Challenging but wonderful!

Dear Family & Friends,

Can you believe there's only 3 more of these? I can't! I'm sorry if I'm not as descriptive as I used to be in these emails! I will do my best :) If there's anything that I feel at this point more than anything, it's exhuastion!!! I'm not complaining, because I know it's what I should be feeling, but I just feel bad when I'm struggling during sunday school to stay awake!! Forgive me family if I sleep for a few days :)

This week has been challenging but wonderful as well. Monday after p-day was crazy. We were supposed to get a lift to a lesson with Amy from a member but the member called and cancelled on us about an hour before the appointment so we had to cut our pday short to bike there. It was in a little village called Pantside and if it wasn't for the hills, it would have only taken us about 20 minutes to get there but we had to get off our bikes and push for a lot of it. I know, we're whimps. It was worth it though because the lesson went great. Amy is the sweetest and we got a Return Appointment with her.  It was a short lesson, only 30 mintues because we had to bike to a LA's, Lynn, who was feeding us at 7:30 and that took us about an hour to get there. Again, not because it's super far, but because of the hills! We had dinner with Lynn and then read from the BOM with her.

Tuesday was great. I had my final Zone Meeting :'( and everyone sang happy birthday to me and gave me a card. We came home after and then did some finding. Some members called us and asked if we wanted to come out with them on splits to help them do their Visiting Teaching. So I went with one of the ladies and it was lovely. We taught Christy this week as well, she was the one who has a member friend. So her friend came to the lesson and we talked about God as our loving Heavenly Father and about prayer and the atonement. It was good. She is still hesitant to come to church but she wants to start coming to youth. We also got two new investigators, Susan and Martin! They are both Christian but Martin has been meeting with the JW's so we've gotta get him while we can! Ha. Just kidding :) He had SOOO many questions so we got an appointment with them for this week.

Heather is doing great! We taught her twice this week and she has such wonderful questions. We taught her the restoration and I think it helped to put everything together for her. We're hoping to commit her to a baptismal date this week and hopefully she can get baptised this transfer!! Please pray for Heather! :D

On Saturday we went to one of the little villages we haven't been to yet. It's super far away so not accessible by bikes. We got a lift there and then got a bus back. But it was such a ghost town! We were able to stop by some of the members there and one of them was a 92 year old woman called May Pavey. She is so lovely!! We sang her favourite hymn for her, which was How Great Thou Art. She tried her best to sing along but couldn't really. Then she offered to say a prayer and it was so beautiful. She just had so much gratitude to Heavenly Father for being a member of the gospel and she made us all cry! I hope I can be like that when i'm old and wrinkly :) We also stopped by a LA couple, the Probert's. They're in the 80's and haven't been to church in a long time. We had a good chat with them and talked about coming back to church. The husband, Harry isn't as interested as his wife is but he didn't say no! So We're going to go back and start re-teaching them which is HUGE. We called the Bishop and he was ecstatic to hear that. S

o at the moment we're doing our best with what we have! I love Wales though. It's so beautiful and the people are very friendly! I love the gospel! I love being a missionary! It is the best.  I really am enjoying my last few weeks. The Lord is truly blessing me and I just feel so at peace. Thank you all for your love and your prayers!

Love you so much!

Sister Jensen

The Davises and their son Phil

The District

Mike and Jean from Wales

Mike and Jean

Tiring Week with so much finding!

Dear Family and Friends,

      Well, it's been a very tiring week! But the Lord is blessing us. We've been doing so much finding, which in this area is just tracting. We've had a couple of miracles! Last week we tracted this street and we GQ-ed a kid called Jago. He wasn't interested at the time but we gave him a mormon.org card and invited him to check it out. Well, later this week, we got a headquarter referral with the name of Jago and he had requested a BOM. So, we went to the address, knocked the door and his Mum answers. She told us she was really busy and was about the close the door when we said we were looking for her son. Then she just opened up to us and was really nice and kept apologizing for turning us away. Haha. Well, she then called her son's phone and we got to talk to him. He told us to call him in a couple weeks after school finished then we could come by.

Well, we continued knocking in that area and we met a girl called Christy. She wasn't very interested at first but the more we got talking she started opening up and told her about a friend she has that's a mormon. She said she always seems happy so maybe it has something to do with her faith. Her friend lives only about 20 minutes away so we got a return appointment with Christy and she said she would call her friend to see if she wanted to come for the appt as well! Well, later in the week, we were talking with one of the members and he asked us if we had met a girl called Christy. We said yes, and he told us that his sister is her friend and that Christy had gotten in contact with her and she is planning to come to the appt! Talk about planting seeds and being a good example! :)

     Yesterday we were knocking around this little village called Pantside. We me a family on the way home who have two little kids and just got married about 10 weeks ago. They are super nice and said we could come back so we will be going round this evening.

