Signing Off...

This grand last week of mission life was one to remember for sure!

We had our usual busy quarantine life of lots of video lessons and FB finding! It was a good time.

Super cool experience we had this last transfer was finding a family in a miraculous way due to quarantine. I think I already shared this, but we were at a little Caesars and contacted a teenage girl working there. We always contact workers and Little Caesars because it's incredibly easy because I can relate to them from having worked there. We ended up calling this girl and got her family to join us. Yesterday during our lesson with this family we taught the plan of salvation (over video) and some members joined us for the call. During the closing prayer the mom started crying because she wanted to know what happened to her friend that had passed away. It was a glorious thing to be able to teach them about the spirit world and the fact that all people will have the chance to either accept or reject the Savior’s gospel. This family accepted a baptismal invite when quarantine is over at the end of the lesson. It was awesome!! 

I never thought I'd be finishing off my mission in the middle of a virus and I never thought I'd be finishing it 3 months early. There is one thought I did have though! That I would remember my mission by how I finished it! So we finished strong! And that's how I feel! GREAT! It’s been some legendary years and some experiences I've had I would never give up for anything!

Honestly my heart is very full at this time! I thank God for each day he's allowed me to live and to serve him. I have a lot I feel I'd like to say but cannot express over typing and email. I'll try my best. 

The Lord reveals himself to us in many ways, but one way he has revealed his existence to me is through spiritually defining experiences. I have had so many on the mission. I've also had several before my mission. Time and time again when turning to my father in heaven for an answer he's turned me back to experiences I've already had. I have a testimony that the spirit really does bring things to our remembrance. I have a testimony of miracles. I know the Lord's hand is involved in this great work. I know he calls every missionary to where they are supposed to be at. I'm grateful for the relationships I've created out here. I've created some lifelong friends. The gospel of Jesus Christ can make those friendships last even longer than life and I'm extremely grateful for that.

In this church we take so many things for granted! Bits of truth and knowledge that people are missing. We don't understand we take it for granted until we see the gratitude in the eyes of those who have been looking for this their entire life. I have seen this in my mission and it makes my heart burst with joy for what I have. I know that Jesus Christ was sent here to teach us and be the example of how to return home. I know that his atoning sacrifice was the greatest act of love from our father in heaven, and that through it we can be forgiven of our sins through repentance and resurrected from our mortal body. 

I am filled with hope because of Him! I'm grateful for my family, I'm grateful for their example. They display many attributes of the Savior and teach me how to become more like him. I'm grateful for the chance to have served with this divine calling. It is unlike any other and has changed my life. I have a lot more to say, but you know me I'm not really a big typer or writer. Give me a call and maybe I'll be able to share just a small percentage of how I feel! 

Well after Wednesday it'll just be Jared but until then, with love and appreciation, 

- Elder Jensen 

Pictures 

Elder Young’s birthday!

Made almost the entire zone call to sing to him!

A sneak peak of our newest video... Stay tuned 

Elder Young and I were attempting to make one of those spy movie torture scenes haha

District pics 

Blessings

Another Blessed week of missionary work! I will have to keep it short this week because it seems like every day is kinda starting to be the same thing -- wake up, go running, eat breakfast, study, find and teach all day, go to sleep. (Sometimes challenge Elder Young to a game of Jenga before we go to bed. This man is so good!)

We had a major blessing this week; we're now allowed to hold district councils in person! We just need to keep social distancing and it's limited to a group of ten, but that's about the biggest a district will get! We're not supposed to shake hands or hug or anything but every time I see my Spanish boy Elder Vargas I have to say I'd rather die than not give him a hug haha, I should probably repent but hey, he's my boy!

We sneakily contacted a guy in a grocery store and got his phone number so that was pretty sickkkk!

We are just blessed to see another day, another week, another year, and just blessed! This is my last full week to hit the work hard! So we decided to set some extra lofty goals! I AM EXCITED!

Elder Jensen

Sorry for all my jumping pics, it's like the coolest pose I can think of these days! Also check out this sick barn!! 

Meeting Other People in Real Life! YES!

