Dallin H. Oaks Visits the Mission!!

This was another fantastic week on the Southside! I've been here almost 6 months and this place is like home to me! This week we had a lot of cool experiences.

Of course riding the bus past 8 brings a lot of crazies. We were riding the bus this week and this one lady was looking in her bag fumbling for her glasses and she says loudly "Ugh! I cannot see anything!" The dude next to her says, did you know that smoking Marijuana will improve your vision?" As the woman hears this miraculous fact of the century she exclaims, " Really!? Do you like Marijuana?" And the brother says, "Nah, I like cocaine.” No wonder his vision didn't have the super powers that weed provided to him. Gotta love the bus life.

We were given a bunch of Malta (Nigerian soda) as usual and so we were lugging it around with us until eventually we came to teach the King family. Before the lesson we dared this African American family to try it and let's just say they hated it haha. There's something beautiful about seeing someone’s face when they try Malta for the first time. 

We've had some pretty incredible lessons this week! There is nothing more incredible than having one of your recent converts be a member present in a lesson! There is one lady we found in the Lowe building a couple weeks ago from Nigeria named Renke who has come to church like 5 times now and she is so excited to be baptized! And she lives right next door to Darlene! So we've been teaching with Darlene and there is nothing more powerful than when members and missionaries teach together and find together! We were reading in the scriptures and Renke wanted to know how we are baptized by fire and Darlene taught all about confirmations and how much of a special experience it was for her! Renke got to see it in church the next day and came and told us she's super excited to be baptized!

We saw a miracle this week on Sunday morning. We had a member come to pick up a recent convert family and they had two extra seats in their car, so they were going to provide a ride for our friends Renke and Gabriel. Well, as the member was waiting outside one of the elevators broke down at the perfect moment which makes the delay time from 5 minutes to about 15, and the member had to leave. Renke only lives on floor 3 so she was able to take the stairs, and make it, but Gabriel lives on floor 22. So they had to leave and Gabriel was on his way down but was trapped on the elevator and we were frantically trying to think of how we could get him a ride to church when the ride that was prepared had to leave.

We had our bikes but weren't exactly sure how to get him there on just 2 bikes. We called the new senior sisters in the ward and they just happened to be driving right by the building with one of the returning member recent converts we'd been working with. They rolled up right at the time the elevator finally came down and we all hopped in their car and went to church. It was chaotic but we all rolled into church right on time. Gabriel saw the confirmations and asked me about it and then told me he wants to get baptized. MIRACLES!!! 

After church yesterday we had to jet to Naperville because President Dallin H. Oaks the legend was visiting the Illinois Chicago Mission! Super awesome! He’s like my favorite apostle and I love reading his talks because he always throws down and states the doctrine like Jacob from the Book of Mormon and I love it. He shook every missionary’s hand, and then spoke to the entire mission with his wife, and Elder S. Gifford Nielsen of the 70 who was here a few months ago. President Oaks went to University of Chicago in Hyde Park and lived in Naperville for a little while! So that's pretty cool! There is definitely power that comes from being in the presence of an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ! It was seriously one of the greatest experiences! 

Everybody pray for the Rotimi family, Gabriel and Renke! their baptism should be coming up in the next few weeks! It's going to be a Nigerian Christmas/Baptism! Everyone stay blessed and have an incredible week! 

Elder Jensen 

Bus Stops and Bike Tires

This has been another fantastic week in little Nigeria/Southside! You know, sometimes I feel like Ammon going to preach to the Lamanites. We're preaching on the streets to "wild and hardened and ferocious people" (Alma17:14) (oh, except for the Nigerians) and we love every second of it! I've been asked several times to marry the Africans daughters, (Alma17:24) and instead we always just offer to be their servants, because we're not just trying to get married just yet.

We had lots of Nigerian food this week, and yesterday we had two Nigerian meals in a row. I was about to throw up, but hey now they want "Pastor Jensen" to bless their child that's about to come, and they said they want to name their baby "Jensen Oluwaseun Rotimi." Wouldn't be the first time I've had to bless a baby haha. 

Elder Levanger has been able to try many different types of new food including Moi Moi (which is basically like a fish loaf), cow leg (literally straight fat no meat), and Jollof rice – that stuff is  10/10. He doesn't enjoy it, but my boy can put it down so much better than my last companion haha. 

