Monday, December 28, 2015

Well Merry Christmas again! And a Happy New Year!

This last week went by pretty fast and it was full of some really good things! 

On Tuesday we went back to Shilin right by my old area for our mission Christmas conference! We had a really really good meal and some awesome talent shows! There are a ton of super talented people in this mission! Lots of people that are great at all sorts of instruments and singing so it was a lot of fun! I got to see all my friends from the MTC and catch up on how everyone is doing and I got to see Elder Matua again so it was great! 

Then on Wednesday I was on exchanges with Elder Diepeveen's trainee. That was my first time being with someone that has been on the island for less time than I have! It was a really good experience and I was able to learn a lot! 

Thursday we had a great time sharing Christmas cheer with everyone! Hardly anyone celebrates Christmas here it seemed like.. So it was great to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and try to share a message about Christ with them! That night we sang some Christmas songs in our house and read about the Birth of Christ! It was a great day!

Christmas we had a great day as well just sharing the joy of Christmas with everyone! It was a great day! Thank you to everyone who sent letters and things! It was great to hear how you and your families and everyone is doing! 

The next day I got to talk to the family and that was great!! Haha it is so good to see and talk to everyone! 

On both Christmas Eve and Christmas we went and ate stinky tofu so that we could tell the families of those that still hadn't eaten it! I think we all forgot when we were talking though! It was pretty good though I guess. It just leaves a pretty bad garlic aftertaste forever after you eat it! 

All week we just did a ton of finding! We are still working on getting some solid investigators that want to meet with us! Hopefully it picks up this week! It went okay this last week! We were able to find a few people willing to meet so I think things are looking up! 

I'm really enjoying serving with Elder Welch. He and I are both just working hard and trying to get better and it is going well! We set a goal to say a prayer every hour throughout the day to make sure we are doing what we should be and to be ready to receive any guidance we should need! We haven't been perfect at it for sure but it is going well and we are getting better at it! 

Last night a family fed us a super delicious dinner! It was wonderful! I always love when we get to go spend sometime with members and eat a dinner! I spent a lot of time talking with and playing with their two little kids! 

I hope that you all have a great week and a happy New Year! 

I'll just close quickly with a testimony that I know that this work is God's work. I know that he has plans for each of us and that as we trust Him and work our hardest we will see those plans unfolding in our lives! I have seen to this point how my mission has been perfect for me full of experiences to help me learn and grow! It is wonderful! Our Heavenly Father loves us! He listens to us and He gives us what we need to learn and become more like Him! 

I love and miss you all!! 

Love Elder Jensen!

The Street of Xiangshan and sunset! And Stinky Tofu!


Elder Welch, I, and our Philippino friend Michelle! She is a member and she's awesome! 

And Awesome nativity from uncle Eric.. Hard to see!

Christmas socks I bought. 

Monday, December 21, 2015

XiangShan

This week absolutely flew by! We had a great week! On Monday I went and hung out with Elder Dexter for his last preparation day while his companion and my companion worked on a nativity they are putting together! We had a fun time! 

Wednesday night was my last activity in Tianmu and it was a lot of fun! We had a bunch of people come out to English class and I got to say goodbye to them all! Amber was there as well as a few of the other people we found last week! They all were super good to me! I hope everything is going well for all of them! 

Thursday was transfer meeting and we sent home a bunch of super awesome missionaries. I am going to miss all of them. I got my new area and companion. I am in Xiangshan on the west coast of Taiwan. It took us like 2 hours to get here! A bit further away than Tianmu! My companion is Elder Welch! He's a great guy! He and I are getting along just great!

Not much else happened this week.. Sorry I'm still getting used to it here and don't have alot to tell you about it yet! But It looks like this is a wonderful place! It is quite different from my last area! There are fields and smaller buildings here! It is super cool! I think I'm going to really like it here! 

But Amber did get baptized in Tianmu!! I wasn't able to go, but I am so happy for her! It was awesome to be able to go from finding her to almost baptizing her! She is a great woman and I have loved watching as the gospel has changed her! 

Sorry that is about all I've got for the week! 

