Monday, April 18, 2016

Amazing things happen when we seek for guidance and follow our promptings!

April 18, 2016

Another crazy and eventful week in Van Nuys California! Something I have forgotten to mention is that our ward covers a really big area. So we have 6 elders in the ward. This is the only area with that many Elders in it. Kinda crazy. So here's what our week was like...

We met with Brother Pain again this week. We had no idea what to teach him so we prayed every day for some help on that. When the day of the lesson came we felt inspired to teach the Atonement and how we need to LET it work in our lives. We sat on his porch and we all shared our testimonies of Jesus Christ and what he has done for us personally. He said the message was exactly what he needed to hear and I'm not gonna lie...all of us cried on that porch. The Spirit was so strong and It helped not only strengthen Brother Pain's testimony, but Elder Silvas' and mine as well. Amazing things happen when we seek for guidance and follow our promptings! Also after our lesson Brother Pain showed us some songs he made (Missionary and Gospel songs of course) and they were so sick! He really likes us so he is hooking us up with the album he made! So excited about that!

We also picked up 4 new investigators this week. We met Daniel during knock out. It was a long knockout and we just got yelled at by Armenians and Hispanics in languages that we don't understand. We were pretty disappointed but the last house we knocked on was Daniel...before we even finished introducing ourselves he sat us down and asked for us to share our message with him! We also started teaching Ben and his wife. We started doing service for them and then our willingness to help made them curious about our beliefs. So now they are investigators as well! And my favorite one of all...Charlie. We met Charlie at knockout as well. He said he has read almost every religious book ever written looking for the truth (including the Book of Mormon) but he hasn't been able to receive an answer about what is true. I asked him if he ever prayed about The Book of Mormon and he said..."You know what...I never did that part." He committed to read the book over again and this time pray about it as he goes. Such a cool experience! Hopefully we will be able to help him find what he has been looking for!

The Mata's have really been struggling. Nothing upsets me more than poor excuses to not come to church...but the Lord always reminds me that everyone has their own challenges and their own struggles that I can't understand. So I'm working on being more understanding this week. Maricella, Jacky, and Fernanda were all baptized in the last year but 8 year old Michael hasn't because none of the missionaries have been able to get him to sit and listen to the lessons. So Elder Silva and I are taking on that challenge now haha. So far so good!

Also our mission is getting a visit from Elder Anderson of the Quorum of the 12 this Saturday!!! Elder Silva and I are going to try and sneak pictures with him!! Wish us luck!

Funny story of the week: I hate spiders and our car is infested with them! While I'm driving they will crawl onto the steering wheel and the windshield and I'll like swerve and almost kill us...hahaha. We are working on killing them all. Also wish us luck on that.

Well that's it for the week. I love you all and hope you have a great week!

Elder Jensen

Elder Wynne, Elder Blodgett, Elder Thompson, Elder Jensen, Elder Silva, and Elder Liddiard.