Monday, September 30, 2013

Eighty-Fifth Week Email

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   Well for some reason I keep on finding myself sitting here and e-mailing you and it feels like I just did it yesterday. But we had a pretty interesting week here in Daejeon.

   I started the week off with a split in the Samsung Ward. We have two elders over there trying to set up a foreigner branch and the was my first full attempt on what they call foreigner hunting haha. And I have always talked to foreigners if I see them but something about only aiming for foreigners was a pretty strange concept. But after a few awkward street contacts it turned out to be pretty fun. Us foreign missionaries do have this nice little wall called the Korean language. But it was just really different speaking English to teach lessons and street contact all day long. It was really nice to speak a little more freely but I think I still prefer the wall of the Korean language. We also taught some great people they are meeting with and it turned out to be just a great split. Nothing ever goes to plan on splits but I still love all of the craziness of splits.

   Another great time of my week was last Saturday. We were getting ready for english class and it was about to start and not a single person was there. This is after I kept on telling my elders quorum weekly that we had about 20 people coming out a week and that we needed members. Well the only person who was around thatSaturday was my Ward Mission Leader. So we were just waiting and within 3 minutes we had about 30 people show up. It was basically a parade going into the church. But my favorite part was the family that we met last week showed up and all of the little boys fell asleep in the car. Well the twin 11 year olds get out of the back and Tim was just so tired. So I asked him if he was tired and he just looked at me like who are you and walked into the church. I was surprised that somebody so young could give somebody a look like that. Then Kevin got out of the car and I asked him the exact same question and he responded in the loudest voice and as happy as could be "I'M KEVIN!" Those two boys are just the funniest little people I have ever met. We were able to meet with the entire family that night and they are just such a loving family. The Father isn't the biggest fan of religion but that's because Korea has been hit very hard with every type of religion right after World War 2 and I can see maybe 20 giant glowing red crosses from my balcony at night. And where the Korean people are very strong and blunt about the things they say sometimes they can end up in some arguments. But it's just like any other country and religion is always a touchy subject for a lot of people. We have just been talking with the family and telling them what kind of blessings all of it has brought into our life and the Father is just so nice to us. We basically told them that they are already an amazing family we just want to share more with them so they can have that opportunity to be even more happy through the gospel.

   Well that was my week pretty summed up. Our mission was hit by a pretty big flu this year and it made last week a lot more interesting. But we are all coming out of it pretty well and are excited for another week. I love all of you and I hope you have an amazing week.

Elder Jensen

Sunday, September 22, 2013

Eighty-Fourth Week Email



Well that was a full week. It was the thanksgiving week here in Korea. It's called Choosuk 추석 and we spent all week with other missionaries and members. I didn't meet one of our investigators last week haha but that's what it was like last year at this time. But we were able to meet a new family this week and I already love them. It's a father, mother, two twin boys, and a baby boy. And the twin boys are 11 (9 in real age) and are so great at english haha. They have english names of tim and kevin and it's just absolutely crazy/perfect when we teach them english haha. They are so funny and they were begging their parents to not send us away when we left. The Father isn't the biggest fan of religion but we are just planning on taking it really slowly. And the mother just seems like a member already. She's so nice and they showed up for a meeting at the church and she was just out in the parking lot talking to a member like they were friends. We're really excited to meet with them this upcoming week.

   We also spent some time with Brother Kim who we have been working with a lot for the past couple of weeks. He took us up hiking last p-day and it was pretty fun. It was never ending stairs but once we got to the top we could see all of Daejeon. We're actually planning on going up there today with the District for an activity. But it was a great time to talk about Brother Kim's conversion story and what has been going on in his life. It turned out to be just really good time to get to know eachother and he told us when ever we want to go on mondays we could go hiking with him.

   We also had just meeting after meeting this last week but now we can get out and just work. We spent our time inside all day last wednesday, thursday, and friday. At first I thought it would be a nice time to rest up but being inside as a missionary is probably the worst thing haha. Well sorry not a whole lot happened this week but I'm excited to see what's going to happen this week. I love all of you and I hope you have a great week.

Elder Jensen











So the first picture is of us going up the "never ending staircase". The second was a food called Kimbap. I couldn't even finish my first one on the bus ride from the airport to Daejeon when I came to Korea. Now I love them. And the last picture is of us going down the "never ending stairs". (much easier)

Sunday, September 15, 2013

Eighty-Third Week Email

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   Hey everybody! There goes that week super fast and I'm back here e-mailing you. It was another great week here in Korea. I'm with my new companion Elder Gibbons and it's pretty nice already knowing my companion so we don't have that awkward getting to know each other time period.

