Kalamazoo, First Week 8.4.14

Dear Family,

I love Kalamazoo!!!!! I had a hard time falling asleep last night because I couldn't get over how much I loved it here!!! I just want to tell you everything about my area so feel free to skip the next paragraph if that's something that doesn't interest you.

Kalamazoo is AWESOME!!! We have a branch nicknamed "the K.U.B" (Kalamazoo University Branch) and about 80% of the branch consists of members of less than a year! I have never felt so much faith!! These people are incredible and I love asking them how they found the Gospel or in most cases how the Gospel found them. I have SO MUCH respect for converts and I already love the people in my branch. I feel so blessed to be in this branch! Sister Cunningham and I spend a lot of time personal contacting (PCing) on campus which is a really different kind of experience coming from an all door knocking area. You pretty much walk around campus and stop people and talk to them. There's a saying on our mission that "missionary work is 99% awkward." Definitely making up for that now... But I love it! I actually prefer it over door knocking. Summer classes are in session right now so there aren't too many people on campus so we've been door knocking the apartments around the campus. Which leads to the next part of our adventure: we don't have a car. So we walk. A LOT. In 80 degree weather with 1052% humidity. I have never sweated so much in my life! We are taking an adventure tonight and going to try to learn the bus system so we can expand our door knocking possibilities. The fall semester begins on the 2nd of September and Sister Cunningham and I can't wait for the semester to begin. Between the elders on campus and the low population, we talk to a lot of the same people. In the summer there should be 25,000 people on campus so there is some positive potential energy coming our way. :)

A little bit about Sister Cunningham: Sister Cunningham is from California. She's the middle of five kids, two older brothers and then a younger brother and sister.  She loves sports and cereal. Sister Cunningham will hit her year mark this transfer. She is actually a visa waiter (her original call was to Brazil). Sister Cunningham is a very diligent missionary and I know that we will learn a lot from each other. I am really excited that I get to work with her this transfer. :) 

Being an STL is an adventure (hooray, adventures!). Sister Cunningham has only been an STL a transfer longer than me so we have a lot of fun figuring things out. Sister Training Leaders are in between zone leaders and district leaders in my mission. We attend the Mission Leadership Council and we teach at Zone Training but we don't record numbers for our sisters.There are six companionships of sisters in this zone and we do trade offs with each companionship once a transfer. I never knew that planning trade offs could be so tricky! We have four companionships training this transfer and that is a determining factor in who stays in their area and who comes here to work. We also have two companionships on car rotations which means there are weeks when they don't have cars and with our lack of car, it becomes a problem. Some areas are an hour away which means we have to think about miles and times and when to start and end trade offs. We thought we had an infallible plan until we called the first companionship and they couldn't do their trade off this week. Back to the white board! We think we have it figured out. One of the greatest things I'm learning is that the Lord's Plan matters most and I'm just here to do just that. I can't tell you how often this week I have quoted D&C 123:17 to myself: "Therefore, dearly beloved brethren, let us cheerfully do all things that lie in our power; then may we stand still with the utmost assurance to see the salvation of God and for his arm to be revealed." I need that reminder: it's up to me to do my part (cheerfully!) and then get out of the way so Heavenly Father can do His. Whenever things fall through I think, "Well, I guess that just wasn't God's plan today." My mission is teaching me to let go of what I think is best because I definitely don't know what's best haha.

We don't have any solid investigators right now which is a slight problem so this week we've set the goal to find 5 new solid investigators. It's really amazing to pray and go to work and watch Heavenly Father work miracles. I know that if it is His will, we will find some incredible people this week. Be prepared for some awesome stories next week!

I'm very happy to hear about your vacation in Texas. It sounds like the Texas Jensens and Shirley showed you a good ol' Texas time. :) I'm a little envious of the BBQ and I wish I could have been there to see mom freak out about feeding a sting ray at a Children's Aquarium. And of course, I wish I was there to see my adorable niece and nephew! We'll just make up for it when I get home.

That's probably all you can stand to hear me say about my amazing area. I really do love it here and I know that there will be some amazing miracles this transfer. The Church is true, is true, IS TRUE!! I love this Gospel with all of my heart and I love my Savior Jesus Christ! Have an amazing week! I love you Dad, Mom, Stephen, Stephanie, Jayden, Kylie, Angela and Tim!

