Day 10283829 inside

God bless this week we had in quarantine! It was another legendary time with my boy Elder Young!

We have been doing what missionaries do in quarantine, calling a lot of members and doing a lot of video member lessons, calling a lot of people were teaching and doing people were teaching lessons over video, and of course friending every single person on FB who has anything to do with Freeport Illinois and messaging them!

One person named Albert on FB agreed to listen to what we taught and became a new person, and he also referred us to his niece who has a family so now we found a new family! The network still works even in quarantine! Gotta love it!

It snowed one morning so Elder Young and I after our morning run built a snowman which was pretty sick and then it broke and now it's already melted. The weather here never ceases to amaze me!

Sadly quarantine is pretty much the same thing every day so I don't have much more to add, but I'm happy, Elder Young is happy, and we're busy! I do hope this ends before I go home though so I can actually go to one church service in the Freeport ward 

Everyone have a great week!

Snow 

The emptiness of this place 

Comp unity 

Me trying to be like the wii fitness trainer 

FREEPORT

This place is sick. Even though I've been inside the whole time I love it here! Imagine the boonies of Indiana mixed with people of the Southside who got kicked out and sent here and that pretty much describes it. So it's pretty legendary! I'm excited for when we're able to actually go out and I have to say there is no place I'd rather finish my mission!

My new companion Elder Young is the man! He's a ton of fun! There is nobody I'd rather be in quarantine with. We have such a good time and are doing literally everything we can to make this area pop in the quarantine! We've been calling all the members and have been hitting the Facebook find grind like crazy. 

We've actually been able to get pretty busy and are now teaching about 6 lessons a day so that's been fun! Lots of member lessons but it's been good! The video call lessons are probably the best way to do member work. It's exactly what we're looking for in this mission, no fat dinner appointments with the members that are a waste, but fitting like 4 member lessons in the time we used to do just one.

Elder Young and I just laugh all day every day. Until 10:30 pm we're just dying haha. It's been a blast with him.

Our zone is super awesome! It's been awesome to be a zone leader here in the Rockford zone! We've been putting some heavy focus on accountability and staying structured during the quarantine, we've already seen a super good increase in our numbers here! Missionaries are starting to figure out how to rock this quarantine life and it is getting gnarly!

Hope everyone has an incredible week!

Elder Jensen 

Corona Conference

Well this has been an exciting transfer here in West Chicago YSA! Sadly since I'm dying sooner than expected this next transfer will be my last so I'm going to no longer be serving here in the office with Elder Anderson because he's dying too so it only makes sense to have one of us leave!

I'm getting transferred to the Rockford zone in an area called Freeport for my last transfer as a zone leader! I'm going to be companions with a younger missionary named Elder Young who was actually in this zone and is an ultra homie. We're going to be zone leaders together which I'm pumped for!! It's going to be a good time in the hood boonies! This area is as far west as the mission goes so it's literally like a 3 hour drive from the city and I'm going to feel like I've been banished haha! It's ok I've been in the outskirts of Indiana before and I loved it haha!

This last week was a really good one. It's crazy to see the impact the corona virus has on the world and on the mission. We were at a Walmart the other day and it actually felt like an apocalypse movie. Everyone wearing their masks, staying 6 feet apart from each other, and people freak out if you get too close! And... I'm a missionary during the "apocalypse" haha. It's super funny. I've always imagined myself during these movies and what I would do, and I would've never imagined I'd be preaching the nourishing good word of God! And yet this is a great time to be doing it because the people are starting to have these questions of the soul that only Hinduism, or the gospel of Jesus Christ can answer! (and let's just say I 100% would rather have them turn to the gospel of Jesus Christ)

This week we had to continue transfer plans, and transfer travel plans. It's been a lot of long meetings with President and the few senior missionaries at the office who were allowed to stay trying to get these plans figured out when missionaries are going home left and right and causing areas to close and human beings aren't to meet in places with too many people and especially not the church. So planning transfers has been a headache, but the deed is done and hopefully it'll go smoothly on Tuesday!

This week we also did our MLC over zoom which actually worked surprisingly well. We tried to figure out a bunch of new features one of the best being the ability to break out into groups for smaller councils between zones. It worked really well and we were able to set a baptismal goal for April even though we're not totally sure if we'll be able to have a baptismal service in April due to the virus. If not then may is going go be HUGE for this mission!

