Do Missionaries Look Like Cops?

Well this week was just an average week! Maybe nothing too legendary happened because this week was shorter than usual cause of our weird pday switch. 

One thing that was super awesome this week though is we had exchanges with the zone leaders who are in our district. Normally as a district leader you go on a lot of exchanges but since there are only the zone leaders and sisters in our district we only have to do a zone leader exchange so Elder Buckway my companion and our wise fearless district chief king doesn't really have to plan out a whole lot of exchanges. So My Boi Elder Thompson came down to Hebron with me for the day. Elder Thompson was in my district back in Chicago and he also got transferred to this zone so that's super cool. He was the first elder who I ever went on an exchange with so this was Thompson/Jensen super team pt. 2. It was gnarly. We found a new person to teach together so that was pretty rad. Also we went and taught this guy who is not a member but always comes to church and he is something else and he made us take a picture together on a rocking horse in his house haha. I don't have it yet but I'm going to get it. So that was super fun and a way good time. 

Then the next day I was back with Elder Buckway again and we taught Eric and Carri and Danny again and were able to put them all on date! So that was really exciting. They are great people and some who so far have kept commitments pretty well. Something I've noticed with a lot of people is that as soon as you teach the first lesson, opposition (Satan :() does everything he can to make them not want to meet with you. People start looking up anti or they talk to their friends who say "those guys are a cult" and lots of that stuff. It's super frustrating. With Eric the opposition was his mom who thought we were a cult. But when we went to the lesson he said "I heard a lot of things about your church but I'm not listening to the secondary source, I want to come directly to you guys to ask." I was super impressed and super happy he feels that way. So that was a good success for this week. 

Elder Bolton my trainer officially went home this week! May the mission remember his legacy and I his son will try to make his legacy go on. He called me the day he was leaving and told me about the last transfer in the YSA and all that and will not lie it might have been just as exciting maybe more exciting than skyping my family. Haha love my trainer. The next day I got an email from his showing that he was listening to Charlie Puths new album in my honor. Let the Illinois Chicago West Mission remember this man. And ladies who are going to university of Utah he is single, hit him up. All my companions so far are home which is quite sad. Good thing Elder Buckway will be here like 8 more months. 

I guess this week was also the last three hour church ever which is super crazy. It's going to be a lot easier to get people to church and hopefully we'll be able to help them out with the new Come Follow Me program. 

Lately everyone while we're tracting thinks that saying "oh I'm Catholic" means that the conversation is over. Not going to lie almost gotten a little sassy and saying things like "oh you're Catholic! That's exactly why we're here!" or "Hi Catholic I'm Elder Jensen, we'd like to share a message with you!" or "Oh you're Catholic, does that mean this conversation is over?" don't worry we didn't actually do it but definitely made some interesting tracting conversation haha. 

Tracting story for the week:

Oh actually something a little weird did happen this week we were tracting and this old lady answered the door and she was like "I don't know anything I swear." and we were like "that's OK we're just missionaries for our church". "WHAT?!" "um.... We're just missionaries from our church...." "WHAT WAS THAT?" anyways this lady like could hardly hear us, and I'm pretty sure she thought we were cops cause she kept bringing up how she didn't know anything and how maybe we should check the library for more information. Anyway I wanted out of this contact so I was like "here would you like this picture of Jesus?" just trying to give her a pass along card. She was like "what a beautiful picture! I couldn't accept this! You should give it to your girlfriend!" I was like "no really I have plenty it's on the house" but this lady was so persistent in making me "give that card to my girlfriend" so long story short we were there probably like 30 minutes because she kept on rambling that she didn't know and it was quite the contact. 

Spiritual Thang for the week;

Mosiah 14 and 15: go read them It is some super deep stuff about the atonement and it blew my mind when I really studied it. Super powerful stuff that once again made me extremely grateful for my savior Jesus Christ. Take it apart and you'll see the power of the atonement. Basically Abinadi is a wizard and he knows his stuff, a Book of Mormon President Bingham you could say. 

I think that's about all for this week. Was a great one! new year is coming 2019 here we come! this will be known for the rest of my life as the mission year so I'm excited. Happy New Year! 

