Nigerian Spice With a Side of Baptisms

This week was just as miraculous if not more miraculous than last week. 

For those of you don't know me, I am paranoid. Especially the week before baptisms. I legit have seen too many people fall away in that last week before a baptism. It is a stressful week. But it all worked out this week! 

We had one of our last lessons with Darlene the day before her baptism, and she was just sitting in front of the window when we walked in, saying that she was "reflecting on her spiritual journey." She told us some personal things that she had been struggling with, including anorexia and depression. She had come from 350 pounds to 100 in like a year and every time she looked in the mirror she said she saw her 350 pound self. Every time we'd meet with her we'd check her fridge and convince her to eat more and more. On Saturday at her baptism she came up out of the water crying and said "I'm free." She gave Brother Clarke one of her main fellow shippers who was baptizing her a huge hug.

We came back the next day after her confirmation and talked with her and she wrote her testimony down which she is so excited to share in church next week and also she wrote and page that talks about how she'd been free from bondage. She said now she looks in the mirror and says "that girl needs a full course meal!" She told us how the gospel had taken her out of a haze and a disorder she didn't know she was in. Every single lesson the first 10 min are: "I'm just so grateful my 3 elders showed me this amazing gospel...." haha you get the point. If there is anyone who I've been able to teach on my mission who understands the gospel and has changed MY life, it's her. Also she met a new friend at church and they're starting to get a little flirty haha. 

Our first lesson after she was baptized she started doing the "I'm grateful" rang and somehow mentioned how John the beloved died peacefully, so naturally we had to show her doctrine and covenants 7 and the end of John where it mentions he doesn't die until Christ comes, and talk about the 3 Nephites... "Oh my goodness there is so much I still don't know! I can't wait to read it all!" She probably has the greatest study ability of anyone I've ever met. 

With Martins we found him on the elevator at the building that we're always in. Said hello in Yoruba their language, he was so hyped that we spoke some of his language, and he was at church that next week and loved it. The dude was also super prepared and absolutely loves going to church! it was a miracle because there was a Nigerian man named Ibukun who got baptized just a little under a year ago and he leads the music every Sunday, and martins recognized him when he came to church. Turns out they grew up together in Nigeria and it was the first time they'd seen each other in years and they both just happened to be at Chicago. Ibukun was able to baptize Martins and it was probably the greatest thing of all time. He dunked him forwards, put his hand to his back halfway through the prayer, and said amen as he was raising him out of the water instead of before he went into the water haha. But the ordinance was done, the prayer was correct, and Martins was immersed. 

Before the baptism I reminded the ward mission leader that it might be good to remind everyone to not film, but it was literally like right before the baptism. So as soon as martins got in the water, his friend Kudi (who were also teaching) got up and started filming it *sigh/facepalm*

After the confirmation, Kudi was on it again haha! So it's possible that Martins posted confirmation pics on FB he was so hyped haha. 

With so many Nigerians at church it definitely makes it a very unique ward! But I love it so much. Lots of simple things that wouldn't be done in a regular Utah ward. One came up to give a talk and said a prayer before his talk, one sang a song and all the Nigerians in the congregation clapped after haha. Utah bishops would flip out. It's OK were slowly getting there. 

Had some of our friends come to church, one of my fav homies is named Kenny, every time you'll ask him how his day was he says, "I am too blessed to be stressed!" Basically it’s the coolest motto of all time. 

Last of all I think we had a wild experience; we were blessed to find another Nigerian family in our favorite building. Pretty devout to their church but from my experience if you can get them in the church at least once they are in -- maybe because it's true or something. But they had us over and were cooking so what do they do? Offer the food! And what do we do? We accept! (Glad my companion is learning haha) but they made these mashed potatoes with what they call Jamaican peppers. I have had plenty of soups with these peppers and they are extremely hot, but this "porridge" was loaded with them. It's hard to smile and say you loved their food when legit you're sweating more than when you play basketball on Mondays. Dead serious. It was obvious haha. So much sweat. From eating peppers. But we ate it all and it was actually super delicious besides the fact that I was on fire! 

