Sowing Seeds

Dearest Friends and Family,

Walla Walla or Wally Wally or just Walla (as the locals say) has officially decided to get on board with the concept of "spring" and has been beautiful! The fields are becoming green and the last snow piles are finally melting. It has been a nice change. The Blue Mountains, while more like hills in comparison to the Rockies, are a beautiful backdrop to the rolling fields of sheep, goats, cows, horses, and WINDMILLS (there are so many windmills here) that make up this area. 

This week we had a conference in tri-cities with all of the new missionaries--so all of the missionaries from my original MTC district. It was really fun to see all the familiar faces! After our morning meetings we were able to take a walk around the beautiful Columbia River Temple, and we sang "I Love to see the Temple" together. I know that the temple is the goal! While we are trying to help people reach the waters of baptism, going to the temple to be sealed together with our families is truly the goal. Baptism really is just the gate to a path of even greater covenants and blessings. Even just on the temple grounds the spirit was so strong. I truly love to see the temple! This week I also went on an exchange with Sister Bloom, my MTC companion! Sister McNeil (my current companion) is a sister training leader and has to go on exchanges with the sisters she's over, so I was with Sister Bloom for a day! It was a nice change of pace.

Many of you are studying the "Come Follow Me" New Testament "home study" manual put out by the church, and if you did your reading (hey, do your reading!) then you know this week talked about the parable of the sower. This week, Sister McNeil and I have been sowing a lot of seeds! We have been working hard and trying to talk to everyone--and I mean EVERYONE--but haven't been seeing many results...not yet anyway! We still have some people we are trying to follow up with, and some we are trying to teach, and we are sending off so many referrals, but also all of the colleges are going on spring break which means a lot of people have been going home or are on vacation. We'll keep sowing, though!

I hope you each have a good week! Remember that you are a child of a divine and loving God! Everything else we teach in the gospel stems from this idea. Literally everything! It is so important to not only know it, but to truly internalize and believe it! 

Love,
Sister Jensen

Pictures: I have convinced Sister McNeil to come running with me several times now and we discovered a beautiful park that has a small lake and an AVIARY in it! I promise I'm in the picture of the lake, so see if you can find me. :)

Enchiladas and Chihuahuas

Dearest Friends and Family,

Walla Walla is begging to thaw! Apparently not quite fast enough--we saw some people shoveling snow off a baseball diamond, and apparently some of the farms have had to remove a bunch of snow so they can actually plant their crops...but today we left our coats at home for the first time, yay!

So Sister McNeil and I taught at Walla Walla University this week! The professor of the World religions class invited us and when we showed up he was like, "oh, I didn't know girls did this too!" He started the class with a quiz, and he was excited to show us the questions he'd come up with about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. He then had us tell the class all the right answers, so luckily the questions weren't TOO hard. Teaching was pretty fun! It was like, heaven for a missionary--45 interested people all in the same room, forced to sit and listen to the message of the restoration of the gospel! It was awesome. We were able to answer many of their questions, and at the end we were flocked by people wanting copies of the Book of Mormon and copies of ALLL the pamphlets (maybe it was required for the class, but we were pretty happy about it). 

So yesterday we went out looking for someone in a trailer park. We had to walk all the way to the far-side from where we parked and it was beginning to get dark and a bunch of chihuahuas--literally like five of them--started yapping and followed us the entire way through the park. If that's not making an entrance I don't know what is. In the end we couldn't find who we were looking for, but we started talking to someone and as we showed her the pamphlet she was really touched and began to cry, to the point where she couldn't even speak. We are meeting with her again soon! There are people here who are prepared, who have been humbled, and who are ready to receive the gospel of Jesus Christ. 

Other things...
          We did service at a recent member's house (it was kind of crazy...just an enormous mess and he didn't know where to tell us to even start...but it turned out good luckily) and his mom fed us the most amazing fresh enchiladas afterward! She doesn't speak a word of English, so luckily I know how to say "gracias"
          I have been crocheting on my preparation days (because it's fun and it's good stress relief haha) and I finally finished a hat. Then I met Patsy and I knew that she was the one who needed that hat! She was so cute...not exactly a young single adult, but close enough. 

No matter where you are, there's missionary work to be done! There are people prepared to receive the truth, they just don't know where to find it. Show them where! :)

Love,
Sister Jensen

The Field Is Still White...

Dearest Friends and Family,

It's been a crazy week! Here are some of the highlights :)

So nearly every house in Walla Walla has animals. As Sister McNeil said, "Everyone and their dog has a dog". For real. So many dogs. And cats. And, in one particular case, BIRDS. We brought a member with us to teach a newly interested person, and we walk in to his apartment and there are a bunch of birds just flying around! He called himself the "Bird Man". And his birds just fly free all around his house. It's crazy. And very distracting to try and teach him at his house...

