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
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