Love from KZoo,

Sister Jensen :)

Get Your Kazoos Ready. . . 7.28.14

Dear Family,

I'm being transferred to Kalamazoo!!! I was FLOORED when I got the call. Let me tell you the whole story: I told Sister Brockbank that if we're both staying the Zone Leaders would call before 10am and we would continue with our weekly planning. Sister Brockbank is only halfway trained so I wasn't expecting any changes. So imagine our confusion when President Jacobsen called at 9:30am. We answered and he said, "Sister Jensen, you are being transferred to Kalamazoo to be on the WMU campus." In my head I'm thinking, they only send sisters to campus to be Sister Training Leaders. And then President Jacobsen said, "Oh, and there's a note here that you are going to be an STL." I lost it. I didn't know whether I was laughing or crying. I feel SO under qualified to be a Sister Training Leader. The transfer before I got Sister Brockbank, I decided I never wanted to be a STL and I didn't want to serve on campus. After stewing that over for a couple weeks I decided that was completely selfish and shortsighted of me. By placing limits on what I wanted and was comfortable with, I was limiting my effectiveness and how God could use me to accomplish His plan for His children. So I repented and now this happened. Oh boy. I am so grateful that Heavenly Father doesn't allow me to get comfortable on my mission. He answers my prayers when I ask Him to keep me humble. I am so excited that I get to learn and grow and serve the sisters in the Kalamazoo Zone.  Sister Brockbank is a little overwhelmed at the thought of taking over Rockford but I have absolute confidence in her. She has taught me so much this transfer and I am so thankful that Heavenly Father allowed me to work with her. She will be trained by Sister Jensen (look at that consistency. ;) and they are going to have some awesome success this transfer!

Rockford District

This week was great! We had probably one of my best/favorite lessons this past Saturday. It was the best not because it was perfect but because the Spirit was there. Isn't that the best?? Isn't feeling the Spirit just awesome?? How incredible is the Spirit! We were teaching TJ the second half of the Restoration lesson and it was just awesome. We had two of our ward missionaries with us and they added SO MUCH to our lesson! We cannot do this work without the members! We left that lesson happy. That's how you can tell how your lesson went. It was FAR from perfect but we left feeling peace and happiness. The Spirit was felt by all of us and TJ is excited to read the Book of Mormon and know if it is truth. All credit goes to the Spirit. When Elder Holland visited our mission, he said that the Holy Ghost is the most undervalued and unappreciated gift that Heavenly Father has given us. I have definitely gained a greater desire and appreciation for the Spirit on my mission. It is ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL. "Wherefore, I the Lord ask you this question—unto what were ye ordained? To preach my gospel by the Spirit, even the Comforter which was sent forth to teach the truth... Verily I say unto you, he that is ordained of me and sent forth to preach the word of truth by the Comforter, in the Spirit of truth, doth he preach it by the Spirit of truth or some other way? And if it be by some other way it is not of God. And again, he that receiveth the word of truth, doth he receive it by the Spirit of truth or some other way? If it be some other way it is not of God. Therefore, why is it that ye cannot understand and know, that he that receiveth the word by the Spirit of truth receiveth it as it is preached by the Spirit of truth?" (D&C 50:13-14, 17-21, italics added) I am so so so grateful for the Spirit! I couldn't do this work without him!

Dad asked what the most unusual or unique thing that happened this week. Probably the most unusual thing that happened this week was our investigator coming to church without us asking. We have been trying for two months to get one of our investigators to come to church and yesterday she decided she was coming to church! Being transferred has some swaying power it looks like. ;) Plus she had a great time! She believes that one of the talks was for her deliberately. What a blessing!

Just a quick funny story: People cross the street deliberately not to talk to us. It's awesome! That's when I turn to Sister Brockbank and I say, "We must be doing our job right if people are avoiding us." People are really silly sometimes. It's really fun to go to the grocery store and watch people avoid the isles we're on or not make eye contact with us. It's funny what a little black badge can do. ;)

Where's our sign?

I'm doing so well and I am SO grateful for all the things Heavenly Father does for me on a daily basis. I know that the Book of Mormon is true! I have felt that witness again and again. I love reading it and I love those prophets for sacrificing so much for us. I hope you all have a fantastic week in Texas! I love you all!!