I hope that you all have a very Merry Christmas!! It's the most wonderful time of the year! I think I definitely took this time for granted before! Spending Christmas with the family is really such a special wonderful thing! And being able to be on a mission and sharing the love of Christ with others on Christmas is special too! Lots of people here don't celebrate Christmas! It is interesting! Remember that Christ is the greatest gift of all! And God gave him so that all of us could return to live with him! I invite all of you to think of a gift that you can give to the Savior for Christmas! If you are struggling with prayer or scripture study maybe recommit to do that for the Savior! I don't know! It's up to you! Help someone else feel of His great love this Christmas Season!! I love you all! Have a great week!! 

Love Elder Jensen!

Me and Reinaldo! His Daughter and Son in law run a store here in Xiangshan super excited to get to know them!


Monday, December 14, 2015

Ups and Downs

Being a missionary has it's ups and downs! This past week has probably included some of my highest highs and my lowest lows. Still overall a really wonderful week though! 

We had a pretty normal week! No one can find any time to meet with us so that has been a little hard. But it means we've had some more time to find and we have seen more miracles finding! I will tell you about the best one! 

We were out walking around in this neighborhood knocking on doors and we knocked one in the basement of the apartment building. You can see it through the door in to the apartment. She opened and we talked for a second and she wasn't interested. Then we knocked on the door next to hers and it flew open and this mother was like "hey come in!" We weren't able to go in because there were no men over 18 there but we stood in the door and talked and she told us how they'd wanted to come to our activities and stuff and just felt bad cause they hadn't been invited. It was like they had just been there waiting for us! She had an 8 year old daughter and 6 year old son. Named Queena and Ryder!! They were all super nice and wonderful! They said they don't have a religion and we prayed with them and taught them a bit and they are awesome! Super prepared! I hope things go well with them!! 

On Saturday we took Amber to a nativity at the mission home. The missionary choir also sang again after! I absolutely love all of that Christmas music! It is so good! So powerful! Amber really liked it! 

Right after that we went to the adult session of Stake Conference where we heard some great talks about remembering the Savior on the Sabbath and councils! Sister Jergensen gave a talk in Chinese! Super brave.. It was good! Randy D. Funk from the 70 spoke as well. His talk was nice because it was in English! And he said he's impressed with the full time missionaries here. 

The next day we went back for more conference and Amber came with us! She liked it! Our Stake split! That's the goal we've been working for since I got here and we got it! Tianmu is now part of the North Taibei stake. Our Bishop is the new stake president so we will be getting a brand new bishopric! 

Amber had her baptismal interview after and she passed! She's been the high of the week! She is so ready for the baptism and she sent a text this week saying thank you for showing her how great life can be with faith in Christ! Super awesome! She also asked me to baptize her! I was there when we found her and have been able to see the whole process up to now! 

The low is that last night Elder Matua got called to train and that means I will be moving on Thursday! I hope that somehow I can still be here for the baptism.. I'm going to talk to president! We will see! Also I absolutely love serving here in Tianmu! All of the people are amazing and I have absolutely loved serving with Elder Matua! I'm super sad we only got one transfer together and that I'm leaving! So that was all a bit devastating! 

But it is okay! I have seen to this point on my mission that the Lord definitely has a plan for me and that he will take care of me. So I trust that this is what is going to be best in the long run! 

I've been re reading some conference talks and have been hit pretty hard by two things! First our leaders are amazing! They truly are men inspired of God and you can feel of their faith and power as you read their words. And the second is that the enabling power of the atonement is amazing and real! In the scriptures people never pray for their circumstances to change or for things they pray for the strength to overcome and change their circumstances. The Lord through is Atonement is able to give us strength to do things we otherwise could not do. That is amazing! 

Have a great week! I love and miss you all! Christmas is coming! Wooohooo! Pretty warm today.. doesn't feel like Christmas;) It is weird! 

Love Elder Jensen! 

Some of my favorite pictures taken here! Love the temple in the back! Amber is in the white. 



I drew some Bamboo! 

And Thanks Mom! Merry Christmas!

Also ran into this kid this week and he asked if we could take a picture together!


Sunday, December 6, 2015

Where has the time gone?


