Goodbye Chicago -- Hello Indiana!

This week has been extremely eventful! I kinda forgot that it was Thanksgiving honestly that feels like forever ago because pretty much my mission has completely changed. 

So for Thanksgiving we were able to have a breakfast with this awesome Hispanic family who had some kids in the YSA and they invited us to attend. It was super awesome and we all had a really great time. They invited the missionaries who were in the Spanish family ward there and some from another ward too so like half the people  there were missionaries. It was super fun even though I couldn't understand like 50% of it. 

For thanksgiving dinner we went and had it with some YSA's who stayed in town. It was pretty fun and we all had a great time. Somehow we also still had two lessons on Thanksgiving which we thought was going to be really slow but still ended up being pretty busy. 

Oh on Wednesday we had our last district meeting for this transfer, so our brave and fearless leader chief flying eagle (district leader Brimhall) suggested we all part our hair for the last district meeting. We all did - well I attempted to and we took like the best family pictures haha. Literally right after the pictures though everyone went and washed their hair. 

So on Friday we had just gotten out of dinner with a member and they were talking about how it's so sad that Elder Dorminey and elder Bolton are leaving soon but at least I'll be here for a while. That's what we've said to pretty much everyone, "Oh Elder Jensen will be here a while," so I've been doing the pass off lessons and all the stuff to remember so that I can be ready to take on the area. Anyway, right after the dinner we get in the car and we get a call from President "Elder Jensen I need you to pack your bags tonight we're taking you to Indiana in the morning." 

So that was a little bit of a shocker. I ended up being the first one out of the trio to leave the area! transfers aren't until Tuesday so I came a little early because apparently the new AP was in Indiana and his companion needed a companion until transfers happen, so I'm currently companions with an elder named Elder Geisel in a gnarly area called Valparaiso Indiana. But tomorrow I will begin serving in Hebron Indiana with an elder named Elder Buckway. 

Hebron is just south of where I'm at right now but from what I've seen of Indiana so far I have loved! It's literally like the complete opposite of where I was just at. There are houses, there are trees, there is real life grass! there is actually space! People are nice! People are also... Well imagine duck dynasty, that's how I feel like a lot of the people here are, they love beards and bikes and bandanas and America. It's seriously the best. 

Like I said I'm not actually in my area yet so I'm not sure how that's going to be but I'm really excited. The Illinois Chicago mission covers just the north part of Indiana and a little bit of Wisconsin too, so I'm super pumped to be able to be here. 

I was a little sad because I was out of that area so fast that I didn't even get to go to church there one last time and say goodbye to everyone, so I just kinda disappeared off the face of the earth there. But it's OK. 

Something that's going to be way different here is that you don't just talk to people on the streets or on campuses because people aren't everywhere! here you super work with members and even knock doors! that's exciting! definitely not what I'm used to but so far it's been pretty fun! It's super beautiful too! and last night it snowed like a bunch so winter begins let's do this. 

I'm officially done being a greenie. This is awesome. Pretty much let's just say I'm super excited to serve here! I think that's about my week! love you all and hope your week is the best! :) 

Elder Jared D. Jensen 

Pictures:

1. Dwight Shrute attempt ("parting" ways)

2. Best family photo (best district) 

3. Missionaries

4. Thanksgiving breakfast

5. Indiana!!!  

  

Temple and Rear View Mirror

So God is probably playing jokes on me or something because throughout the week I was just thinking "This is a regular week of missionary work! I'm enjoying it! But nothing really new so I won't have anything to write home this week about really!" and then we had a little bit of a situation with the car and I was the one who was blessed to be the driver:/ but we'll get into that in a minute. 

This week we had the privilege of being able to attend the temple! It was absolutely wonderful and I enjoyed the Chicago temple a lot. I thought it was really simple but beautiful! 

We were also able to do this awesome service project where there was basically this huge food convention and then we just had to gather all the extra food and donate it to charity! It was really fun! This area doesn't have a whole lot of useful service opportunities for missionaries so I enjoyed being able to do some service. 

