Ambulance Speed Wheelchairs

This was a gnarly last week of the transfer, and I'm stoked to say we got our calls and I'll be staying here in Englewood for another one! This will be my first 6 month area and I'll be getting another new missionary and training again while staying zone leader. (Now I'll get to do 12 week for the 3rd time. This time it's going to be way easier though because there will be an English zone and a Spanish zone so the other zone leader will be way close and we'll be able to be a lot more accountable than when it was just one massive zone that was twice the size of all the others. Good ol Elder Bodily has now graduated 12 week and will be heading to Chicago YSA!! (The glorious area of my beginning). It's going to be an awesome transfer though and I'm way excited!

So right after P-Day last week we went to go teach those who we had scheduled and we saw a glorious sight. On the South Side I'm pretty sure people don't understand the purpose for crosswalks because they literally just don't use them, and they're always standing right in the middle of the road or walking across the street without even looking. Like I have almost hit so many people, but luckily I have avoided it.

So anyway, there was this lady in one of those electric wheelchairs (you see a lot of those too) and she was moving along in her little wheelchair right in the middle of the road instead of using this miraculous creation we call sidewalks. Suddenly we hear a siren (what else is new) but this time it was an ambulance and it was right behind her and she was still just speeding along as fast as that little chair could take her, and the ambulance honked so loud haha. She finally got on the side enough for them to pass her and she flipped it off and was cursing the ambulance. And then she proceeded to ask us for a quarter. Now that is what I call a celestial spirit right there haha.

We had our legendary event for October in the Hyde Park ward this week. This time they did a haunted house which is the biggest event that the ward does. They always need all hands on deck and the ward mission leader requests that all the missionaries in the ward help. It was way fun, and the YSA elders including my old comp Elder Dodson came to help as well because they had some people coming. Elder Dodson, Noble, and I were in the "art room" and so it was a room that was covered in black paper and splattered with some glow paint and black lights, and then all of us wore black morph suits that had the glow paint all over them as well. It was way cool we'd try to blend into the wall and scare people. So it was probably one of the more interesting ways of proselyting but like 1400 people came and 100 families signed up requesting that they wanted a new church home and would be willing to have missionaries visit, and 3 of the families we are teaching came as well. It was a ton of fun!

We also had a legendary zone conference that was super rad and Elder Vargas and I only had to give a roleplay of how to contact normally and naturally so you know we pretended to contact hood families playing basketball, but of course some of the Spanish missionaries were part of our role play so we were slightly contacting a African and African American and Mexican family. The zone conference was way awesome though!

I was able to have my first “call the police” moment this week in the middle of the night! It sounded like there was a drunk husband who was abusing his wife at our neighbors so we called the police and they came and we went back to bed. We live in Hispanic nation and still something pretty wild! Glad it got all figured out though, Chicago Police dudes are jacked.

Everyone have an awesome week, until next time! 

Elder Jensen 

Double Exchanges

This week was another great one! We had two exchanges this week, one with the assistants and one so that our district leader could go with Elder Bodily. 

Exchanges with the AP's was fire. Elder Van Tassell, my old companion, came here with me and we were reliving the good memories. We stopped by several recent converts that we had baptized while we were here together and we definitely got fed two large dinner meals before 10:00 AM. I don't know why Nigerians eat dinner food for breakfast. It was way fun though we couldn't stop laughing (but our stomachs were in pain) every time they offered more. I almost threw up that day haha. It was a super fun and busy day! Elder Bodily went to the Spanish area again because of the complications with the split zone leaders, and of course he got roasted that day because he couldn't speak Spanish. 

Our other exchange was awesome too, Elder Bodily stayed here and I went to South Shore with a missionary named Elder Noble who is an ultra homie. While we were there we went into another Nigerian building kind of like the one that we have and found like 5 potential new people. We also had a miracle because I had contacted this one lady named Kemmy before who lived in their area, but the address I had received wasn't right and she ended up falling through the cracks. As we were walking out of the building I saw her and recognized her. She remembered me and told me I had a good memory. It was a miracle to catch her again and this time we got her information so those missionaries can go and see her again. 

Many of our recent converts had the awesome opportunity to go to the temple this week for the first time to do baptisms for the dead. Some of our friends including: Chukwudi, Segun and his wife, Darlene, and all the converts of the other missionaries. Darlene was especially excited to tell us all about the temple the next day at church. She had an awesome experience and is excited to go again. Many of the recent converts were able to baptize each other and be witnesses and they absolutely loved it. 