I know I have been saying it a lot lately but the time continues to go faster and faster. It is weird because I feel like I've been here for a lifetime.. But at the same time I'm hitting 6 months since leaving this week and it feels like it was just a couple of days ago! 

This week flew by! Monday we didn't know what to do for preparation day so we went up to the exercise park and played some basketball! We didn't have a ball so we started by playing with some 5 and 8 year old kids cause they were the only ones there! Then we moved on to some college kids! It was fun to play a little bit! 

Tuesday we had our Zone meeting and it was a Christmas white elephant party! I got a little wooden massager thing! Wooooh!! Hahaha it was a great meeting and we learned about being believing and having faith! It changed the course of the week for sure! I have always thought that I had faith and believed and stuff but after the training I realized I was saying a lot of doubtful or negative things. Just little stuff like "What if they don't show up" Or something.. But we realized that it was having a big impact on us and we decided to change and become more faithful and believing! I am still working on it! But we saw some miracles this week and I believe it was because we were believing that we would! 

The first miracle happened on Tuesday! Right after meeting with Mark we were walking away and this lady said "Hey, you're the mormon missionaries huh? Come here!" We went and sat down and she was a 45 year old Japanese lady with great english and an 18 year old friend that she had brought there to talk about love and God. She told us that she was baptized into our church 20 years ago and now is not a member.. But she respects us and pretty much just turned the time over to us to talk to her friend (Satomi) about God. Satomi doesn't speak english or chinese very well though, but it was okay because Coco the older one translated for us! We talked about why we are here and prayed with them and then they were both crying and Satomi said it had reminded her of her grandma that passed away last year. Then we told her about eternal families and she said a prayer in Japanese to close! It was a super awesome experience! Then I got a Japanese Book of Mormon a few months ago for a guy that never met with us again and so I asked if we could meet again and give it to her and they said yes! Coco made a little cake thing for my birthday and Satomi gave me and Elder Matua some delicious cookies. Unfortunately Satomi's parents were pretty opposed to meeting with us so we weren't able to share much of a lesson but we did give her the Book of Mormon and introduce it to her! Hopefully her parents will change their minds and we'll be able to figure something out! She is ready! 

Second miracle was Thursday night. Wednesday night we prayed about where to go and decided to go walk along a river. We'd never done that before! But we went for it! And almost right away we ran into a super prepared girl! She said she had work at 5:30 and we checked our watches and it was 5:30 and we were like shoot..  And she said "You guys can talk to me though." So we taught her a lesson and met with her again Saturday and she brought a friend with her and they both set baptismal dates! It was awesome! We found another new investigator there as well. And a lady from the Dominican Republic that asked us if we'd been smoking because we were walking kind of slow and then turned out to be really interested and asked us for our number! Hope she calls sometime! 

So it was a really good week as far as new investigators! 

Friday we went to dinner at that nice restaurant of the investigator Bonnie again and it was great! Friday was really really cold! I forgot to say last week it was getting cold! But it is weird cause some days are still hot and some are freezing! I didn't bring anything to stay warm because I was so worried about being too hot in the summer that I forgot! But our investigator Amber texted us last night and said she was worried about us and bought us both coats! It is really nice and should keep me warm! So many amazing people always looking out for us! 

Thank you for all of the Birthday wishes! I had a great birthday! We went and ate lunch with Aaron and the zone leaders and Isabella Aarons friend. It was a pretty good meal! Then we had lessons all afternoon and it was really busy and fun! 

Last night we went to a fireside at the mission home and the missionary choir did their Christmas program! It sounded really really good! I'm excited for this Christmas season!!! 

I hope that everyone has a great week! I know that the Lord is mindful of us and is always taking care of us! As we choose to believe He is able to do amazing things in our lives! This week I will be pondering Mormon 9:21! Love you all! Miss you all! 

Love Elder Jensen! 

This is the only picture I took this week.. Where we get our Hair cuts!


​Forgot to say Amber is doing really well and should be baptized on the 19th. Her interview will be next Sunday! And.. I will see if Elder Matua has something better! 

Here we go!  Drinking some winter melon tea from a bag. 

Eating with Aaron Thursday night. 

And Bonnie Friday night!