This week I was also able to go on an exchange with a missionary named Elder Brimhall who is in a bike area. So the thing is though it's starting to get super cold! So in the winter the bike area missionaries use public transportation. So we were riding the bus and the train for that day to get to our appointments and it was awesome because on the bus and the train the people have no where to go so they're kinda like forced to talk to you, which sounds a little crazy, haha but hey I'm glad for the good opportunity to talk to people about the church in a place where they can't run away. the bus and the train is how a LOT of people get around here because traffic is so bad and personal cars are kinda expensive so most people use public transportation and Uber and Lyft to get around.

So the car thing. These Chicago roads can get pretty skinny, let's just say that. So we were driving on a road and there were cars parked every where and I was being a good driver who was going not just the speed limit, but a little bit under! But the roads got pretty skinny and our right rearview mirror hit a parked cars driver side rearview mirror so it definitely was just hanging by the cord. The other cars mirror was just chipped a little bit and was loose but not as bad as ours. So we left a note on the guys parked car explaining the situation and our number so he called us and I've had the pleasure of figuring out that whole situation. So our rearview mirror is duct taped on right now, and it still moves when you push the buttons! However, I might be on a bike and a bus and train for the rest of my mission. We'll see.

This next week will be one of my companions last full week! it'll be pretty sad to see him go but he is going to go start a new beginning at BYU Idaho.

Also this week I finished the book of Mormon for the first time on my mission! I'm super excited to start it again and find a new way to study it! honestly sometimes these personal studies bring forth such good chapters that I call "power chapters" that we end up using them as like a base for some of the lessons we have. its super awesome! I love personal study so much and am learning to love the scriptures a lot.

YSA is on fire right now and on Sundays we're all over the place. I love being in a trio because right after sacrament Elder Bolton and a member were teaching a lesson to someone, I and another member were teaching a lesson to someone, and Elder Dorminey was helping the people we invited to church get to know people and start to build some of those relationships. Its been working pretty well, maybe we'll get another companionship in the ward eventually :)

I think that's about it for this week, sorry to keep the letter short but gotta go fill out that accident report, heck yes wish me luck :)

Pictures:

Us with a member who just came home from his mission 

The mirror... 

The efficiency of duct tape

Temple trip

A fortune I got right after the mirror incident   

One of the People We Teach Got Arrested

What a fine week this was! I had some pretty interesting experiences this week. Also, the cold Chicago weather? Yeah it’s starting. I woke up for the last couple mornings and it’s like 20-30 degrees outside! But guess what they trick you! The weather app always says the temp in huge numbers but what it says in really tiny numbers is what it FEELS like, so basically what it actually is. With wind and humidity, most days this week were like 5-15 degrees outside. So basically the time is starting to come where everyone dressed outside is trying show the least amount of skin they have so everyone kinda looks like bundled criminals, where you can only see their eyes. I have officially discovered what a scarf was and let’s say it saved my life this week (thanks Aunt Gerilyn!!) 

This week we had zone conference! President Bingham spit some straight fire to all of us weak knowledged souls. I love zone conferences. I learn so much there. It's like super missionary awesome seminary class that goes from like 10-4. And all the missionaries are there so it's pretty fun. We also bought some matching trio ties for zone conference and so that was pretty funny. With the Christmas season coming up it puts a super big focus on missionary work because at that time of year many hearts are softened. I'm excited for the light the world initiative. What a great time to get excited about serving our Savior!

After zone conference Elder Dorminey had his final interview because he only has two weeks left!  Meanwhile, Elder Bolton and I went to this focus group thing where some people who are working for the church questioned us and the other missionaries serving in the YSA about adults from the ages 18-26. It was a really eye opening thing to be a part of this. It was pretty awesome and I learned a lot of cool things and I was glad to be a part of it. 

Andrew Pearson my fav member who left Chicago just happened to be in town this week and so he decided to call up his fav missionaries and take us to dinner!  He’s seriously the coolest and it was so great to be able to visit with him again. It’s awesome that I'm able to build some relationships with such awesome people. 

