Cold But Bold 1.5.15

Dear Family,

Winter has finally set in. The week of Christmas we enjoyed a pretty cozy 50 degree week. I was starting to wonder if Jack Frost had shoved our whole winter into a week last November and we were enjoying and early spring. Haha so much for that thought. Our car told us this morning that it was 9 degrees outside. It snowed all day yesterday to make sure we knew that it was really winter and not an early spring. Too bad it was a week and a half late. Everything looks so much prettier when it's flocked in snow. It makes me want to celebrate Christmas again.

And you read the last paragraph correctly, we got a car!!!! Well, for like all of last week and the rest of this week. With the "mini transfer" happening last Tuesday, it left two extra cars in Kalamazoo to collect snow on them so we asked if we could take one of them. They took pity on us and let us drive one haha. We have been in heaven all week! And it came right in time! We got our car and it decided to drop 30 degrees. Plus with campus still not living, we've been having to walk farther and farther to our door knocking areas. Having a car has been the biggest blessing and I hate to say it but we've seen a lot of tender mercies this week (more like miracles to me at least).

                                                    (Sister Carter brushing off our car.) 

We picked up two new investigators this week, Taylor and Tang. Taylor is seriously amazing. She showed up at church one day a couple months ago because the missionaries knocked on her sister's door. We called her the past couple weeks to invite her and she has always been busy (which most of the time translates into "not interested") so I hadn't thought too much about it until she showed up at church a week ago! We picked her up as a new investigator and we've taught her a couple times and I don't want to jinx anything but she's pretty much GOLD. She's asked us what she can to do be forgiven and she's had a lot of questions about baptism. When we explained that the upcoming Sunday was Fast Sunday she told us that she was going to fast without us even explaining it. Taylor is seriously awesome. Please keep her in your prayers!

Tang  (sounds more like "wrong" with a long A sound) is our new Chinese investigator. She has been in American for about a month and she doesn't know anything about God or Christianity. She wanted to read the Bible (I think Chinese people look at the Bible like we read Greek Mythology) but after reading to her from the Book of Mormon she said, "Perhaps I read this one first, yes?" She's great! We've had to start our really basic with her on who Jesus Christ is so we began with Luke 2 and His birth. When we read about the angels appearing to the shepherd she said, "It's magical." Definitely never used that word to describe it but it totally works! We love Tang and I know that she has felt the Spirit as we've talked to her. It will be interesting to see how she progresses once the school year starts.

So to explain more of the title of the email, something that we were trained on at our Half-Mission training was effective finding. Elder Green, one of the assistants, gave us a list of ways to be an effective finder and it was been working MIRACLES in our area and in our mission. This was his list of qualities of an effective finder: great attitude toward finding, eliminates half truths and approaches that don't create a need, works to eliminate weak words, limits the use of the Mormon.org card, and works to limit how much we talk by asking effective follow up questions. I've really been working on eliminating half truths because that is something that weakens the power of the Spirit. The Spirit can testify when we are bold. Sister Carter and I went out door knocking and tried to implement these into our finding. It was INCREDIBLE, we were on fire!!! We got three return appointments in just that little span that we knocked! We felt so much better about our use of time when we were bold and we didn't hold back. We felt so much better when we let people know exactly what we were offering. It's been SUPER cold (thank you SO MUCH for the hand warmers!!) but we're being bold. :) You will love missionary work when you put everything into it!

                                                                       (Smile! God loves you!)

I've learned a lot about my testimony this week and the importance of turning to God for answers to our questions, especially questions about doctrine. We will never be happy if we turn to man for the answer. God is our loving Heavenly Father and He knows what is best for us. I know that as we seek Him, He will answer and "the mysteries of God shall be unfolded unto [you], by the power of the Holy Ghost" (1 Nephi 10:19). God does hear and answer prayers but it's up to us to "open your ears that ye may hear, and your hearts that ye may understand, and your minds that the mysteries of God may be unfolded to your view." (Mosiah 2:9)

I know that this is Jesus Christ's church on the earth. I love the Lord with all my heart. I love you all so much! Have a wonderful week!

Love, Sister Jensen

PS Signs of a true Michigander: pumpkins from Halloween still on your door step. 

PPS I just heard the librarian say that it's supposed to be a high of 12 today