Elder Jensen 

Pics:

1 a zone Pic I forgot to send

2. in memory of my thinnn poppy 

3. Refreshing 

 

 

An Indiana Christmas

Good morning everyone! Christmas Eve was on Monday as many of you probably know so our President had us switch our P-day to today because that's supposed to be a good day to proselyte.... I guess it depends, haha most people were like "I'm trying to cook a feast right now, I can't talk!" So we decided on Christmas Eve to take all the Christmas candy we had obtained and just start handing it out while we were tracting saying it was part of the Light the World initiative and many were so shocked like, "What's the catch do I have to pay a donation?" and we were like "No, we literally just have so much candy please take some." It was pretty fun but we still have so much candy. Hopefully the candy will help soften people’s hearts to hear the gospel haha. 

So this last Sunday we had the special one hour Christmas program and we decided to invite all the formers taught in our area book. We had EIGHT people come to church! That was huge for us, they haven't gotten that many here in a long time! Four of them were current people we were teaching and four of them were formers, but one of them we're probably going to pick up and start teaching again. Also on Sunday we made a deal with one of our people named Alec. He attends a non-denominational Christian church but has been taking the lessons with us, and since our church was only one hour on Sunday, he came to our church, and then we went to his church with him. 

This church is called Bethel. And it's huge. Like way big. And there are three of them in upper Indiana. Bethel was a blast, like it was so fun. It was pretty much like a concert. So... not exactly a church where everything is calm and quiet but this super hype rejoicing fun group of people who love Jesus. There were some great people there haha. It was quite an experience. In the church they had like a coffee shop and a place where you could go buy t-shirts etc. So it was pretty fun to compare the similarities and the differences with Alec haha. 

This week we also had a lesson with one of the people were teaching and it was super awesome because he invited his mom who is like your average Christian who thinks that because we have a Book of Mormon and no belief in the trinity that means we're a "cult." Eric (the guy we were teaching) was defending us when his mom told us we were full of it. It was really funny because she kept bringing up the trinity, and Eric was like "well explain the trinity, because these guys are answering my questions and explaining things" and she said, "well... it's too deep to understand." 

Oh the trinity, what a belief. It is my firm testimony that the apostasy exists and that there needed to be a restoration. She was a super nice lady though, I love meeting nice people. I don't like Bible bashing though and sometimes these lovely Christians want to do so. Nobody learns anything from Bible bashing! But it was fun to teach that lesson, she had a lot of questions and we answered them and invited her to church to check out our "cult!" but she kindly declined! It’s okay though because Eric was able to make it and enjoyed it!

Another pretty funny experience that we had this week was teaching this lady who was a former who some missionaries who had worked here in the past had called us and told us to start teaching again. So it was super funny because we were teaching the restoration and literally half way through the Joseph Smith story she cuts us off and says, "wait a minute" and this is the part we're thinking "Oh my goodness she's going to tell us that she's never felt this way before and wants to continue learning as much as she can from us!" Instead she says, "This is embarrassing but... Can you take out the trash for me? It's way too heavy for me to lift." Glad that our teaching abilities are bringing inspiring thoughts into the heads of those we’re teaching and making them realize they should take advantage of our youth. Also another thing that was super funny is we were talking about how we feel the spirit and if she had ever recognized the spirit before. She told us "When I feel like I need inspiration from God, I just take my Bible and shut my eyes.... (she shut her eyes and started flipping through her Bible)... And then I open to a random page and start reading."

Guess where she opens? Naturally it’s Songs of Solomon. For those of you who don't really know that's pretty much biblical garbage. Like it's literally like the bibles version of 50 shades of grey by a king who had many concubines. So she started reading it out loud "your love it's better than wine....." etc you get the point. I was literally crying I was laughing so hard and Elder Buckway was laughing so hard too. He was like "it's okay you don't need to read that, it isn't even scripture." Then when we got home that night he took his quad and ripped out all of the Songs of Solomon because he said it's "biblical trash" and that "President Hinckley actually stapled shut the Songs of Solomon to seal it, and Joseph Smith said it wasn't inspired scripture." I don't know if that's true but if it is that's pretty funny haha. So that was a funny experience. 

So that's about it for this week. Of course it was Christmas so I got to Skype home and call my family which was great! Love them all they are the coolest. On Christmas we gave away some more candy and had lunch and dinner with some members who were super nice and willing to invite us in on Christmas day! It was a pretty relaxing day and we got to teach about the Christmas story because why not it's Christmas and it was way fun. It was a good holiday and there are only two Christmases in your life that you get while you are serving the Lord! So this is definitely one that I'll remember. So that's concludes my email for this week, hope everyone's holidays were merry and bright and we'll talk to ya soon! 

