Eighty-Eighth Week Email

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   Well another transfer day is here. And I will be staying here in the Sunhwa Ward with Elder Gibbons for another transfer. I'm so happy because I love this area so much. And as always our mission was flipped on it's head this morning with all of the news about transfers. But I'm so excited to see what's going to happen this next transfer. The only thing that really effects us here is we get a two man house and a smaller district.

   Well this week was a little slow but we were able to see some great miracles as always. It just took us a little longer to find those miracles haha. We had about 7 appointments cancel about 20 minutes before the lessons, so needless to say we studied how to plan better this last week. But we have just been dying to meet with Sister Kim and her two twin boys Tim and Kevin lately but we still haven't found a time. I was on a split with Elder Peterson the other night and we had one appointment cancel so we were off to go talk with our second councilor and put up some advertisements for free english and we found ourselves.... not particularly excited to do these things haha. We are both "old missionaries" but I would choose teaching a lesson over doing those other activities any day of the week. Well we were off to go put them up around town when I got a call from Sister Kim. She asked us if we could meet in half an hour and we turned right around and had a pretty big spring in our step and had the biggest smiles on our faces as we started to speed walk towards the church. Well for about four minutes I felt like a missionary that I imagined before the mission. We went straight to planning on how to teach, what kind of commitment we could give, and we were just happy to meet with this amazing family. For those four minutes, as we walked through the downtown part of our area surrounded by hundreds of people, not a single thing crossed my mind except how to do this lesson with this family we had been dying to meet. Well we got the call that said her husband had to go back to work suddenly and that we could meet next week and we turned around and got right back to the original back up plan with a little less excitement. But for those 4 minutes of just pure joy I felt like we were doing exactly what we were called here to do without a doubt. Don't get me wrong we spent that night talking to our amazing member for 20 minutes and talked to some pretty great people that night but I just want to teach haha. I guess that's where I'm in the wrong saying "I want" but I really do just want to meet with families and teach. I want to see how these people react to what were sharing them and see them make the steps towards Christ. Serving in Korea means that some companionships go for 2 or 3 weeks without teaching a single lesson out in the country side. It also means you could visit your entire branch in a week so easily with so much time left over that you still have to come up with some amazing plans to feel effective in your area haha. I'm just thinking about my second area as I talk about this. But I can see the desire in so many missionaries and how hard they work so hard just to teach that one lesson. Even when the first thing the person says is that they are only there to learn english and ask the missionaries to not speak Korean at all. I ask my district how we can help them every night and the common answer is that I can pray to help them meet their investigators and teach.

   Well I just read all of that and it might come off like I'm complaining but please don't think of it that way. I'm still happy to meet people out on the streets or visit with the amazing members of the Sunhwa Ward. I just enjoy teaching people about the gospel so much more. I love sharing with these people the thing that I myself am still learning and building my testimony in. I feel like all of my experience in the gospel comes from these past two short years in Korea but I have learned that you don't have to be perfect at something to try to teach it to others. The Apostles went fishing after Christ Died. I think we can all remember that talk by Elder Holland. Elder Holland even came to the MTC twice while I was there and labeled all of us missionaries as apostles with a lower case A. So we're out here learning still and we just want to meet people and teach them about what we ourselves are learning. It's a great time to be here. 

 I apologize for just writing everything that came to my mind again. It seems really scattered and it makes a lot more sense in my head (just like everything else). Maybe one day I'll learn how to convey exactly what I'm thinking but until then I guess you'll get these e-mails and have to put up with the craziness because I want to tell you about my week haha. I love all of you and I hope you have a great week. We will here in Korea.

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Eighty-Seventh Week Email

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   Wow I can honestly say that I felt the same way as President Monson in saying that was one of the most spiritual conferences I have ever been a part of. I spent the last two days inside the church with our members and other missionaries watching conference and we geared up for it for the past couple of weeks. We were out visiting a lot of people most days and inviting them to come out and have a great time. We saw so many miracles all weekend long and I couldn't imagine spending the weekend any differently. It was one of those weeks where everything came together and now I'm just sitting here with a smile on my face and a good attitude haha. I'm really grateful for everything right now and it almost seems as if everything seems great. There's nothing like feeling the spirit so strongly and receiving answers in so many different ways. So many miracles inside of our area that we all experienced and now we're blessed with so many new amazing people to meet and others who started to just progress. We met with so many new members who have not been coming out to church recently and they were amazing. Street contacting was just amazing this last week. District meeting was very spiritual, splits were full of miracles. On top of everything our saint of a member even dropped by this morning to give us a ton of food right when we were almost out, and talk about her nephew that has shown a lot of interest in the church and learning English. My e-mails conveyed that everybody is doing good back home and they are all happy. I figured out a lot about myself last week with life decisions and I saw others do the same. Everybody in my district worked miracles this last week and everybody had so much progression and I met all of the people we talk about nightly at general conference.

   I guess what I'm really getting at right now is that I am happy. I have received so much from so many. Probably the most important thing about all of these feelings I am having is that I'm just living with this happiness. I have learned on my mission that it is so easy to look back at how I've reached this point and justify why I can be happy with what I have been through, or even to look forward and think with a poor attitude that this happiness will probably go away this next week with hard times. There's so many things to distract me from feeling this happiness right now and who would ever want to do that. So what I'm really saying is that I'm just trying to live without distractions on what I feel right now, to keep a great attitude, and be very thankful for everything I have received lately and this is just another great thing that I have been trying to learn out here.

   Okay sorry I will calm down now. I just realized I basically typed any thought that would come to my head and that's how it turned out. But I guess I can tell you a little more about some of those miracles.

