Hey all readers of Sister Jensen's Blog!
Don't be afraid to post uplifting comments on all of these posts! After McCall's mission, she will have this whole Blog printed. If you had any special thoughts come up while reading don't be afraid to share! Remember to keep sending letters as well! :)
Friday, July 26, 2013
Tuesday, July 23, 2013
Hello my dear mother (and everyone else who reads these emails)!!
Thank you for the wonderful email! I'm glad to hear you and dad were able to have such a good date night! That sounds like a blast! Our mission president and wife said they've had a date night every week they've been married and they are required to take one as mission presidents too. Babysitting over the years has made me think I want to go on dates with my husband when I'm married :) I think that's important. So it's good to hear you had a great time! Keep me posted on Mitch and medical schools! An interview with Pittsburgh? Is that one of his top choices? There are a LOT of residency students in our ward. So many young families. It's fun and loud in church ;) The hardest rule for me as a missionary is not holding kids. Especially when our ward is full of them! There are a lot of very educated people around here. When we knock on Haile plantation the stickers on people's cars are all Duke, Stanford, etc. Talking to a lot of these people makes me want to have a good education behind me.
Well it's Tuesday and transfer calls were last night. It wasn't too much of a surprise for me because I knew I would be staying in the Gainesville 3rd ward training. It turns out that Sister Atkinson (also has been here only 6 weeks) will be training. She's in the second ward and so we do a lot with those sisters. Sister Toledo will be transferred to Normandy which is apparently in Jacksonville. She's opening this area which means sisters have not been there yet. We had a picnic with the zone today for Elder Sutner who is leaving and I got talking to Sister Call. She unfortunately is leaving Gainesville :( I sure love that Sister. She was telling me how shocked they were to hear that Sister Toledo and another sister are opening that particular area. They didn't think they would send sisters into an area like that because it's really ghetto and scary. She said she was talking to an Elder who had served there and he said the other week there was a shooting in a restaurant he had just been in. Yikes. I didn't tell Sister Toledo about that. She'll be great though.
I'm sorry I keep having you send me more things, however, the mission president has asked all of us to ask our parents to send us a book. It's called The Power of the Everyday Missionary by Elder Clayton Christensen. So if you can send that I would very much appreciate it. Thanks!
Well it sounds like everything is going well! I hope so anyway. If it wasn't, I would hope you would write and tell me. I don't like being out of the loop.
Can I just say that I a lot can happen in a week. We went to visit Georgia and she had told us previously how her family was against the idea of her being baptized, but she just said, "it's my life. I can do what I want." Unfortunately, her family worked on her enough for her to tell us she does not want to get baptized. That was pretty devastating. However, on the bright side, we have been teaching a 24 year old gal named Kaylyn. She is married so thankfully we don't have to hand her over to the YSA sisters to teach! YES! ;) She's been reading in the Book of Mormon and I pray that she will continue to progress. We set a baptism date with her for the tenth and she was able to attend church for the first two meetings this last Sunday. It was great to get her there. We'll see how everything works out!
It's still been rain, rain, rain! Even the locals comment on how much rain we've had. The other day we were talking to three guys outside of their house and then it started pouring rain. I had my umbrella so I got it out. It literally was raining so hard it was raining through my umbrella. When we were driving home it felt like we were in a car wash and that's with the window wipers going at full speed. Thank goodness for Crocs. That's all I've got to say.
I love you all! Keep the letters coming! I love hearing from all of you!