I think that's about it for us! It’s been a legendary week and I cannot wait for another one! hope everybody has an amazing week! 

Elder Jensen 

Well, It's Been a Year!

This week has been amazing, phenomenal, and full of miracles and funny moments!

We had an amazing miracle as we were teaching Darlene this week. She has been using a crutch for the last 5 years and was especially in quite a lot of pain one of the times we saw her this past week because of the weather and how it affected her arthritis. She had told us she didn't want us to come by since she was in a lot of pain but she felt the need to have us over. Well that day we had just happened to be teaching her about the priesthood and what it means and so we explained blessings and asked if she would like a blessing of healing. She accepted and so Elder Bodily anointed her with the oil and I gave her a blessing.

During the blessing she gasped and was shaking a little bit so in my head I was like (oh please no don't tell me my hands are too heavy or something, cause I thought they were super light!) Well, after the blessing she looked at us, stood up and grabbed my arm without her crutch and said "let's walk." So she walked out the door and down the hallway holding on to my arm saying "oh wow! It doesn't hurt anymore! Oh wow!" We came back and sat down and she said, "can I do it again?" So this time she grabs Elder Bodily's arm and walks down the hallway and at the very end he says "alright I'm going to let go!" and he let go and she walked on her own for the first time in 5 years. I was standing there at the end of the hallway and she burst into tears and gave me a hug. She was sobbing as she whispered "thank you."

I was shocked and amazed to witness a miracle performed by the priesthood that Elder Bodily and I hold. What a blessing to be able to experience. We made sure to have her write down the experience in her journal so she could always remember it! Finally on this Saturday the Hyde Park ward will be holding a baptismal service and she'll be able to make a covenant with God that she's been waiting to make.

Another absolutely hilarious experience (horrifying for my comp, funny for me), we went to our good friend Martins’ house. Martins is a Nigerian man and is on date for the 24th as well. He was cooking some food when we walked in, so naturally I went and asked about the food that he was making and what it was and he says in his booming voice: "may I offer you some food!" Of course I say yes, because that is what you must do. He made us a plate of fried yam and stew (an extremely spicy stew that was spicy sauce and very rubbery fatty beef) and I began to eat. Now I cannot say that I like Nigerian food, but it's not really hard for me to eat it anymore. I'm able to pound it now.

He turns to Elder Bodily and says: "It is for you too! Go and eat your food!" Poor Elder Bodily did not heed my warnings and said, "No thank you." If I could face palm that is exactly what I would do. Martins turned to him slowly and fiercely and said with his voice raising every syllable: "You do not accept my food? WHAT DO YOU THINK I'M TRYING TO DO POISON YOU?! YOU ALWAYS ACCEPT FOOD WHEN WE OFFER YOU! IF NOT YOU ARE AN EVIL SPIRIT! YOU DO NOT SAY NO!" Elder Bodily was absolutely horrified. I was trying so hard to hide my laughter so naturally I started to film. So Elder Bodily started eating the yam. Yam basically just tastes like tough potatoes. He's like "this isn't that bad!" Ding dong, didn't even touch the stew yet. I eat all the spicy sauce, and a whole piece of beef and point to the other one and say to him "that one is yours." He refused. So I ate all the fat on the beef for him. And then I told him that was all I was doing for him.

Martins at this point says, "he will not always be there to eat your food! You must finish it or I will not be baptized on the 24th!" Of course he was messing with him, but that made him finish up the food really fast haha. I will probably never stop making fun of him for this and I thought I was the picky eater. It's OK, when salvation is on the line I'll literally eat anything.

This week was the ONE YEAR! I just happened to go on exchanges with Elder Bell, my MTC buddy on that day. He burned a shirt, I decided I'd keep mine for wearing haha. We went into our journals and read the entry from our first day in the mission. It was pretty funny I cannot lie. We went ham  and he told me it might be a good time to broaden our horizons and start trying to find people outside the one building we have because we've just about talked to everyone in there. So we decided to start doing the hood contacting. We walk around the streets on the Southside and see all these families who are just chilling on their porch. They'll pretty much always let you teach them, but very often you'll never see them again so it's a risk. But it's been really fun. A lot more dangerous areas and a lot of people are like "oh don't go that way there was a shooting just like 2 hours ago" and we are like” thank yo, do you want a message from God” And it's pretty gnarly! So we had a lot of fun and probably was the unhealthiest day of my life since we had a lot of Oreos.

