Monday, December 26, 2016

Christmas



I'll probably write a little bit shorter today cause we just finished up skyping! 

It was an awesome week! Monday we went on a sweet hike with Renee and the Elders in Neihu! Then that night we went on exchanges with the assistants. It was a really good exchange and I learned a lot! Tuesday night Renee and her mom fed us an awesome dinner! I love them so much! They unfortunately decided they weren't ready to be baptized yesterday for Christmas, but they are still moving forward solidly! Especially Renee! 

Thursday we had our Christmas conference as a mission! It was really really fun! There was a talent show and some of the people in this mission are incredibly talented! It was also super funny! Then we spent Saturday and Sunday doing the Christmas concert at the temple. Christmas was awesome! Sister Trouble in our ward spoke about missionary work and all the members came up to us after and apologized for not giving us more people to teach and stuff.. Sister Troubles talk just really touched everyone.. All of the investigators we had a church also told us we are amazing after the talk.. They are all nice! I don't think we do anything worthy of that much praise though, but it felt good! 

I had a wonderful Christmas! A wonderful week! Life is amazing! We have several people who are looking really solid and preparing to be baptized in the next couple of weeks! 

I love the scripture in 3 Nephi 1:13! It says lift up your head and be of good cheer! I know that because Christ came and set an example for us then died for us we always have a reason to raise our heads and cheer. Our saddest moments or hardest trials cannot compete with the hope that comes from the message that Jesus Christ lives and loves us and died for us! 

I love you all! Have a great week! Talk to you next week. I'll let you know who my knew companion is! 

Love, Elder Jensen

Pics:
1. Hike
2. Dinner
3. Tasty octopus
4. The concert









Funny pics with SongShan Elders










These are the two pictures taken on Dec. 24th.










Monday, December 19, 2016

Progress

This week was really great! On Monday we went to Choir practice for the last time and it was really enjoyable! I love the missionary Christmas choir. I'm super excited for the concerts this Saturday and Sunday. 

Monday night we met with Renee and Elain. They are still coming along! Renee more quickly than Elain. We are hoping Renee will be ready on Christmas but she may need a little bit longer! 
Renee also came to English class and we met with her after and answered some of her questions. Then on Friday we took her to do a temple tour and it was so awesome. Right from the start the spirit was really strong and we helped her sort out some more of her questions and she really liked it! She says that she is waiting for the "moment" when she knows she should do it. So we are trying to help her have that moment! We are going hiking with her today! Should be a lot of fun and we are hoping to make the last few things click! We'll see soon:) Also she wore a skirt to church for the first time! She must be getting close if she decided it was time to dress like everyone else;) 

Her mom is really awesome too. She really loves the scriptures and has told us she knows Book of Mormon is true. But it hasn't clicked with her what that means. And she told us she likes us but doesn't come to anything because she's not interested in coming to church or being baptized! But she is feeding us dinner tomorrow night! And we are going to figure out what she needs:) 

This week most of the excitement all had to do with Renee's progress. But there were also a couple of other exciting things that happened that I'll talk about really quick! 

We met with a man on Tuesday and he told us he thinks the church is what he is looking for. He had a bad accident about 4 months ago and is just trying to put his life back together and he feels like the church is what he wants! He is super awesome and he set a baptismal date! 

Thursday we went on exchanges and Elder Zhou and I set up a mom and her daughter. On Saturday we met with her and she spent a long time explaining to us how she is super busy and also Buddhist. That usually means "I'm not going to want to meet with you again" But as she kept talking she ended up telling us how she grew up in a singe parent family and her mom took awesome care of her and her siblings and worked super hard and then 4 years ago she got in an accident and died suddenly and she never got to thank her and she was crying and then she said she wants to keep meeting and she feels like this message has power. That was a really cool experience! We didn't even say anything! 

Also that night we went Caroling with the Sisters in the Train station and it was super super fun! We met several cool people too:) 

To wrap up I want to invite everyone to read 3 Nephi 18:24! That is the scripture that I'm ponderizing this week! I feel like it fits perfectly for #lighttheworld it tells us to hold up our light and then explains that Jesus is the light and as we do what He did we hold him up! So cool:) I love Christmas and the scriptures! I hope everyone has an awesome week and a wonderful Christmas! 

Love, Elder Jensen

Pics:
1.Birthday party for a little girl in our ward
2.Nice sky
3.The mom and her daughter 




Monday, December 12, 2016

Singing

This last week was great! Monday Amber came over with the Elders in Tianmu and she brought a cake! She is so nice! Then we went to a french Christmas market thing at the 101 and had crepes and stuff! It was a lot of fun!

Tuesday we did our Zone training meeting! It was a good meeting I thought! We got to do a role play in it where I acted as "Briggs" in high school! It was really weird, but it was just to practice working with members. As I was acting as myself I realized that there were actually lots of opportunities to share the gospel growing up that I didn't take! It made me really excited to try to share more with the people I know and love! 