   It was pretty nice this week though. This is probably my first area that it has been really easy to find in. We hang up flyers around the city for our english program and our phone just goes off for the next couple of days. The problem we've had with that is pure english interest these days haha. We have been reminded that we aren't english teachers quite a lot lately from our mission president so it's been a fun time here in Daejeon. Daejeon really is an interesting city though. My area is absolutely huge. It's all city as well and there's just so many people. It's the older part of the city so there's a lot of apartments and we have the really nice downtown area where we have done a lot of street contacting activities. It's just a really nice combination and there's so much potential in this city. We have just been focusing on the ward while we have been here though and it's starting to show with the missionaries working a lot closer with the members. And if you think you're hearing a lot about member missionary work (you might not be) well it's being pounded into our heads over here haha. And I mean if you look at all of the people who have joined the church in our mission and stayed around about 90% is through the members. So we are told all this information and so are the member's here and then they tell us to do the work. It sounds pretty straight forward to me but there's just a small obstacle still in the way and what that is I have no idea. I have heard a million different thoughts and maybe they are all right but maybe they are all wrong so I guess all we can do as missionaries is keep on trying. It would be nice to have all the answers layed out in front of me but where's the fun in that.

    Well sorry I got off on one of those "deep thoughts" that I have been having lately. My favorite thing lately has just been to work though. I'm sure that surprises my family. That and I'm a cleaner in my house. But my last companion and I just did the things missionaries do such as street contacting and knocking doors and we have seen so many miracles come through it. We definitely  involved a lot more member work and that's the best thing we could have been doing but I realized how much I need a young missionary these days haha. They just have energy and want to go talk to people on the streets all day long. It can be a pretty good time. Don't worry though we actually plan a little better than that but with all of these meetings we have been having lately and all the talk that is going around it's nice to get out and go to work. I think that world wide broadcast talked about how the real work happens when we leave our meetings and go out and work. Sorry I can't remember it really well but we have a week full of meetings ahead of us. We have combined district meeting tomorrow, zone meetings all day wednesday and friday, Our p-day on Thursday because this week is the Korean Thanksgiving. I don't understand where everybody goes but the giant cities turn into ghost towns in Korea and everybody goes back the the country side to spend time with their family. So our entire mission to spend that time more effectively will be having meetings all day…. So I'll enjoy my free time today to work. 

   I do have a few stories I want to tell all of you about though. So with Elder Allan leaving we were able to meet pretty much everybody in about 3 days. We just had appointments after appointments this last week. I think what I have really loved here is working with all of the members who haven't been coming out to church for a while. We had an appointment with Sister Go this last week and we have just started working with her to help her. She really enjoys the church and knows that it's great for her to be going out but she just felt like something was missing. Well we were on our way home trying to go fast so we just met her with our recent convert out on the street and we just talked for a little bit. Elder Allan wanted to say goodbye but we were just talking. Elder Allan just asked about her faith after she said the Book of Mormon was no fun. It didn't even seem like that big of a question because they were joking a little bit but she wanted to start with baby steps to come back out to church. So the really interesting part was that when she came out to english class for the first time in months and months she asked me about Ether 12:12. I was just completely blown away that she picked up the Book of Mormon when she didn't even have one in her house for years. I asked why she started studying again and she said that the question Elder Allan asked in passing kind of stuck in her head until the next morning so she decided to "try". That's the only word she would use. It was just such a great thing to see because she was completely surprised by the fact that she picked up the Book of Mormon as well but we just talked about faith and she has been studying daily ever since that day.

   Well I'm blessed here in Korea. I'm not exactly sure why I can meet some of these people that are just so amazing but I guess I'm not really going to complain about it and just keep trying to meet them.

   I love all of you so much and I hope you have a great week!

Elder Jensen

Sunday, September 8, 2013

Eighty-Second Week Email

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   Well another transfer call pday and I am actually staying here in Daejeon in the Sunhwa ward. I do have a pretty interesting companion though. So I don't know if you can remember or not but when I was in the MTC we had a friend Elder Gibbons who went home. Well he came back to the mission a few transfers ago and now he's going to be my companion.