Last off a couple nights ago we were in our fav building stopping by with a few more people to end the night and we stopped by this one dude we were teaching named Tayo. As we were talking to him we hear a loud "BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM" I'm like "why are people doing fireworks in the building?" But also this building has a butt load of crazies, Nigerians and then a bunch of hood drug dealers who all love us. So anyways we get on the elevator to go to our car and it was stopping like every floor and everyone was getting on looking severely stressed. We discovered from the conversation that there had been a shooting right in front of the building just barely and everyone was going to see what had happened and if their cars / friends were all OK. There was a drive by and definitely some cars got shot and someone was shot and most likely killed. Cops were everywhere instantly. It sufficeth me to say we dipped from the scene haha. We always park on the side so our car was OK but it was insane! The next day everyone had acted like nothing had happened. #southside

The cool thing is we literally never feel scared. But don't worry we're not stupid haha. These terrible things happening are signs of even more people being prepared for the gospel. There are so many prepared people in this sad place. It's hell for everyone who lives here, but it's missionary heaven. 

Well, last night we had some more Nigerian food and my comp got wrecked again and I ate tons of Nigerian food. It was pretty funky not going to lie. Tons of fish and I hate fish (I'm still winning the bet against Broden Lund) but the lord is my strength and I ate it all. My companion luckily got an Americanized Nigerian so she let him take it to go haha.

I LOVE THIS PLACE! I hope everyone has an amazing week and is doing well! Have a good one!

Elder Jensen 

 Elder Bell

Darlene

Benjamin and Febisola 

The Greenie in the City

Oh my goodness this week has been super crazy busy. It started legendary with last pday, our main man Elder English (who is actually a Spanish speaking missionary) was about to go home so we had to go hit the beach for an early morning sunrise. It was sick. We had a super tight district and I absolutely love being here with my brothers. We definitely had a drink that may have had caffeine and I was going nuts again. Ultra hype. Then we stopped by pretty much everyone so Elder Van Tassell could say goodbye to everyone. He will definitely be missed. All these Nigerians might protest against the mission office haha.

Also Elder Van Tassell and I needed a haircut super bad so we were like "yo any of you missionaries down?" None of them had a haircutting kit! So we decided to stop by one of those little hole in the wall places to get a haircut. Anyways she cuts my hair and lets me see it and is like "how does it look?" It literally looked like I had a chocolate brick on my head. So I was like "yeah could you maybe go a little rounder and shorten it a bit?" Wrong thing to say. She literally cut my hair so short that I officially looked like buzz lightyear. Not good haha. The first thing my new comp sees is Elder Buzz racing to meet him literally with hype from infinity and beyond. 

The real craziness started on Tuesday with transfers. We went out west to Naperville (old area baby) and I was literally able to drive though these gnarly Indian neighborhoods I used to knock haha. They had a big council for all the trainers to discuss the needs for those we will be training, etc. They then introduced us to the new missionaries! Thank goodness I got a total stud named Elder Bodily! I can only imagine the amazing missionary he is going to become! He's way bold, talks to everyone he comes in contact which I love cause I was not good at that at the beginning.

So that began our adventures of having meetings just about every day this week. New missionary/trainer meeting on Tuesday, district council on Wednesday, MLC was on Thursday, and we had a big meeting on Friday as a whole zone because president Shumway is making some changes and he left the zone leaders in charge of it. It was a stressful week haha. Being a zone leader and trainer at the same time is wild. 

So MLC was sick. President Shumway is an amazing mission president and he is making some inspired changes! It's been super exciting to be a part of it and he's giving all of us quite a bit of responsibility. He is training us to be A DISCIPLE OF CHRIST! What a legend.

