Monday, March 14, 2016

The Gospel can seriously fix everything if you just have faith and are obedient

March 14, 2016

Hey everyone! This week was such a busy and hectic week in Encino. We taught 12 lessons and were absolutely swamped with things we had to do. But being busy is a missionaries dream so we're pretty happy about it!

Anyway, we met with Anne again this week and taught her about Sabbath day observance. Her church attendance is on point! She has come to church every week for the past month and we just wanted to reinforce her testimony about the Sabbath day so that she would continue coming. She's a quarter way through The Book or Mormon for her second time now and she's so excited for her baptism on the 10th of April. We pray every day that she will go through with it this time, and we are really trying to build her testimony to help prepare her. So far so good!

We taught our Indian friend Sarabjeet again this week! Something kind of funny happened! We brought him some Hindi pamphlets to teach him the Gospel this time and he said "Oh I have some of those! Lets study from both pamphlets!" So he pulled out some other pamphlets that weren't from the church and Horito and I were like oh no...what are we gonna do. So when no one was looking we both just grabbed them and put them in our pockets. They were so confused where the other literature went! But it worked out. He just used a Restoration pamphlet instead and loved what we taught him! We are going back today to teach more!

I went on an exchange with Elder Shaw this week to the Sherman Oaks area. He is a total cowboy from Utah! I love that kid.  We taught Kristen Wilson (the woman who plays the mom in Dr. Dolittle) and she has a baptismal date for April 10th as well!  She has gone through so much in her life and she knows that she has been guided by the Holy Ghost the whole way. Kinda cool to teach someone whose sort of famous. But anyway, she's super solid!  It's awesome to see someone come to the realization that this is what they've been looking for all their life!

We took Hikmat on a church tour which was awesome! I don't know how interested he actually is but he keeps meeting with us. We taught the Akopov's as well! We answered their questions about the Restoration and talked about why The Book of Mormon was needed. While Tatiana was praying she said "Thank you for helping us see our happy futures when we learn about your Gospel." So cool!! We also got asked to teach Ruben English so we will be over there about 3 times a week working with them. They're one of my favorite families we teach!

We taught the Beauregards and it was awesome to see how far they have come in the last 4 months. They're awesome. The Gospel can seriously fix everything if you just have faith and are obedient.

We had a huge miracle this week! We were knocking this huge complex and knocked into a man named Marlin. We asked if we could share a video with him and he said no because he didn't have his phone with him. So we took that as "OK he wants us to leave."  So we started to leave and he said "Hey don't you wanna come in and share the word?"  We were caught of guard on that one because no one ever says that! So we went in and he told us how he had prayed a few weeks ago that Mormon missionaries would knock on his door and come teach him how to follow Christ. I was smiling so big and was just thanking God the whole time for guiding us to Marlin. He's a golden investigator. We don't even need to push him to meet with us he just calls us all the time and sets it up himself! So that was a miracle this week!!  He is committed to baptism already as well!

Eddy is doing awesome. We met with him this week and he has had a few people challenge him about his beliefs but he has been awesome at standing up for what he believes. He knows it's true and can't deny it. The Bishop has already given him a calling as the Ward Missionary! He is going to be awesome at that because he basically already did that before he was called to do it!

Message of the week:  Heavenly help is real! And it comes through prayer.  Marlin prayed in faith that missionaries would come and teach him the gospel.  Missionaries, Elder Horito and I, showed up a few weeks later as an answer to his prayers. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints was restored through heavenly help received through Joseph Smiths prayer...so obviously prayer works. Pray whenever you need help and I promise it will come.

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

Elder Jensen
Sarabjeet, his wife and I learning English