Weather Make Up Your Mind

This week was really good, a lot better than last week! I decided that Chicago is a really great place! But I never want to live here, haha. The weather cannot choose what it wants to do. At the beginning of this week it was pretty hot and humid. And then on like Thursday it was like 40 degrees. I actually woke up that morning and I was thinking "oh that's not that cold I've been in colder weather than that in Utah." But one problem is the humidity. It makes the hot hotter and the cold colder. So that day where it was only 40 was like the coldest day I think that I've ever experienced in my life. No joke.

And the wind.... Oh my goodness the wind cuts through all your layers. I thought it was so cold and I told the people we are teaching and my companion and they keep saying reassuring things like, "Oh this is just the beginning of Fall! You haven't seen anything yet!" Apparently it gets like 50 degrees colder than this and even goes into like the negative 10s in the winter. It's gonna be crazy and I'm going to freeze haha. But today it’s a little warmer and it feels good. 

This was the last week of the transfer and a new one starts tomorrow! The assistants called us yesterday and told us we would both be staying! But our YSA ward just merged with the one from the Southside, and so now it is doubled in size. We told the president it would probably be wise to get another set of missionaries here because our area is the biggest in the whole mission and probably takes up three quarters of the mission. But instead he's going to give us another companion! Starting tomorrow we're going to be a trio! Elder Bolton, Elder Jensen, and Elder Dorminey, my friends. It's going to be awesome. It's probably just going to be for the next 6 weeks but I'm excited. 

It's going to be nice to get a new elder here because it's been crazy. We haven't had a lot of finding time because of all the people were working with and how far a lot of them are from each other. And with the new ward merge we just got some more people transferred to us. We're going to have a baptism this Saturday for a girl named Grayson who was taught by some other elders, but will be getting baptized in the YSA, so we basically are just going to be doing some of the last couple of lessons with her and the new member lessons. We have a lot of new members to keep up with and it's awesome, but crazy. So it'll be good to have another elder. 

We had a really cool experience this week. We found this YSA on the street named Jennifer, and she told us she was from Africa! (Uganda to be more exact) but we were able to set up a return appointment with her, and we came to teach her the next day, and her whole family was there! It was so awesome. I've never been able to teach a family before because I'm not in a family ward so it was so fun.

We'll probably have to transfer her family over to some other missionaries in our district but it was really cool to teach them, and we might still work with them a little bit because three of them are YSA age. They told us all about Africa and how they loved it there and in Chicago it's super cold haha and then they fed us some African food and it was pretty dang good. Some of the other elders in our district teach a lot of people who have moved here from Africa usually Nigeria, and they are awesome people. They have such a great love for their families and it's so awesome to see the unity they all have. This family we taught actually had 7 kids and all of their names started with J just like my family! It was super cool. 

Another really cool thing that happened this week is I saw miracles with having faith. One of the people we’re teaching is named Jarius and he is so awesome. He's been taught by missionaries for like 8 months now, and he's been put on date for baptism multiple times. However, this is the closest he's ever been be prepared for baptism. He's come from a rough past and has worked hard to prepare for baptism.

We taught him tithing this week, and I'll be honest I was kinda scared. Teaching tithing was something that I always knew would be a hard thing for me to teach because it's something that I feel like I’ve struggled with myself in the past, and although I've seen the blessings that come from it I always thought it would be the hardest for people to understand. But we taught Jarius and he instantly accepted, and knew it was what he needed to do. He told us he had no money and that he was even just getting by as a lyft driver, but he would do it. As soon as he accepted paying tithing he got a call and was able to learn he had new job opportunities to earn money.

On Sunday he told us he barely had any gas and didn't know if he would be able to make it to church, but he knew it was where he had to be. He came to church and paid tithing with the 10% of all he had and trusted that it would be OK. He shared a powerful testimony in church that he was putting his faith in God and that he knew he was in the right place and that he felt the best in his life when he came to church or met with the missionaries (he calls us the brothers sometimes haha). It was so powerful. After that we saw a ward member press some money into his hand, and I was able to see the blessings that we can receive by having faith in God although we don't know what will happen. Jarius has been one of the biggest examples of faith I've seen and he's amazing. He's still preparing for his baptism at the end of October so we're hoping for the best. He's awesome. 

Another fun thing we were able to do was get dinner with our fav member Andrew Pearson. We go to this place called Tedino's like every Friday with him but he might be moving soon so we got a picture in front of the place, even though it's blurry, cause it might have been the last time. 

Another member dinner we were able to go to was with some girls from the YSA and we've been really trying to help them fellowship Maya, one of the girls we are teaching.  They've all become good friends and we got pizza with them. It was kinda weird to be eating dinner with just my companion and three girls our age and unless there is another male there we have to be in a public place cause that's the rule with member dinners so we just ate some good pizza in Papa John's and it almost felt like a high-school hang out or something until we shared our spiritual message. It was a weird throwback, but it was fun, and it's awesome to see the friendships build between the members and the people were teaching. 

It's been a good week, and I'm excited to see where the next one takes us. We had 9 new people come to church yesterday and it's really hard to keep track of all of them while we're at church so I'm excited to have a third member of this group. It's going to be awesome. I hope all of you have a safe week and hopefully are able to stay warm because I probably won't. (If you're in St. George you'll be fine haha) 

-Elder Jensen

Pictures:
Dinner with fav member Andrew Pearson at Tedinos

Dinner with Maya and members Bailey and Rilee

Chicago deep dish home

The board of efficiency (now much more names haha)

A blurry picture where it looks like imma be destroyed by a fire bender

A grand district :)