So this week I was able to show the young one the south side of Chicago. Pretty sure my man was very stressed that he was going to die, but he's relaxed quite a bit. I will tell you something that stressed me though, first thing he mentioned is that he's an extremely picky eater, and as we all know Nigerians will be waaayyyy offended if you do not eat all their food. My man had some Moimoi this week and it's basically like a meatloaf, except it's filled with fish, egg, peppers, and a bunch of mystery meat/breaded stuff. He only had the heart to eat one loaf and made me pound like 3. Yeah that was stressful. Also he hates Nigerian soda which is understandable because it tastes like spaghettio's but soda. We survived the ordeal thank goodness and found a new person in the process!

So I'll tell you a little more about my man. He's from Preston ID which is where Napolean Dynamite was filmed! How cool is that! He's like a BMX biker and stuff. And he loves St. George and said he might go to Dixie one day!

This is a hype time for missionary work! We have recently baptized like 3 families from this one building, and now we've been stopping by and continuing to teach those in the building. However we've talked to almost everybody there and by the next baptismal service we'll have 2 more people from that building: Darlene and Martins. So we might switch off going there every day and hitting a different part of the area, something my new companion suggested. We'll see how it works! We’re going to start talking to more of those in the hood! Should be exciting! 

I think that's mostly about it for the week! I hope everyone is doing amazing and has a legendary week! 

Last Week of the Transfer

Good morning and happy Monday! This was the last week of the transfer and we made the most of it but we were sad to hear our transfer news last night! Elder Van Tassell is going to Griffith Indiana and I'll be staying here as a split zone leader with the Spanish zone, and I'll also be training! Should be some super exciting times!

This week was pretty great! We had a, phenomenal district council and one of the missionaries going home gave a training that was legendary. It was sick. Like almost on president’s level!

I got to go on exchanges with my buddy Elder Bell's trainee and his name is Elder Bennion. He's a stud and it was a pretty good time!

Also they took our car to go to New Missionary Training so we were on bikes for the day! It was super fun and I didn't biff it hard like I did in the past.

Saw some miracles this week - were teaching this guy from Nigeria named Martins, he's super awesome. He invited his roommate, Kudi, to come to church and she came. She came and we told her about Martin’s baptism that's coming up on the 24th and she said she wants to be baptized the next month after Martins! It was super exciting!

Our friend Darlene is still reading the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants and Pearl of Great Price like crazy. Every single time we come to a lesson she always says "I didn't know what I didn't know until you showed me what I didn't know! Why don't more people listen to you!" She also told us that when she had moved from Wisconsin she left an extremely nice bible behind and was so sad she had lost her nice Bible. She prayed that God would provide another Bible that was nicer than the one she had. She mentioned she was so excited to have a complete new record of Jesus Christ and it was better than anything she had ever imagined! We're so excited for her to be baptized on the 24th! She's so prepared.

Oh and last thing that was crazy! We went to one of our investigator’s houses and her daughter was out in the front twerking like a crazy person and we were like "whatever it's the Southside, stuff like this happens all the time." So we walk up to the door and she looks at Elder Van Tassell and she says "I'm going to marry you." And she jumps on Elder Van Tassell and gives him a hug and literally raps her legs around him. My man literally screamed and pushed her away. Anyway she was laughing and walked into the house and we peeked in and our investigator we were teaching invited us in so we went and taught her, and her crazy daughter kept making suggestive movements toward Elder Van Tassell and invited him to come to the back room with her. We decided to cut the study short and flee like Joseph in Egypt haha. As we were running away she yelled "once you go black you never go back!" Anyways, that was pretty wild haha. 

I'm going to keep it short this week, but I hope everyone has an amazing week!

Elder Jensen 

I Bless a Baby

Good morning everyone! I hope everyone is enjoying this absolutely fantastic Monday! This week was pretty legendary if I do say so myself. 

Last Monday we finally finished utterly destroying all the bedbugs in our apartment. Our mission apartment coordinator even got us new mattresses and box springs which at first I thought was a little overboard, but when we put the old mattresses in his truck we saw a couple of the bugs on them, and we literally fogged the place down like twice and sprayed it until we couldn't breathe. So we did it again, put bed bug covers on our new mattresses, wiped down everything in the room, put all the bedding in the washer and dryer again, and bam. We finally had a well-rested night, the first one in like 2 weeks and it felt amazing! 