Love,

The Michiganary  

The "Sister Code" 7.21.14

Dear Family,

You have sisters in your ward?? That's awesome!!! I didn't think it was safe enough to have sisters in Pittsburg. Get the laurels to go out with them! I wish there had been sisters in the ward when I was growing up. And yes Mom, we hug A LOT. It's part of the "Sister Code". It was a huge adjustment for me when I first came on my mission but now it's pretty natural. Same with telling everyone that you love them. Missionaries are weird. Just deal with it. A lady in our ward told us that you need 8 hugs a day to be healthy and boy, do we fill that. I am so jealous that y'all get to go to Texas this week! I wish I could be there for Kylie's baby blessing but I'll just wait a year to meet her. Please be safe driving (or flying?) and have a wonderful time. I'm expecting to see pictures when I get on the computer next week. :)

This week was good. Just in case you didn't know, missionary work is emotionally complex. I have never felt so many extreme feelings before. I never knew that you could develop instantaneous love for people you didn't know. But you can and it's a wonderful and incredible thing. With those people you experience the greatest joys but also the greatest sorrows. We had an appointment fall through this week that was really hard for me. We have been trying to set up a time for the past couple of weeks for the elders to come and give a blessing to one of our investigators. Our appointments have never been consistent with her but it seemed like this time everything was going to line up and she was finally going to get this blessing. I was so hopeful and I had the faith that everything was going to line up and she was going to get this incredible blessing, something that she obviously needs. And then she called and cancelled. What else can you do but bear testimony and hang up? I was a small distance from my companion and when I hung up, I took a moment to collect myself and then delivered to the news to Sister Brockbank and the elders. These kinds of experience always make me reflect. Whenever I have these experiences, it makes me appreciate the love that Heavenly Father has for us. He feels this way probably constantly, watching us knowingly or unknowingly turn away from blessings He's waiting to give us. Yet He still loves us. Elder Wheat asked me to name three things that I was grateful for to try and cheer me up and one of those things was: "I'm grateful the Heavenly Father doesn't give up on me the way I want to give up on my investigators sometimes." It is so tempting sometimes to just give up and throw in the towel. People/Satan push your buttons in ways you can't even imagine. But even I, Sister Afton Jensen, am human. I am so grateful that Heavenly Father still loves me even though I fall short. He truly is an amazing person and I love Him very much.

Inspite of the not so happy things that happened this week, we had an awesome experience! It shows me how God can truly work in mysterious ways. We were door knocking a street and we didn't have much success going down the side of the street we were on. We had made plans to drop by a less active family before we went to another appointment so we decided to forgo the other side of the street. We were walking back to our car when I got this impression to talk to this lady who was outside watering her flowers on the other side of the street. One of the goals that I have set for myself is to always act and never delay acting on positive thoughts because they're probably from the Spirit. When the thought came, I instantly thought, "No way. That would be super awkward. She's watched us knock and be rejected on all of her neighbor's doors and I'm pretty sure we made eye contact a couple times." But the thought and my goal came into my mind so I said a simple prayer praying for the courage to talk to that lady. The next things I know, I'm telling Sister Brockbank, "I want to talk to that lady." and I'm crossing the street to go talk to her! That was most definitely the Spirit. So we went and tried to talk to her. She wasn't too open but as the conversation was winding down I got a distinct thought: ask her for a referral. So I did. She thought about is and said to try the door two houses down. She thought they might be interested. We said thanks and started walking back to our car. We had made it about 20 feet down the street when I got the distinct feeling that we needed to contact the referral right now. I looked at Sister Brockbank and said, "We need to go contact it right now." So we walked back past the lady we had just talked to and found the house two doors down. We knocked and a lady answered the door. Sister Brockbank asked her if she knew what her purpose was and the lady thought about it and said, "Yeah. Want to come in?" I had to keep my mouth from dropping open. We talked with this lady for next hour. It was awesome! We have a return appointment with her tomorrow and I am super excited. This showed me that we don't know how Heavenly Father will answer our prayers but if we do our part, He can do His. :)

I am so grateful that Heavenly Father has given me this opportunity to serve a mission. I have nothing but gratitude for this experience. It is so hard and there are days when I am pushed to my limits of patience but I love being a missionary. It is the small things that make this all worth it. I am so blessed to see His hand in this work every day. I know that prayers are answered and that He is always in charge. We are victorious because "greater is he that is in [us], than he that is in the world." (1 John 4:4) We are so blessed!

