Another Week Gone

Dear Family & Friends, Wow, another week gone! It's been such a great week. Monday after P-day, we got to visit a less active family, The Kamara's. The mom has cancer and is recovering at the moment so it's very difficult for her to make it to church on a Sunday. But it was wonderful being in their home and feeling their spirit. They are from Africa and have the cutest boy and girl. They made us laugh until we were crying and we were also able to have a great spiritual thought with them. We will see them again this week and invite them to read the Book of Mormon together as a family. Tuesday was zone conference! My last one... :( We had to leave quite early so we could give the Elders a ride and we made it there by about 9:30. It was SO great. President did some training on how we need to accept and even seek for correction from the Lord so we can improve. It was a great meeting. I was also asked to give my departing testimony with about 8 other missionaries who will go home this week or next transfer. Sister Hanks was there too! We sat next to each other, and cried as we thought back on the last 16 1/2 months. It was a very surreal moment! I remember exactly a year ago at the same Zone Conference when my trainer, Sister Lewis, was giving her testimony and preparing to go home. Well, after the conference we went on exchanges. I went to DeMontfort with Sister Bournemann. She is from Denmark and is so nice. We were on bikes and let me tell you, it felts SOOOO good to be on a bike again!! Haha. I felt like I was flying. We taught some lessons that evening and then did finding the next day. It was a really good exchange. We exchanged back around three and then came back and taught a lesson to this new guy called Jason. He is from china and is seriously SO nice! We taught him with one of the chinese RC's CC. She was perfect. He committed to church and even said he would like to bring his girlfriend, Joanna. Then we had ward coordination and discussed the preparations that would be needed for the baptism on Friday. (Some sad news, unfortunately Steve just wasn't ready to be baptised so he didn't make his date. But we will continue teaching him and hopefully see him progress!) Well, Thursday was a crazy day! We saw Tyler at ten and taught him. Then we met one of the senior sisters in the ward at her allottment to help her out. It was so fun doing some gardening! Haha. Then we ran and grabbed a bite to eat from Subway and went to help our recent convert John to paint his new flat. We did that for about an hour and then went to pick up Poppy (a RC) to go teaching with us. We then went to teach Amy at the chapel! Amy is the cute girl that we met last transfer. She has been home in China but made it back this week. She brought us back little gifts, one of which is my surname, painted in beautiful letters. We taught her the gospel of Jesus Christ. She loved it and remembered how we had taught her that she is a daughter of God last time. She said she needs more time before she commits to a date but I know we will get there. After that, we came home for dinner then went to teach Bryan! Bryan is doing SO well!!! He is really starting to understand the restoration and he is becoming one of my favourite people to teach. He committed to a date for July 26th and i really think he will make it. In the lesson he even referred to the church, as "our" church! So we are really excited for him. He texted us later on in the week and said that he had been reading the Book of Mormon and he can feel it transforming him. Wow! It's so cool when someone with a really strong christian background, who reveres the Bible, is humble enough to put Moroni's promise to the test. It strengthens my testimony of the Book of Mormon and the power that it has to change our hearts. Well, Friday was a crazy day as we did our weekly planning and made all the preparations for the baptism and the activity afterwards. We were in charge of putting together another hot pot night so we had to find all the pots from investigators and RC's and get the food for it. We prepped everything around 5:00 pm and the baptism started at 6:30. I was asked to sing a song, "I Feel My Saviour's Love". Haha, afterwards, Irene, one of the RC's showed me the recording that she had made on her phone. Haha. Maybe I can get her to send it to you. The baptism went really well. Three people were baptised and there was a good turnout from the ward.We also had 3 of our investigators show up and stay for the activity after. Saturday morning was football and it was raining! But we decided to stick it out and we were glad we did because some of our investigator's ended up coming and we all had a great time. We came back for lunch then we got a text from our former investigator, Kristina saying that she still had one of the baptismal dresses and we could come get it if we wanted. So we went by and the poor girl was super stressed, preparing for her final exams. We offered to clean her house and we did while she studied. Then Sarah Fox showed up and we all had a chat! There's been this documentary that showed her a couple nights ago called, "Meet the Mormons" and there's been a big hype about that. So they were asking us questions about it and we were trying our best to answer them. The documentary was focused on a missionary and what it's like. It wasn't done by the church and apparently it was pretty rubbish from what we've heard from the members. They told us that they really dramatized the home-sickness, and didn't even show any teaching or baptisms. Ha. So that's been a fun one to deal with. Luckly, our RC's and investigators have handled it well and it's opening more doors for us! Just a testimony that when you try to kick the church, you always kick it upstairs! Someone even approached the Elders in city centre the other day and told them how much more he respects them after watching the film. Well, Saturday night we came in a bit early as Sister Gardner and I have been experiencing some weird stomach issues. Ha. Possibly a mild case of stomach flu/food poisoning. BUT! Don't worry Mum!!! It's not bad. :) And Sister Rasmussen is taking good care of us! Sunday was a wonderful day! Jason brought his girlfriend to church and they both loved it! We had a dinner appointment with the Bishop's family after church and then had a lesson with Tyler. He is still really struggling but we're just happy he agrees to meet with us. We came in for dinner afterwards and to do call-ins and comp study. It was a great week! And this week should be exciting as well. We'll get the dodge call tonight so we're all pretty excited/nervous to see what will happen. Well, I hope you all have a fantastic week and that you enjoy celebrating the 4th of July! I will be wearing red white and blue! Love you all so much XXX Sister Jensen