Monday, November 30, 2015

Thanksgiving Miracles!

This was quite a week! I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

We started off the week Monday by going to the beach in Danshui. It was beautiful! So cool to see the ocean and just relax and run around in some sand and stuff for a while. I think we drove like an hour and a half to be there for like 45 minutes and then drive home but it was still a lot of fun! 

Tuesday we had Elder Gary E. Stevenson and his wife speak to us!! It was an amazing experience. Super interesting to hear him speak. He is still getting used to being an apostle and he's really honest and open and humble about how inexperienced and stuff he feels! Kinda how you feel when you get on your mission, but probably super amped up! He knew the Jergensens and worked with president Jergensen! It was cool to hear him talk about him and to him! He kept calling him Jace.. It was really funny! He talked about Hard work, Obedience, Testimony, and language. Elder Matua and I really benefited from everything he spoke about! He also bore a very powerful testimony at the end! Really cool guy! 

Wednesday was normal.. Taught English class! It was fun! 

Thursday was Thanksgiving and we had no special plans.. Then Elder Anderton called and said a family wanted to feed us! We took a bus up to there house just up the mountain in our area with the Zone Leaders! When we got there we couldn't believe it. They had a normal house, a yard, a pool, and a hot tub. So different from the apartments that are everywhere. They also had a beautiful view of Taibei! The best part was we had a normal american Thanksgiving dinner!! It was a miracle. There were 3 families there all living here in Taiwan and it was cool to meet there kids and ask what its like growing up in Taiwan and stuff! They were all really nice and made Thanksgiving special! 

Friday through sunday were normal! Great Days! We have been meeting some really really amazing people! Unfortunately they haven't wanted to set up! We did find one new investigator this week that I'm excited about! 

Yesterday we met a girl that just moved here from New York and she had never talked to missionaries and her mind was blown! Interesting that there are people that have no idea what we are doing! She asked how we were selected for Taiwan and we told her we believe in prophets and modern day revelation and she said that was beautiful! Hopefully planted a seed for someday! 

We have had a lot of success in looking for less actives! Yesterday we had 5 at church! We also set a date with a lady that the zone leaders introduced on Saturday! 

Brother Lin had a great lesson and committed to come to church and then didn't come and hasn't been answering his phone.. We are hopefully meeting him tonight! 

Amber Chen is doing awesome and steadily progressing towards her baptism! She is super ready!! Hope it all works out!! 

Love you all! Have a wonderful week!! December here is going to go by way to fast.. It's a busy month! I'm excited! 

Love Elder Jensen! 

Sunset and View from the Chiles house.. This doesn't do it justice. More ocean!

The beach. 



Monday, November 23, 2015

Time is going super fast! And Happy Thanksgiving!

It seems like I was just emailing! 

This week was another great week with Elder Matua!! Our numbers weren't as good though. We struggled to find new investigators. But there is always this week!! I'm excited to get back to it! 

Some exciting things happened this week though. On Monday we got a text from Amber that said after some pondering she has decided that she wants to be baptized and become a Christian. We were super excited! We weren't able to meet with her last week though because she went on a little trip. We'll be meeting her tomorrow and I can't wait to help her continue progressing! We set baptismal dates with people to help them progress and since we couldn't meet with her I decided to call her and try to set a date with her over the phone! It went really well! I don't know if I will ever have a chance to do that again, but it was a fun experience. 

Brother Lin is still having a rough time with smoking and he keeps committing to come to church and then something comes up and he doesn't make it. We are hoping to get him progressing this week! I think coming to church will be big for him. 

Tomorrow Elder Stevenson will be here to talk to us!! I'm super excited to receive some counsel from an apostle! His son is in the Taizhong mission and he has a nephew here in our mission. I will let you all know how that goes next week! 

Today we are going to Danshui! It will be my first time really seeing the ocean up close since being here! I'm excited to go check it out! 

