Sixth Week Email

02.14.2012


Dear Family & Friends,


Well I'm not going to lie Sunday and Monday were pretty rough. But
not in a way that made me miss home. It was more rough in a way of
spiritual growth. Whenever I think about growth now I compare it to
when I was actually growing and sometimes how I had growing pains. So
Sunday was rough because we heard a talk from David A. Bednar that he
gave on Christmas here at the MTC. I loved the talk and I really
encourage anyone to listen to it. He talked about Christlike Character
and obtaining Christlike Attributes. I have never had a talk just get
to me in that way. Something I will always remember is instead of
turning inward and thinking about my self in my times of hardship I
can do the Christlike thing and turn outwards. Through turning
outwards and helping people that are going through the same thing we
can truly be happy and not become the natural man. He also talked
about having a testimony was not enough. It's being converted to that
testimony that will help all of us endure to the end. After a few
impersonations of the cookie monster which he compared to the natural
man I lost it. Seeing an Apostle do a pretty good impersonation of the
cookie monster and call something stupid I couldn't believe what I was
hearing. After the talk was over 2,000 missionaries stood up basically
in silence and walked back to the dorms. Our entire room dressed in
complete silince and I just sat and reflected at what I wanted to do.
   After all of that reflecting time it was time to say goodbye to
the older district. I loved our older district and it was pretty sad
to see all of them go. I had told you about staying in a room with
Elder Hunter and Elder Hunt when I was sick but another Elder that we
got really close with was Elder Coates. Elder Coates seemed like the
manliest Elder here. He was so layed back and made everyone felt
included and it helped out a lot that he had a New Zealand accent and
that he grew up there and moved to Idaho a year ago.... Well the older
district had Brother Ball (my teacher who is from New Zealand) when
they first got here but we ended up getting him. Well anyways Elder
Coates knocks on our door and comes into our classroom and tells us
that he has something to tell us. He tells us that he wants to
practice his American accent and he says "Hello my name is Pete Coates
and I have never been to New Zealand." After we laughed at the perfect
American accent we had an awkward silince. Than he followed that up
with "Seriously I'm from Idaho and I have never left the Country."
THEY LIED TO US FOR 5 WEEKS! Apparently they came up with this plan
when they had Brother Ball and Elder Coates would just ask him
questions about his life and use it in his story. He kept an accent
for 5 weeks straight! I felt like I didn't even know the kid. On top
of not knowing this Elder Coates pretty much we had to say goodbye on
Sunday night. We had to write in journals for everyone in the older
district and for the native Koreans who left and it was pretty sad to
see them go. And to follow all of that up Brother Ball told us
yesterday (Monday) that he was taking an internship with his professor
to consult for a huge company in Salt Lake and that Saturday would be
his last day. We were all heart broken yesterday but at the same time
we all knew what they were going out to do and that it would be the
best thing for them.
  So we still have one member of the older district Elder Hunt who
leaves this next monday to Canada and it's going to be another sad
weekend. So as we were walking to lunch we walk through the doors and
I tell my district if anyone else tells me they are leaving today I'm
going to lose it. LITERALLY right then I hear my name. I turn around
to see Sister Stanford who is going to France. I went to Highschool
with her and we have talked a few times since I have been here. She
tells me that she was leaving today and my face just went blank. I
hurry and put a smile on and told her good luck and that she's very
lucky to be leaving. I never heard the end of that from my district.
Sorry if this is getting hard to read but I'm still in disbelief about
all of it haha.
  So I guess on a happy note I'll tell you about the Korean mess ups
on the week. So I'm in TRC and we are teaching members about recieving
revelation through prayer. Well we have a native Sister Korean and a
Korean Brother from west valley. So we're trying to speak Korean the
entire time and this Brother only speaks english while he is doing his
homework. After he tells us that the New York Mission was the best
mission ever I try to force out the line that I lived in New york for
3 months while laughing. So I start with "chonun new york shee..... I
lived in new york for 3 months haha" Elder Brown lost it at that
point. And on top of all of that the room was ridiculously hot so
Elder Brown border line yells that it is so hot in there he can't even
think of what to say haha.
  Another mess up was the Trio of Elder Morris, Elder Keetch, and
Elder Breckwoldt. They're giving a lesson on the commandments and they
have our "investigator" read the ten commandments out of the Bible.
Well it took them 20 minutes to read out of the wrong book in the
Bible. Turns out they were reading Numbers 20 where it talks about
Miriam dying and water coming from the rock and the "investigator"
could not stop giggling. So after that mix up they talk to her about
the word of wisdom and Elder Keetch starts to list off a bunch of
stuff like Tobacco, Alcohol, and Drugs he goes to tell her that we do
not partake of them. Well turns out the word to partake and the word
to smoke are very similiar. So the "investigator" was told that she
had to smoke all of those things. She asked them if we were suppose to
smoke all of those things and they thought that se was telling them
that she did smoke and that it didn't affect her health. So Elder
Morris thought we can't really come back at that so he says Nay (yes)
and that God commanded us to smoke these things. So she asked them if
they all smoked and they just said yes again. After that they just
continued with the Lesson haha.
Here's some other Lines for all of you
The plan of Salvation is for every deer.
Through Prayer God eats us.
I have a boyfriend who is not LDS (that was said by and Elder)
  I just love the Language and hearing all of these great stories
every day. We have been working on using longer compound sentences and
another project we have been working on is writing our conversion
story. I have spent three hours on mine and I'm only a page in haha.
It's great to see everyone else around me pick up the Language and it
really strengthens my testimony that the gift of tongues is real. Sure
we have had our rough spots and I know we're not going to be able to
understand a single thing once we get to Korea but I know that we have
all learned so much. Well I love all of you and I hope all of you have
a great Valentine's day. All of us Elder's will be crying ourselves to
sleep tonigh with some ice cream... haha we really joke about things
we shouldn't joke about in our district haha.

Elder Jensen

p.s. I speak Isla and Kairie as my Valentine's! No Dear John's from
those two. They have to love me haha.