful lesson. She bore her testimony to us and even started to cry. IT was amazing to see how much she has grown in such a short time!!! The exchange went really well though. It rained most of them time and we were FREEZING our butts off, (we were also on bikes, which i haven't done in ages!) haha but we laughed about it and made the most of it. Making a miserable situation into a fun one is something I have learned to do on my mission!

Friday: We exchanged back in the afternoon and then drove back to Coventry. It's about a 2 hour drive. We had a lesson with a new guy that Sister Gardner and I found on exchanges. His name is Edison! He is chinese and SOOO elect! We taught him about God, prayer, and baptism and he absolutely loved it. We invited to a baptism for the following day and he said he would come. We had to fill out our progress record online after that and then had a dinner appointment. We came back home for weekly planning and also had to make sugar cookies for Saturday's ward activity!

Saturday: We had a lesson with Sarah in the morning. She is so excited for her baptism and cannot wait. We had planned to teach Law of chastity, but she already knew all of it and said she was already living it! It was awesome. We had football after that and our investigator Leevoy came and loved it. We came home for lunch, then had a lesson with Artu. We got stopped by some christian guys of another faith and had a religious discussion for about 30 minutes. The first 2 guys that stopped us were really nice and genuinely just wanted to know what we believe. They asked us questions like, " Do you hold Joseph Smith and Jesus Christ in the same esteem?" and, "If you believe the Bible is true, how come you believe the Book of Mormon?" and, "You say you have a testimony of the Book of Mormon because of feelings you've had... so how do you know those feelings are from God and not the devil?" Haha. They had some really good questions! Thank goodness the spirit helped us answer them! The last guy that came and joined in the discussion wasn't so nice though. He claimed to be non-denominational and said that true christianity doesn't have a badge. Well, it's not the first time we've got comments like that! But it made me think that christianity isn't about a badge, that's true, but it's all about love, and tolerance, and accepting other's beliefs. If there's anywhere I feel that love it is in the church. Well, we had to hurry after that to the church to get prepared for a baptism. It was a great service. Afterward we had a ward party which was a quiz night. The missionaries all put it on so it was a little hectic getting everything prepared! It went well though. We had some investigators there and the members were able to do some fellowshipping. It was great.

Sunday: set the clocks forward! We were all pretty exhausted at church. It was a wonderful day though. In gospel principles we had a great lesson about organized religion & do we really need it? Sam, our teacher, always encourages a good group discussion and teaches on some topics that investigators might have questions about but are scared to bring up. We talked about all the pros and cons of organized religion. It was a wonderful lesson and would encourage you to think about it too! We had a dinner appointment after church, then did some finding andcame home for call-ins and companionship study.

I think the theme of the week is LOVE! The gospel of Jesus Christ is all centered around love. Because God loves us, he gave us his Son. Because our Saviour loves his Father and he loves us, he gave his life and atoned for our sins. Because we love God and Jesus Christ, we do our best to follow them and be obedient to the commandments so we all can live together forever with the ones we love!! The gospel is all about love :)

I love you all and I'm so grateful for your support!

Love,

Sister Jensen <3