We've seen some more amazing miracles this week! We had 10 people come to church again and we now have 10 people on baptismal date for December! Yesterday at church one man we brought, named Gabriel, pulled me aside and said "Brother, I have decided I want to start attending this church regularly." Super awesome! The two families we've been teaching are doing really well. Our ward mission leader Brother Pope had the Rotimi Family and the King family over to his house for lunch yesterday along with some other families from the other companionships and it was super great for them all to friend each other. 

The weather at the beginning of the week was FREEZING! But we began to see better weather so we hit the bikes again for the past few days. I love riding bikes a lot more than the bus because it's kinda like running and I love running! It’s been a blast, at least until Sunday morning haha. We rode to the Lowe building to go knock on several individuals’ doors to get them awake and so that they could get themselves ready for church.

We woke a lot of them up but a few of the people we were going to ride the bus with ended up canceling so we were just going to take the bikes to the church, but we came out and Elder Levanger had a flat. So we rushed to catch the bus because I knew it would take like a solid hour to figure out how to fix it and we got to church late but luckily all of our people there had already been once so they knew where to go and what to do. Still got the sacrament! 

For some reason we always seem to miss our bus and we have to wait like 15 minutes so it's super shady when everyone sees these two white dudes on the Southside just booking it and running as fast as we can, but hey promise we're not stealing anything we're just servants of the lord trying to catch our bus! 

Also on Saturday night riding our bikes home we got little Caesars pizza on the way home and rode with a pizza on our handlebars. It worked! Most legendary form of pizza transportation I've ever seen! Except the pizza was a little cold but hey whatever works! 

We had stake MCM this week with the Stake President and the Mission President and the Chicago stake is looking like we're about to see some miracles drop by in December! We are all so excited! 

Other than that this week has been the usual, loving life and surviving the cold! I love this place! The lord has definitely taught me a lot about patience and waiting on bus stops and bike tires. Good thing I have an awesome companion who is an awesome example to me! 

Everyone have and awesome week! 

Also Dallin H. Oaks is coming this next week so this is going to be sick. God bless Chicago! 

Elder Jensen 

Talk to Everyone

This week was SO LEGENDARY! Miracles baby, tons of them. I literally have been thanking God so hard it's unreal. After having a frustrating Sunday last week and having nobody answer their phone, yet having two people miraculously show up, we were able to put one of those people on date and she's super solid.

This week we were able to get two families we're teaching to church and a few individuals as well! We had 10 people come to church and we were so happy! It was crazy chaotic but we're super pumped because one of these Nigerian families is pretty solid and said they are going to start coming to this church every week, we just need to now put them on date for baptism! It was super legendary. This Sunday was also the primary program so it was a perfect time for a lot of people to come to church for the first time. 

Another crazy, cool miracle…we had an appointment on Wednesday morning before district council in our favorite massive building, so we went there at 9:00 am. As we were riding up the elevator to visit the individual we had scheduled we started talking to this young adult girl named Unique who was clearly pretty bummed. She said her roommate had the key to her apartment so she had to wait out in the hallway until her roommate came in like 4 hours.

Although we were on our way to an appointment, we decided to not let souls perish in unbelief by being swift, so we offered to keep her company for the first 15 minutes of her long wait and teach her a lesson. She let us, and we all sat on the floor outside her apartment. We taught her the restoration and she was pretty interested in the Book of Mormon. We left her with the Book of Mormon and went to go and visit our other friend we had previously scheduled and he flaked on us.

That Saturday we had another lesson with Unique and invited her to church and she committed to come! She came to church and one of the ward missionaries sat by her the entire time and even took her home and now they're homies. That Sunday we put her on date for baptism and she loves everything. And we literally found her less than a week ago. TALK TO EVERYONE!! The elect are everywhere it is so awesome! The lord took us to that building at 9:00 AM on a Wednesday morning for a reason and it wasn't the way we planned it to be, it was even better. 

Something really fun we did this week was hit the bus with two people from the Lowe building to get to church. We all made it on time and they really enjoyed church. It was awesome even though I was stressed out of my mind because these bus schedules can be super wacky. If we can get enough people on the bus with us, we can just turn the Chicago public transportation bus into a church bus! That is the goal haha. Tender mercies of losing the car is 2 of our people came because they rode the bus with us. 