This week I was able to go on an exchange with Elder Johnson who was actually in the MTC with me. We stayed in our area and it was a super awesome day! Something way interesting happened though. The day before, Elder Van Tassell and I were walking out of the building when the mom of one of our investigators came and talked to us. She said that her daughter had just had a baby, and was asking us if we could give it a name and a blessing. Now as two young elders who mostly just try to teach the restored gospel, we didn't have a lot of knowledge on how baby blessings work. Like we'd seen them in church but can you do them for nonmember babies? Can you do them outside of church? Does a missionary even hold the priesthood keys to do such a thing? We kinda just let it leave our minds and went on to work for the day.

Anyways that night we exchanged and Elder Johnson came here with me and we got a text from our investigator that said: "I will be expecting you here at 9:00 AM tomorrow for the naming ceremony. We will see you soon."....... We both looked at each other like "Oh dear." So we called Elder Van Tassell who has been around the Africans for like his whole mission and he told us to just say a special prayer with them and the baby. Don't use oil, don't give it a legit priesthood blessing, don't put your hands on its head, and don’t touch the baby at all because it's against mission rules. So... that's what we did haha. We went in the morning and there were a ton of Nigerians in the room and when we walked in they set the baby down and looked at me and said "Do you use oil?" I did my best to explain to them how we do baby blessings in church, but I was going to say a "special prayer" for their baby. So in my best Nigerian style prayer I could muster I said a prayer and I blessed that baby.

They gave me a paper with a bunch of names so I just read them all off during the prayer and they were all just doing their usual "amen." or "thank you lord" or "thank you Jesus" during the prayer. It was pretty awesome haha! I may have possibly done something slightly illegal and blasphemous but I really hope not! After the prayer I said "God is good" in Yoruba because we know quite a few words in their language because it softens them up big time when you speak it. They came to me and said "that will be the baby's name." So I may have named the baby even though they had me read like 5 names during the prayer. Afterwards they wanted to take pictures with "Pastor Jensen" and the mother and the baby and what do they do? Plop that baby right in my arms. Yes it is against the rules but what am I supposed to do, drop it? So they took tons of pictures with us and I may have illegally blessed a baby, and definitely illegally held the baby haha. Hopefully I have the keys to say a special prayer for a baby. I think so. They gave us some gifts for blessing the child including a bottle of jumex banana strawberry juice and a bottle of tea. The tea is still just chilling in the car haha. 

Later that week we were stopping by that certain family’s neighbors because we were teaching them and the door was open and they heard us knock their neighbor’s door. They opened up and said "come in!" and of course they were having a Nigerian party. They let us in and they had us dance and sing with them and then Elder Van Tassell said "let us pray" in Yoruba and they all freaked out from hearing a white boy speak their language. We said a prayer and they gave us some more pounded yam (white fufu) and agusi. Pretty exciting stuff but it's so spicy cause of those Jamaican peppers. They also gave us a drink called Malta (they all give us that) it's like this barley flavored soda, I will not lie, it is probably the worst soda ever and I don't even like soda in the first place! But now I've chugged down like 100 of these drinks and they are starting to just be like normal. They are such an incredible group of people and an awesome culture! Before we left we said “thank you” and “goodbye brothers and sisters” in Yoruba and they were literally flipping out. It was super awesome. 

The last highlight of this week was we found this African American family in the building who we started teaching, they are actually a little crazy not going to lie. It is a very small apartment with a husband in wife and their kid, who is married, and has 4 kids. And it literally has like a main room, and bedroom and a bathroom. It's meant for a max of two people. Every time we go they say "the church people are here! Mom, it's the church people!" It is definitely the most chaotic teaching environment I've ever been a part of. Every time one of the kids are yelling or something the mom yells, "shut up we're having church right now!" And of course they didn't come to church on Sunday because they see no need because "where two or three are gathered in my name there will I be also." Whatever, we'll get them eventually haha. It's been a blast teaching all those crazy kids and its pretty dang cool to be called "the church people."