The last couple of weeks we have really been emphasizing the Sabbath in our teaching! We try to invite all the people we meet to come to church and we invite people to do chapel tours. We also have been helping our less actives remember their baptismal covenants and the importance of the Sabbath and it has been going well!! We have been going all over our area trying to find out where all the people on our ward list have gone. We have a list of like 250 people and only around 120 at church every week. We have found lots of people are gone. Moved to other places. But we also ran into one of them out in front of his house! It was great! He talked with us then had a lesson later in the week and came to church! It's the best meeting people and helping them come back to church! They are all such great people! 

I hope that you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving! I am thankful for you and the impact that you've had on my life! I'm thankful for the opportunity to serve here in such a wonderful place with such a wonderful companion! I'm loving serving with Elder Matua. I am also thankful for the Savior and His Atonement that allows us to change, overcome weaknesses and trials, and return to live with our Heavenly Father again! Keep an eternal perspective! That is what we are all working for and we are promised that if we rely on Jesus Christ we will all be able to receive it. I love you all! I don't know if we are doing anything for Thanksgiving! I will let you know next week! 

Thank you for all the love and support have a blessed week! 

Love, Elder Jensen!

Our friend Brother Zhou! The less active we found!


Reinaldo Silva (a member from brazil) and one of his workers, Jake. FUNNY guys. 


Monday, November 16, 2015

Best week yet!

I'm always pretty all over the place during emails! Every week is so full of things and I have a hard time remembering it all! But I will do my best! 

I forgot last Sunday a english ward member had us over to his house for a barbecue! It was delicious and super nice to be in a home that speaks english for once! 

Serving with Elder Matua has been awesome so far! We go out every day and just have a lot of fun! We talk to everyone we can and share with them and it is really fun! I'm really starting to love doing this work! We were able to find 4 new investigators this week and we also had a lot of lessons! It felt like a great week and we had a lot of people planning on coming to church! We were really excited.. Unfortunately only one ended up coming! But She is a newish investigator named Amber! She's a little hesitant to set a baptismal date but she is super great and really loved church! Our other investigator Brother Lin is doing really well but we can't get him to come to church! It is frustrating.. 

Wednesday we went on exchanges with the zone leaders! I spent the evening in Shilin with Elder Dexter! He's a great guy! We went to the dentist cause his teeth have been hurting and it turns out he has a ton of super deep cavities.. He goes home right before Christmas so he's just waiting to get it all fixed there I think! Made me worried about my teeth;) I'll be flossing a bit more often from now on I think..

Hmm.. I'm trying to think of some exciting news from the week but I can't think of much! We were out finding a lot! Elder Matua's bike came so we are no longer walking! It was just a pretty great week I guess! 

This week I've been thinking about pride.. I read in Alma 39 and Corianton's problems all started because of his pride and boasting in himself. Out here I have realized if I start thinking I'm doing well because things are going good then they start to get harder.. But as I'm humble and rely on the Lord things are much better! That is my little spiritual share for the week! 

The Lord has blessed us all with so much! Let us remember that.. Even when things aren't going as well as we would like! It may seem he's not there.. But I promise that he is! Have faith and continue to seek his help! Have patience and eternal perspective.. Those are all things I'm learning/ trying to apply! This work is hard! But it is also really fulfilling! We meet so many great people everyday! 

I love you all! Have a wonderful week! 

Love Elder Jensen! 

In the elevator last night!

Lehi represent in Taiwan!
Aaron and last nights dinner..... Mmm Peanut milk soup ;)



Monday, November 9, 2015

Transfers! Big surprises!

This last week started off as one of my harder weeks here.. I was feeling a lot of stress because I didn't feel like we were doing very well at anything! We weren't having many lessons and I was just a little discouraged! But it still went okay!

Monday Elder Marks and I went to a paper museum and Coldstone for our last preparation day together! It was a lot of fun! I made my own piece of paper;) and the coldstone was delicious!! 

One of the highlights was our English class. We are the little kids teacher and it is super hard sometimes and they get bored and it's rough. But this last week they had so much fun and it was a really really fun night! We were learning sea animals and we had pictures and cut them out and hid them all over the room and the kids took turns finding them and then we would learn the name of the animal and it was super great! They are all really good kids. Also there are two sisters and it was their second week coming. Their dad drops them off and goes to the older class and this last week he also brought his wife! After class he came up to me and said "Thank you so much, my daughters are so happy. I am so happy." And he had the biggest smile! I loved that! 