That evening we went on exchanges with the Elders from Luodong. We had a really good time and met some really cool people. I was with Elder Clyde. We contacted this one lady and we asked her if she believed in God and her response was that she had a devil and "666" tattooed on her back. We determined that she must have a lot of things she regretted in her past and shared with her about baptism and a fresh new start. She didn't live in our area but she seemed really touched by that message and gave us her phone number to give to the missionaries in her area! I thought it was a really powerful contact! It is so cool to see how this message is for everyone, no matter what problems they may have or what things they have done in the past. 

Then on Saturday we spent almost all day singing in the missionary Christmas choir. For one event at a junior high school and then that evening for the english wards nativity performance. I really enjoyed being able to sing and spread the Christmas spirit! I also really really liked watching the English ward perform the nativity! It brings back lots of great memories and helps me to remember how grateful I am for the birth of our Savior! We went back last night as well for the last performance of the nativity! 

Renee is getting closer and closer to being ready for baptism! We are super excited for her! She has been to church 4 weeks in a row! 

Also yesterday morning at church we were waiting by the door and all of the sudden Tim came out of nowhere!! It was awesome because we weren't expecting him! He says that he hasn't felt anything yet and that he's slowly giving up and we having been doing everything we can to help him find a testimony! But it was really cool to see that he is still trying and he was able to come to church so he just came even though we weren't expecting him. He's a really awesome guy! His restaurant closed down and he got a normal job now so meeting with him will be a bit more difficult but I'm sure there will be a way! 

I love my mission!! I've learned so much and am still learning so much. My companion is awesome and a really good missionary and there are so many opportunities to learn from him! 

Last of all I just want to say again I"m so grateful for Jesus Christ! This is such a wonderful time of year to really focus on becoming more like him! I've been more aware than usual the last few weeks that I still have a really long way to go. I'm really glad for that because it helps me become a better person and in turn better help those around me! I love you all! I hope you have a wonderful week! 

Love, Elder Jensen

Pics:
We woke up a little early and ran up a mountain with the Luodong Elders for exercise! It was sweet! It is called Elephant Mountain.





Amber surprised me with a cake for my Birthday!!










Monday, December 5, 2016

Another Solid Week!

Thank you for all of the birthday wishes! I'm sure today will be a wonderful day! It is off to a great start!

I don't have a ton of time so I'll just share some of the highlights of last week quickly! It was a really enjoyable week! 

We went on exchanges with Xizhi and it was a lot of fun! Elder Jorgensen and I were together. He has only been on island for about 2 months but he is a really good missionary. He taught me a lot! We got to go teach Renee and Elain together and it was an awesome lesson! They are both progressing really well! Elain doesn't want to come to church but Renee loves church and is learning so much there! One of my favorite moments from the week were yesterday when I called her and she said she was answering the questions in the back of one of the pamphlets we gave her! She is so cool! Also we rode our bikes with her to the temple yesterday for stake conference! It was sweet!

Then on Thursday we saw a huge miracle as we started to light the world! It was almost time to head home and we hadn't had any chances to serve yet for day one and so we started looking especially hard and didn't know what to do so we just ended up pulling over to pick up some trash we found on the side of the road. Well it turned out that one of the things we picked up was someones insurance card! So we started trying to find a way to return it and we asked a few people what to do and they told us to take it to the police station so we started over there and then asked one more guy and he told us that he would take us there! So we got to walk with him and get to know him! Then when we got there we asked him if he could meet again to learn more about the gospel and he willingly accepted! He was the most willing to set up of anyone I've met here in songshan! Christmas miracles have begun! And serving others is wonderful! 

Then Friday we had MLC at the mission office and it was fun to see lots of friends and learn and now we will be bringing it back to our zone this week! Should be fun! 

Those were the highlights of this week:) We have a few people we are hoping will be ready to be baptized in the next couple of weeks! Renee and then Alan and hopefully a couple of others! I love this work! It is so fun and fulfilling! 

I read a little talk about mastering our thoughts yesterday and I thought it was really interesting! As we become more aware of our thoughts we can weed out all of the negative ones allowing us to have more control of our situations and ultimately everything about our lives! I determined to try to be more conscious of my thoughts and make sure they are all going toward things that will be useful as I strive to serve the people here! I would like to invite everyone to try to be more positive this week! We can't control people but we always have control of how we respond to things! We can get beat down and upset or we can use the challenges as steps to help us grow faster! 

I love you all! Love, Elder Jensen!

Pics
1. Light the world in English class
2. Forgot this highlight! This family was so cool! A member in our ward set them up to come over to their house and meet us and it was awesome! Hopefully we can find another time to meet them. They weren't super interested but their daughter was!
3.Renee
4. Sweet family in our ward









Thanksgiving picture - Another blurry one with Renee


A couple of the people we started our mission with! The sisters will be going home the end of this month.