The fall is officially here! It was wild actually on Thursday morning it was still pretty warm like 60 degrees but mid-day it quickly dropped to 40. The next morning I decided to go running because I wasn't ready to give up outside exercise yet and now I'm brutally sick and can't do any exercise so to all those paying attention don't go running in the cold it's a poor idea. 

Last off the Nigerian couple we eat with every Sunday said we were able to have another set of elders over so we invited the ones who are in the South Shore area of our ward and they made us enough food for an army. Four of us and we still had to pound like crazy. It was so fun haha. 

That’s about it for this week, a picture is worth a thousand words so I'll just send some of those. 

Elder Jensen 

The Memories

Good morning everyone! This was a great and fantastic week. To start off we went to MLC this week which was super awesome which meant that I got to go with superior master other zone leader, Elder Vargas, who is my hero and who is slowly teaching me how to sing the Phineas and Ferb theme song in Spanish (don't worry I'll get it eventually) so that was a blast. It's pretty cool because Elder Vargas and I and the STL's in the Chicago zone were all in the same district back in Naperville so it's pretty cool and Elder Dodson was there too so we had to take an OG district Pic.

It was also sick to see my homies, Elders Bell and Howe, from the MTC. Exactly one year ago we were at new missionary training together and now we were all at the MLC! Pretty fun stuff! So, after MLC Elder Vargas and I went back to his area in Espanol nation and we planned for our training in the zone meeting the next day and we really struggled because we get distracted pretty easily and by like 10:25 we were somehow having a Waterbender Vs Earthbender battle and then we realized we had to get to bed so much of the training was planned through sleep talk and the next morning... But the deed was done! 

We had a pretty cool musical fireside that the missionaries were invited to go to and it was sick because I got to see my old companion Elder Dodson again and he brought one of the investigators good old Jarius Groves (stage name J-groove) to the fireside! I was teaching Jarius when I was being trained last year and it sounds like he's doing well and is preparing for baptism this month! So it was a really fun event.

So as you all know this weekend was general conference! I made a goal this year to stay awake the entire time (something that I've literally never been able to do in my entire life) and I failed my goal miserably and feel asleep at least during one talk in every session! I only have one more conference in my mission and it sounds like President Nelson was hyping it up so I WILL stay awake the entire time during this one. It is possible. Conference was bomb though, we watched one session with Darlene and she was diggin it: "Oh, President Nelson, how I love that man! His voice is just so soothing, I could listen to him all day!" So that was pretty fun. The rest of the sessions we just watched at the church and brought some people to watch it there with us. 

On Sunday Darlene got her patriarchal blessing and she was so excited to share the experience with us. She said the three most powerful experiences in her life were when we gave her the blessing of healing and she walked, when I confirmed her a member of the church, and when she got her patriarchal blessing. "It's amazing! It’s like your voice isn't you anymore! And I feel something; it starts from my head and goes down my body! This feeling of warmth and peace! The first time I was scared because I didn't know what it was! But now I know it's the spirit!" She's literally the best. We took her to a lesson with us last night and she has the most powerful testimony. She is definitely is one of the coolest recent converts of all time. 

Well I don't have a whole lot more to add this week, but hope everyone is amazing! 

Elder Jensen 

Covenants Made, Tow Trucks Fines Paid

Don't worry I didn't get towed. But an elder in our district did. Pray for him. 

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 

Green Fire Testimony

Last week for Pday we went downtown, which was legit, and played some gnarly mini golf with the boys. Also we got some super sick pics so stay tuned. 

This week we had transfers and Elder Bodily and I were so grateful to stay together that we planned like 4 lessons on Tuesday morning and then Mr. Vehicle coordinator said we had to chauffeur 2 missionaries and our whole schedule got slightly roasted but it's OK because ONE MORE TRANSFER!!!

This week was actually super awesome. The first week we have had in a long time that hasn't had any meetings, so it was a nice full busy and effective week. I'm very grateful. 

Probably one of the coolest things I've been able to see this week was my companion bear powerful testimony. We were teaching this guy, it was a 4th lesson and we were preparing to drop him because every time we met with him he would ask the same question about Joseph Smith saying God was a man and why do Mormons think that they are God's etc. You all know the concern. For like the 50th he had brought it up, and we told him it doesn't matter if Joseph Smith wasn't even a prophet, and if the Book of Mormon is not true. Elder Bodily asked if he had read the Book of Mormon and prayed and this certain person had refused. I studied the concern and try to help him understand but nothing was working.

