Wedding!

This week our district had 2 baptisms on Friday! They were for Xander (a little 9 year old boy) and Susan (a 90-something year old woman) and it was so sweet. We were able to bring Jacob, and the spirit was strong. I know that Heavenly Father is so proud of both of them, despite their difference in age, for making the decision to choose Him. And this past weekend was just part one of the district baptisms. On Saturday we helped run the wedding of Brenton and Angie (18 and 19 years old) who were married so that they can be baptized with Jacob next weekend! We all did a toast with water out of champagne glasses (the bride's mom was not super happy about that). We ate some delicious Mexican soup called Bazole, and talked with lots of guests. We couldn't be more excited, but there is a lot to do between now and Saturday! Please continue to pray for Jacob (and Brenton and Angie)!

Jacob update: He came to church on Sunday! He even brought his cousin. He is still doing well. He has talked to his family and his mom will be coming to the baptism. He also came to the missionary fireside yesterday evening. It was at the McCullough's, who have a mobile home right by the Snake River. Aside from Jacob, we also had Omar and three of his friends (Aurelio, Franko, and Cyrill) there, as well as Edgar and a handful of other members. It was incredible. Rick (who taught us to paint a while back) was able to Skype in for a moment, and said he was baptized yesterday morning! I could feel the spirit as he testified of how the gospel has changed his life, which was very different from speaking to him before. 

Other things that happened this week:

-I went on exchanges with Sister Boudreaux (like Woodrow but "Boo" at the start) who has been out for about 4 weeks. It was super fun! We found a cool lady named Patt. A dog also peed all over our shoes and socks while we were talking to someone...I missed my Pasco YSA which makes me scared for transfers next week.
-We visited an alpaca farm!

When I first flew in to the tri-cities, I remember looking around and wondering how I could ever learn to love this tumbleweed covered desert. But somehow I do! I love the people, and the missionaries, and I don't want to leave beautiful Pasco. I'm so grateful that Heavenly Father knew better than me and sent me to Eastern Washington. 

Love,
Sister Jensen

Yes. We can play chess and checkers but didn't have a board so I made one for us.

Labor of Love

Dearest friends and family,

I am so grateful to be in Pasco doing the work of the Lord! This week we did our question and answer session with Omar and his friends, and it went super well! They asked lots of good questions, and we walked away feeling that they had a better understanding of what we believe. We discussed missionary work, much of the plan of salvation, and talked about divine authority. They were all incredibly supportive of Omar's decision to serve a mission, and they decided that he will serve in the Philippines...so we talked about how God decides where we serve through a modern day prophet and apostles. They determined that they would all just pray very hard that he would go to the Philippines. It was really fun, and we hope to do a follow-up meeting soon. 

Jacob update: He is solid for November 2nd! He was able to come to church on Sunday and he is doing really well. We talked about who would baptize and have solidified the time and some of the details for the baptism. We are so excited for Jacob! There is a light in his eyes that wasn't there two weeks ago. He has been reading the Book of Mormon!

Love,
Sister Jensen

Taco Truck at a Baptism?

Dearest friends and family,

What a cool week! We had zone conference and Elder Klebingat of the 70 visited our mission. It was a little bit like trying to drink out of a firehouse. He talked a lot about the spirit world, about strategies to memorize scriptures, how to have a more effective study, and about how we can be even more obedient in the little details--so basically he covered everything. He left us with 12 invitations of things to work on and improve, so between that and General Conference I have a lot of work to do. 

