Hello all my friends
and the happiest Monday to you all! This week has been absolutely
awesome!!!
We had a baptismal
service for our friend Kudi! She was a friend of the Nigerian man named Martins
who we baptized last month. She is super awesome and has acted in faith
significantly. I remember teaching her the word of wisdom and we talked about
coffee and tea and she asked, "Why would I have to give up coffee and tea?
They are not bad for me?" As much as we tried to explain that they could
be addictive substances she still didn't understand how something as simple as
coffee and tea could be bad for her.
Finally we explained
the Sacrifice and how God will ask us to sacrifice worldly things we love so we
can have a greater abundance of his spirit and blessings in our lives. After
hearing this she said, "I have sacrificed for God, and I will always
sacrifice for him." She gave up coffee and tea instantly. She works all
night and now has the Lord provide the energy that she needs. I love the faith
that she has shown me and the faith of these awesome people that we've been
able to teach! Elder Bodily was able to baptize her and I was able to confirm
her in church the next day.
Something else super
awesome, the family that my last companion Elder Van Tassell and I baptized 2
months ago had a son that just turned 8. Polycarb was able to be baptized by
his father Steve Abiola. It was an absolutely amazing thing to see a recent
convert, newly ordained to the office of a priest, baptize his young son. This
is what the gathering of Israel looks like! It made me so happy. Also I'm
pumped because they used to live in our area which is super sketch and lots of people
get shot but they were able to move to Hyde Park where the sisters are and it's
so much nicer. We've been able to see this with two of the families that my
last companion and I were able to teach and baptize together so it's been
really cool introducing them to the sisters and having them start to eat all
the Nigerian food haha.
After the baptism
another recent convert named Ofure brought some Nigerian food for everyone to
eat. President and Sister Shumway were there and sister Shumway got a plate and
started talking to some people. Martins, our friend who roasted Elder Bodily for
not eating his food began to roast Sister Shumway for not eating hers.
"WHY MUST YOU CHAT!? THE FOOD IS THERE FOR YOU TO EAT! YOU MUST EAT
IT!" Now this was an entertaining thing for me to see my mission president’s
wife get roasted for not eating her Nigerian food, first my companion, now her,
haha.
On Sunday we were able
to get Kudi confirmed, Martins was able to get the priesthood, and Darlene got
her temple recommend and her patriarchal blessing recommend. It's been
absolutely amazing to see these people I love grow and progress in their lives
in the gospel.
This week I was able
to go on exchanges to South Shore with Elder Osorio who is a straight homie and
an amazing District leader. He's the best and we had a pretty awesome time. We
played basketball with the other elders the next morning to switch back, which
was sick.
This week for some
reason we've been struggling to find the Nigerian people, we had nobody come to
church this week except for Kudi, and she's now a member. We're going to have
to hit the hard reset. A little discouraged, but nevertheless a little excited
to find some more solid people, my companion and I went with our excited
finding attitudes and found a guy who let us in his house to teach him. The
dude ended up being super high. He was like "Hold up, what was I even
doing before you two got here?" Since he was holding the Book of Mormon in
his hands we were able to convince him that he was actually reading the
scriptures before we met with him. He believed us and probably began highly
reading the Book of Mormon after we left haha.
As we were leaving he
was like "When are y’all coming back?" We were like, “We are not sure,
what do you think? He pulled out his wrist with no watch on it and looked at it
and was like "Howbout 6:00?" So that was pretty cool haha. We saw him
later that night walking around and we were like "Jamal where you
going?!" And he said in a very legendary way "The liquor store. Jesus
turned water into wine, I'm finna turn this paper into some beer." Probably
the funniest thing I've ever heard on the Sabbath day.
So we continue to
teach and this week we will have a lot of finding to do as we're kinda doing a
slight reset on our teaching pool. It's going to be an awesome time finding in
the hood! Hope everyone has an amazing week!
Elder Jensen
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