Lake Shore 2

This week has been AWESOME! My new area is super cool. I mean it has been one of the dream places to go since the beginning of my mission in YSA, and it covers where I used to live, so I'm a little familiar with the area. Still trying to figure it out completely though because it doesn't have the same grid system as the South Side does, so it a little harder to find your way around. It's right off the lake though so super cold! 

My new companion is named Elder Christensen, and he's been out for 3 months so just finished training. (No more 12 week YESSS!!) He's from a place called Jerusalem, Utah which I didn't know existed and I don't think anybody else does either. It's like by Moroni, Utah which is another place nobody probably knows where it is. So he is yet another country boy companion I've had in the big city! He's super awesome, really great at talking to people, especially white people which I'm not good at because I just came from the South Side.

This area is way diverse and so I've been pumped to find a lot of people from Africa this last week! I can't help but want to talk to them a little more, even though God is no respecter of persons.

Since we're opening this area, we've been finding all day every day for the past week! No knocking doors because it's the city, so we hit the streets every day! And because we didn't really have a teaching pool, we did public transportation instead of riding bikes for the most part because we needed to talk to more people anyways. But we were stoked and blessed to find 10 new people to teach this week and now we kind of have a teaching pool! 2 of them are Nigerian, and 4 others are from Uganda and Ethiopia. It will be super cool to teach them!

Were also in a ward with another companionship who's actually a trio, but there are no boundaries so occasionally we'll see them street contacting. We went on exchanges with them last week and the problem is now they're starting to hit up some of our Hotspots to find a lot of good people haha! It's pretty legendary though!

Sorry it's a little short, this week was mostly just finding and next week we'll do a whole lot more finding because we are trying to get that teaching pool huge! Pray for the hearts of the people in Chicago to be prepared! Have an awesome week!

Elder Jensen 

Seeya Southside

Holy smokes! My time on the Southside has come to an end! I've been here for 5 transfers and have grown to love this place so much!

We got our transfer calls yesterday and I will be leaving to the Lakeshore 2nd ward which is straight up to the Northside of Chicago! Still in the city, still on bikes (thank goodness because parking is terrible up there). I'm going back to the zone that I started out my mission at and I've even been on exchanges to this area before! Still a zone leader as well. I'm super pumped!

The last week of this transfer has been absolutely legendary. It has gotten extra COLD this week. Like its 3 degrees right now with a wind-chill making it like - 13 degrees. So we rode the bikes as long as we could but frozen snow and more flats made us have to call it quits for the past few days.

We were able to do exchanges with the Assistants this week which was super fun, Elder Van Tassell, one of my past companions, came down here with me. It was super fun, we had an incredible day on the bikes, went in for an appointment at 4:00 pm and came out to find an inch of snow on the ground. Right before an appointment 3 miles away... So we biked in some gnarly snow and as we were going there was snow dumping from the sky, and of course my companion took his bus card again so we didn't have a bus pass haha. By the end of the night there was probably like 5 inches on the ground and somehow we got 2 flats, so we had to tap out and scramble 2.50$ to hit the bus part of the way back, and then walk. It was SO MUCH FUN! We got to see all the recent converts we baptized together, and it was pretty cool to say goodbye to all of them and of course eat a lot of Nigerian food. 

Darlene has been hearing all the stories about the Nigerians feeding us and she has also wanted to feed us so bad, but always says "if I cook I'll kill you!" so this week she got us a pizza and we had probably the most normal member meal I've ever had here on the Southside haha. It was super legendary and lots of fun! 

Other than that we've been doing the usual finding, teaching, and soon baptizing. One of the families we found is progressing really well and will be baptized by the end of February. We're super excited for them! 

I'm going to cut it short this week, but I hope everyone's week is phenomenal! 

Elder Jensen 

Pics:

Gabriel and Ronke 

Darlene's BOM 

EJ the wannabe thug and I 

Bisola and Eniola 

Snow biking 

District pics 

Blizzard Biking

This was probably one of the most legendary weeks in my mission!

We started off going on exchanges with another one of the district leaders, Elder Sloan. He is serving directly down south like 100 blocks in the Morgan Park ward, still sketchy, but a little more suburbia and is kinda out of the city into the sketch south suburbs a bit. Super sick area! Elder Sloan is my man! He came on his mission at the age of 20 and he played basketball in college and is seriously such a beast. He dunks on us every single pday but sure makes you feel like you're good at basketball if you're on his team haha! Super cool though that day because we still got to knock doors because it's suburbish, but still kinda like the South Side.