That is about it for my week! More miracles happened as we saw some more of our friends come to church! We hit a new record of 46 lessons for the week and we are hyped to make this last week of the transfer a good one! Hope everyone has an amazing week! 

Elder Jensen

Some pics of the family we were teaching and a Nigerian party. 

Look how apostate and uncomfortable I look holding this baby haha

I May Have Let the Bed Bugs Bite

Honestly this was probably one of the most chaotic weeks of my mission. So many miracles, so little sleep! 

This week, probably on Tuesday, I noticed that I had some red itchy bumps on my arms that looked like mosquito bites. I shrugged it off because Chicago has plenty of those! But I did think it was a little odd that they were getting me when I was inside a building all day. Throughout the week I started getting more and more of these little bites. When I saw a bunch on my feet that's when I really started to get suspicious until I figured I probably had bed bugs.

We had been spraying our mattress with rubbing alcohol as a precaution and so that night all my bedding was bunched up already because I was spraying the mattress, and as I picked through it all sure enough I saw two of these nasty little bugs. So it's been quite the adventure! We got permission to sleep at the other elder’s apartment for a few nights until we could get it controlled, which we'll be doing pretty much for the majority of the day today. Now I'm just really hoping the other elders don't get them because we were acting like our apartment had the plague or something and took some serious precautions before going there. Teaching the humble comes with a price! But it's way worth it :) 

This week we had our first zone conference with President Shumway. What a great man! He’s a really great teacher and I have a lot of respect for him and the way he loves all of God's children. 

We saw some major miracles this week as we were able to see five of our friends enter the waters of baptism! We knew that our friend Chukwudi was going to be baptized this weekend but we had a miracle happen! There is a Nigerian family who has been coming to church for the past 4 months, but they never want to meet with the missionaries and didn't understand why they would need to be baptized. They hadn't really been taught anything past the first two lessons. Last Sunday they had let us know they finally wanted to be baptized. This week we finished up the lessons with them and set up the interview and they passed!

It was super stressful because we had to prepare them in like a week and so we saw them quite a lot this week. Also since the ward has 4 sets of missionaries, it has a lot of baptisms and so the ward decided they'd only hold one service every month for everybody at the same time so there could be more support from the ward. So if we missed this day we'd have to wait another month! Luckily it was all figured out! We were able to see the Abiola family get baptized and see the happiness that came from that! Also President and Sister Shumway came to the baptism and we were trying to explain to the Abiola family about what a mission president is and they definitely thought president Shumway was the prophet at first haha.

So even with the chaos and the bedbugs, there is no greater joy that I have had in my life than I've had here sharing the gospel. Seeing those who are baptized and the joyful life that it prepares them to live is absolutely amazing. It's also incredible to have been able to see the faith of some of these people, the sacrifices they make. 

We had a few awesome lessons with Darlene this week and she had a tithing slip on her table and already completely understood the commandment and committed to pay tithing and we haven't even taught it to her yet. Before we even taught her the word of wisdom she told us that coffee had been less appealing to her because she'd rather have God's energy that she gets from the word. When we taught her the word of wisdom she easily committed and throughout her coffee telling us she'd been living it ever since she's met with us and the one time she did drink coffee since than she'd thrown up. God has truly been preparing her for this commandment to be taught. I'm honesty pretty sad she has to wait a whole month to be baptized! She is probably more doctrinally accurate than over half the members of the church. 

It's been an incredible week, but also I got like 50% less sleep than usual because of the bed bug situation haha. I'm so grateful to be a part of this great work here in Chicago! I love being a missionary here! hope everyone has an amazing week! 

Elder Jensen

Pics:

1. Bose and Steve Abiola

2. chukwudi's baptism

3. The abiolas' baptism 

4. Us with chukwudi

5. Thrashed by the bed bugs 

6. A ridiculous looking Jehovahs witness with a painted hair line literally trying to Bible bash with us. It's pretty impressive that I got this shot but I mean just look at this dude he's absolutely hilarious. 