We also had a mission devotional over FB live and Elder Anderson and I got to give a training, which it does feel awfully weird to give a training to a camera rather than a group of missionaries, but we felt it went pretty well! I miss being able to give trainings in front of people though haha

Other than that we've just been living the life of the quarantine! Rocking the video calls and the attempts to find people on Facebook! One recent convert from the Southside found our phone number and called me and gave us a Nigerian referral who lives here in the west suburbs so we taught her over video which was fun haha. We've also been messaging some mutual friends of members on FB and we found a dude and taught him the restoration! Problem is he lives in Africa haha. So the work continues! And Africa is probably going to get a lot of media referrals!

Well that's about it for my week,the quarantine life is about to get a lot slower without the assistant stuff to do so that'll be an adjustment, but I'm excited to see where it goes! Have an awesome week!

Elder Jensen

Elder Draper - legend who helps with transfer

EXPOSED TO THE STASH 

Tennis on Pday -- courts are closed now :(

At the church for online Training

 

Corona Chaos Round 12000

This week was another crazy one! And oh boy is it a crazy time to be working with President Shumway! 

Because of the corona virus about 30 missionaries in our mission went home this week. And all this is happening right when we're planning transfers too so transfer plans are changing like every 5 seconds! It's been pretty wild! My entire MTC group went home so I'll be going home with a completely different group than I had ever imagined!

Elder Anderson and I drove some missionaries around who were transferring home, taking them to the stake center and the airport and stuff. Then like 6 areas closed so we drove their cars back to the office and had to drive separately so that was pretty interesting being without a companion for a little bit.

For most of the rest of the week it was just quarantine and video lessons! Pretty fun stuff that is about the same! Calling a lot of formers and any numbers of anybody we've ever contacted haha.

This week we're going to have our first ever zoom call MLC so that'll be cool! We're going to give a training at it and it's going to be sick!

Sorry to keep it short but quarantine life just doesn't leave much to explain about! Everyone have an amazing week!

Our calendar (besides video call lessons and mission training)

All the cars 

My HOMIES going home (sorry social distancing) 

Quarantine

This week it seems like we were continuing to learn more information every single day about how the corona virus would affect the mission, so it was pretty insane!

Tuesday we weren't in quarantine (yet) but we weren't allowed to knock doors, and the campus was closed, and we were pretty much in quarantine without actually being in it. Elder Anderson and I were planning a training that day for this week because we were having our zone conferences that we had to make smaller groups of 2 districts because we weren't allowed to do entire zones. So Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, we were traveling around the mission going to these meetings and giving a lot of Trainings which was super awesome.

Each day however they kept making it harder and harder for us to do these meetings! The first day we had a super cool program where we were able to meet together, and this seminary teacher in one of the wards came and taught, the 2nd day they said no more seminary teacher is allowed to come teach, and the 3rd day they said we couldn't meet in two districts any more, just one, so we had to split it up. Now we've still only hit half the mission and given our training like 10 times, and they won't even let us meet up as one district anymore! So I guess the rest will just have to be over technology.

So now we're quarantined officially, I'm happy we were at least able to go see half the mission. We stay in the apartment and do video lessons as much as we can, and then basically call everyone like 1000000 times, and then have legendarily long studies and planning sessions. It's been pretty crazy!

On Sunday we did come follow me as a YSA ward and we got to teach it! Pretty legendary having a lesson on Jacob 5-7. We did have this one girl named Natalie who we've been teaching over video just about every single day and she joined for the church lesson and was probably super confused haha. There isn't really the same fellowship with church over video as there is in person, but the members have been super down to join in tons of lessons! It's been super awesome!

Something really sad I learned this week is I'll have to return home 3 months early in May due to all the missions closing down around the world. I'm really bummed, but at least I'll have been able to serve 21 months and have many life changing experiences I'll never forget and am really grateful for. Stinking corona. :( 

Anyways there is going to be some huge changes in the mission with lots of missionaries going home and lots of missionaries from foreign missions coming out. It's going to be wild!!

Elder Jensen 

Corona Chaos

Well this week started out pretty normal! We had planned 3 exchanges back to back because we get to do a lot of those! 

Our first exchange I got to go to a place way up in Northern Illinois called Woodstock. This place is legendary! It reminded me so much of Hebron because it's in the middle of nowhere! I got to go with the legendary elder Castleton and knock a lot of doors and have a lot of fun! We found some new people that day who let us in their house - a family. It was a miracle. They were saying that all the craziness in the world from the virus was a sign from God that they had to start coming back to Him and getting things together. 

Pretty cool how the chaos gets people humbled up and thinking. We knocked on this one door and this old white dude was like "If I gave you a free cross would you take it?" and I was like "sure why not." Dude comes back out with these two wooden crosses and says "God bless you gentlemen." while I'm frantically like "WAIT! after centuries of being lost......" door shuts. We'll, and least I got a free cross! So that exchange was phenomenal.