Elder Bodily finally threw down a savage testimony where he knew of the divinity of the Book of Mormon and of Joseph Smiths prophetic calling. He was even quoting scriptures and even said to this guy "it pains my soul that you'll harden your heart against what we're teaching you" (but it sounded more like what Alma said to the city of Ammonihah) and he was, throwing down! It was so powerful and he told him that we couldn't teach him anymore if he would refuse to read the Book of Mormon and simply ask God if it is true. Holy smokes. After the lesson we told him we loved him but he's simply not doing what we've asked him to do and we dropped him. The spirit had confirmed to me that it was the right thing to do. I've had plenty of drop lessons with people, but this one was really powerful. One of the most rewarding things I've seen on my mission was right then as a trainer, seeing a young missionary who has the most powerful testimony. He'll be a powerful teacher and leader to those in Chicago.

Other than that it was the usual. Ate Nigerian food, taught the Nigerian brothers and sisters and also the homies in the hood. It's a blast and I can't imagine it any better, coming home at night with a crappy haircut, torn pants sewn back together by our recent convert friend, exhausted every day. And I wouldn't trade any of it for the world. The missionary life is a legendary one.

Everybody pray for our friend Kudi this week, she's a Nigerian woman we've been teaching who is a friend of Martins the man who was baptized last transfer. She'll be preparing for baptism this weekend. 

Hope everyone has an amazing week!

Elder Jensen 

General Authorities in Chicago!

It was ANOTHER great week on the Southside! Pretty basic week, helping people stop smoking and trying to teach them why it's important to keep hookers out of their houses, and that self control and the scriptures are a greater defense than a Louisville slugger to "the demons of the world." (The hookers) boy oh boy do we meet some interesting people haha. Had 11 people confirm for church and 2 show up! People must be afraid of the rain is what we have discovered. Either that or they don't understand the DOCTRINE. So WE WILL TEACH THEM!

We actually had a great opportunity this week to have Elder S. Gifford Nielsen who is a 70 and another 70 named Elder McCune who came to do a mission tour. They had the MLC gather together in Naperville (so we had another MLC.) so for the part of the day where it wasn't MLC I went to Chicago 2nd ward for the day with Elder Vargas the other zone leader. It is a Spanish area and my boy is from Spain so he's a pro... Me not so much. We went finding and I told him I'd try it so that I could have a taste of what a Spanish greenie feels like, and I'm pretty sure I figured out how to say "Hello. I am a missionary." That's all I got. So that's what I did! “Hello, I am a missionary.” Bam. Give them a card and then turn to the comp who actually speaks the language haha. But MLC that day was pretty awesome. We talked a lot about how to help the mission move forward and it was super inspiring.

Our mission tour the next day consisted of 3 zones gathering together to hear the general authorities speak. Personally I like zone conferences better because it's more interactive, but this meeting was super awesome too. We were all able to learn a lot and it was amazing being able to see the homies from the other zones and especially being able to talk to the sisters who are currently serving in one of my old areas and hearing about people Elder Jensen and I used to teach and how they were baptized. Super awesome!

That night our ward had a huge event at the church and they wanted to help of all the missionaries. It was a back to school carnival and Elder Bodily and I were on BOUNCE HOUSE DUTY!!! It was super sick. Definitely you already know I took advantage of that. Bounce houses are my thing. If the kids wouldn't get off you could just get on and scream and they'd all go nuts haha and jump off. From that night the ward mission leader gathered us together and told us that 30 families requested that missionaries come and visit them. Next month we'll be having a huge Halloween party and apparently last year they had like 4000 people show up and got like 400 referrals. It's going to be INSANE! Chicago is a great place to tap into the power of ward events.

We had the transfer calls last night and we will both be staying in HYDE PARK!  The whole district is almost changing except for us and all the people who just finished training will now be training again. It's going to be crazy. There's only me and one other missionary in the district who are older so that's kinda weird! Lots of new friends coming in! That's about it for this week! Hope everyone is doing amazing! 

International Baptisms

These have been a wild past two weeks! Sorry for the lack of email last week we had to switch Pday to Thursday and I figured it would be easy to just do a double letter for this week! 