     We're also working with a LA lady called Lynn. She is really bitter at the moment about some things that happened in the past with some of the members and she struggles to read and pray and come to church. We visited her this week and she is going to be really tough! But the good news is that she came to church this week and we'll be going to see her tonight as well.

     Saturday we were asked to come and present a little class about missionary work to the Young Women for their personal progress. Most of the YW in this ward are converts and the only members in their family! It's so different than what it's like in the states and it's so challenging for these girls. There were only three that showed up. Well, we stuck around afterwards for lunch and the YW president pulled us aside. She told us about some of these challenges these girls are facing and how horrible it has been for them. I definitely feel that the world is more wicked here than it is in Idaho/Utah, and it is becoming more and more apparent that these are the last days. My heart breaks for this girls and I feel we are here largely to help them and be an example to them. Many of them have never even seen Sister Missionaries before! It is heartbreaking to see where they are and all they have to go through and know that if they just kept the commandments they would be happy. But of course everyone has to go through their own learning experiences.

      In many of our interactions with people, we get the same question: If there is a God, why do all the bad things happen in the world? Wouldn't he stop it? It's frustrating because we hear that question probably twenty times every day and it's difficult to give someone an answer that will make sense in a short conversation. It seems that everyone wants the answers but not badly enough to get down on their knees in humility and ask God. No one can know of spiritual truths without prayer. I can feel the influence of the adversary more here than I have before in any of my previous areas. Satan has a great hold on the hearts of the people and it is always linked to pride. It is only when we're humble that we can learn. The thing that keeps me going is knowing that my hope and faith is centered on Jesus Christ. The end is near and everything that is unfair in life CAN be made right through the atonement. I feel very strongly that angels surround us and protect us every day and that this is the most important work any of us will every do! I plead with each of you to stand up and defend your beliefs. Stay in Lord's territory and stand up for truth. Be in the world but not of the world, because as soon as you step onto the devil's territory, you no longer have the spirit and you are under his influence. I testify that you will be protected and strengthened as you choose to do what's right and follow in the Saviour's footsteps.

    I love you all dearly and pray for you daily! All my love,

         Sister Jensen 

Sister Stapley

Wonderful people

Transfered to Wales!!