Elder Jensen

Pics 

1: Lots of candy

2: Bethel the gr8 and abominable (but kinda fun) church

3: The promised land

4: A weird spooky doll

5: Ice cream worth more than gold 

 

Your Jesus is Too White

This week was pretty grand if I do say so myself! It really kinda feels like the winter is over and spring has started, because all the snow melted and there was even rain this week. This week we had some nice weather in the 40s which was super nice and I only had to wear like one coat! so it wasn't the winter wonderland anymore but I am absolutely 110% OK with that. All the lakes are melting though and that was pretty cool not going to lie, but they'll probably freeze again in this next week because bam winter is coming back and it's going to be even colder. The weather here continues to not know what it's doing :) 

This week we had a zone conference that was super legendary. President Bingham as usual uses some doctrinal fire to scorch our weak missionary minds into missionary mode and they always make us super excited to work. This one was completely focused on the savior, and a lot of the saviors birth too. It definitely blew my mind and I can't wait for the next one. Seriously this president man is a wizard. 

So also at zone conference all the Christmas packages came for all the missionaries and so elder Buckway and I put them under the tree and it looked all cute for about a solid two seconds and then elder Buckway definitely dived in and his presents were all opened about 13 days before Christmas. I attempted to be more patient. So I lasted about two more days. I guess I need to apologize to my family right now because Christmas is definitely already over for us haha. But in our defense it's going to pump us up to work on Christmas! 

So our president allows us to check out other churches if we have time because I suppose it's a learning experience so if we have time, we're allowed to go to two different church sessions a month to learn a little bit about other churches. (as long as it's not during our own of course) In Chicago ysa we literally never had time, but this week we had some lessons cancel on Thursday night. So we decided to stop by and go to a session of church at the legendary kingdom hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses. 

Honestly they were really friendly people, and we definitely heard things like "I'm pretty sure you've knocked on my door before!" and "you're probably wondering why our ministry is such a success" and then they filled our arms with all these resources like their cartoon version of Jesus the Christ (which their Jesus has short hair I'm not sure why it's important but to them it is) and their version of preach my gospel, definitely an interesting experience. They taught us that yoga is of the devil and so is Halloween and the wizard of Oz. But they were very friendly people haha :) kinda made me wonder what people think when they visit a church of Jesus Christ of latter day saints? There's definitely a difference.

We had a dinner appointment with some members and they had 7 kids and it was like a dream come true and a legendary flashback haha it was so awesome. 6 boys and 1 girl! so a little different than my good old family but still the memories it was good stuff. I love being in a family ward. 

Also at church we were able to share a quick lesson in the young men's group, (and here they combine all the young men in one class) it was super great and the young men here are so awesome. We got to talk with a lot of them after and they're all so cool. Honestly all the youth in this ward are amazing. 

So my subject. We stopped by a potential person to see if she had read any of the Book of Mormon at all. She came to the door and we were like "so what did you think of the Book of Mormon?" and she was like "it just didn't really make sense because Jesus was too white" and I was a little confused and not gonna lie I thought she was talking about how Jesus was wearing white in the picture in front of the Book of Mormon where he's visiting the people of the ancient America's. So Elder Buckway like instantly gives up and says, "Well if you're ever interested here is our card!"

So I go and give her a card and I was like "Do you mean Jesus is wearing white?" Because the card I gave her was that same picture. And she said "No, Jesus is white. Look at the card," and she kinda laughed like we were idiots and we walked away and Elder Buckway said it's the black Jesus theory. Apparently a ton of people in northern Illinois won't listen to us because "our Jesus" is white. So anyways I thought that was kinda funny especially because I never heard this in Chicago where it's a melting pot but I hear it in Indiana!? This is a pretty not melting pot haha. So just a funny story because I don't really know why it matters too much but many believe that black Jesus is the real deal. 

Yesterday, the last day of this week we were able to teach a person and his friend. We found this guy tracting and he invited his friend to listen in. Both of them were Christian and while we were teaching them it just really grew my testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ once more. These people had sincere questions that I knew the Book of Mormon would be able to answer! Every time we're able to teach these truths it builds my testimony of them even stronger. The Book of Mormon is the word of God and it was translated by Joseph Smith. It is the tool to gather Israel. If you don't have a testimony of this, then get one! Literally we can know just by asking God. I know that the book of Mormon has answered my questions. 