So. My subject line. Yes, one of the people we were teaching did get arrested.

We went to his apartment one morning and knocked and his landlord who's this Russian dude comes out and says "you did not do a very good job," and we were like "why?" and he says "your friend here got arrested last night for drugs." I almost couldn't help but laugh. It's not funny, but jail is probably going to be the best addiction recovery program for him. We tried doing that ARP but I think this is going to be a learning experience for him. Poor guy. But I mean the landlord asked us for our number so maybe we got a new person taught. So something good came out of this. 

I'm not going to say his name but we were trying to help him recover from drug addiction and he was actually doing pretty well! The only problem is he invited some bad influences in his house who weren’t doing very well and they may have left some illegal drugs in his place. So pretty much we were talking to him on the phone one night right before bed and he told us his apartment had been broken into so he called the police to come investigate... And then we went the next day and his landlord said he was arrested for drugs. So he pretty much called the cops on himself. Well you know it happens :( hopefully he'll be able to find a Book of Mormon in jail.

Also another funny story. This dude we were teaching a couple of days earlier asked us to help him put a screen protector on his phone. So Elder Dorminey was doing it and he accidently hit the home button and the guy’s phone turned on and it literally was a naked mirror selfie of the person we were teaching. I was going to cry because I was trying so hard not to laugh. Elder Dorminey didn't notice though so he asked why I was laughing and accidentally turned the phone on again and saw and we were both trying so hard not to laugh. Anyway, the person we were teaching was like, "hey what's so funny" and we tried to tell him that we were laughing at Elder Dorminey doing a bad job of putting on the screen protector, so we saved ourselves. I've discovered that there are some weird people in Chicago. I never would've thought that a man would make his lock screen a naked picture of himself. What an interesting generation we live in haha. 

Anyway, on a better note. Something else we were able to do this week was go to teach that family from Africa I was talking about! Tey are honestly my favorite people ever, but we attempted to do a pass off lesson so that we were able to pass them off and the elders from the family ward could start teaching them, but we'll probably need to do another one because the family is so big that I feel like there is different people every time. The first member of the family we met on the street is named Jennifer and she has a daughter who just had a birthday and they also invited us to come to her birthday party! So there were like 5 missionaries there and we were like the only white people haha but let’s just say that these Africans know how to party. They even made shirts for her daughter’s birthday!  It was so cool to be able to be there. Once these family ward elders get to know them a little better they'll probably be able to meet a lot more of their family and friends.

This week I studied Ether and the story of the brother of Jared, and it was like an answer to my prayers, because I was trying to learn how I can make my prayers more sincere. What an awesome story! The brother of Jared is honestly probably one of my favorite prophets in the Book of Mormon because of his amazing exceedingly great faith. I really studied how he said his prayers in the Book of Mormon so that I could try to emulate that. It was really awesome and I know that’s why we have the Book of Mormon today. What better instrument to learn how to stay close to God! 

That's my week! Love all of you, hope you're enjoying life!

Elder Jared Daniel Jensen 

Pics

1. Andrew visits Chicago

2. The Chicago trio matching ties

3. I look like a bundled fruitloop

4. Same as 3

5. Probably should learn how to park

6. Companionship love 

The Chocolate Fever

Happy Halloween to the world! This week we had some spooky experiences, but Chicago pretty much always has those. Like I saw some dude dancing around a tree and screaming at it so I figured he probably wasn't interested in the gospel. Probably a good call on my part. 

This week was good, but a lot of the people were teaching we weren't totally able to get in contact with so we had a lot more time open to go finding on the campuses than usual! Probably that's how it'll be this week too! 

On Tuesday we had new missionary training and I got to see my MTC homies for the last time unless I ever serve in the same area as any of them again. Love those guys they are truly the coolest and I really hope I get to serve with them again! 

Also, this weekend was the legendary holiday of Halloween. Halloween is actually kinda a slower day for missionaries because all those YSA's in Chicago probably want to go party instead of learning from the missionaries. Chicago is a party place that I've discovered, kinda like Vegas is a party place ya know? So you have some pretty funny experiences haha. 