This week we also had another exchange because our district leader wanted to do one in Englewood, so he came here and I went to South Shore. I've been on like 7 exchanges this transfer and have left every time! So Elder Heffner knows the area now like a pro! After that exchange we switched back in the morning and made a big breakfast because it was Elder Heffner's birthday! It was a straight fire day until the entire day rained and we got completely soaked. Another missionary in the district lost his bus pass and so we lent him mine and were stuck with only bikes this week, which is what we do anyway, but holy smokes we had some gnarly weather.

On Elder Heffner's birthday we were riding back from the Lowe building and got completely soaked, like from head to toe. COVERED in road grime. It was CRAZY AWESOME! Riding in the rain is wild! But then the next day it got even more intense! The day was another rainy one, but we were slammed busy in the Lowe building for most of the day and once we came outside at night, we saw the wind going crazy, the snow everywhere on the ground, and the snow still coming down pretty much sideways because of the crazy wind. So because we had no bus pass, we proceeded to bike home in it! The side roads were crazy slipper but the main ones were OK for the most part! It was crazy! Elder Heffner only biffed it on the very last turn home. If was pretty fun actually biking in snow, who would've thought!

We had some awesome miracles this week. On Friday we were walking out of the Lowe building when we saw one of our recent converts, David Rotimi, who just got baptized in December! We were kinda confused to see him because he moved out, but he told us he was by to visit a friend. We decided to follow him to meet his friend in the building, and he ended up introducing us to A FAMILY OF FOUR! The family included a single mom, whose name is Bisola, and her three teenage kids who are already good friends with some other members in the building. We taught them a lesson and they already came to church this weekend. They are so solid! Super pumped we found two new families and we have some pretty awesome individuals we're working with too. The Lowe building has been one of the most interesting and incredible ways of finding I've been able to be a part of in my mission. You see a Nigerian recent convert in there and they're visiting a friend? FOLLOW THEM! As weird as if sounds it has almost always resulted in a solid new person for us to teach.

This will probably be my last week in Englewood, I've been here for over 7 months now and am pumped to see some last week miracles here! Everyone have an awesome week!

Elder Jensen 

Chicago in 2020

This week was another great one! We had MLC out in Naperville so I got to go on a double exchange with the other  zone leader. MLC's are going to be crazy until the burst of new missionaries slow down because the split ZL's have to get together for the MLC and then prepare a zone meeting the next day, which has been pretty legendary. Our zone meeting went super well and we're super pumped for the month of January! 

I also was able to go on an exchange with one of the district leaders out in Westchester, it's like part suburbs part not. Super cool area! You still knock doors but there are SO MANY PEOPLE!!! it's like the most condensed suburb I've ever seen. We also both had ingrown toenails so we set up for a surgery a while back and the deed has been done! Probably one of the goofiest sets of missionaries you could ever see, both tracting with some bloody toes. But we found some awesome people! It was a great time. 

This Sunday was legendary. Ever since we've been on the bikes, we've seen a lot of success biking to the Lowe building early on Sunday mornings and trying to get everyone to wake up and come to church, and then we can even ride the bus with them if they're willing to come. This Sunday however at first it seemed that nobody was answering, and it was pretty disappointing. When we got to church there was a new Nigerian family there, and we went and talked to them and they just happen to live in the Lowe building! It turns out they were friends of one of the recent convert families in the lowe building and were invited to church! We were able to set up an appointment with them for this next week and were so pumped!

This transfer will probably be my last here and there isn't going to be another baptism till after transfers, so my number one goal was for Elder Heffner and I to find a new Nigerian family for him and his next companion to baptize! And it looks like we may have just found them! They told us they want to start coming to church more regularly and we'll get to start visiting them! 

Also one of the people we were teaching woke up at 3:30 am to get ready for church haha so we're super pumped about her as well! Super good times! 

At church in Sunday school for the recent converts and investigators they had us all introduce themselves and something they wanted to do for the new years so I said in yoruba "my name is elder Jensen (orukomi Alagba Jensen) and all the Nigerian recent converts started freaking out it was so funny haha and then all the missionaries said their new years resolution was to eat more Pounded yam, fufu, and Jolloff rice. So we're all in haha. 

Our recent convert friend Gabriel told us a couple weeks ago at church that he wanted to host all of the elders at his house, so this Sunday we did just that! He made us a huge lunch of Nigerian food (and went soft on the spice what a homie). He thought it was so awesome to have all of us there that he had all the missionaries pray over the food. 

Also this week we got to stop by the Rotimi's after church which was legendary because they just had their new baby boy! They said they were having a "christening party" right before transfers and we had to come and eat their food haha. 

Hope everyone has an awesome week! 

Elder Jensen