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. 

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. 

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 ;)

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

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.