Sunday, May 29, 2016

Week 52-May 23, 2016

Week 52-May 23, 2016

"Me Lavem Yu" (I Love You in Vanuatu)
Hi!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD AND HAPPY ANNIVERSARY MOM AND DAD! 

In the booklet ann and matt sent me of the jensen mission stories theres a picture of grandma and grandpa Jensen and their 6 kids in 1996 ( the year i was born) and i couldnt believe how young Dad looks in it! i showed it to ELder Withers and we were shocked at the realization that if we have kids when we are in our early 20's then that means in a couple of years and WOAH i feel so young i cant even imagine that!!!!!!! and here we are 24 years later!

so monday at the end of our pday we decided to go down to the gym for an hour and just work off some stress and let off some steam and try to give ourselves some kind of outlet so i ran 5 miles in under 40 minutes and it felt great!! elder withers hit the weights hard. we ar probably going to do the same this week.

tuesday was crazy. we had an exchange with the cambridge elders and i was with Elder Walker, a guy from Provo Utah who went to byu and played clarinet in the band and is 6'7". great guy. love him. we had a ton of fun and did a lot of street contacting. met some really interesting people. one was a woman who had 8 miscarraiges and then a daughter after all of them. she was not interested at all but i left feeling like i learned a lot and had gained a glimpse of a unique life's experience that gave me a little more wisdom. those kind of instances are why missionaries are far more mature when they get home i think. (present company excluded ill always be immature) all this woman wanted was to have a child and although it took so much time and pain and heartbreak eventually she had a daughter and i could feel how much she loved this child- it was a whole lot. SHoutout to the best mom in the world for loving me so much she sent me a package #hallelujah. Love you mom! that evening we taught Joseph in mcdonalds but instead of teaching him he told us it was his bday and bought us food. then a homeless 19 year old from scotland over heard me and asked me something about what i said and joined the convo and told us all about his life story. his parents had serious problems and tried to get rid of him as a young baby and that left him with physical disabilities and then he was homeless as a young teenager and came down to essex and was working but got evicted from his temporary home and as a result didnt have an address and lost his job. the member who was with us bought him a meal (which he really appreciated and Joseph admired) and then we had to go cause the member's wife was pregnant and needed him. it was the craziest lesson! learned a lot about how we need toalways remember to do what the Saviour would do isntead of just trying to teach lessons. I think joseph learned a lot in that meeting and so did I. 

then on wednesday the Cambridge elders left and the Bury St. Edmunds elders came! I was with ELder Toa (from Vanuatu). he is from an island of about 200 habitants and basically never left this small island where they farm and climb trees and pick coconuts and eat only what they grow until he came to LONDON and his whole world changed. He has so much faith- miracles just follow him! he almost couldnt come on his mission cause his boat broke before he was supposed to leave and he prayed and then a boat came to his island out of nowhere and he was able to get his flight. this guy is inspiring- so humble, so faithful, poor english, and full of love. we basically street contacted and tracted for all 7 hours and didnt find a single person who wanted to listen. it was pretty tough. i learned to love this elder so much though. it was a great day. we made pasta that night and ate our sorrows away and ended the day on a great note. then, thursday president and the AP's came to Ipswich and we met as a zone for a special training. it was great. we basically just had a dinner appointment with some members and our ward mission leaders correlation meeting that evening. then on friday we taught an investigator named Nathan. he had looked up tons of anti mormon stuff and hes a really smart dude who likes to debate and prove people wrong so that was an intense 2 hour lesson. emotions were high and the stuff he tried to pull on us at times made me pretty angry. It was clear he was not sincere like he tried to make himself out to be and that also didnt help me stay calm. we kept our cool and handled it pretty well i think and i was grateful for elder withers. he came to church yesterday by the way but i dont know if he'll progress. we then did lots of service for 2 different families that afternoon and evening. good to sweat a little and get my hands dirty. 
saturday we taught 3 angolans in the park over a picninc lunch we made (elder withers promised them we'd cook for them if they met with us). it was cool. we made salmon, boiled potatoes, and baked beans. delicious. they seem pretty good and we'll see them again this saturday. then we went finding and had pizza at the chapel and then taught a filipino lady named Lyn. her husband from Bosnia (i think) sat on the ground with their daughter as we taught her and listened in on our lesson about the restoration. she accepted elder withers' invitation to be baptised and we gave her a chapter of the BOM to read (2 nephi 32) and set an appointment for sunday evening the very next day. she texted us sunday afternoon and said she had read the book and it wasnt for her so we didnt need to come over anymore. one of those frustrating moments where you know she didnt actually read the chapter and decide it wasnt for her. something else must have happened to dissuade her from pursuing it any further. oh well. someday she'll come around.
sunday we had church and nathan came as  isaid before. marcel should be baptised this weekend and thatll be great!  we also ate at a brazillian family's home sunday afternoon and absolutely STUFFED ourselves... it was delicious. 

Thats my week in a nutshell! elder withers and i have so much fun together. its almost hard to believe sometimes how similarly we think and how similar our humor is so we are always laughing our heads off. its good to have a comp who you get along so well with and have lots of fun with. they definitely arent always that way! 

so good to hear from you all! i hope you like the new format of my email. hopefully this will help me remember more things one day. journal writing is so difficult with all the call in reports we have to do at night. 

mom... I GOT THE PACKAGE! me and elder withers are both waiting to open our packages and we are so excited. thank you so much i cant wait to see whats inside. And as for a suit................. we may go suit shopping next monday but im not confident ill buy one yet so maybe hang tight and if i buy one you can reimburse me? its about a 50/50. we'll see. 

Ill send some pics too. Love you all so much!

-Elder Jensen

Me and Elder Walker by a Roman wall in Colchester from the ruins of when it was the capital of England and the Romans owned the city.  No big deal 



Elder Toa from Vanuata. 


The bury st Edmunds elders in our flat on our exchange



Who looks better with glasses?



Elder withers sneaking into my bed when I turn my back


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