The Elders: Inspired by the Quarantine, The Office, and Surf's Up

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Running Out Subject Lines and Weeks

Happy blessed Monday! It's been another grand week! We have seen a ton of miracles this week and it's been probably one of the best weeks since quarantine began! Each week seems to be getting better and better and more and more possible for the Lord's work to move forward!

First off usually on Mondays we go to the other elder's place to do some laundry and in my morning run I was pondering on the thought of what we could do for a video! So we discussed it as a companionship and then with the other elders and filmed it last pday! It was pretty fun to make, never thought I'd be doing the silly little video editing I did for easy A high-school projects but here we are doing it once again to attempt to share the gospel! So it was pretty fun to make and kind of explains what missionaries do and how some of them are just a little special when they're being trained. It was a good time!

Also something they're now doing is like a page for each zone. It's something they've done for all the missions in the states so don't be surprised if you get invited to like "Church of Jesus Christ in___" basically these pages are run by the missionaries in the area and all the members are involved we try to post stuff that makes people comment and then we try to message them personally and set up a lesson. So pretty cool, what we've been doing still is just friending literally EVERYONE who has anything to do with Freeport (so if you look at my friends list these days you'll find a lot of interesting people haha) and then we message them. We got two new people this week from doing that who both live close by us!

Super cool miracle is we went to little Caesars one night (no surprises there) and this girl who was working there showed us a pass along card she kept from some past missionaries. She said she wanted to meet with us. We called her up and asked if her family was with her and now we found a whole new family to teach! And we got a member present lesson with them today with another family in the ward which is kind of how we're counting church right now! ALWAYS ask if there is anybody else in the house who want to listen haha. That's what the Nigerians taught us.

It's crazy that we're starting to find as many people in this quarantine as we were back during my days on the streets of the city! We've friended so many people that people in the grocery stores see us and say "Hey you guys friended me on Facebook! What are you doing?" Haha never thought it would be working this way but it is! Also stores are so depressing because every time we go shopping it feels like we're either in the middle of a world pandemic, or face masks are just some sort of gnarly new trend. I'm just going to pretend it's the latter.

Quarantine is interesting, but our companionship, zone, and mission have decided to show it who is boss. WE are the master of our attitudes, and so we decided we might as well have a good time! If not, then I'm afraid I haven't learned a thing on my mission. But I want to become a disciple, and these wonderful people around me are helping me do that. I am grateful for them!

Hope everyone has a blessed week and not a stressed week!

Elder Jensen 

Our ghetto balcony 

Little sneak peak of our video 

Morning miracle 

Pizza 

Legendary sunset 

Day 10283829 inside

God bless this week we had in quarantine! It was another legendary time with my boy Elder Young!

We have been doing what missionaries do in quarantine, calling a lot of members and doing a lot of video member lessons, calling a lot of people were teaching and doing people were teaching lessons over video, and of course friending every single person on FB who has anything to do with Freeport Illinois and messaging them!

One person named Albert on FB agreed to listen to what we taught and became a new person, and he also referred us to his niece who has a family so now we found a new family! The network still works even in quarantine! Gotta love it!

It snowed one morning so Elder Young and I after our morning run built a snowman which was pretty sick and then it broke and now it's already melted. The weather here never ceases to amaze me!

Sadly quarantine is pretty much the same thing every day so I don't have much more to add, but I'm happy, Elder Young is happy, and we're busy! I do hope this ends before I go home though so I can actually go to one church service in the Freeport ward 

Everyone have a great week!

Snow 

The emptiness of this place 

Comp unity 

Me trying to be like the wii fitness trainer 

FREEPORT

This place is sick. Even though I've been inside the whole time I love it here! Imagine the boonies of Indiana mixed with people of the Southside who got kicked out and sent here and that pretty much describes it. So it's pretty legendary! I'm excited for when we're able to actually go out and I have to say there is no place I'd rather finish my mission!

My new companion Elder Young is the man! He's a ton of fun! There is nobody I'd rather be in quarantine with. We have such a good time and are doing literally everything we can to make this area pop in the quarantine! We've been calling all the members and have been hitting the Facebook find grind like crazy. 

We've actually been able to get pretty busy and are now teaching about 6 lessons a day so that's been fun! Lots of member lessons but it's been good! The video call lessons are probably the best way to do member work. It's exactly what we're looking for in this mission, no fat dinner appointments with the members that are a waste, but fitting like 4 member lessons in the time we used to do just one.

Elder Young and I just laugh all day every day. Until 10:30 pm we're just dying haha. It's been a blast with him.

Our zone is super awesome! It's been awesome to be a zone leader here in the Rockford zone! We've been putting some heavy focus on accountability and staying structured during the quarantine, we've already seen a super good increase in our numbers here! Missionaries are starting to figure out how to rock this quarantine life and it is getting gnarly!

Hope everyone has an incredible week!

Elder Jensen 

Corona Conference

Well this has been an exciting transfer here in West Chicago YSA! Sadly since I'm dying sooner than expected this next transfer will be my last so I'm going to no longer be serving here in the office with Elder Anderson because he's dying too so it only makes sense to have one of us leave!

I'm getting transferred to the Rockford zone in an area called Freeport for my last transfer as a zone leader! I'm going to be companions with a younger missionary named Elder Young who was actually in this zone and is an ultra homie. We're going to be zone leaders together which I'm pumped for!! It's going to be a good time in the hood boonies! This area is as far west as the mission goes so it's literally like a 3 hour drive from the city and I'm going to feel like I've been banished haha! It's ok I've been in the outskirts of Indiana before and I loved it haha!