We had Zone Conference, President Shumway is the man! Talked a lot about member missionary work it was Flippin sick. Also Elder Vargas and I threw down an obedience training which was pretty rad if I do say so myself! Or I guess you could say it didn't end up in a complete disaster. 

After the Elder Bodily's first Zone Conference he was so pumped to go to work and we went to Martins's house right after in which Kudi (Martins's roommate) offered us some food a little hesitantly because he said “no thanks” last time. This time he was so hyped that he was like "yes I'd love to try some food!" and she said, "You are not strong enough to have amala and ocra. You will have rice and beans and stew." So I was able to eat the amala (which is called chocolate fufu. It doesn't really taste like chocolate sadly; it's just a darker color.) It was gnarly, lots of fish, tough chicken, and spicy soup. AND I POUNDED IT.

Elder Bodily was still not able to finish the food and he's such a softie! It was really spicy and he was taking a sip of water after every bite. Martins in his booming Nigerian accent said "BODILY. YOU CANNOT EAT LIKE THAT!" and took the water bottle away. Every time Elder Bodily tried to speak he was cut off by: "Bodily. Eat your food." He checked his phone and martins took it away haha. It was so funny. In the end he wasn't able to finish and Martins said "Look at Jensen! He ate all of his food! He is the champion! He will sleep so well tonight!" Poor dude keeps getting roasted. Martins made sure to post the whole ordeal of his white friends eating his food on Facebook haha. 

I was able to go on exchanges with Elder Butler this week and he's a homie! We tried to clear up the whole day so we could go on a finding blitz in Englewood and the very first contact was in a mid-drug deal. We tried to introduce how to be spiritually high rather than physically, he wasn't exactly interested. But it was a sick day walking the streets finding the elect. 

We had MLC and it was really good, Elder Vargas (the other ZL with me) and I went to Naperville and we left our companions to stay in Englewood for the day, and they had to ride bikes -- two greenies on bikes in the hood. It was so awesome and they had a SICK day. So it was pretty legendary!

Since we had a Pday switch we went with that same companionship and hung out together on Thursday because they were the only ones who had Pday that day, so we decided to do something a little different and hit up China Town. Chicago is like the coolest place. In one neighborhood it’s like straight up only African Americans (where we are), in one neighborhood it’s all Hispanic people, and in one neighborhood it's all Chinese people and Chinese places. IT WAS SO COOL! I was telling Elder Vargas that it would be interesting to go tracting in China Town and he said "Yeah let's try it!" He goes to the very first door he sees and with a puffed out chest he knocks it. Lady answers who is definitely from China. "Hey, we’re missionaries...” The usual...   "Uhhh... No English."

Elder Vargas stands there for like a solid 10 seconds thinking of something to say because usually when they say that he starts going off in Spanish. "So what language do you speak?" 

"Mandarin." ".... OK we'll uh, have a nice day I guess!" Well this is why my boy from Spain was called to speak Spanish haha. 

The rest of the week wasn't really too crazy, we got to go on exchanges with the AP’s and I went with Elder Weinmuller and we've officially been on 3 exchanges together now so he's an ultra homie. It was super awesome. The AP's are always the best examples and they help me know what I can improve on so it was an awesome exchange.

Something super awesome, this week I noticed on the upcoming baptisms that my old area Hebron was having 2! Eric and Carri! I was able to call them on Saturday and talk to them before they got baptized. It was way cool! It was a little less than I year ago when my companion, Elder Buckway, and I knocked on their door! This is the first baptism I've seen from knocking doors in my mission! It really does work and there are those out there!

Also this Nigerian lady named Omolara, who is a member, called our number a few weeks ago and was like "my whole family is in Nigeria and they need to get baptized before September 10th and I need your help!" I literally had no idea how to help so I called Elder Bell and he showed me how to do it and we got all their info and sent it to the referral center and hoped for the best. She had me call the missionaries in Lagos Nigeria about the situation and I couldn't understand a word they were saying over the phone because they were both Nigerian missionaries and it was an international call so it was super fuzzy. Hoping the point went through we went on with our week and she came to us yesterday and told us her whole family was baptized this last weekend. So Elder Bell and I did some of that international missionary work! It was pretty awesome haha.

Well, that about summarizes these last two weeks. Sorry not a whole lot of details but it's been pretty crazy. Hope you all have an amazing week and count your blessings!

Elder Jensen