I love you all. Thank you so much for your prayers! They really do wonders for me and for the people here! Have a wonderful week and be safe!

Sister Jensen

Rockin' in Rockford 7.14.14

Dear Family,

I am so glad that everything is calming down for once! Except for you Dad. You never seem to catch a break. But summers are supposed to be a time to just enjoy being outside and being lazy. That's probably why our door knocking numbers are so low: Everyone is enjoying being outside instead of in their homes where we need them to be. Michigan is too beautiful so I don't blame them.

We had a wonderful week this week. One thing that our district leader challenged us to do a while back was to do a 40 Day Purification Challenge. There's this neat little story we read about the benefits of spiritually purifying ourselves and then we fast and write down the promptings from the Spirit about things we need to purify ourselves of(worldly songs, thinking about home, casualness, not getting up on time etc. by the way, this is not my list, just some ideas). Then every morning and every night we pray for specifically for those things we need to purify ourselves of and pray for specific help to overcome them and report back in our evening prayers. It has really brought an increase to my spirituality and it has been a great blessing for me to have so many wonderful spiritual experiences this week. I'd like to share some with you.

Sister Brockbank and I were doing our nightly planning on Wednesday and we were planning out a street to go door knocking on. I was reading off some names and one street I had never seen before popped out at me. Sister Brockbank said that she felt really good about going to that street. So Thursday we went to that street and started knocking. Nothing. Very few people were home and the ones that were weren't interested. We made it down one side of the street and stopped to talk about the more effective use of our time: seeing a less active member or finish door knocking the street before our appointment. I'm not one to leave a project half done so I said that we should finish the street. The next door we knocked on let us in! He told us about all of his challenges and asked us what we believed and why we believe it. We were able to bear testimony to him of the Book of Mormon and the Atonement. We then said a prayer which really touched his heart. He told us that in all the time he's been in that house, he's had missionaries knock on his door twice a year and we are the first two he's ever listened to. We got a text from him later that evening. He said: "Thanks for stopping by ladies. Whether or not it works for me long term is yet to be seen... but u brightened my day! Best of luck." I looked at Sister Brockbank and said, "That's why we needed to door knock that street today." I am grateful that God allowed us to visit that man and touch his life for good that day. :)

Another neat experience happened while we were walking back to our apartment. Michigan has breathtaking skies. The clouds are so picturesque and awe-inspiring. Every time I look at them I can't help but feel God's love for me. We were walking and I looked up at the sky and thought about how good Heavenly Father is to us and as I thought that, I had the biggest feeling of pure gratitude that I had ever felt. It just filled my whole body. I felt so much gratitude for just being a missionary and for meeting all of these incredible people in Michigan, people I wouldn't have met if I hadn't served a mission. I felt so blessed in that moment that Heavenly Father sent me to Michigan. I love being here because of the people I meet and serve.

I'll share one last experience, one that meant the most to me this week. I was asked three weeks ago to speak in church this week about the Plan of Salvation and how it has been meaningful to me. When I got the call, my impression was, "They want me to speak about my experience with Chris." The thing is maybe three people in my ward know that I had a brother who passed away, let alone the person who assigned me the talk. So for three weeks I have been debating whether or not I should even tell the story. I don't like telling the story for several different reasons but I just kept feeling like I needed to tell that story. As I sat in the stands before my talk, I prayed, "Heavenly Father, I feel like I need to tell this story today. Please let it touch one person today." I looked out at the audience and looked at every person and I just knew that everyone in the audience was experiencing trials. So I got up and I told the story. I didn't even make it through the first line of the story before I started crying. Thankfully my whole talk wasn't just me telling this tragic story but more about everything I gained from the truths of the Plan of Salvation. I am grateful for knowledge of the resurrection. I am grateful that I can find joy through the mission of Jesus Christ. And I am grateful that the Plan of Salvation gives me an my eternal perspective. After Sacrament meeting Bishop came up to me and said, "If I could hug sister missionaries, I would hug you. They should make an exception for bishops." Then the counselor who assigned me the talk came over and told me that when he was thinking about this talk he felt really impressed that I needed to give the talk, which was confusing to him because I had just spoken two months earlier. And now he knows why I needed to give that talk. Throughout the rest of church, people came and told me about their losses and how my story really touched them. As people came up to me, a quote from President Eyring came to mind: "I’m not giving you these experiences for yourself." Chris's passing was horrible and it's still something that makes me cry and makes me sad. But I'm glad that God has given me an experience that then allows me to turn around and lend comfort to those who need it. I am very grateful for God's Plan and how it has helped me and others navigate and find comfort in our journeys.