   Other than the transfer news we had a really great week last week. We also saw some pretty great miracles. We pretty much knew Elder Allan was going to leave so we used that to our advantage to visit a lot of people and talk to a lot of the people we were working with. One of my best friends here who's name is Minnie has been working with missionaries for a very long time. Well we talked to her the other day after english class and Elder Allan is just amazing with people. But we just listened to her. We listened to her and I think that has made a giant difference with everybody we have been working with. Elder Allan and I have been doing training lately these days and it's not because I'm an "old experienced wise missionary" (trust me I'm not) but I tell him the common mistakes I have seen as a missionary. Missionaries who sit down and use a form as a check list to see what they have to teach people. If you're familiar with missionary work you have seen those forms before. We also focused a lot these week on asking questions and listening. It was completely different. Elder Allan did such an amazing job with it that we just saw some amazing things. But I also had to give a talk yesterday in sacrament so a few of our members who haven't been coming out to church helped me with my talk and came out to see me stumble my way through the Korean to give the talk. And our member's absolutely loved these people. Minnie has to be the most popular person in the ward and she has so many friends. I was completely blown away. There are so many amazing people that we have been working with who have some of the best relationships with the other member's but for some reason or another they haven't been coming out to church. We also had brother Kim come out the last 3 weeks and he's planning on introducing us to his family sometime. And the exact same thing happened with Brother Kim and the members. They absolutely loved having him there and it was such a welcoming for him to come out.

   Without even noticing it these two amazing people had such a great time at church and I'm just praying they will keep on coming out and having a great time. Minnie even blew our bishop a kiss as we were leaving and he has to be one of the best people I know because he just caught it and blew one back and made Minnie just lose it. It was such a great day at church yesterday.

   We also had a great time with our Bishop this last week. He took us out the other night for some dog soup and we had the best talk about the ward. Our Ward hasn't been exactly known for missionary work ever but Bishop Lee is just the best. I've never had this kind of relationship with my Bishop and Ward Mission Leader before and it makes such a difference for working. They are really active with contacting some of the members who haven't been out to church for a long time. Especially with some of the new rules for visiting less actives where we can only go with members unless we already have a good relationship with them, makes visiting a little difficult. But they are very active and we are seeing a difference.

   Life is great and I hope everything is going great for all of you. I love you and I love being here in Korea.

Elder Jensen

Eighty-First Week Email

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   Here I am again haha. Another fast week and a lot happened but I'm not exactly sure what to tell you about. We did have a few interesting meetings this week. So as a district we all head over to a very busy place and we do surveys on religion and english, or we just go out and set up a table and street boards and talk to people once a week. It's really fun and I'm sure a lot of missionary's probably didn't have these kinds of activities but Korea is a pretty great place. Well we went down to the busy part of my area last week and set up pretty much all of the activities. We do have a 16 missionary district so we set up a few stations and it turned out really nice. It was a vacation day because it was Korea's independence day so there was a flash mob of kids from a arts high school and they played one of the most amazing songs I have seen. But as they were packing up to leave I was asking people to fill out some surveys and I just hear "hello Elder are you from Utah?" This little high school kid who is really good at English was standing there with his friends. I was just blown away and we just talked for a little bit. Well turns out that he did a home stay program with a family up in Idaho and they were all really active members of the church. We couldn't talk long but he just told me how he would go out to church with the family and how he was just Mormon when he lived there. It was sad that he had to leave fast but I got his contact information and he took a 45 minute train to come to Daejeon to meet us last night. It was such a fun lesson because he knew everything about us. So it basically came down to just talking about how he felt when he was going to church. He really surprised us by saying he felt just safe at church in Idaho and he felt the same way when they would read the Book of Mormon every night as a family. It was such a fun lesson and he should be coming to our YSA activity tonight for the stake.

   We just met a bunch of new people just like that kid all week long. And we had some great meetings. We did had our Recent Convert in our ward come out to one lesson to help us but our investigator wasn't able to make it. But we hadn't eaten all day so our Recent convert just took us out to dinner and he really needed it. When he came he was really quiet when he is usually so sarcastic and loud. So it gave us a great opportunity to just have dinner with him and we talked a lot. It basically came down to it was just one of those days where he didn't feel too great and him and Elder Allan have the best friendship so after about half an hour we were all just laughing again.

   That has to be one of the best things about missionary work these days. We are meeting so many new people and building really great relationships. We were talking with our other recent convert who is preparing to go on a mission and he really loves being with the missionaries. We go with him every week to visit a member who is in the hospital to give him the sacrament and he's probably one of the best people that I know. High school seniors are the busiest kids every in Korea but he still finds a way to tell his teacher that he's sick and leaves the study time to come out and do a survey with all of us missionaries. I really hope that we aren't affecting his study and his education but he has been preparing so much to go on a mission when he finishes high school. I wish I would have taken that time as seriously as he is right now and he hasn't even been a member for a year. I absolutely love the new people I get to meet and talk to on a daily basis.

Well I have to get going. I'm spending the entire day cleaning and rearranging the house. I'm sure that my family did not believe that I would do something like that but I'm exciting to clean haha. I love all of you and I hope you have a great week!

Elder Jensen