This week when we were out tracting I saw a car pull up in front of a house. I had a brief thought that maybe we should stop, but since we were on the way to another appointment I ignored it. Bad idea. We turned the corner, and I knew that we had to return to that house. We did (after a short detour where Sister Jensen turned left instead of right oops), and when we knocked the door was almost immediately answered by a young single adult who is now being taught! His name is Alex. The next day we were out driving and it happened again- I saw a house and I knew that we needed to stop. We did (although I couldn't believe it was happening again), and as we got out of the car we saw a lady out hanging up Halloween decorations. It was Amy, another YSA, and she is also now being taught! The Lord has been guiding our steps this week, and I am so grateful. Finding young people between the ages of 18 and 30 who are single and prepared to hear the message of the restoration of the gospel doesn't "just happen" by knocking on random doors or stopping on random streets. I'm grateful for God's hand in the work! It would be impossible without Him. 

So Jose...We found a baptismal record for him! Turns out he was baptized almost 20 years ago (which he didn't remember), and after doing some quick math we realized that he is also over 30...oh Jose! We passed him off to the Elders. He couldn't be more happy to be found, and to start coming back to church.

Cyril update! We had another lesson with Omar's friend Cyril and discussed baptism again. He said that he wants to be baptized because he wants to come closer to Jesus Christ. He loves what we teach, so getting to church is the biggest obstacle for him because he works on Sundays. We are praying and fasting for him to find a way to make it to church!

We also taught Jacob this week (the guy with 3 jobs), and he also wants to be baptized! When we offered the day of November 2nd, he looked at us and said, "let's make it happen!" We taught him the plan of salvation yesterday with some members of the branch, and it went really well. He also needs to quit his job (well one of them at least) so that he can come to church! He runs a taco truck as one of his jobs, and so he asked if he can just pull the truck into the church parking lot and we can all have tacos after the baptism. We said that was a genius idea. 

Have a good week everyone! :)
Love,
S. Jensen

Lots of zone service! Laying sod, weeding, etc.  

Pray for Jose

Dearest friends and family,

What an incredible general conference! I couldn't be more excited for April, although I have a lot of work to do before then. As I listened to our beloved prophet and apostles speak, I began to feel a sense of urgency. Our Savior is coming, and we need to prepare ourselves, our families, our friends, and the world. 

One thing that stuck out to me was how important it is to understand the covenants that we have made. We can't fully commit to keeping our promises with God unless we understand them, as completely as possible! I also felt an emphasis on building our spiritual strength in order to control our physical desires. Many of the temptations the adversary throws at us originate from our "natural man" and from having a physical body, so learning to subject our physical hungers to our spiritual desires is a major purpose of our lives here on Earth. It isn't always easy, but when we try to remember who we are and who our Father is, it becomes possible. We have to be careful not to grow complacent in that constant battle!

So Jose, one of the people we found last week, has been progressing a lot. We met him out on the street, and have since taught him five times and he came and watched part of conference with us! He has committed to be baptized on October 26th. The catch-- he might actually already be a member haha. In our last lesson, I asked if he had ever been baptized before, and after some hesitation he said that he thought so. So we are trying to hunt down his records! If we can't find them, he will need to be baptized again, but we are thinking they may be in Hermiston. Either way, Jose is grateful to have been found! The other day at our lesson he was so grateful that he had prepared us a "goodie bag" containing some canned tuna, vienna sausages, oatmeal, applesauce etc. Oh and also some green tea. We better go over the word of wisdom again... 

We found two new people to teach, both referrals from other members of our district. Elizabeth and Enrique! Both are pretty busy with work and school, but that's basically every young adult ever. We also found Jacob. He has three jobs right now plus school. So it's been a little hard to teach him.

Some other things:

We are going to do a "missionary question and answer session" with Omar and all of his nonmember friends he brings to volleyball! We've been playing with them for months now, but this is the first step towards being able to teach them! Omar is super excited, as are we. 

Sister Gibson made banana muffins for conference, and Jose ate...all of them. He was like, I think I'm addicted to these! It was pretty funny. And everyone else was like, hmm, yeah, wonder what they tasted like!

I can now be the witness for a baptism, or a sealing! What!! 

Edgar went on splits with the elders, and it was so cool. He truly has become a new person in Christ. 

I hope you all have a good week! 

Love,
Sister Jensen