This was yet another legendary week! I mean how can it not be when you're with the legendary Elder Young?! Seriously this guy is the best, I'm pretty sure we discovered this week that we're related somehow through Polygamy somewhere down the path so that's pretty funny! No wonder he's like a brother to me! We love jamming to David Archuleta's new song "I will go and do," what a good one!! (I'm sorry though because in a few weeks it could very well turn into "I can only imagine by David Guetta") but for now this one will be the song haha 

Since we are still living the dream life as much as a missionary could in quarantine, we had our zone conference over zoom this week. It was a good time, President and Sister Shumway would probably be translated if they didn't have so many foolish missionaries constantly dragging them down haha. They taught us some valuable lessons about revelation etc. It was a good time! Then Elder Young and I got to give our training which was one of those hype up Trainings that's like "come on we got this let's have some exceedingly great faith!" Anyways we talked a lot about how we gotta do all we can in our valuable time we have as missionaries and how the Lord loves our efforts! And President liked our training so we got to give it again to the entire mission over a zoom call later in the week! It was super cool!! We used to do stuff like that when I was in the office so that was fun to do it here again in Freeport!

Also this week we got permission and were able to set up this service project for our zone at this food Bank in Rockford! So it was the first time I've actually met pretty much everyone from the zone in person haha. It was so legendary!! We had to wear masks which again I don't get what's all the hype with the masks these days but everyone is still wearing them! I've never actually seen a trend that's so intense to the point that they make you wear them just to go out in public?! They must be a pretty big deal or something! Anyways our zone is probably the coolest zone I've ever served in. I don't think I've ever had this much love for a group of missionaries in my mission. They are so faithful! Some legendary friends for sure!! 

So usually we hit up the church to do some Facebook messaging. This week we hit the grind hard and found 5 new people to teach through it. It's been pretty sick! Anyways we were there one day and a member came and was like, "Hey Elders so I went to KFC and 'accidentally' got too much so here are two full meals for you." Well, so much for 3 weeks to sexy finish strong and fit Elder Jensen super program! So in sadness and pain we began to eat this fast food when another member calls and says:

"Hello, it is my birthday and I want to celebrate it by dropping off a treat to you." Well rest in peace our fitness super program because this so called "treat" was stinking McDonald's!! So we had KFC and McDonald's and my very arteries were clogged as we went home that night to some healthy crockpot chicken we had prepared which now became left overs haha. These members are so fun lol but I think sometimes we gotta avoid them for the sake of remaining healthy. Freeport members are a whole bunch of fun though it's crazy that I'll have served in this area and probably will finish without ever officially meeting them. 

Anyways I'm going to close this one off because I'm about to get my hair cut done by the missionary who knows how to do it and got permission from Pres to be the "travel haircut guy" (because everywhere is closed) hey my people I'm going to hop off that plane with a President Nelson haircut probably so that'll be an adventure! Stay blessed this fine week!! 

Elder Jensen 

The Hood in the Middle of No Where

This week was another pretty good one!

I got my departing interview with President done which was pretty cool! It's pretty weird to be hearing President the entire mission be hyping you up to be on your mission and find the elect and work diligently and then go into this last interview and he now is hyping you up to go home and your like "no please I don't want to!" haha. It went well and it was pretty much what I had expected - are you going to keep reading your scriptures, praying, being a disciple? If I talk to you in 5 years will you still be doing it! ABSOLUTELY! that's some good stuff right there I gotta keep with me!

We continued to hit the Facebook grind and found some more new people which was sick! How cool is it that we can still teach people without never meeting them in person! "you live in Freeport, I live in Freeport, even though it might look I'm from Utah I'm not in Utah I promise."

There was one guy this week though who said he wanted a physical copy so we went and dropped on off to him. We're allowed to drop them off if they want one but just not go inside. So it was pretty cool to see a person we are teaching face to face. And even better - he lived on the east side of Freeport which we learned is the hood of Freeport! There were surprisingly a ton of abandoned houses and we were like the only white people outside! It felt like I was in Englewood again! God bless the Southside sounds like a lot of the homies left and found themselves here in the exact same situation as they were there haha.

Had some legendary lessons this week, getting some member involvement over video call and it's been awesome! I can't wait for these people to be able to meet each other in person!

Elder Young is like my favorite person on this planet I love this dude he's such a homie and we have such a good time. He's the type of homie that when we go to bed we're always just talking and laughing and telling each other stories and it's such a blast. Being in quarantine with one person creates the life long homies!

Hope everyone has an incredible week!

Elder Jensen

Member present Sunday lesson!

My boy Elder Vargas 

Inspired question - uninspired answer

Famous crockpot recipes 

Card tower 

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

Click HERE to see the Elders new video: The Elders!! (https://youtu.be/lWPEo3e6Nus)

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