Sister Jensen
Thursday, July 11, 2013
Monday, July 8, 2013
Dear family,
Hello, hello! Thank you for all of your letters and love!! It really lifts my spirits to hear from all of you, so THANKS! (not that my spirits are low). This week has been hard trying to find people to teach. We knock on doors and try to talk to as many people as we can, but it's a struggle for me to navigate quickly and simply to the gospel like it says in preach my gospel--or at least in a way that is meaningful and invites the spirit. I'm working to be better at that. It's hard though! Missions are hard! But one thing that I've learned is to be patient with myself and I'm working on being more humble. I don't think I've ever noticed so many weaknesses of my own than I have out here in the past weeks. It's the refiners fire I tell you. I am very happy though, despite our lack of progressing investigators. How blessed we have been though! I had my first baptism this last Saturday! James! He is 25ish? I didn't find him but have taught him weekly with Sister Toledo. I think I talked about him in previous emails, but I've never met someone so prepared for the gospel. We gave him the lesson on the word of wisdom and he was telling us how he's used to his cup of coffee in the mornings but he would give it up. He was telling us how he used to drink alcohol pretty often and he would tell himself, "okay, I'm going on a cleanse for a few weeks" or something like that, and then a friend would be in town and any self-restraint that he had was gone and they'd go out for drinks. He had a really good old time friend in town the week before his baptism. He said his mom called him saying, you must have had a really good time with Taylor and went out for some drinks. He was so proud to tell her (and us), that they had a great time but he had the self control not to drink. He takes pages and pages of notes on everything (the lessons we teach him, sacrament meetings, people talking to him, etc)! He wants to be as prepared as he can. He's really amazing. His baptism was wonderful and he asked Sister Toledo and I to sing. I was thinking, uh, James!? Are you SURE!? ha! We dragged the other Sisters from the other ward into it. He was so touched that people from the ward came to support him. He said he didn't think anyone would be there. What a blessing. He also received the priesthood yesterday.
Mom, thanks so much for the package!! We can open packages any day and I actually got it last Monday after emails. It was so great! THANK YOU!! The shirt, the NUTELLA, stickers, my favorite Utah mints, pudding, and everything was amazing. I hope ya'll (let's just embrace the fact that I'm a Southern girl) had a great 4th of July! We.... knocked doors and got POURED on! The rain has been crazy this week. We were tracting in Haile Plantation again--the wealthy area again. It's a really big area. Sometimes the rain is a blessing. A man opened the door and said he was jewish but was sympathetic to two Sisters with umbrellas going from door to door in the rain and invited us in. His wife was there so we accepted the offer. They weren't interested in our message. She was Catholic so we just talked to them. A beautiful house with the view of the golf course right in their backyard. We got to know them and talked about our church. We asked if we could share a thought and they allowed us to after getting to know us. Sister Toledo shared something and then I talked about the pioneers and Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. I got a little bit emotional talking about Joseph Smith and his sacrifice to restore the gospel. I talked about how I knew the Book of Mormon was true. The spirit was so strong. We knelt down in prayer and prayed at the end. They accepted a Book of Mormon and we asked them to read and pray about it. They said they would! The wife even said: "I'm really interested to read this." They weren't really wanting discussions, but I hope they will read it and call us. It was a tender mercy for us.
Well, I'm going on too long here, so I'll end, but I just wanted to say what a remarkable time this is for missionary work!! President Craig is fabulous to answer your question mom. We met him at our Zone meeting and he is a really, really hard worker I can tell. I'm thrilled for the future. We will be getting Ipads within a year and tracting will turn to a thing of the past. Anyway, a quote that he shared that is by Elder Perry said this about the huge increase of missionaries:
"This is a most remarkable era of the church. It is rivaled by only three other events in this dispensation; the first vision, coming of the Book of Mormon and the receiving of the priesthood by all worthy males."
What a statement! It is truly incredible. I can't wait to see what the future holds. I was reading the Ensign this month about Modern Pioneers by President Monson. It made me ponder on the words of my patriarchal blessing saying I am basically a pioneer in this day and age. He defined pioneer in the talk as someone preparing the way for someone else to follow. I thought to myself: who am I preparing the way for?The answer came in a flood to my very soul. I (as well as thousand of other missionaries and members sharing the gospel) are preparing the way for the second coming of our savior Jesus Christ. I know with all of my heart this statement is true. This gospel is true. It really, really is. If you just experiment upon the word, The Book of Mormon and pray to know for yourself, the Lord will testify of its truth again and again and again.