So this week it just actually got heckin cold, please pray for us because it's currently 10 degrees and feels like - 6 degrees and I accidentally just barely wore crocs to go to laundry and crocs and Ice are not a good combo so I can't believe I'm alive but I am. Waiting by the bus stops has been a lot of fun in the freezing cold haha. Like holy smokes. I got prideful because I survived - 50 last year but I'm going to die haha. Winter is freezing. 

Other than that the week has been pretty usual, we had new missionary training which I always enjoy because they provide lunch which is better than the usual weak sandwich and granola bars I eat, and we get to have the new missionaries practice contacting us which is a ton of fun. I love to pull the Jesus is black card on them every single time. (Can you blame me, it gets pulled on me every day). 

I also went on exchanges with another brand new missionary in the district named Elder Heffner and he's a straight homie. So that made it pretty legendary! 

Other than that that's about it! Hope everyone has an amazing week! Also I took a bunch of pics with my comp this week because I got like zero last week, sorry, everyone meet Elder Levanger, he's a good man! It’s mostly just me and my comp, me and Elder Heffner, and our brother Gabriel who came to church and loved it so much that he wanted to take pics with everyone. 47st Street. This place is God's chosen land.

Bike Life

This week has been absolutely insane! Pretty much the exact same as two transfers ago when I started training Elder Bodily. On Tuesday we rolled into transfers, I almost shed a tear saying goodbye to my last companion and then walked into the room with all the new missionaries. Our lovely vehicle coordinator walked up to me and said, "Hey Elder Jensen! Hope everything is amazing! By the way, since I took your driving privileges last month, I'm also taking your car." Oh Elder Kuhns, what a lovely vehicle coordinator, who I will never forget.

So I get a new companion, his name is Elder Levanger and he's from Las Vegas, Nevada and actually comes from a decently humble part of it. So his home ward, he said, is very similar to this one and is quite diverse. He's also been on splits with the missionaries there, to the sketchy apartments, so nothing is really very new for him. But now that we learned we were a bike area I took the car that was supposed to not be mine and illegally drive it, still logged into my tiwi, and went to Aurora to get my old bike, and then we drove all the way back to Chicago, still with the car. So turns out the car was being given to the elders who are in the area right above us. There is a new zone leader there who is going to be my ZL partner and he's taking it. So for the first 2 days Elder Levanger and I may have illegally driven the car until we had to rush to MLC on Thursday and then we lost our baby. 

So we're now a bike area I guess. We've been riding around on bikes and stuff and it's been super fun! It’s also super cold, but if you bundle up it's not bad. If it snows it is kinda bad. Because its winter time the mission also hooked us up with some bus passes. So we've been doing a little bit of a mix based on the weather. It's actually a ton of fun, however I don't know a thing about the bus and I'm pretty sure I've messed us up like 12 times. But there are so many homies on the bus and it's an amazing contacting opportunity. It's seriously so easy to talk to these people. They have nowhere to go, nothing to do, and all they can do is sit and listen. And they actually really like talking to you if you are asking questions about them! People love talking about themselves! Who knew! 

So the craziness of this week though really was because we had transfers and had to drive to Naperville, then two days later we had MLC and had to drive to Naperville (suburb about an hour west of Chicago) and then the day after that the zone leaders get to plan for a combined district council or like a zone meeting to talk about MLC stuff. So we had like gnarly meetings this week and I was on exchanges with Elder Shupe for like 2 of the days this week. So I love life, but my poor companion hasn't really seen regular proselyting days yet. 

We had some cool miracles this week. Yesterday morning I was getting really frustrated with all those were teaching. They seem to disappear on Sunday mornings and nobody answers their calls. I was starting to get angry and then realized I needed to be more patient. South Side has taught me a lot of patience due to many of the people who don't really keep commitments. So my new companion and I said a prayer, asked the lord to soften our hearts, and then promised him we'd move forward and find the elect.