This last week was a really good one. It's crazy to see the impact the corona virus has on the world and on the mission. We were at a Walmart the other day and it actually felt like an apocalypse movie. Everyone wearing their masks, staying 6 feet apart from each other, and people freak out if you get too close! And... I'm a missionary during the "apocalypse" haha. It's super funny. I've always imagined myself during these movies and what I would do, and I would've never imagined I'd be preaching the nourishing good word of God! And yet this is a great time to be doing it because the people are starting to have these questions of the soul that only Hinduism, or the gospel of Jesus Christ can answer! (and let's just say I 100% would rather have them turn to the gospel of Jesus Christ)

This week we had to continue transfer plans, and transfer travel plans. It's been a lot of long meetings with President and the few senior missionaries at the office who were allowed to stay trying to get these plans figured out when missionaries are going home left and right and causing areas to close and human beings aren't to meet in places with too many people and especially not the church. So planning transfers has been a headache, but the deed is done and hopefully it'll go smoothly on Tuesday!

This week we also did our MLC over zoom which actually worked surprisingly well. We tried to figure out a bunch of new features one of the best being the ability to break out into groups for smaller councils between zones. It worked really well and we were able to set a baptismal goal for April even though we're not totally sure if we'll be able to have a baptismal service in April due to the virus. If not then may is going go be HUGE for this mission!

We also had a mission devotional over FB live and Elder Anderson and I got to give a training, which it does feel awfully weird to give a training to a camera rather than a group of missionaries, but we felt it went pretty well! I miss being able to give trainings in front of people though haha

Other than that we've just been living the life of the quarantine! Rocking the video calls and the attempts to find people on Facebook! One recent convert from the Southside found our phone number and called me and gave us a Nigerian referral who lives here in the west suburbs so we taught her over video which was fun haha. We've also been messaging some mutual friends of members on FB and we found a dude and taught him the restoration! Problem is he lives in Africa haha. So the work continues! And Africa is probably going to get a lot of media referrals!

Well that's about it for my week,the quarantine life is about to get a lot slower without the assistant stuff to do so that'll be an adjustment, but I'm excited to see where it goes! Have an awesome week!

Elder Jensen

Elder Draper - legend who helps with transfer

EXPOSED TO THE STASH 

Tennis on Pday -- courts are closed now :(

At the church for online Training

 

Corona Chaos Round 12000

This week was another crazy one! And oh boy is it a crazy time to be working with President Shumway! 

Because of the corona virus about 30 missionaries in our mission went home this week. And all this is happening right when we're planning transfers too so transfer plans are changing like every 5 seconds! It's been pretty wild! My entire MTC group went home so I'll be going home with a completely different group than I had ever imagined!

Elder Anderson and I drove some missionaries around who were transferring home, taking them to the stake center and the airport and stuff. Then like 6 areas closed so we drove their cars back to the office and had to drive separately so that was pretty interesting being without a companion for a little bit.

For most of the rest of the week it was just quarantine and video lessons! Pretty fun stuff that is about the same! Calling a lot of formers and any numbers of anybody we've ever contacted haha.

This week we're going to have our first ever zoom call MLC so that'll be cool! We're going to give a training at it and it's going to be sick!

Sorry to keep it short but quarantine life just doesn't leave much to explain about! Everyone have an amazing week!

Our calendar (besides video call lessons and mission training)

All the cars 

My HOMIES going home (sorry social distancing) 

Quarantine

This week it seems like we were continuing to learn more information every single day about how the corona virus would affect the mission, so it was pretty insane!

Tuesday we weren't in quarantine (yet) but we weren't allowed to knock doors, and the campus was closed, and we were pretty much in quarantine without actually being in it. Elder Anderson and I were planning a training that day for this week because we were having our zone conferences that we had to make smaller groups of 2 districts because we weren't allowed to do entire zones. So Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, we were traveling around the mission going to these meetings and giving a lot of Trainings which was super awesome.

Each day however they kept making it harder and harder for us to do these meetings! The first day we had a super cool program where we were able to meet together, and this seminary teacher in one of the wards came and taught, the 2nd day they said no more seminary teacher is allowed to come teach, and the 3rd day they said we couldn't meet in two districts any more, just one, so we had to split it up. Now we've still only hit half the mission and given our training like 10 times, and they won't even let us meet up as one district anymore! So I guess the rest will just have to be over technology.

So now we're quarantined officially, I'm happy we were at least able to go see half the mission. We stay in the apartment and do video lessons as much as we can, and then basically call everyone like 1000000 times, and then have legendarily long studies and planning sessions. It's been pretty crazy!

On Sunday we did come follow me as a YSA ward and we got to teach it! Pretty legendary having a lesson on Jacob 5-7. We did have this one girl named Natalie who we've been teaching over video just about every single day and she joined for the church lesson and was probably super confused haha. There isn't really the same fellowship with church over video as there is in person, but the members have been super down to join in tons of lessons! It's been super awesome!

Something really sad I learned this week is I'll have to return home 3 months early in May due to all the missions closing down around the world. I'm really bummed, but at least I'll have been able to serve 21 months and have many life changing experiences I'll never forget and am really grateful for. Stinking corona. :( 

Anyways there is going to be some huge changes in the mission with lots of missionaries going home and lots of missionaries from foreign missions coming out. It's going to be wild!!

Elder Jensen