I am so blessed that I get to be a missionary. My mission is truly a gift from God.

June 12, 2017

Hello Everyone! It's been another great week here in Woodland Hills! 

This week was PACKED! so I'll try to condense everything into a nice weekly email...

First off our area is on FIRE! It's awesome! We were sitting down in weekly planning and we realized that if everything goes as planned (which it usually doesn't) we should have 5 baptisms in the next few months in our area!!!!! That would be amazing! 

I'm gonna talk about 2 experiences this week that stuck out to me and probably just preach a sermon so strap in.

First, we helped this Jewish family move some stuff a few weeks ago and they invited us over for dinner. We went over and it was awesome! A lot of fun, good food, and good times. But the thing that stuck out to me was during dinner, we started talking about their beliefs. But they didn't seem to know. We asked if they believed in an afterlife and they all just kinda looked at each other and laughed and said that they weren't sure what the Jewish belief was! It blew me away. I couldn't imagine life without this Gospel or about the knowledge of God's plan. I hope we all take some time to learn more about it and fully appreciate what a gift this life is. And if you haven't had the chance to hear about God's plan for us, feel free to ask me any questions :)

Second, this last week Mmakgabo was kinda MIA. Like she was dodging our calls, texts, we tried stopping by and nothing. I was so sad but I felt a quiet assurance that everything was ok. Well that assurance was backed up this weekend. We went by on Saturday and she was finally there!!!! She told us how as soon as she started meeting with us she felt good, but not shortly after obstacles started popping up left and right for her. As a missionary, this seriously happens all the time and we were about to teach her that it was the adversary trying to keep her from this happiness, but before we could get the words out, she beat us to it! She started telling us how she knew that this was from God and that Satan is trying t stop her. She said that she was going to trust the feelings she got as she read the Book of Mormon and "take a leap of faith." This woman amazes me. She has the strongest faith and is so willing to follow God's plan. So we had a lesson with her and her son Thabang (TK) that night and taught them about Lehi's Dream. They loved it and we put TK on date for July 1st as well! It was sooooo cool! please keep them in your prayers though. They need as much support as they can get.

The last thing I wanted to talk about in this email is attitude. Our mission has had a big focus on attitude recently and I had a thought jump into my mind. When I was in Young Men's back home we had to go out once a month to collect Fast Offerings. Now most 12-14 year olds weren't completely ecstatic about this and you'd often hear the phrase "We HAVE to..." But I had a leader who would always remind us, it's not that we HAVE to, it's that we GET to. I've been thinking a lot about that and how it relates to missionary work and even life in general. When it comes to responsibilities, there are 2 kind of attitudes. You can choose to look at it as if you have to, or that you get to. There's a sentence in preach my gospel that goes something like this, "teaching the restored Gospel is your responsibility and blessing" and I love that. I am so blessed that I get to be a missionary. My mission is truly a gift from God. I hope we can all have an "I get to" attitude. It truly is a life changer.

Other weekly highlights:

-Driving by Drake, Adele, and the Kardashian's house

-MLC

-Playing basketball with TK after our lesson, and when we scheduled another lesson with  his mom he said "Can I come???" 

Love you all!

Elder Jensen

The Lord was definitely on our side this week.

June 5, 2017

Hello everyone!!
This week has been amazing! We were able to pick up 2 new investigators, set a baptismal date, and get 3 people to church all while Elder Hadley had the Flu! The Lord was definitely on our side this week.

We set the baptismal date with Mmakgabo Lefika, our investigator from South Africa! And yes that is how you spell her name! Her date is for July 1st so keep her in your prayers! We are also trying to get her 11 year old son, TK,  on track to be baptized that same day!

Hope all is well for you guys. Have a great week!!

 

 

It's week one with Elder Hadley here in Woodland Hills and I Love him!

May 30, 2017

Hey Everyone! It's week one with Elder Hadley here in Woodland Hills and I Love him! He's a great guy and we're already seeing so much success together!

We got a referral for a woman named Mmakgabo last week so Elder Martin and I contacted her last Monday. She told us how she had been going to the LDS church down in Santa Monica and when we told her that the nearest LDS church was 2 minutes from her house she was so excited! We had a lesson with her and felt like we should just bring the member we were having dinner with (Brother Ioannou). Well it turns out that they are both from the same area in South Africa and they started speaking to each other in another language! The lesson went really well and she said that her goal was to be baptized along with her son. Then she came to church this Sunday! She enjoyed it so much and said that she didn't want it to end. "3 hours isn't enough Elders! I learned so much!" wow...that blew our minds because it was the first time either of us had ever heard an investigator say 3 hours of church wasn't too long. Needless to say, she is golden!

We had our lesson with Eliana this week as well and she was amazed that we were able to answer so many of her questions and that we had a lot of the same beliefs as her. We taught the restoration and she is really excited to read the Book of Mormon. She said "My cousins have always been telling me to read it and now I'm actually going to do it! I have to tell them." She's awesome and we're excited to work more with her!

We also picked up two other investigators this week during knockout and they key was being persistent. People always say they aren't interested before they even know what you're trying to share with them. But once they let us tell them what we're sharing they're usually more interested!

Well I love you all and hope you had a great week! Once again there are tons of pics from our week! 

Elder Jensen

I've learned that the key to finding success is simply 1) Faith to find 2) Working hard regardless of if you see success from your efforts and 3) Praying like it depends on God and working like it depends on you.

May 22, 2017

This Week is going to be a little bit of a shorter email. We just have tons to do and not enough time to do it! Transfer Calls came and Elder Martin is leaving me. We're both pretty sad but he will be with Elder Horito in the Santa Clartia YSA ward and I will be with Elder Hadley. So we're both pretty excited for this next transfer!

We picked up so many new investigators this week! Elder Martin and I have definitely worked super hard to leave this area better than we have found it. People always told me that the rich areas were hard and that you can't find anyone there. We now have 10 solid investigators and 2 baptisms coming up within the next month and a half for Tabatha and Taylor Boyd. I've learned that the key to finding success is simply 1) Faith to find  2) Working hard regardless of if you see success from your efforts and  3) Praying like it depends on god and working like it depends on you. We have been so blessed by just doing those 3 things. Thanks for all the prayers coming our way. It's made a huge difference.

Well I hope you all have a great week! Look at the pictures I sent out this week and hopefully it'll tell you more about how our week was than I can!

Elder Jensen

P.S. in here are pics of the beach. NO we did not go to the beach! We were driving back from the temple! We are very obedient missionaries!