Love you all! It sounds like you're having a wonderful summer! Mom, I haven't got the Amazon package yet (it's probably in the mail today or something) but I can take it to the UPS store next Pday or I'll just give it to someone. And to answer your question, the other sisters are in the Gainesville 2nd ward and they live out of our Gainesville 3rd ward area.
xoxoxo
Sister Jensen
Hello, hello! Thank you for all of your letters and love!! It really lifts my spirits to hear from all of you, so THANKS! (not that my spirits are low). This week has been hard trying to find people to teach. We knock on doors and try to talk to as many people as we can, but it's a struggle for me to navigate quickly and simply to the gospel like it says in preach my gospel--or at least in a way that is meaningful and invites the spirit. I'm working to be better at that. It's hard though! Missions are hard! But one thing that I've learned is to be patient with myself and I'm working on being more humble. I don't think I've ever noticed so many weaknesses of my own than I have out here in the past weeks. It's the refiners fire I tell you. I am very happy though, despite our lack of progressing investigators. How blessed we have been though! I had my first baptism this last Saturday! James! He is 25ish? I didn't find him but have taught him weekly with Sister Toledo. I think I talked about him in previous emails, but I've never met someone so prepared for the gospel. We gave him the lesson on the word of wisdom and he was telling us how he's used to his cup of coffee in the mornings but he would give it up. He was telling us how he used to drink alcohol pretty often and he would tell himself, "okay, I'm going on a cleanse for a few weeks" or something like that, and then a friend would be in town and any self-restraint that he had was gone and they'd go out for drinks. He had a really good old time friend in town the week before his baptism. He said his mom called him saying, you must have had a really good time with Taylor and went out for some drinks. He was so proud to tell her (and us), that they had a great time but he had the self control not to drink. He takes pages and pages of notes on everything (the lessons we teach him, sacrament meetings, people talking to him, etc)! He wants to be as prepared as he can. He's really amazing. His baptism was wonderful and he asked Sister Toledo and I to sing. I was thinking, uh, James!? Are you SURE!? ha! We dragged the other Sisters from the other ward into it. He was so touched that people from the ward came to support him. He said he didn't think anyone would be there. What a blessing. He also received the priesthood yesterday.
Mom, thanks so much for the package!! We can open packages any day and I actually got it last Monday after emails. It was so great! THANK YOU!! The shirt, the NUTELLA, stickers, my favorite Utah mints, pudding, and everything was amazing. I hope ya'll (let's just embrace the fact that I'm a Southern girl) had a great 4th of July! We.... knocked doors and got POURED on! The rain has been crazy this week. We were tracting in Haile Plantation again--the wealthy area again. It's a really big area. Sometimes the rain is a blessing. A man opened the door and said he was jewish but was sympathetic to two Sisters with umbrellas going from door to door in the rain and invited us in. His wife was there so we accepted the offer. They weren't interested in our message. She was Catholic so we just talked to them. A beautiful house with the view of the golf course right in their backyard. We got to know them and talked about our church. We asked if we could share a thought and they allowed us to after getting to know us. Sister Toledo shared something and then I talked about the pioneers and Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. I got a little bit emotional talking about Joseph Smith and his sacrifice to restore the gospel. I talked about how I knew the Book of Mormon was true. The spirit was so strong. We knelt down in prayer and prayed at the end. They accepted a Book of Mormon and we asked them to read and pray about it. They said they would! The wife even said: "I'm really interested to read this." They weren't really wanting discussions, but I hope they will read it and call us. It was a tender mercy for us.
Well, I'm going on too long here, so I'll end, but I just wanted to say what a remarkable time this is for missionary work!! President Craig is fabulous to answer your question mom. We met him at our Zone meeting and he is a really, really hard worker I can tell. I'm thrilled for the future. We will be getting Ipads within a year and tracting will turn to a thing of the past. Anyway, a quote that he shared that is by Elder Perry said this about the huge increase of missionaries:
"This is a most remarkable era of the church. It is rivaled by only three other events in this dispensation; the first vision, coming of the Book of Mormon and the receiving of the priesthood by all worthy males."