Miraculously two people showed up to church out of nowhere, one is a friend of one of the recent convert Nigerian families we baptized, and it was her 2nd time at church. Another one was a former who appeared out of nowhere and wants to meet again. CRAZY! The lord blesses us. Also it was sick because Darlene gave me a Mega shout out in Sunday school and then the Nigerian lady came to me and asked if we could put our number in her phone so we could come back and teach her. Super sick, super probably elect, but sadly also super busy. It's OK we'll get her. Then on Sunday night we got in with this Nigerian family. We hadn't met the father yet and we were super happy to finally meet him and he committed to come to church next week, and is super interested in learning more. Pray for the Rotimi family! They could be the next elect family! 

This week while reading in Ether and also Preach My Gospel, I've really been learning and studying a lot about personal revelation. The lord wants to help us, but he also wants us to remember Him. Having seen so many miracles and success here already, incredibly even a missionary like me has seemed to forget His power. Never forget! Remember the goodness of God! This church is true!!!! Everyone have an awesome week and stay warm. 

Elder Jensen  

Ambulance Speed Wheelchairs

This was a gnarly last week of the transfer, and I'm stoked to say we got our calls and I'll be staying here in Englewood for another one! This will be my first 6 month area and I'll be getting another new missionary and training again while staying zone leader. (Now I'll get to do 12 week for the 3rd time. This time it's going to be way easier though because there will be an English zone and a Spanish zone so the other zone leader will be way close and we'll be able to be a lot more accountable than when it was just one massive zone that was twice the size of all the others. Good ol Elder Bodily has now graduated 12 week and will be heading to Chicago YSA!! (The glorious area of my beginning). It's going to be an awesome transfer though and I'm way excited!

So right after P-Day last week we went to go teach those who we had scheduled and we saw a glorious sight. On the South Side I'm pretty sure people don't understand the purpose for crosswalks because they literally just don't use them, and they're always standing right in the middle of the road or walking across the street without even looking. Like I have almost hit so many people, but luckily I have avoided it.

So anyway, there was this lady in one of those electric wheelchairs (you see a lot of those too) and she was moving along in her little wheelchair right in the middle of the road instead of using this miraculous creation we call sidewalks. Suddenly we hear a siren (what else is new) but this time it was an ambulance and it was right behind her and she was still just speeding along as fast as that little chair could take her, and the ambulance honked so loud haha. She finally got on the side enough for them to pass her and she flipped it off and was cursing the ambulance. And then she proceeded to ask us for a quarter. Now that is what I call a celestial spirit right there haha.

We had our legendary event for October in the Hyde Park ward this week. This time they did a haunted house which is the biggest event that the ward does. They always need all hands on deck and the ward mission leader requests that all the missionaries in the ward help. It was way fun, and the YSA elders including my old comp Elder Dodson came to help as well because they had some people coming. Elder Dodson, Noble, and I were in the "art room" and so it was a room that was covered in black paper and splattered with some glow paint and black lights, and then all of us wore black morph suits that had the glow paint all over them as well. It was way cool we'd try to blend into the wall and scare people. So it was probably one of the more interesting ways of proselyting but like 1400 people came and 100 families signed up requesting that they wanted a new church home and would be willing to have missionaries visit, and 3 of the families we are teaching came as well. It was a ton of fun!

We also had a legendary zone conference that was super rad and Elder Vargas and I only had to give a roleplay of how to contact normally and naturally so you know we pretended to contact hood families playing basketball, but of course some of the Spanish missionaries were part of our role play so we were slightly contacting a African and African American and Mexican family. The zone conference was way awesome though!

I was able to have my first “call the police” moment this week in the middle of the night! It sounded like there was a drunk husband who was abusing his wife at our neighbors so we called the police and they came and we went back to bed. We live in Hispanic nation and still something pretty wild! Glad it got all figured out though, Chicago Police dudes are jacked.

Everyone have an awesome week, until next time! 

Elder Jensen 

Double Exchanges

This week was another great one! We had two exchanges this week, one with the assistants and one so that our district leader could go with Elder Bodily. 

Exchanges with the AP's was fire. Elder Van Tassell, my old companion, came here with me and we were reliving the good memories. We stopped by several recent converts that we had baptized while we were here together and we definitely got fed two large dinner meals before 10:00 AM. I don't know why Nigerians eat dinner food for breakfast. It was way fun though we couldn't stop laughing (but our stomachs were in pain) every time they offered more. I almost threw up that day haha. It was a super fun and busy day! Elder Bodily went to the Spanish area again because of the complications with the split zone leaders, and of course he got roasted that day because he couldn't speak Spanish. 

