Bike Life

This week has been absolutely insane! Pretty much the exact same as two transfers ago when I started training Elder Bodily. On Tuesday we rolled into transfers, I almost shed a tear saying goodbye to my last companion and then walked into the room with all the new missionaries. Our lovely vehicle coordinator walked up to me and said, "Hey Elder Jensen! Hope everything is amazing! By the way, since I took your driving privileges last month, I'm also taking your car." Oh Elder Kuhns, what a lovely vehicle coordinator, who I will never forget.

So I get a new companion, his name is Elder Levanger and he's from Las Vegas, Nevada and actually comes from a decently humble part of it. So his home ward, he said, is very similar to this one and is quite diverse. He's also been on splits with the missionaries there, to the sketchy apartments, so nothing is really very new for him. But now that we learned we were a bike area I took the car that was supposed to not be mine and illegally drive it, still logged into my tiwi, and went to Aurora to get my old bike, and then we drove all the way back to Chicago, still with the car. So turns out the car was being given to the elders who are in the area right above us. There is a new zone leader there who is going to be my ZL partner and he's taking it. So for the first 2 days Elder Levanger and I may have illegally driven the car until we had to rush to MLC on Thursday and then we lost our baby. 

So we're now a bike area I guess. We've been riding around on bikes and stuff and it's been super fun! It’s also super cold, but if you bundle up it's not bad. If it snows it is kinda bad. Because its winter time the mission also hooked us up with some bus passes. So we've been doing a little bit of a mix based on the weather. It's actually a ton of fun, however I don't know a thing about the bus and I'm pretty sure I've messed us up like 12 times. But there are so many homies on the bus and it's an amazing contacting opportunity. It's seriously so easy to talk to these people. They have nowhere to go, nothing to do, and all they can do is sit and listen. And they actually really like talking to you if you are asking questions about them! People love talking about themselves! Who knew! 

So the craziness of this week though really was because we had transfers and had to drive to Naperville, then two days later we had MLC and had to drive to Naperville (suburb about an hour west of Chicago) and then the day after that the zone leaders get to plan for a combined district council or like a zone meeting to talk about MLC stuff. So we had like gnarly meetings this week and I was on exchanges with Elder Shupe for like 2 of the days this week. So I love life, but my poor companion hasn't really seen regular proselyting days yet. 

We had some cool miracles this week. Yesterday morning I was getting really frustrated with all those were teaching. They seem to disappear on Sunday mornings and nobody answers their calls. I was starting to get angry and then realized I needed to be more patient. South Side has taught me a lot of patience due to many of the people who don't really keep commitments. So my new companion and I said a prayer, asked the lord to soften our hearts, and then promised him we'd move forward and find the elect.

Miraculously two people showed up to church out of nowhere, one is a friend of one of the recent convert Nigerian families we baptized, and it was her 2nd time at church. Another one was a former who appeared out of nowhere and wants to meet again. CRAZY! The lord blesses us. Also it was sick because Darlene gave me a Mega shout out in Sunday school and then the Nigerian lady came to me and asked if we could put our number in her phone so we could come back and teach her. Super sick, super probably elect, but sadly also super busy. It's OK we'll get her. Then on Sunday night we got in with this Nigerian family. We hadn't met the father yet and we were super happy to finally meet him and he committed to come to church next week, and is super interested in learning more. Pray for the Rotimi family! They could be the next elect family! 

This week while reading in Ether and also Preach My Gospel, I've really been learning and studying a lot about personal revelation. The lord wants to help us, but he also wants us to remember Him. Having seen so many miracles and success here already, incredibly even a missionary like me has seemed to forget His power. Never forget! Remember the goodness of God! This church is true!!!! Everyone have an awesome week and stay warm. 

Elder Jensen