I hope you don't mind that I've shared a lot with you today. It says in the white handbook to share spiritual experiences with our families and I have seen so many this week so I thought I would share some. I am so grateful that Elder Wheat asked us to purify ourselves. It has opened even more the channels to God in my life. I love being a missionary and I love being in Rockford. This is God's church and Jesus is the Christ.

I love you all!

Sister Jensen

Door Knocking with Friends 7.7.14

Dear Family!                                                                                                                                         July 7, 2014

Mondays are always the best days because I'm never disappointed to hear about your adventures! Girls camp sounded like so much fun!! I wish someone would feed me rattlesnake.... Mom, you definitely ended your Girls camp streak with a bang. But it wouldn't surprise me if you got a new stake calling soon......

Three Sis. Jensens

I had an experience this week that taught me the power of prayer and that God has a fantastic sense of humor. For those of you who have served missions, the days/weeks can turn into "Groundhog Day" sometimes. I was sitting at our table contemplating that I hadn't had really anything interesting to write about in my journal recently so kind of jokingly I sent up a little prayer in which I said, "Heavenly Father, it would be nice to have something to write about in my journal tonight." AND GUESS WHAT. He answered it. Sister Brockbank and I were out door knocking and we noticed some kids staring at us. That's not too unfamiliar so we kept going. We walked back down the driveway and noticed they were closer. And they were getting progressive closer. We knocked on another door and turned around and they were RIGHT behind us. So we called out to them and talked to them. They were 9, 8, and 7 years old and probably BORED OUT OF THEIR MINDS because they asked us if they could come door knocking with us! So we took three kids door knocking with us! Let me tell you, kids have NO SHAME. They would run up to the door, knock, ring the doorbell and look in the side windows and tell us what was in their house even before we got to the door. And then people would answer and see two tall girls with three kids which was probably really confusing. So I would begin the door approach: "Hi I'm Sister Jensen and this is Sister Brockbank and we're representatives of Jesus Christ. These are our.... friends. They also love Jesus Christ."  It was a weird experience but definitely memorable and fun! It saved us time too because the kids would tell us who wasn't home for the holiday and we'd skip that house. Heavenly Father answered my prayer and gave me something to write about in my journal. And yes, I did in fact write it in my journal. :)

Our Fourth was pretty sweet. We did our weekly planning and then stopped by some less active members and investigators. We went to a member's house for dinner and had a great barbeque. We then went with a couple other families to another member's house to light off fireworks. Our curfew was extended until 10:30pm which was good because it wasn't dark until 10pm. It was so wonderful. It was pretty much the Fourth of July scene out of "The Sandlot". Rockford is a "Norman Rockwell Town" with it's very traditional small-town, American feel. The night was cooler but the sky was clear. The fireworks created an almost nostalgic feeling. When we walked back to our car that night, I just felt so happy- Happy to be in a simple place enjoying simple things. Rockford will always have
a place in my heart. I love it here. 

The work is going great. It's been a rough week with the holiday but we are determined to get the ball rolling and the font filled! Progression is our focus right now. I am grateful that Heavenly Father has blessed us with people to teach but now it's time to get them taking those steps back to God. Whenever I start getting frustrated about cancelled appointments and agency, I think that Satan had the same idea. That cools me right down. A mission has given me a unique perspective on how God must feel about us sometimes. He probably smacks His head watching me, saying, "Sister Jensen. What are you doing? Why- why- why did you do that? If only you would have-" Thankfully His patience isn't an account we can exhaust. It is infinite. Phew. 