Our other exchange was awesome too, Elder Bodily stayed here and I went to South Shore with a missionary named Elder Noble who is an ultra homie. While we were there we went into another Nigerian building kind of like the one that we have and found like 5 potential new people. We also had a miracle because I had contacted this one lady named Kemmy before who lived in their area, but the address I had received wasn't right and she ended up falling through the cracks. As we were walking out of the building I saw her and recognized her. She remembered me and told me I had a good memory. It was a miracle to catch her again and this time we got her information so those missionaries can go and see her again. 

Many of our recent converts had the awesome opportunity to go to the temple this week for the first time to do baptisms for the dead. Some of our friends including: Chukwudi, Segun and his wife, Darlene, and all the converts of the other missionaries. Darlene was especially excited to tell us all about the temple the next day at church. She had an awesome experience and is excited to go again. Many of the recent converts were able to baptize each other and be witnesses and they absolutely loved it. 

The fall is officially here! It was wild actually on Thursday morning it was still pretty warm like 60 degrees but mid-day it quickly dropped to 40. The next morning I decided to go running because I wasn't ready to give up outside exercise yet and now I'm brutally sick and can't do any exercise so to all those paying attention don't go running in the cold it's a poor idea. 

Last off the Nigerian couple we eat with every Sunday said we were able to have another set of elders over so we invited the ones who are in the South Shore area of our ward and they made us enough food for an army. Four of us and we still had to pound like crazy. It was so fun haha. 

That’s about it for this week, a picture is worth a thousand words so I'll just send some of those. 

Elder Jensen 

The Memories

Good morning everyone! This was a great and fantastic week. To start off we went to MLC this week which was super awesome which meant that I got to go with superior master other zone leader, Elder Vargas, who is my hero and who is slowly teaching me how to sing the Phineas and Ferb theme song in Spanish (don't worry I'll get it eventually) so that was a blast. It's pretty cool because Elder Vargas and I and the STL's in the Chicago zone were all in the same district back in Naperville so it's pretty cool and Elder Dodson was there too so we had to take an OG district Pic.

It was also sick to see my homies, Elders Bell and Howe, from the MTC. Exactly one year ago we were at new missionary training together and now we were all at the MLC! Pretty fun stuff! So, after MLC Elder Vargas and I went back to his area in Espanol nation and we planned for our training in the zone meeting the next day and we really struggled because we get distracted pretty easily and by like 10:25 we were somehow having a Waterbender Vs Earthbender battle and then we realized we had to get to bed so much of the training was planned through sleep talk and the next morning... But the deed was done! 

We had a pretty cool musical fireside that the missionaries were invited to go to and it was sick because I got to see my old companion Elder Dodson again and he brought one of the investigators good old Jarius Groves (stage name J-groove) to the fireside! I was teaching Jarius when I was being trained last year and it sounds like he's doing well and is preparing for baptism this month! So it was a really fun event.

So as you all know this weekend was general conference! I made a goal this year to stay awake the entire time (something that I've literally never been able to do in my entire life) and I failed my goal miserably and feel asleep at least during one talk in every session! I only have one more conference in my mission and it sounds like President Nelson was hyping it up so I WILL stay awake the entire time during this one. It is possible. Conference was bomb though, we watched one session with Darlene and she was diggin it: "Oh, President Nelson, how I love that man! His voice is just so soothing, I could listen to him all day!" So that was pretty fun. The rest of the sessions we just watched at the church and brought some people to watch it there with us. 

On Sunday Darlene got her patriarchal blessing and she was so excited to share the experience with us. She said the three most powerful experiences in her life were when we gave her the blessing of healing and she walked, when I confirmed her a member of the church, and when she got her patriarchal blessing. "It's amazing! It’s like your voice isn't you anymore! And I feel something; it starts from my head and goes down my body! This feeling of warmth and peace! The first time I was scared because I didn't know what it was! But now I know it's the spirit!" She's literally the best. We took her to a lesson with us last night and she has the most powerful testimony. She is definitely is one of the coolest recent converts of all time. 

Well I don't have a whole lot more to add this week, but hope everyone is amazing! 

Elder Jensen