Week 64-August 15, 2016

Week 64-August 15, 2016

hey fam!!!

i dont have tons of time this week because our pdays are always mad busy.. but a couple of big updates are in order.

jeffrey didnt come to church this week cause he was in London but he's making great progress and we taught him a few times this week. i had a huge testimony building experience this weekend. he is very smart and logical and studies math so he's that kind of thinker and this week he realized that all of his questions boiled down to whether or not this was the one true church and that boils down to joseph smith and the book of mormon clearly so he rededicated himself to reading and praying to know if it was true. we decided to fast this sunday that he would get an answer and on sunday evening we had a fireside at a members home and they taught about the apostasy and restoration from a little different perspective. after the fireside i was talking to jeffrey in the members kitchen and i asked him how he had been feeling as he'd read the book of mormon lately. he said that he had been reading in moroni just for fun and that day he had read moroni 7 and where it spoke about charity he recognized the parallels to the bible and he said that he felt love in his heart which we had spoken about and agreed came from the Spirit for the first time whilst reading the book of mormon. I almost teared up when he said that and i realized that the chances of him reading moroni 7 randomly on his own and feeling that on the day we decided to fast is so slim. God lives! and he answers our prayers. 

one more spiritual experience this week was during a lesson we had with a man named Edward. A little background: elder withers called edward's number from the area book while i was sick about 5 months ago, and we taught him once before passing him to the neighboring ward's missionaries upon realizing he lived across the boundaries. they taught him once or twice but they eventually lost contact with him. Fast forward a month or two, and elder burgess and i are sitting at the colchester train station on monday evening to go into london for an exchange with the AP's. the train comes and as we stand up to get on, edward walks up and sees us and remembers me and we sit on the train altogether and ride into london, some of the very few people taking a train at 730 monday evening into london. he had moved with his family recently back into our area and was happy for us to come around and visit him and his family. he even said he would love to come to church. the odds of me being in this area still and running into him at the train station at a time when hardly anyone takes the train after he had moved back into our area is so small. God really wants this man! while teaching him and his family (wife and 2 young boys) saturday evening, we invited his family to say a prayer together to finish the lesson. i asked them if they would kneel and kneel in a cicle on the ground- then had a thought pop into my mind and told them that we would always hold hands in my family when we prayed. So me and an italian elder who was on an exchange knelt with their family and held hands and edward said a beautiful prayer, and it was a touching experience as i remembered thousands of times doing that as a family myself. 

one other cool update! we taught a philipino girl who just graduated university this week and had a great lesson. Her name is Geninne and what is cool about her is that we had given her a plan of salvation pamphlet when we met her on the street and she had read the beginning and loved the part about the pre earth life. she had been raised catholic but didnt really believe in all of its teachings, and she said the pre earth life made so much sense and she instantly believed it. it made me realize that jeffrey was very interested in the same exact thing and that we are so lucky to know about where we come from- ive always taken it for granted but without knowing that truth everything is so confusing and it just doesnt make sense anymore! the church is so true.

We went into london twice this week- so we had a lot of travelling but it was a good week. i love this gospel! and i love you guys! glad to hear oceanside was fun. thanks for the emails and the pictures, i love them!!! hahaha the cat tower looks sweet too. good work.

Love always,

Elder Jensen

Thought I'd send this little pic of what I started in my study journal.. Just cause me and elder Burgess thought my sketch of Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ was funny... Hope you enjoy! Just imagine that cloud as a celestial surfboard and they look like a couple of surfers 😂

There's 2 cause we wanted one in her garden and one in her living room where we always have the spiritual thought.

This is a locust bean... Apparently what John the Baptist ate in the wilderness. He didn't eat actual bugs he ate these beans! Super healthy. Super disgusting too but I ate half of it before my willpower gave.

Football on Saturday morning, Jeffrey and Jason's bday. Shoutout to Graham Bourne for my shirt.. He left it at our house and I took it with me and I don't think he's gunna want it back hahaha