Dear Family & Friends, Wow, it has been a whirlwind of a week!!! I'm not really sure where to start!! Monday was the day of transfer dodge! So we mostly just did our emailing and shopping and got ready for the coming week. That evening we all had dinner with the missionaries and all the recent converts and investigators to say goodbye. During the dinner, everyone sang Happy Birthday to me and gave me a bouquet of flowers and a card. It was a great birthday surprise! We got a text from President during the dinner asking us to call him. So I went into the bathroom and called him and he thanked me and released me from my calling as a Sister Training Leader. So at this point I was pretty certain I would leave! We went home shortly after and got ready for bed. The dodge call came at 10:30.... I was going to Blackwood with Sister Stapley!!! So this means that we would be "pinkwashing" (we would replace a set of Elders). I was super excited! Blackwood is in Wales by the way, really near to Cardiff and Caerphilly. So Tuesday was full of saying goodbyes. It was very hard to say goodbye to many of the people there. I will miss each of them so much. Well, on Wednesday we got all ready to go and drove to the mission office for transfers. It was nice to see some familiar faces! I was fortunate enough to borrow a bike off of one of the sisters who will be a STL so that was good! After about an hour, I met up with my companion Sister Stapley (she just got released as a Sister Training Leader in Birmingham) and we got on the Coach to drive to Wales. It was about an hour and a half drive to Cardiff, where we got off and met up with the other set of Elders who are serving in Blackwood. They helped us with our bikes and luggage and we got on a train. It was about 20 minutes on the train to our stop. We talked to some girls on the train. The welsh accent is really different to the English and it took me some time to process what they were saying! Everything on the signs is in English and Welsh and I can't pronounce any of it. Haha. The welsh people are SO much friendlier as well! They just want to talk to us for ages. It's great! haha. So we got off the train, then had to get a bus. AFter the bus, it was a 20 minute walk to our flat. I felt so bad for one of the poor elders! He is a new missionary and he was carrying Sister Stapley's bag the whole time because one of her wheels broke off. Haha the poor Elder was just sweating the whole time! Luckily my bags have held up really well, so thanks Dad! Well we made it to the flat and just as we did a car pulled over and a lady got out. She told us her name was Sister Tamlyn and she asked if we needed any groceries. (Our Flat is right across the street from the grocery store). We said that we did and she was SO nice! She went and got us a few things to hold us over until P-day. Well, the Elders left and we explored our flat. They Elders had actually done a decent job getting it ready for us. Their cupboards were just full of loads of canned food haha so we were really grateful for Sister Tamlyn. Well at this point it was already 8:00 so we just took our dinner hour and tried to get settled in. Then it was Thursday! So my birthday! In the morning we got ready and did our personal study because we had to leave at 9 to make it to coordination at 10 at the chapel. Let me tell you, this is probably the HILLIEST area in the mission. The Elders warned us of it when we came and they were right. Blackwood is just a valley surrounded by massive hills and our area is all the neighboring villages that sit on top of the hills! haha. So the hill to the chapel is super long and steep. It took us about 45 minutes to get the the chapel from our house although it's probably only a mile and a half away. Well, we made it to coordination and it was with our stand-in WML, Ed. Apparently our real WML doesn't do his calling and doesn't often come to church. Well after that we had district meeting. In our district is us, the Blackwood Elders and the Caerphilly elders. They are all really nice. District meeting went well and then we had district Lunch. There is a small tesco express next to the chapel so we all walked over to get something to eat. After district meeting we decided to stop by our real WML. Just as we were biking in the drive, they were pulling out to leave somewhere and they invited us to have dinner with them on Friday. Well after that we went and taught they Elder's only investigator, Heather. She is in her mid 50's and has been to church a few times, and is just waiting for that confirmation before she gets baptised. She's really really nice though. The rest of the day was spent working around our area and getting to know it better. We did meet Amy and Garrith, brother and sister and got a return appointment with them. Friday was rain, rain, rain, all day long!!! We got caught in it on our bikes and we just got completely drenched! It wasn't the most productive day as we were trying to get places and severely underestimated how long it would take to get there! haha. Well the Dinner appointment went well with the Davies family. Saturday was a great day with so many miracles! We have been picking streets to knock and we picked a couple streets in a village called Newbridge. It was getting toward the end of the day, around 6:30 and we were both fasting. We were knocking this treet and a lady opened. She's probably in her early 20's. At first she didn't seem interested but as we testified about the nature of Heavenly Father, she started to open up and she asked us if we would like to come in! So we went in and started teaching her. She had so many questions. Not long after, her partner and 2 little girls came in as well. The girls belong to them but both from different relationships. So we taught them all together and they loved it! We taught them how to pray and we said a prayer with them and gave them a Book of Mormon. The lady, Jenna, said she loved it and had goosebumps the whole time we were there. We got her information and she said we could come back on Tuesday! It was such a miracle! Sister Stapley and I were just so excited. We had a massive hill to bike back up to get home but it didn't matter because we were so happy. Well, of course when you're doing the most good, you experience the most opposition, because just as we were biking up the hill, the thing that switches the gears on the chain of my bike completely broke off, making it impossible to bike. So we walked the rest of the way home! We met some cool people along the way though. It was so great and a testimony of how the Lord will bless you if you are willing, obedient and hard-working! The next day was Sunday. We walked to church and the members were all so welcoming! They are very excited to have Sisters in the ward as it has been a long time. I was again able to put my piano skills to use as well and that was a blessing. Heather came to church and loved it! The DAvies, the WML and his family asked us to come for dinner again so we went there after. After lunch as we were walking, we met a girl, Grace who is so sweet and interested in meeting with us! We made our way home, put our quads in the flat, and then did some more tracting. We came back in for dinner, call-ins and study. It has been a wonderful and tiring couple of days! My body is aching from the hills but it's all a reminder of how grateful I am to be serving here and for the miracles Heavenly Father has blessed us with. I am so mindful of his love and I feel it all around me up here in Wales. It's very different than serving in the city as we rarely see anyone out and about, but it's great becasue it almost feels like I'm camping! haha. I am really loving it and looking forward to this coming week. Oh, also an update on Coventry! Sister Bertha replaced me there and they have been doing great! Bryan and Edison are both on baptismal dates for July 26th, and John bore his testimony in sacrament meeting! Unfortunately I won't be able to go back for their baptisms because it's so far away but i'm just so happy for all of them and know they're in good care.I love you all so much and hope you're having a great week. Love, Sister Jensen