Then on that night we got the call that Elder Marks would be leaving on Friday! We went to Chili's for dinner together on Thursday night for our last night! It was a little expensive and really really good! 

Mark is progressing towards baptism! And the Brother Li that we met on Halloween is doing awesome as well! 

We had a really awesome miracle this week as well. We had a meeting scheduled with Mark and it was a little windy or something outside and we ended up moving the meeting place to a McDonalds in this mall by where we were. We had never met there before.. And as we were walking out after our lesson someone said 'Elders!" We turned around and a lady from our ward was sitting next to a friend! This friend had tears in her eyes and we went over and found out that her 18 year old son had just passed away and she was really sad. We were able to share about eternal families and the because he lives video and give her a Book of Mormon. She didn't want to meet with us again, but I know we were put in her path that day so that we could provide her with that message. I hope that it planted a seed in her. 

Transfers.. I was super nervous about transfers! I didn't feel like I would be able to get someone adjusted to this area and take care of everything and I was worried about who my companion would be and man.. It was the best thing in the world! I have had hard times talking with members and investigators in my first two transfers but this last few days everything has gone really well! It turns out that I can communicate with the people just fine! And I really love them all! I will be staying here in Tianmu for a long time I hope! After that transfer meeting I can tell you that I know the Lord is looking out for me and that President Jergensen is inspired by him. The last few days have been so so wonderful! I have enjoyed finding out on the street and talking to people which is something that I was really trying hard to just like and not dread before.. I love my new companion and I am so lucky I get to serve with him here in this wonderful mission! Hahaha I don't know.. I was trying to make this exciting and stuff but that's all I've got! My new companion is Elder Matua from Lehi:) Hahaha We are having an awesome time! And the work here is going to be amazing! It is so weird to talk about Lehi and stuff.. It is like we grew up together! So cool! 

This last week I was ponderizing Moroni 7:47-48. I was praying daily to have the pure love of Christ and really see my love for the people grow and it has! It was awesome.. Just throughout the week I have really started loving the people here even more! 

I hope you all have a wonderful week! I love and miss you all! 

Love Elder Jensen! 

Paper place! There was a cool bamboo house thing..


Coldstone and the new companion



Monday, November 2, 2015

Happy Halloween!!


This week was a good one! For the most part.. Wilson hasn't answered any of our texts or phone calls since last week. He has completely disappeared! So we are just hoping and praying that everything is going okay for him and that he will turn up again someday! 

This week we had a huge miracle! We were out proselyting and we got a call from a member in a different area. She gave us the number of a man and said that he was waiting for our call! We called him right away and he set up for the next day! The next day we met with him and he was very prepared! We set a baptismal date with him and he asked if we could move it up to this upcoming Saturday! He has to have the lessons and come to church 3 times so we couldn't do that, but it shows how ready he is! I am excited to see him progress and come unto Christ! I hope it all goes well! 

We moved Marks date to the middle of this month and we are hoping that he will be able to make it for this one! He is doing really well! He's just not very committed to coming to church. 

Halloween was crazy! I didn't think many people would celebrate it.. but around 5:30 on Saturday night the main road had tons and tons of people in costumes on each side walking around trick-or-treating I think.. I have never seen so many people out on the road all at once! And there were a ton of Americans and people from all countries and it was really interesting and super crowded and fun! 

Elder Marks and I both bore our testimonies in church because one of us will be leaving this week! We aren't sure who but we think it will be him and I'll be getting a new companion here. I hope that I know the area well enough for that.. It should be interesting! I decided that I need to bear my testimony every fast Sunday! I don't know why it took me this long to figure that out.. 

Also the Less active family that we found a few weeks ago has been coming to church every week and last night they had us over to there house for dinner! It was really really good and they are really really nice! There dad isn't a member but he is super awesome! I hope that his families example will help him come into the church! Also I had Chou doufu or stinky tofu for the first time! When I smelled it I thought I might throw up when I ate it.. But I went for it and after the first piece I didn't feel like I'd throw up anymore. Then the second piece was actually pretty good! I am glad that I was able to eat it and even kind of enjoy it! 