This week I was able to read 2 Nephi 29 which is the legendary "A Bible we need no more Bible blablabla" and I was loving this because as a missionary in Indiana that's pretty much what you hear every day! It kinda just made me laugh. The Book of Mormon clarifies those truths that we need to have the fullness of the gospel. It is true! I'm grateful for it and the Bible. They are the simple answers to a lot of questions we have. 

I think that about sums up my week. Thanks for everyone who sent Christmas stuff yall are legends and it means a lot! Hope everyone has a fantastic last week before Christmas! :) 

Elder Jared Daniel Jensen 

Pictures:

1. Christmas time!

2. I attempted to make a Durangos plate with microwave burritos

3. A priest in the ward who is my homie

4. The Jehovah’s short-haired Jesus 

Don't Drink Straight Spinach

This week was pretty cold not going to lie haha. I feel like I'm probably going to be saying that till April honestly. But we woke up some mornings and it was like 12 degrees outside and all the people here are just chilling like "oh this is normal!" I swear they are all literally part Eskimo or something. I think next week it's going to go back up to like the 30s though so thank goodness! I think it's so funny because now when it's like 30 degrees I'm thanking God for it being warm and when I was in good ol Santa Clara it would rarely even get to the 30s! So that's like my life here, gotta layer it up! 

I learned some valuable lessons this week! first of all, don't eat donuts for lunch! we had a person drop us who we found like the day before and she seemed super solid so we were like "oh man" and then Elder Buckway was like "you gotta try this gourmet donut place" and so we went there and then we both ate donuts for lunch and then I felt so energized for like 20 min and then I passed out during my personal study because the sugar killed me and I felt not so good for like 4 hours after that. So, me thinking I'm all wise I decided to fight this sugar with pure vegetables, so I blended up spinach and water and I drank it. (this is lesson #2 by the way cause this was super disgusting and I gagged it in the sink) I don't recommend drinking spinach and water juice. So basically next time a person drops us we are going to avoid donuts at all costs. Being on my own is really teaching me how to learn to eat properly! like I now know to eat healthy! so not exactly a spiritual super lesson, but a great life lesson! 

Something else funny that happened, there was this super old lady we tracted into! and we told her that we were missionaries etc and she's like "Oh! just one minute!" she goes back inside and Elder Buckway turns to me and he's like "oh man she's probably going to go inside and get a bunch of books about how our church is not true and how Jesus saved us so we can eat drink and be merry because tomorrow we die." anyways she comes back out and has 10 bucks and she's like "take it." and I said "No! that's against the rules! we just want to share an exciting message with you!" and she was like "I already heard your message just take my money." and we stepped back because we are not supposed to take money! she walks outside and I've never seen an old lady so agile and she presses the 10 bucks into elder buckways hand and starts walking back inside and I was like " wait! we're not supposed to! can we share a message with you?!" and she kept saying she already heard it and walked inside so I gave her a card and told her that we could serve her with anything and tried to give her the money back but she shut the door. Soooo... I accidentally broke a mission rule but the good news is we got ten bucks haha. So that was pretty funny and at least we gave her our card because I don't know if she's actually heard our message haha. 

So lately during our studies we light candles and use them for light. Elder Buckway told me the power went out right before I got here so he got a bunch of candles and then the power worked again. So we have a bunch of candles. And so we use them I guess and we feel like we're cool or something I don't know but it makes our studies so natural! like I'm a missionary in the 1800s who doesn't know what electric light is! anyways that's pretty exciting haha (oh the ways we make life entertaining around here haha) 

This week we were able to find a lot more new people! I was super pumped! we got a lot of Potentials last week and this week we were able to go back and teach them more and turn them into new people taught. So that's the trick here is the Potentials will become new people the next week! So we got some Potentials this last week too that we'll hopefully get to work with more. It's been a good week. 

One of the areas we were tracting at is called cedar lake, and there is a lake there (who would've guessed) and it's completely frozen over! it's crazy! I didn't know whole lakes could freeze over, can oceans freeze over!? anyways it is more proof that this place is an actual winter wonderland and maybe we'll eventually see people Ice skating on it one it gets a little thicker. How cool would that be?! the only time I ever Ice skated was at a youth conference up in cedar so here they probably do it all the time! I guess we'll see haha. 