We were able to visit one member who went inactive for a while but got in contact with the missionaries because he wanted the gospel back in his life. He's awesome and is disabled so he's in a wheelchair but has been coming back to church and always let's us know how much he loves it. He's the coolest. His name is Walter and on Halloween we went and visited him where he's staying and he dressed up and gave us some candy. 

Also on Halloween we had a district meeting and some of the senior missionaries serving here gave us a heckin ton of candy. So basically I had a little (not so little) stash of chocolate. And that night, I may have dived into it a little bit. DON'T DO THIS!! Let's just say I was stumbling around the apartment that night begging my companions to hurry up and pray with me so I could go to bed haha! I pretty much had a real life chocolate fever and my companions claim that this has happened like 4 times but I just ran it off the next morning and pretty much only ate spinach for breakfast to balance out my life. 

OK. Chicago is so cool, because this week we had like 3 dinners with members and people were teaching that were all super not American. Chicago is such a melting pot of a bunch of different cultures. It's super cool cause like all of our recent converts in this area are from around the world. One is from Albania, one is from Peru, one is from China, and one is from Illinois of course. But this week I got to try some pretty unique food. I had some like super spicy Indian food and I am weak when it comes to spiciness. Like I ate BBQ wings and I was sweating. So I ate Indian food and I didn't want to look disrespectful but I'm pretty sure that I was crying, and sweating and everyone probably thought I was weak. Indians use like this yogurt stuff to cancel out the spiciness but I didn't use it because I didn't want to be weak! but honestly I'm pretty sure I was crying haha. Also we had some Peruvian food that was way good and some African food that was also way good. It's super cool to be able to experience a little bit of all these different cultures.

The African food was given to us by that African family who I've talked a little bit about! They are so cool and I love them all! I swear every time we visit there is a new family member who we get to teach and meet and they are all so nice! They invited us to a birthday party that they're having for one of their kids this Sunday that we might stop by. They have the cutest little kids and there's this one who's eyes go huge whenever we walk in, he's seriously the cutest kid on the planet. It's sad because they probably shouldn't be taught by YSA elders because if they take the lessons they should really take it as a family, so we're trying to set up a lesson where we can help them get to know the elders from the family ward and then they can continue their lessons with them. It'll be pretty sad though because it's been really fun teaching them! They have seven kids in their family ages ranging from 15-28 and the older ones have kids. It's just super cool to see such a happy family because you don't really see a whole lot of that often!

We met some people on the college campus named Christina and Cecilia who both work there and one of them has had elders teach them before so she offered to take us to lunch! They were so nice and it was really awesome to get to know them.

This week we had some time to find on campus and so we talked to some new people and one of the things I've noticed that Elder Bolton does is compliment somebody on something and then bam they talk. I've noticed that whenever I see someone who has like Harry Potter or Avatar stuff I can talk to them easier. So take that, Dad, you always told me my Harry Potter knowledge was useless, it's almost proving to be just as valuable as my scriptural knowledge.

This week I've noticed once again the power of the Book of Mormon in life. I've been really putting an effort to sincerely study it in my personal studies and I've been reading the Book of Ether. Maybe I'm biased because that book says "Jared" like 12 times but I've been loving this opportunity to read about the ancient record of the brother of Jared! I'm so grateful for the Book of Mormon and I've been trying to strengthen my testimony of it every day. I pray to know if it's true every day. We are so blessed to be able to have the restored gospel in our lives! It's such a blessing to be able to share this knowledge that brings so much peace to others.

I think that's about it for my week, but thanks for the support and love. I love all of you keep up the good work!

Elder Jared D. Jensen

Also P.S. 

My companions claim they get no love cause their so old so if you have time

Cole.bolton@myldsmail.net

Ryan.dorminey@myldsmail.net

Pictures:

Baby Joe my best friend 

Walter the man 

Christina and Cecilia 

An average hospital patient