I want to share a bit about fasting! I love fasting here on my mission. It is really hard sometimes because we still go out and work and it gets pretty exhausting, but it always works out! Also After fasting I feel really refreshed! And I know that as we fast we are able to receive answers to the things that we are needing! I had lots of little thoughts through out the day reminding me again of the importance of forgetting and humbling myself and doing everything I can to love and serve the people here! 

I hope that you all have a wonderful week this week! I know that this church is true! Sometimes this work is pretty hard.. But it is also absolutely worth it! Keep building your testimonies! I hope you all have a safe, happy, awesome week! 

Love Elder Jensen!

Elder Marks and I, Stinky Tofu, and the Awesome Li Family. 





Monday, October 26, 2015

Another Good Week!

So going to the temple on Wednesday was really nice! We also got to go across the street to President's house and eat brownies after! And after the temple we had the temple tour with Wilson and it was really great! He was really excited about being able to do work for his dad who has passed away. We told him that in order to be baptized he'd need to come to church this Sunday and then the next day he said he'd met with his boss and quit his job because getting Sundays off wasn't going to work. He is super super awesome and has a ton of faith! 

This morning he texted us though and said he wasn't sure about being baptized on Saturday anymore. He said it has been really fast and he just got excited.. We are thinking maybe he didn't really want to leave work and was going to go back.. We aren't sure right now! But he's already passed his interview! We will continue to work with him and see what happens! 

The rest of the week was busy and fun and crazy! We had a lot of lessons this week! We visited a lot of less actives! Our lessons are still not turning into new investigators though! People here are so nice to us it is crazy! The other day we were contacting someone and this guy came up and said Elders happy halloween and handed us each a bag of m&ms and left.. I don't remember if I said that last week! Also we had a member give us a box full of hot chocolate and milk and bread! And everyone is just super nice and kind! 

I have been thinking about how much of a role the ward can play. We have these videos of wards that got excited about missionary work and really worked with the missionaries and they have a ton of baptisms and success and so I have been trying to think about how we can get a better relationship with the ward and get them excited! They are all super awesome and willing to help but they are also really busy! I don't know.. Hopefully we can do something with that!

Aaron is still doing awesome! He is our best friend! He also got the priesthood yesterday which was awesome! He is doing really well! 

Other crazy things from yesterday.. I saw President Deng my branch president in the MTC! His mom lives here in Shilin and they were in the ward that meets after us! It was cool to see them again! They were doing good! 

It is getting pretty weird.. Elder Marks is probably going to be moving next week! We don't have any idea yet but that is probably what it will be. It seems like I just got here and now we are coming up on the end of the second transfer. 

The weather has been perfect here the last few weeks! Super comfortable and just right! We had a bit of rain this last week though.. And the weirdest thing I ate this week was some noodle stuff with intestine in it! It was my second time and it was better than the first! Not bad.. 

I have been super blessed as far as all that food stuff goes! Things I didn't think I could eat or like I've eaten no problem and mostly liked them. And I haven't gotten sick or anything from any of the adjusting to food either! The Lord really takes care of us! My ponderize scripture last week was Mosiah 2:41. I know as we keep the commandments we really are blessed in all things both physical and spiritual! 

Sorry this has been all over.. I just write everything that pops into my head with no real order..

I love you all and hope that you have a great week!! 

Love Elder Jensen

With Wilson at the tour!




Tuesday, October 20, 2015

Wo Hai Huozhe (I'm still alive)

I don't know if anyone was worried, but the reason I'm not writing until today is that today we get to go to the temple and so our preparation day was moved to today! 

This last week was a good one! I can't remember it all too well.. But I remember some. Being a missionary is crazy! We go into meeting's with people we don't know all of the time. Last Monday we were going to meet a lady at her restaurant and we brought our recent convert Aaron to be a member present since she is a girl. Her restaurant ended up being super nice and she qinged us. Which means that she fed us for free! It was a really really tasty hot pot place and she gave us vegetables and a few types of meat and it was all really good! There was even some big cubes of ducks blood that tasted really good! She was a super nice lady and she ended up offering Aaron a job there on the spot as well. It was a lot of fun and she also seemed pretty interested in the gospel but she's been out of the country so we haven't been able to meet yet. 