Then the next day we were planning on having Elder Anderson leave because it was a Spanish area in the city, but he messed up his ankle on Pday so I left the area again to go with a missionary named Elder Artis to my old zone on the Northside! Except in Spanish.... Didn't understand a thing and everytime I saw a not hespanic I was booking it over to them. It was a way good time though and super fun to be on a bike again.

For the third exchange we had to cancel it due to poor scheduling (our bad) but it was slammed that day. I think I had one of the best days of my mission on this Thursday where we literally taught lesson after lesson on campus. We were SO BUSY! We found several new people, and Elder Anderson and I were getting so hyped about how this area is going to boom! 

Then we got like 5 missed calls during one lesson and found out that church is cancelled and that the world is currently falling apart. And then we went to one more lesson and she told us campus is closing next week. So our superior force of finding has just been taken from us in the blink of an eye, but we're blessed to have found 8 people this week that we've already been able to meet with some of them not at the campus, but at other places.

So then the entire mission is freaking out because they don't know what to do for church and they're wondering if they should quit working and book it to Costco and starting stocking up like everyone else because it feels like it's the end of the world or a zombie apocalypse or something and so we put together this big video call with all the zone leaders and we went to president's house and answered a lot of questions about what were going to do. So we make some plans where instead of church, we'll get those we're teaching to go to a members house on Sunday for a come follow me lesson. 

Then the next day we get word that our missionaries aren't allowed to knock doors anymore! Now our missionaries were really freaking out haha! Besides the city zones or the YSA wards (which is pretty much where I've been the majority of my mission) most areas in the mission have a lot of knocking doors. So maybe the lord is calling our mission to repentance that we're not using members or the technology as much as we should be. So we've gone to president's like every night this week to do these big video calls with all the zone leaders and Sister training leaders where we just figure things out because everyone is paranoid. We've had a few late nights this week so when we woke up one morning to go to the gym we have in the apartment I literally ran into the glass door haha! Not even messing around it was way funny!

Although everything is falling apart and we're not able to work the way we want to, we are learning a lot about how to be creative because we're being forced to be creative. They even cancelled our zone conference because it's a "big meeting." so now this next week we're going to travel around the mission and give Training about how to use technology to find which frankly I've never done because I thought it was dumb so pray for me that I'll be humble enough to accept that I can't always find the elect in the way that I want to haha. So we're having a lot of changes! But we're not trapped in our apartments which is nice and hopefully we won't be.

We found this one girl this week named Jaylen and she's pretty solid! We've met with her twice and she came to do come follow me at a members house with us yesterday! We might get a baptism without ever getting someone to actual church! How cool is that!?

Well everyone stay safe and healthy don't let this Corona get to you and if you do beat it because it's lame and causing me to not talk to as many people as I want to. But oh how great at marvelous are the mysteries of the lord! We are excited to see where this takes us!!

Elder Jensen 

YSA Life

This week was awesome! I got thrown right into it all super fast and am loving it here in Naperville zone! It's kinda weird though because in the YSA we cover like 5 zones so our area is massive.

On transfers we got dropped off and I had to say goodbye to my boy Elder Christensen and tears were shed (not really but he is a legend) and then I got my new comp Elder Anderson! And the first thing we did is lead a meeting for all the new missionaries, which was awesome! There were only three new missionaries, so it was a small group, but it was awesome!

We hit a campus every day not far from our apartment called the college of DuPage. It's pretty weird to be on the campus again but it's pretty legendary too! YSA's are super open to talking to us about anything, so it makes it pretty easy. Of course though 4 out of the 5 we found this week have already dropped us though haha.

We have this sick homie we're teaching named Eli who goes to the college. He's in a wheel chair from a shooting on the Southside. Got shot in the spine and is paralyzed from the chest down, but has full movement in his arms. This dude can move! When we teach him he's always trying to balance and do wheelies in his wheelchair. He's super chill and is way pumped to get baptized this weekend. 

Also on Sunday it was my birthday and also Eli's birthday and so President had us come by for dinner and Eli got to meet president and it was SICK!!! President Shumway is an amazing member missionary, it's no wonder he is a mission president!

Other than that the real craziness is going to start next week with like 4 exchanges in a row and new missionary training on Friday! It's going to be amazing!!!

Elder Jensen 

Some random pics from a while back and the empty campus on Friday afternoon (weekends are YSA missionaries worst nightmares)

Elder Anderson and I at the office