7. Horrifying bed bug

The Doctrines of the Kingdom are True

First off I got to go on exchanges to the west side (which honestly seems even rougher than the south side) I finally got to go with my boy Elder Bell from the MTC!! It was probably one of the most legendary exchanges of all time. We were on bikes and rode through the west side at superior speeds. Of course walking around everybody sees the white shirt and tie and asks us for change and of course we don't but we share some of "the word" with them haha. 

Also like tons of people are making these tiny little snow cone stands where they buy syrup and some small pieces of ice (like there are pretty pathetic snow cones) but I'm eating these things up because snow cones are my weakness! They are literally on like every corner. 

We were also able to have our first Mission leadership council with President Shumway this week which was pretty cool. It's interesting to see the different teaching style and goal setting than what we used to do with President Bingham. It'll be super cool to have two mission presidents. 

That person named Darlene I mentioned last week is still so solid. We taught her the plan of salvation and it literally took like 3 visits to get the whole thing because we're not supposed to stay longer than 45 min haha. She literally is the most prepared person I've ever taught. She has so many great questions and excellent understanding. It's really cool to see the light bulbs go off in her head over and over and over again. It reminds me of how all missionaries are when they are taught the plan of salvation in the MTC and they're all like super shook like "wow this makes Mega sense but I've never realized it until right now."

We taught her about the fall and when she figured it out for the rest of the lesson she was like "oh wow. OH WOW! You’re right! God doesn't make mistakes! This was all part of his plan! Why don't people know this! Why don't people listen to you guys! OH WOW!" She called us later that night and had read 2 Nephi 2, 2 Nephi 9, and was literally shook. When we taught her the rest of the plan with the three kingdoms we decided to bring her a large print Book of Mormon which has the Doctrine and Covenants in the back so decided to introduce the classic Bible scriptures that talk about the three kingdoms in Corinthians but also introduced the Doctrine and Covenants.

Well she came to church on Sunday, and told us she had read all of Doctrine and Covenants section 76, the Articles of Faith, the Official Declarations, the Book of Moses and is in 2nd Nephi in the Book of Mormon. She told us she believes it’s all true and has been praying to Heavenly Father for this for a while. SO AWESOME! She’s probably like one of the most fun people to teach. We set a date for her to be baptized that night. (In the South side you'll find so many flakes that we don't put them on date until they come to church the first time, because literally everyone would accept to be baptized probably before you teach them.) Darlene told us her only concern was she was reading the Book of Mormon more than "the word" and was wondering if that was wrong but then she told us God answered her and said that it is "the word" and it's her first time learning about it so it's definitely OK. 

For the rest of the week we had a lot of teaching opportunities and an awesome one was for a guy we're teaching named Chukwudi. He's getting baptized on Saturday and we went over the interview questions and it has been a remarkable repentance process. The man gave up a lot of things cold turkey and hasn't even looked back. It's been absolutely amazing and we're excited to see him enter the waters of baptism. Weeks leading up to baptisms are like the most stressful things on the planet, so this week's going to be insane but I'm pumped! 

Oh and last thing, on Sundays we schedule quite a few of lessons because generally all the Nigerians are off work that day. Every Sunday so far we've been fed some Nigerian food, but yesterday we got fed twice in a row. These Nigerians don't just give you a little. They give you a portion size "for a man," however I am not a man with a fufu gut haha. Yesterday we had fufu and agusi twice and I was more than full after the first! That stuff is super heavy!

Fufu is just like this play dough looking stuff that you dip in soup and then just eat it. It's pretty interesting. Agusi is this interesting soup that has a variety of meats and vegetables (and it had some Jamaican peppers and I was sweating, this stuff was almost as spicy as the Indian food!) but I got to try some cow leg, cow intestine, goat meat, you know the basics. I can't say it tastes like chicken. All the meat is like super rubbery. Even the chicken, so maybe it does taste like chicken. But if you don't eat it all they can be offended so thank goodness Elder Vantassell can pound it because I was super stuffed haha. It was pretty awesome! 

Hope everyone has an absolutely amazing week! 

Elder Jensen