The last interesting thing that I can think of to talk about is the ward. They are so awesome. We had a ward party this week and it was super grand. Got to meet tons of less active members and get to know a lot of members and member friends. It was super great. One little thing though is somehow we definitely got drafted into the ward choir, and they made us sing at the Christmas party. (I know my family and my dad especially is probably extremely proud right now.) after church on Sundays the choir director grabs us and is like "get over here I need men's voices". So there's been times where we are the only males in the choir and we probably sound horrendous but sometimes there are like 2-3 other males here and they relieve my stress a little bit. So now they make us sing for like 30 minutes after church every Sunday! I never wanted to be in a choir but I guess I kinda got trapped in it now haha. We keep stressing out the choir director by saying that "what if sisters came after us" and she's like "please no I need men's voices" so I guess we are contributing to the ward choir because they still want us there haha. 

That's about it for this week. Something I've learned spiritually I guess is the importance of reading the book of mormon everyday. There has been many promises about reading the book of mormon every day by prophets and such. It means so much and I've been learning to love it seriously sososo much and my book of Mormon is starting to look like a rainbow cause I've been getting so excited about studying it and marking it all up. I know that it is truly the word of God. That has been my big focus of the week is the book of mormon because that's where a lot of the misconceptions are with people. Many think it's like a "latter day Saint handbook" but it's seriously the word of God. It's proof that God is real and that he loves all of his children. I love the book of mormon and I know that it goes hand in hand with the Bible. 

So that's about all I have to say for this week! hope everyone's Christmas season has started off legendary! 

Elder Jensen 

Pictures:

1. The frozen lake

2. A cat we found

3. Candle study is straight 

4. Tons of people here like dress up geese or ducks or whatever type of bird this is and they put it on their doorsteps. I don't know why but that seems to be the common trend. 

Hebron Indiana

Wow what a week! Hebron is a wonderful place. Actually we're over a couple of towns, the one we live in is called Crown Point Indiana! As much as I loved Chicago, I've mentioned like a billion times that I would never live there! But I actually wouldn't mind living in this place because there are real life houses and grass and parking! It's amazing!

Right now this place is like a winter wonderland. Like in the movies where it's all snowy outside and the fire is crackling brightly and the kids are outside playing in the snow and there is a pond that's frozen over that the little girl across the street is ice skating on and everyone thinks to themselves, "Wow, this could be inside a snow globe or something." Yeah that's what this place is like! Like there are a bunch of random ponds that are freezing over! 

The main form of finding in this area is tracting, the classic knock on the door missionary routine. It's actually pretty easy, but the problem with it is like 1 in 100 people will actually listen to you! This place does give me a little hope for the future though because in Chicago there were a lot of people who didn't like any religion or just didn't believe in God but here every single door you knock on they attend church! It's crazy! Like so far I've only ran into two people who don't believe in God. Everyone else is like "yeah I attend the Lutheran/Catholic/Methodist/Bethal/Faith/St. Marys/whatever else there is." It's super crazy! Like the complete opposite of Chicago which made me fear for the future of this world haha. 

Funnily enough, the only people that were kinda having success with right now happen to be YSA's. I was thinking that we were going to be working with a ton of old people but they are pretty stubborn to only believe in their church and not even learn about another one! 

It's crazy because I went from an area where we had like 20 people we were working with and got to this area where they only had 2! So what a change! President Bingham told me however that although this area is a lot harder to find, the people you DO find are always ones that are more solid. 

We have one guy on date named Alec and he's super awesome! Can't wait to see where we go with him :) 

The ward here is amazing. This whole stake is pretty interesting to me because they have like 4 wards but each ward meets in their own building, not what I'm used to in Utah where they have like 4 wards meet in one building! I think it's really cool though because they seem really tight, like one big family and it's been really awesome to start to get to know some of them. Two people that I've met who live here actually served in the Illinois Chicago mission, although they said that they were never sent to the Indiana area. So it's cool to hear their mission experiences because we have the same mission! 

Were trying to really focus on Light The World to pump up the members for member missionary work so it's going to be awesome! :) 

My new companions name is Elder Buckway, he's a pretty solid dude. He's the district leader in this district so that's pretty cool. This will be his 4th transfer in Hebron so he's been here like 5 months! 

OH last thing haha one of our main issues tracting is that everyone thinks that we're Jehovas Witnesses and nobody wants to hear from them haha so if anyone has any suggestions to make ourselves look a little different then let us know. 

I think that's about it for this week! it's snowing so wish me some luck for this next week! I love all of you and hope your Christmas season is awesome! 

Elder Jensen 

Pics

1. Me and Elder Buckway

2. Railroad master

3. Look at all that slightly dead corn