What a wonderful week it sounds like you have been having! What a fun trip up to Island Park. Right now a dip in a river sounds like a great idea. Sam, I am so excited for you to get your patriarchal blessing. You are such an amazing kid and I am so grateful to have you as a brother. And of course, I loved that letter the other day. I hope you got mine.
Sometimes it's really hard being a missionary. I feel like my weaknesses are held under a magnifying glass. It's hard not to get really down with myself when there is so much I could be better at. Before coming out on my mission, I remember worrying about the trainer I would get. I really wanted to get a trainer who was really experienced and had been out a long time. God seems to have different plans many of the time. And now, here I am training someone at six weeks. It's hard not being able to talk about the gospel in the way that I would want, but in spite of all of my many weakness, God seems to pull it all together.
To fill our time, Sister Fenn and I put down less active members names and knock around them because we haven't received the "ok" yet from the bishop to visit them. This gives us some direction to go during our day. On Tuesday we had a less active written who lived in a complex that I had only been once before with Sister Toledo. I remember her telling me that she and her last companion had knocked around there, so I was searching where we needed to knock. I kept repeating to myself "Heavenly Father, where do we need to go, where should we go." I kept looking around the complex thinking where we could knock. Two apartment hallways caught my attention so I told Sister Fenn that we would knock around there. We headed for one of the hallways that I was thinking of. We walked over and right when we started into the hallway a man was carrying some things down from the upper floor of apartments. We asked him how he was doing and if he needed some help. He was hesitant of taking two nineteen and twenty year old gal's help. He said "oh, no, I'm fine." I've come to learn myself that you need to be a little pushy to know if someone really does want or need help. I said, "no really, we'll help you." He accepted and said how that would actually be really nice. Some of the managers had told him that he needed to be out at 12:00 which he hadn't realized and here it was 1:00. His expression told us what a crazy coincidence that we were helping him. We hardly helped him. He had already moved most everything into the other apartment in the same complex that he was moving into. He genuinely thanked us over and over for our help and we were just like, "no, really we hardly did anything." He went in to further detail that he was so grateful we came. He said that he was really bitter and was talking to God before we came. He said he had been moving since 7:00 am until the time we came and there had been no one around and then all of a sudden we showed up and asked to help him. It turns out he had been a minister and hadn't been to church for two years because of some things that happened. He and his girlfriend were living together and he just was saying how he knew it was wrong and that they were trying to figure it all out. We told him we would come back the next morning when his fiance was there and help them organize their things in their apartment. We ended up coming back the next morning and we started helping them but they wanted to talk more than anything. We shared with them the message of the restoration and a light and understanding of the message showed on their faces. We gave them a Book of Mormon and Sam (the fiance) and Daniel said they would do it. Sam was like, I really will. I don't just say something. They weren't able to come to church with us this Sunday, but Sister Fenn and I stopped by their place in the evening to check on them. Sam didn't have her ring on and she said that they were going to stop living together and get their lives right again. I was thinking, well that makes teaching the law of chastity so much easier. ;) It was such a miracle. They are so elect!!! My heart kind of breaks in the fact that I will most likely be transferred at the beginning of next month, but I hope and pray Sister Fenn will be able to teach them and get to see them baptized. I can't wait to meet with them again.
We have been given some service opportunities this week. One of them was told to us by our ward mission leader. He is in his pediatric dental residency and told us of one of his fellow classmates who was moving. She had such a terrible experience with her last movers and he told her that he could get some people to help her out. We, as a district, went over and moved her whole apartment out and then moved all of her things into her new one. She was so grateful and was asking us all of these questions about being missionaries and it was such a great opportunity. Her mom lived in upstate New York and just kept saying how impressed she's always been with the mormons and how service oriented they are. I've noticed one thing that many people say. You all are just so happy. Lorielle (the gal moving) told Sister Fenn this as she drove us over to her new apartment. She said every mormon she knew was always just sooo nice and so happy. I just want to be like, "It's because the gospel is true!!" We know how we can be happy in this life.
Well, family, thanks for all of your love and support. It is definitely needed and appreciated. I pray for you often and hope for your success in all you do. Give Claire some major loving from me and take her on a walk around the block ;) I sure miss that sometimes. Thanks for your wonderful thoughts and great examples!
xoxoox
Sister Jensen
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