We locked our apartment keys inside our apartment. Which isn't so bad... except for the fact that we also locked our car keys inside our apartment...and church (which is all the way in Milton-Freewater OR) was supposed to start in a half hour, and we were literally the entire sacrament meeting (we were both asked to speak and we were the only speakers, and I was asked to play the piano since the normal piano player couldn't come ahhh). But don't worry, we got a member to pick us up, and we were only a few minutes late YSA-time, and everything went well once we were there. Whew.

Other news...we got a new car! At least to use for now (they give the people with the cleanest cars the nicest ones, so that could change haha). Our old car was retired (mostly because it had too many miles), but our new car is a four-wheel drive so maybe we just got ourselves stuck so many times in the snow that they figured we needed it.

I witnessed my first ice storm! Freezing rain is a real thing here, it's crazy.

We got asked to teach a COLLEGE class. It's for a world religion class, and it's at a Seventh Day Adventist college, so I'll let you know how that goes...

We knocked on a door, and a guy eating spam and rice answered. Naturally I asked him if he was from Hawaii (truly an inspired question) and he answered yes. Low and behold, he is also from Hilo, and our families are actually good friends. We may be the only two native Hilo-ans in all of the state of Washington, so I am truly humbled that we knocked on his door. (He was not interested in our message, but that's okay we'll try again sometime, maybe with some fresh musubi or haopia next time.)

It has been a good week here in Walla Walla! Two of the people we sent off as referrals now have baptism dates! And one of those people (Naphtali) referred her cousin, who has been referred back to us because he's a young single adult!! He, like Naphtali, is so prepared for our message of Jesus Christ. There are so many extremely humble people here in Washington, and it is incredible to be able to talk to those people about the gospel of Jesus Christ. Finding those prepared people makes all the hard work, and the doors slammed in our faces, worth it. We are truly blessed to have the gospel of Jesus Christ, and to have the inner peace that it can bring us as we rely on our Savior.

Love,
Sister Jensen

Also...the blue sky you can see in a few of these pictures was sooooo nice to see, and one of the first days since I've been here that I've seen the sky :)

The Field Is White, Already to Harvest

Dearest friends and family,

Hello from beautiful Washington! I have been assigned over the Walla Walla Young Single Adult (YSA) branch, with Sister McNeil as my trainer. Being with the Walla Walla Washington YSA means lots of free food (because that's how you get young people to come to things) and tracting (knocking on doors) in lots of crazy apartment complexes and houses with several separate residences in the same house. Sister McNeil is from California, and has been in this area for a few transfers. We live in a little, old house that's shared with other tenants. 

"The field is white, already to harvest" is a common missionary phrase and I have found it to be very accurate--in more ways than one. Walla Walla has been SO SNOWY! They don't plow the roads here, so the roads have basically just been solid ice since I've been here. It's been so cold and the snow doesn't melt off. Despite what I had assumed about Washington, bringing snow boots has (so far) been the best decision I made. The snow has given us some grief, as we've now had our car stuck more times than I care to say. Luckily the people of Walla Walla are (mostly) soooo kind and happy to help us sisters out, and it's given us the opportunity to talk to and meet some people that we never would have met, as well as given us service opportunities shoveling snow - wahoo! So, quite literally, the field of Walla Walla is WHITE (with snow). (My mission president's name is also President White, and I wish I was able to think of some clever play on words with that...haha sorry).

The field is also white, because sister McNeil and I have had the opportunity to find some wonderful, prepared, people this week! On Saturday we met Naphtali, a new mother who answered the door with her cute little girl. As we shared the message of the restoration with her, her eyes welled up with tears. She told us that just the night before, she had been thinking about finding a church to join, in order to come closer to God. She was touched by our message of God's love for her, and for the joy that comes to families through the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Sadly we don't get to teach Naphtali and her family since she's not a young single adult, but the Elders said they'd keep us updated, and Sister McNeil and I are determined to be at the baptism. We also found Rose, Johnson, and Andrew this week who (YAY) are young single adults that have agreed to let us teach them more about the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. There are people prepared here in Walla Walla. We just have to find them! 

We also work with a lot of the members here. We had the opportunity to see Julio (a recent convert baptized two weeks ago) be baptized by another recent convert (of a few months) in the temple! It was a very cool experience, and it was inspiring and encouraging to us as missionaries. The YSA of Walla Walla are EXCITED about the gospel of Jesus Christ, and you should be too! The message we share as missionaries is a happy one--one of PEACE and JOY and LOVE--a message that is desperately needed in today's world. It's okay to be excited about the gospel, to talk about it with enthusiasm, and to share it with everyone! Don't ever be afraid to share the happy news of the gospel! :)

Love,
Sister Jensen