I hope you're all enjoying your summer! I am L-O-V-I-N-G all of it. I'll send you some pictures from a nature walk we took this morning. SO PRETTY!! As someone told us this week, "Michigan is God's hand print on the United States." Get it? Michigan looks like a hand. Anyway, I love you all SO MUCH! Have a fantastic week!!

Lovely Michigan

Love,

Sister Jensen

Specific Prayers 6.30.14

Dear Family,                                                                                                                                         June 30, 2014

I need to get something off of my chest: I have the best family EVER. I LOVE YOU ALL SOOOO MUCH!!!! Okay. I'm good. :)

This week was AWESOME! The Lord's hand is in everything! A over a week ago, the Zone Leaders asked us to prayerfully set a goal of how many new investigators we wanted to find this week and then pray about it every time we prayed and work hard to accomplish it. I felt that we could get 5 new investigators, which as you may remember was the number of investigators we wanted to get in a TRANSFER two transfers ago. But it felt right and it felt doable. Well Wednesday we got a text from our less active member asking if we could meet at her friend's apartment. When we got there, the friend started asking a ton of questions about why we were on our missions and what we believed. We had a great discussion and invited her to read Mosiah 3 as a follow up and asked if we could meet next week to go over it. The friend then said to Jodi, "Well. why don't we just trade off every week? My place, your place? Next week on Wednesday?" New investigator!! Jodi has now been the source of two of our investigators. President was right when he said to talk to less active members about finding people to teach. Plus, having lessons with Jodi will hopefully help strengthen Jodi's testimony. I'm pumped!

                            

Saturday came and we hadn't been able to find any new investigators Thursday or Friday. I still felt good about our goal of 5 and the whole time all I could think was "after a trial of your faith". So at 7:43pm, I drew upon all remaining mental powers I possessed and thought of every potential investigator I could think of in the area that we hadn't contacted yet. We had a list of 6 potentials and I was ready to do all I could to find 4 new investigators in 1 hour and 17 minutes. We contacted an old referral and even though he was pretty drunk, we got a return appointment. New investigator! It was now 8:44pm. This is the most AWKWARD time for missionary work but we were "fixed in our minds with a determined resolution" to find 3 more investigators before 9pm. We thought about who we should visit with the time we had left and we felt good about trying to see a guy we had tried to contact twice that past week but wasn't home. He was home. And not only was he home but he said that he and his wife would like to meet with us! AH! MIRACLES!! We didn't quite make 5 new investigators but we were the recipients of miracles! Heavenly Father is blessing this area! I tell Sister Brockbank sometimes that she's here at an incredible time. When I got here we had maybe one family we were teaching. Now we are working with 11 people! It's such a blessing to watch this area grow! Now we just need to get them progressing haha. A little side note: our zone leaders texted us last night and told us that our zone TRIPLED our new investigators indicator for that week! "Specific prayers get specific answers!"

Besides that we're great. :) Sister Brockbank is a great missionary. She is gaining a lot confidence and is participating in our lessons and door knocking more. Sister Brockbank is adjusting very well to missionary life. Her only set back is dealing with me haha. I'm very lucky to have Sister Brockbank as my companion. We love being in Rockford! It really is the best area in the mission.   

Sis. Jensen & Sis. Brockbank

Somehow the bishopric keeps asking me to give talks that I find personally significant: asking a greenie to talk about their family on Mother's Day, and now giving a talk about why the Plan of Salvation is significant to me in the month of July. One of the spiritual gifts of being in a bishopric, I guess... So I've been pondering a lot as to why the Plan of Salvation is important to me. Sister Brockbank and I were talking about it yesterday and I think why it's so important to me is because it gives me an eternal perspective. I know we throw that phrase around a lot but I think of it in terms of a phrase by Elder Scott: "He is preparing you to be a god." Everything here on earth, before this earth, and after this earth is preparing us to be a god. Every trial, every covenant, every commandment, serves to help us become more like our Heavenly Father and live the life He lives. Isn't that comforting?? It brings me so much comfort knowing that God allows me to endure those things here because He wants me to be like Him someday. He wants me to reach a high potential and He's going to help me get there! He doesn't send us here to fail and I really don't think His goal to just to get some of His kids into some glory of some kind. His purpose is to "bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man"! Not just a few but all of us! He wants us all to have glory and immortality and eternal life with Him! And even better, it's with our families! How fantastic is that?? Look at what we know! Look at our perspective here and after! It's AWESOME! I love the Gospel. It is the best, most incredible thing I have in my life. :)

Well, I think I've written quite a lot. I love you all and I hope you can see how knowing the Plan of Salvation has blessed us as a family and individually. We are so blessed to have the truths of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We are just SO. BLESSED. 