The rest of the week went pretty normal I think. We found a new college student that we will be meeting on Saturday and hopefully that will go well! 

Our baptismal date investigators Wilson and Mark are both super awesome and we are hoping that they can both be baptized on the 31st. We are doing a temple tour with Wilson today after we go to the temple and then we are going to teach a lesson and then go to eat with him. He took the whole day off to meet with us and then our preparation day was switched so we get to spend a lot of time with him! 

I have been able to really see Mark change as he's been meeting with us from not understanding at all to starting to understand and he has changed a lot since we started meeting. It is amazing to see the gospel work in the lives of these people and to see the change. 

Yesterday we had our interviews with President Jergensen! It was really awesome! I love him. He got me really excited about the work and stuff and he's just a really great guy! 

Monday night I went on exchanges with Elder Anderton and we were in the Tianmu area. It was my first time in my area without Elder Marks. It helped me to see that I can do a lot more than I thought. Our lessons that night went really well and I was able to kind of get comfortable trying to speak more in the lessons. Elder Anderton is awesome and it's always fun to get to spend some time with him too. 

This week I have been reading in Alma about Ammon and his missionary work among the Lamanites! They were some pretty awesome missionaries. I love the story. Also something stood out to me as I read it so I would like to share that. 

When the people of Lamoni became converted they buried their weapons (sins). So that even if they had wanted to go back to them there was no way. I thought that was a powerful lesson. When we struggle with things we can take measures to make sure there's no way to go back. 

And then also Alma 26 is all about Ammon rejoicing in the greatness and goodness of God. And I really love that whole chapter as well! I want to be an instrument in helping people the way they did. 

I hope you all have a wonderful week! The work is getting better and better here in Tianmu. I am excited to see what the rest of this week brings. Love you and miss you all! 

Elder Jensen

Nice member and cool hat!
This came from a youzi it is super tasty fruit that tastes kind of like grapefruit but a lot better and you can make hats out of the peels;)

Monday, October 12, 2015

Conference Weekend!!

This was a great week! I am having a hard time remembering what happened though.. I will do my best! 

Monday we went to the Chang Kaishek Memorial hall and saw some amazing things! There were all of these paintings and pictures and I thought they were awesome! Also Elder Marks friend  Jeffrey came with us again! I loved it.. He is the funniest guy ever! And he went to BYU for a while and speaks really good english! After the memorial hall he took us to a all you can eat pizza hut! It was a great end to a really fun preparation day! 

Tuesday we had zone meeting and it was really really good! We talked about doing what needs to happen to split our stake by the end of the year. It was really motivating! They also played a video with pictures of our baptisms from when we were little.. It was cool to remember that day! We have been asked to think about what baptism means to us and to study it a little bit everyday this transfer! It is awesome! 

We taught some lessons this week and a lot of them went very well! We have 3 people with dates for October and we are really hoping that they can make it. I'm not sure how committed any of them are right now.. But it will work out! 

Taiwan is a really amazing place! I love to just look around when there is a second to do that and appreciate all the things around me. It has started getting a bit cooler these last few days! Almost even cold at times! That will be interesting! But it is super comfortable most of the time and it is awesome!

One of my favorite parts of the week was conference! It was such a wonderful experience! We got to watch it in English which was super super nice! I couldn't believe how many great things there were from every talk! I felt the spirit strongly! I loved the "ponderize" challenge! It is super cool! So if anyone wants feel free to ask my verse through out the mission.. Also I loved the talk on mothers! Thanks for being such a great mom mom! And all of the talks.. So good..  But I really felt like the Atonement is powerful and if you just use faith it can help us overcome ever challenge, weakness, sin, or anything we face.. Anything at all! That was awesome.. 

Sorry this is short! I will try to make next week more interesting! But the work is progressing! We still need to find some solid new investigators! Wish us luck!

I love you all! Have a wonderful week! Stay tuned for some awesome pictures..

Love, Elder Jensen

These guys can't move for like an hour or two. 


Resting against Taipei 101 :)

Having some fun with the tower!