What a statement! It is truly incredible. I can't wait to see what the future holds. I was reading the Ensign this month about Modern Pioneers by President Monson. It made me ponder on the words of my patriarchal blessing saying I am basically a pioneer in this day and age. He defined pioneer in the talk as someone preparing the way for someone else to follow. I thought to myself: who am I preparing the way for?The answer came in a flood to my very soul. I (as well as thousand of other missionaries and members sharing the gospel) are preparing the way for the second coming of our savior Jesus Christ. I know with all of my heart this statement is true. This gospel is true. It really, really is. If you just experiment upon the word, The Book of Mormon and pray to know for yourself, the Lord will testify of its truth again and again and again.
Love you all! It sounds like you're having a wonderful summer! Mom, I haven't got the Amazon package yet (it's probably in the mail today or something) but I can take it to the UPS store next Pday or I'll just give it to someone. And to answer your question, the other sisters are in the Gainesville 2nd ward and they live out of our Gainesville 3rd ward area.
xoxoxo
Sister Jensen
Thursday, July 4, 2013
Week Four! July 3, 2013
"Hello Mother :),
I sure love you! You are so amazing. Thanks for keeping me posted on everything. You may think that I may not be interested in all of the little things, but really that's what I love to hear about! Adam Buck is a DEACON!!? That seriously blows my mind. And that sounds like a lot of fun for their family to go backpacking. Speaking of the Allreds, one of the zone leaders who always comes to my district meetings every week (Elder Sutner) was Nic's companion at one time. When I said I was from Ogden he was like, "do you know Nic Allred?! he's the best!"
It sounds like you have a great summer ahead of you! That is some hot heat for June! But, nothing we're not experiencing here! The temperature can easily be in the 100s here. Thank goodness for a car with AC! I feel bad for those on bikes. I think last time I told you Gainesville is the 11th hottest city in the country? It's actually the 7th according to some of the other sisters. Greeeeaaat ;) The humidity doesn't help with the heat much either. Island Park will be such a blast! That is the hard part about being on a mission during the summer time, you miss all of these great activities! BUT it's all good :) Samuel Russell Jensen!!!! You need to write me and at least say hello!! :) After all, I'm not going to see you for three years! Bear Lake sounds like it will be a blast! You'll have to tell me how that goes.
Yes, we got a new mission president whom I haven't met yet! Zone conference is this Friday and I think we will meet them there? President Barry and Sister Barry were so amazing though. Even though I only got to meet them in person a few times, we would do conference calls every Friday with groups of missionaries. They are two amazing people. I know President and Sister Craig will be phenomenal as well. You should attach the picture the Barry's sent you to go on the blog because I never saw it and would love it on the blog.
Well, not much happened this week. We are really needing to find some good investigators. I can't believe this is going to be my fourth week! Sister Toledo and I have a bet on if I'll be training or not next transfer. I say I'm not and she says I am. I get Olive Garden and HiChews if I'm not training and I owe her McDonalds and Haagen Daz if I am. The odds are not looking too good for me because there are so many new missionaries coming out. But seriously, I feel so lost. Oh boy... if I'm training!
We got a ward mission leader last week (we didn't have one before that). He's going to be really great I can tell. The hard thing is that he is brand new into the ward so he doesn't know anyone. You know how I said we don't really get meals from members that often? He is wanting us to have meals with members every night to get to know them. As great as that is, that scares me that I'm going to gain so much weight.
Well, I love you and can't wait to hear back from you! Also, I don't know how much shipping is, but I never brought the missionary library book list. True to the Faith, Our Search For Happiness, etc. in deseret book they have them cheap apparently? And a good story from our ancestors would be great.
Love you all!!
Sister Jensen"
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