Tuesday, September 6, 2016

The Spirit straight up took over

September 6, 2016

We had a crazy crazy week full of lessons, apartment inspections, exchanges and meetings here in the Santa Clarita Valley. I've gotta say, I've never been more tired on my mission than I have been the past transfer...but time has never gone faster. This has been the fastest transfer of my mission and I hope I get to stay here with Elder Wade for a little longer!

Well here's our week:
We had a sweet week of finding new investigators! We taught this old potential investigator named Tony who's an audio technician and producer in the music industry. He's a Navy Veteran and has a wife and a young toddler. He was in an explosion of some sort while he was in the service and escaped with only an injured leg. Ever since then he has had a strong belief in God and his love for each one of us. He could have easily died but he was protected and was able to return home to his family. Well anyway we sat down with him and taught the Restoration and the Spirit straight up took over because the lesson just flowed better than any other lesson I have ever been in. We talked about how God works through Prophets and how that's what he has always done, so when we got talking about Joseph Smith it just made sense to Tony that that is what God would do because he loves us. He was stoked to hear that we can feel God in our lives more through the words of the living Prophet and his Apostles. We testified that as he puts forth the faith and effort to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it that he will get his answer.

Mark Stewart is starting to freak me out. We had a lesson in the chapel with him and it just felt like he was trying to pull us away from the Gospel and convert us to his church. Elder wade and I both got the impression that we should drop him and that seems to be the next step. It's tough when you have literally done all you can to help someone get an answer that the Gospel is true but they just aren't willing to listen to the spiritual promptings they receive. So discouraging!

Edwin is still awesome. He wasn't able to come to the soccer thing on Friday but during our lesson he was just so sincere at heart. He truly wants to learn and he wants to find the way that Heavenly Father has prepared for him to return back to him. Keep him in your prayers.

Funny Story: We did some service for James this week. We were laying paving stones in his back and he was looking all over for his rubber mallet to level out the pavers. Well he couldn't find it so as we would hand him the pavers he'd just take his massive fist and use that as his mallet and just smashed those things into place hahaha.  He's literally a redneck giant guy! Love the guy though. He's still making awesome progress with his smoking. Every day he's been cutting back. He's down to 6 cigarettes a day which is SO good compared to 4 every 5 minutes like it was before. The spirit is really helping him get over this and having his girlfriend there to enforce this change is also helpful!

We had a lesson with our investigator Nelly. She's just out of high school and is probably going to get passed off to the YSA Sisters soon. The lesson was an interesting one. We rolled up and she was in her garage so we pulled up some chairs and she pulled out some internet printouts about the church. Elder Wade and I were just like "Oh shoot. She's playing hard ball with us." Haha so we braced for impact but it was a pretty soft landing which was a blessing. She didn't try and bash us or anything which was nice for a change. (Tons of bashers here in the Valley) She just had some legitimate questions about some of the wording in the Book of Mormon and the curse upon that Lamanites etc etc. We handled it well and were able to clarify it all for her. She said she would stay away from the internet from now on, thank goodness.

We also picked up a woman named Carol. She's the sweetest lady ever. We walked up to her son, who looks like Birdman in the NBA (covered in tats from head to toe) and tried to talk to him but he shewed us away. But we were persistent and went to the next person outside the house...but she also shewed us away. Then we tried one more time with Carol and we had a great discussion about her faith in Christ and God and we were able to teach her the Restoration right there on her porch. She told us how she wishes her son (birdman) would come to the light but that he wasn't gonna change any time soon...then we watched him do 5 drug deals right outside the house. Cars would pull up and he'd hand them something through the window, they'd hand him something and then they'd take off. We felt so much Christ like love for Carol because she had tried her best to teach her son about God and Jesus Christ. That gave us a perfect opportunity to testify about the Spirit World and how we will be able to continue to learn and be taught the Gospel on the other side. If she ends up not being interested I still know we were sent her way to give her a little peace and comfort.

Funny Story: The Spanish Elders area overlaps our area in some spots and so while we were on exchanges we were dropping by one of "our" investigators Beatrice. Well we pulled up and Elder Clarke was like..."Elder Jensen this is our former investigator Beatrice...are you sure this is the right house?" I assured him that we were at the right house and that we had been here before to build her stroller for her, so we went up to the door and set up an appointment and when we got back to the car Elder Clarke said.."Yo...she won't answer the door for us anymore. I think she dropped us for you and Wade." Hahaha she just switched missionaries 😂  Savage Beatrice!! I guess she likes us more because we built the stroller!

Another Funny story: So we were trying to drop off a bike at these elders apartment but they weren't there so we didn't know what to do. Well the 7year old neighbor kid Shey was outside and was like "Let me see what I can do." So he disappeared behind the building and we just chilled for a few minutes. Next thing we know we hear the Elders door knob rattle a little and out comes shay hahahahaha! He straight up broke in some how and we have no idea how he did it!! I wonder how many times he's done that!

Well I hope you all have a great week! Be safe!

Elder Jensen

Elder Call and I.
Elder Call, Wade Me, And Elder Green
Ping Pong before dinner!
Elder Jung and Kang. My Korean homies. So entertaining.
Elder Jung as frying pan Korean batman?
Not really sure how I got this at the perfect moment.