Week 60-July 18, 2016

Week 60-July 18, 2016

Things are heating up

jay fach! (romanian) its been a great week here and it sounds like its been a great week at home as well. God is good! so excited to hear about Yiewei and Amanda's confirmation. That was one of the things i spoke to President Stevens about in our interviews this week. 

Our zone hit our goal for sacrament meeting attendance and finding!! and there was a baptism in Ipswich ward last saturday which was the cherry on top. It was a miracle that we hit the goals! we got them on the dot and i completely attribute that to everyones prayers and faith and then their hard work. ever since 5 weeks ago at the start of the transfer weve been working towards these goals and now weve hit them and the zone is moving in a great direction. 

couple of miracles:

On an exchange with an italian elder named Elder Botta I had an idea and at the start of the exchange i told him he was going to be the senior companion for the day. He is a very spiritual missionary and extremely hard working. I learned how to follow and trust the Spirit and to focus solely on the work that day. the miracle happened that evening- we had looked at a map, prayed, picked a general vicinity, prayed some more, picked several streets, prayed again, and then picked a couple and narrowed it down to one street that we decided to tract. we went to the street, and in the car didnt feel right about it anymore and so we prayed again and decided to walk up the street to a different street and start there. We ran into some families who invited us to come back another time, and then made our way back to the original street. We had almost finished tracting that street without seeing any incredible success and there were some little kids in the street following us around door to door so we stopped and got back in the car. then i saw this one door and we decided to go and knock it so we got back out of the car and a nigerian man opened in his bath robe and invited us back! during that convo a woman walked up to the neighboring home and i saw her looking at us so after talking to the nigerian we went and approached her (she was waiting outside the door) and she was awesome!!! she didnt live there but she was visiting a friend and she was super interested. we have been in contact since and we'll teach her on friday in her home. She is filipino and works at the hospital and follows some mormon vloggers online or something but has a ton of faith and is very interested. Why did we go to that street? and why did we feel like going to the other street first? and then why did we decide to knock that last door instead of leaving right then? because Jennine was about to visit her friend and we needed to be at that place at that moment. what a miracle! 

Next miracle: thursday we went street contacting with two of the sisters in colchester and a brazillian sister and i met two younger ghanians on high street cause i asked one of them if he played baseball (he had a baseball shirt on) to which he said no but we exchanged numbers and they said they'd want to play football (soccer) with us sometime. I invited him to church the next day over text and we talked a bit but then sort of just stopped... anyways sunday morning we were sitting in ward council and i got a text and it was from him and he was asking me where the chapel was cause he wanted to come to church! We went with a member and picked him up and he brought his brother along and they loved it. they moved to colchester 2 weeks ago and were searching for a church to go to. They are really genuine and interested to learn about it all and they said theyd read a chapter of the BOM every day until wednesday. We will teach them tomorrow! 

another miracle: we had another exchange last week and i was with an elder from hong kong and we went to teach a woman that elder withers and I found back in april but lost touch with. it turns out she spoke pretty good english but there were a lot of things that Elder Chu explained to her in mandarin (her name is flora and she's chinese) and so that was a miracle as well! she said a prayer at the end of our lesson and it was such a spiritual and special moment- it was her first prayer and it was so sincere. I think we should all imagine what our prayers would sound like if they were our first prayer in our life and try to make every single prayer that sincere and meaningful. hearing her made me think about my own prayers and how often they lack sincerity. 

In other news, we had interviews with president yesterday and that was great! I love him and Sister Stevens and spending a short time one on one with each of them is time I treasure. 

Elder Burgess passed his driving test as well so for the first time in  a while im sitting in the passenger seat!

Love you all tons! Have fun at efy Natalie!!!!! i hope you feel better but either way i know you'll have a blast. 

Elder Jensen

Our "funeral" at the Cambridge district meeting for elder on the couch who is finishing his mission and going home next week.

President Stevens, Sister Stevens, Sisters Matthews and Wright (the sister training leaders) after interviews

We play football (soccer) in the park every morning for exercise with these sisters and they have 2 or 3 exchanges a week (when another companionship of sisters will come into Colchester and work with them for the day)  And we have a lot of exchanges as well so often we have 6, 8, or even 10 (the AP's stayed in our flat one night last week on the day of one of our exchanges and a day the sTL's had an exchange as well) missionaries playing football at the park in the morning. Trouble is, we've been getting a lot of bug bites as a result. Still worth it tho