Have a fun and safe week! The Church is true!

Love,

Sister Jensen

Parenting 6.23.14

Dear Family,                                                                                                                         June 23, 2014

I'm so glad to hear things are going well! I understand your whole feeling about summer. It will be gone before we know it. Someone told us yesterday that the local Meijer just got their shipment of "Back to School" supplies. Can't we enjoy our summers just a little bit?? Oh well. That's life, I guess.

Training is SO MUCH FUN! I love being a trainer! I lucked out and got the best missionary EVER. My trainee's name is Sister Brockbank! She is a hard worker and is so anxious to learn and grow and become the best missionary she can be! I will probably be learning more from her than she will from me. All I have on her is experience haha. Sister Brockbank will be awesome in this area and we are going to work, work, work!

I have never been a parent but I can only imagine how this is preparing me to be a parent. Sister Brockbank is so patient with me while I make mistakes. The most embarrassing thing happened 18 hours after I got her: the alarm didn't go off. I thought I set our alarm for6:25am and as I laid in bed that morning, I began to think that it had been light in our room for way too long. I dismissed it the first time and went back to bed. The thought came back again, "It is WAY to light in our room to be 6:30." Guess what the clock said? 7:19. My inward reaction: Panic. Sheer Panic. My outward reaction: "Um. Sister Brockbank. We need to get up. It's 7:19." Elder Faust had warned us that we were going to make mistakes, I just didn't think mine would come so soon. But that's part of the learning process, I guess. She hasn't lost the phone on the Beltline yet so we're good. This is teaching me a new side of humility and meekness. I am so grateful for the opportunity I have as a trainer to walk close to God and learn by the Spirit. There will be mistakes but that's why there's an Atonement. Repent and try again. Just better this time :)

Yesterday we had a lesson with an evangelical atheist. That was.... interesting. I learned some really good lessons from it: 1) We do not convince people, the Spirit does. And 2) Only people who have desire and real intent will receive that witness from the Spirit. I was doing everything I could to listen to the Spirit, read from the scriptures and bear testimony but we can only bring the Spirit unto the hearts of people- they have to let the Spirit into their hearts (2 Nephi 33:1). I also gained a further witness that people who live without God are never truly happy. I felt bad for this guy by the end of his talk. He was so unhappy. Why do people choose to be unhappy? Why do we choose not to allow the Atonement to "heal our wounded souls" (Jacob 2:8)? Satan really does want people to be unhappy and miserable like him and he's succeeding. Quit it, Satan. 

So basically our whole lesson was this guy telling us that we can't know that things are true. It was awful and he said awful things to us. While he was trying to prove a point, I thought "I think there's a story in Jacob 7 about an anti-Christ." I flipped over and listened to this guy a for a little bit. When I glanced down at my page, this was the first thing I read: "And he had hope to shake me from the faith,notwithstanding the many revelations and the many things which I had seen concerning these things; for I truly had seen angels, and theyhad ministered unto me. And also, I had heard the voice of the Lord speaking unto me in very word, from time to time; wherefore, I couldnot be shaken." BOOM. That my friends is the Spirit. I know the things I know to be true, no matter what this guy or any other person will say to me. The gift of discernment is amazing and once I got that answer, I stopped worrying about trying to convince him and let the discussion die. I told my companion and our member after the lesson, "Lessons are like dating: you're only obligated to the first one." I have no desire to see him again. But I wish him well and I hope he can find happiness someday. I am grateful that Heavenly Father hears and answers prayers. I know He is real and I know this is His church. I know that the Holy Ghost is real and it will tell us truth. 

I love you all so much! I am grateful that you continue to do the things of God. We are so blessed to have the Gospel! Keep up your awesome work!

Lots of Love and Pineapples!

Sister Jensen