   So Friday night Brother Kim (I know I always say brother kim, lee, or park but it's such a common name) called us and said that we should go get dinner with him and he wanted to tell us something. So we came to pick us up and while we were driving to the traditional Korean mushroom soup restaurant he told us in a very quiet nervous voice that he had some plans to tell us but he could only tell us after dinner when we drove up the mountain. So of course I was a little nervous about the news and the plans he wanted to tell us but he said that we had to hurry and eat and drive up to a view point above Daejeon. I guess I have to let you know that when I came to the area Brother Kim had not been out to church since the time he was baptized and he was unfairly labeled by some missionaries as a member who just wants help with English. Well Elder Allan and I spent some time with him one time and he just showed up to church the next week. By the following week he was enrolled in some of the religion classes taught by members from around Korea. He has helped us with lessons, dropped off food for us when we were sick, shared testimony often, and even bought me a cheesecake on my birthday. Brother Kim has been experiencing a lot lately but when he told us that he had news and future plans in that kind of way we were a little nervous. He only just started coming out to church for a little over 2 months now and he had already expressed some difficulties about coming out. Well he took us up to the view point and we didn't have much time but we got up there and waited for a little bit. He finally said that he would tell us what he wanted to say. He pointed across the valley to the north side of Daejeon and asked us if we could see a giant monument on the other side of the valley. We said yes. He then told us that that area would be a perfect place for the temple in Daejeon. I can't explain the feeling of just peace that came to me and Elder Gibbons and he went on and on about the area and how Daejeon would be the perfect place in Korea  for another temple because it's the center of all travel in Korea. The neighborhood he chose is a perfect place because it's very clean and residential and the spot could be seen from almost every where in Daejeon. He also said it was close to his house so he could visit often.

   I could probably go on and on about this last week but I am out of time. I'm happy these days. I'm excited for this week because now we just have to go out and work harder. And don't worry. I'm not at ease and I know there's still a lot more progression to be made and I'm happy we get to help that out. I love all of you and I hope you have a great week.

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Eighty-Sixth Week Email

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   That was a crazy week haha. Well first of all I want to thank all of you for so many birthday wishes. I had a really great day on Saturday. I met two new investigators, had a party at english class, and I was sent home with a giant cheese cake that we finished up last night. It was a big difference from a normal birthday but all I wanted to do on Saturday was just work haha. And I almost got away with out anybody knowing about my birthday because there are two Elder Jensens in the mission.

   Well I started off the week with another split with Elder Lyons who is the office Elder. Nice to get those Elders out of the office sometimes haha. I did learn that I can't sleep on soft beds or with air conditioning. I tossed and turned until 4amand finally layed on the carpet concrete ground with another blanket and slept like a baby after that haha. But the best part of the split was not a single thing went according to plan but we saw some pretty great miracles. Through talking to a few people and walking with them we ended up right out side of the campus of a big university. They were having a giant fest on campus and as soon as we stopped talking to one kid a bunch of people standing at a table offered us alcohol so we thought we would just turn around and get out of there haha. Well as soon as we turned around I met one of the coolest students I have ever met. Who by some miracle has always wondered about our church and just has always had unanswered questions about religion. So we just said we could give him the answers to his questions according to our beliefs but the better thing would be going through our sets of lessons and just trying to see what kind of answers he could find for himself. He absolutely loved it and was completely blown away that we didn't start arguing about the bible or just tell him to come to church.

   We also had a couple of great english classes this week. As always Tim and Kevin the twin boys were a highlight on my week. I was conducting the class and Kevin just walks in and sits down next to me very quietly. I just said hello and asked him how he was doing. He responded in the exact same animated voice he used the week before, "I'm Kevin!" we all had a laugh and I asked him where Tim was. At that exact moment Tim walks in the back door of the room with the same animated voice saying, "I'm Tim!" People were almost falling out of their chairs. I asked Tim how he was and he said, "I'm 11!"  There birthdays were on the first so Elder Gibbons and I ducked out a little early to go grab choco pies and juice for everybody and we had a small party after class and everybody there was so great. We were also able to announce about general conference coming up this weekend and we actually have about half of the class coming out.

   Another miracle on the week was meeting Brother Song and Tom. Brother Song met missionaries 15 years ago when he was 20. He met a missionary named Elder Hart from california and that could not have been a bigger blessing. It turns out Elder Hart absolutely loved his mission and the Korean people. He adopted a small Korean boy and still makes a lot of Korean blogs and things like that. Well he was best friends with Brother Song 15 years ago but Brother Song had to go off to the military and when we returned home for leave he would always find letters from Elder Hart who still wrote him from America. They have been really good friends on Facebook recently and they have plans to have a vacation in America sometime soon. Well we have only met once but for some reason or another Brother Song wanted to learn about our church again. He hasn't told Elder Hart yet but he called our ward mission leader and we made the appointment to meet up. He has been confused between science and religion for sometime but right off the bat when he asked us a question about the creation we were able to just show him a scripture and talk about it for 10 minutes and he said that made sense to him. He told us the problem with religion is that you can't ask questions because you are just told to believe and listen in church. He asked us what it was like here and we told him about the class that our Ward Mission Leader teaches. He sometimes teaches out of the Gospel Principles book but he always starts off the class with asking for questions. So we just started to process with Brother Song and I am nothing but excited to spend this time with him and see what both of us can learn.

   I've been trying to write down every single miracle that I see in a day, and also the positive to every situation. It has just made me more able to see the good things in my life right now and it has been really nice to notice them more often. I love everything about my life here. I had a great week and I'm looking forward to this week. I wish it would just slow down already but I'll just have to work harder to make all of these fast moments count. I love all of you and I hope you have an amazing week.

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