My dearest family,
I got your package! It
came on a day that I needed something to be happy about haha. I've been a
little sick (flu sick) this past week. I think I picked up something from the
ward. Fifteen of the boys in our ward threw up this past week so I can see
very easily picking something up from someone there. The package was a nice
little package of sunshine. And I LOVE the pictures! I show everyone my
wonderful family!
I was talking to a
member yesterday and I asked her what kinds of things she like to
hear about from her son that's on a mission in Denver. She said she likes
hearing about the little things. So in this email I'd like to tell you
about the little things.
We get up at 6:29am.
We have an alarm set for 6:10am and one for 6:29am (my
companions have a hard time waking up, that's why there's two). We immediately
make our beds and kneel and have companion prayer. Then we seperate to
"exercise". Exercising in the morning is incredibly difficult and
each of us do various things to work out. I usually do yoga because stretching
feels nice in the morning and you can lay down and take deep breaths and
justify it as yoga. We then get ready for our day (shower, eat, read other
materials) and then at 8:00am we have personal study.
I always look forward to personal study. My understanding has
improved significantly since I started my mission. At 9:00am we
gather, sing (something Elders don't do), and discuss our personal studies
and plan/practice any lessons that day. At 10:00am, we have
training for me. Me and my traniers (companions) go over material every
week to help me progress as a missionary. After training, we will either
go to Grand Rapids to visit less active sisters or we go to an area to go door
knocking. We are allowed 1250 miles this month for our car so we have to
use them wisely. When we door knock, we each take turns being the person to
start the conversation. We plan lunch at some point in the day and
usually more door knocking after lunch when people are more likely to be
home (kids are usually getting out of school at this time).
Sometimes if we've had a long day of door knocking and we're not seeing a
ton of success, we will go visit potential investigators, less
active members or members from our ward. We try to have a dinner appointment
every night and we've been working on making commitments with the members
and following up. We're not allowed to door knock when it's not light
outside so in the evenings we do a lot of drop by visits or follow
ups with the members in our areas. At 8:30pm we start wrapping
things up so we can get home by 9:00pm and do planning for the next
day. Sister Anderton likes going to be early so we try to be in bed
by 10:00pm. That pretty much sums up every day. Monday is
Preparation Day, Wednesday is District Meeting (this Wednesday is
Half Mission Training!), Thursday is weekly planning (until 12 or 1pm),
and Sunday is church and associated meetings. We stay
pretty busy as missionaries.
This week was an
interesting week. We got dropped by our investigator B and we were completely
fine with that. I think I told you that one time we visited
her, we had a weird feeling the whole time. Well this past week, we had
that weird feeling again and because of the things she was saying to us, we
felt that we shouldn't go back. We're trying to work with a couple of
part member families but they keep avoiding us for various reasons. It
drives Sister Anderton crazy, but at least we're all learning to have
patience and charity. We will be seeing J again this week and we're praying
that goes well.
We had a crazy
experience door knocking this past week. We ran into a couple while they were walking
their dogs and talked to them for a minute about the Book of Mormon
and the lady told us flat out that she completely disagreed with it.
So we moved on and resumed what we were doing. Well, we knock into
this house with its garage door open and cars out front and no one
answers. And then they lady comes up the drive way and tells us
to come in because she wants to "talk" with us. That's
never a good sign because people rarely want to just "talk" when
they see us. She kept encouraging us to come inside so we all looked
at each other and hesitantly went inside. She sat us down and she said,
"I don't think you completely understand what you believe. Let me tell you
what you believe." No joke, that is what she said. Lady, don't
you see we're missionaries. She then pulled out
her notebook and told us a history of our church, what we believed and how
it was all wrong. She pulled out some way deep doctrine too, which
was really surprising. We asked her what church she went to and she said
the Blythefield Baptist Church. Well, that explains a lot. The
Blythefield Baptist Church hires a couple preachers who
"specialize" in Mormonism to teach their congregation about our
heretic ways. They're usually the people you see at General Conference
protesting. They even raise money to save our souls. It's kind of mind
boggling to think about. The crazy thing was is that she was pretty spot
on about what we believe, it was mostly just out of context doctrine.
Yes, you're going to think we worship Joseph Smith when you quote Doctrine and
Covenants 135:3 to us and don't include "save Jesus only" in that
quote. Whatever, minor details. We were able to bear our testimonies, hand her
a card and leave. Right before we left she asked us, "Do you
think that I will go to heaven?" That's an interesing question
to ask. I really think she was asking a sincere question and I was
able to look her in the eye and tell her she would. Hopefully, we planted a
good seed.
I wish I had more time
to tell you more adventures but I must go! Enjoy the pictures! Help the
missionaries in our ward in whatever way you can!
Love,
Sister
Jensen
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