One-Hundreth Week Email

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   Well I want to start this off by saying thank you so much for all of the e-mails and advice for me to come home and get going in life. I really appreciate the love from everybody and I am excited to be talking to all of you soon.

 

   Wow... I'm completely at a loss of words for today. This felt like a day that was never going to come but now it's here. This week was a mix of everything and it doesn't help that I've been a complete wreck all week. My days are all planned from here on out, and I don't have time to do anything so that's been helping with all of the goodbyes. But I never could have imagined what this is like. I gave my last talk in church yesterday and the sadness I felt when i said I don't want to leave Korea and the happiness I felt when i said I want to see my family. I never thought that I could have this big of a conflict in my head haha.

 

   I wish I knew enough English to explain how I feel right now. And don't get me wrong because I definitely don't know enough Korean to do it. I'm somewhere in between right now. But I really just want to tell you what I have learned over the past couple of weeks. The first thing is that I can't sum up what my 2 years has been. I said that in my talk yesterday at church but that's because it was just a day to day thing. I woke up everyday, studied, and went out to experience something completely different everyday. Some days I couldn't stop smiling before falling asleep, and some days I just wanted to end. Sorry that's not a complaint but everyday wasn't a walk in the park over here. But there wasn't a lot of those days. The thing I noticed with those days was as soon as I stopped thinking about myself and opened my mouth I found some of my best friends. The day that Sister Kim (my twins Tim and Kevin's mom) called we were completely torn apart on a bus by a drunk man who hated religion. We met a preacher from a church who would just wanted to bible bash and get us frustrated. We also dropped two of our investigators but Elder Gibbons and I just knew that we were only in control of opening our mouths to everybody we saw. And sure enough Sister Kim called that night and showed up to english class the next day with Tim and Kevin. And last week we were playing a game where you write sentences on a paper and pass it around and Tim wrote that he really likes this church and Kevin got it and said I really love this church in all capital letters haha. Those two little punks brighten my week up especially when they fight to say the closing prayer for english class.

 

    That's just one example of seeing how much it takes me to stop thinking about what Elder Jensen needs and start thinking about what others need. And it's always easy to know what our Heavenly Father wants, He wants his Children. President Shin wrote the word Joy up on the board one day vertically and wrote Jesus next to J, others next to O, and yourself next to Y.  And told us that that was the key to obtaining Joy in our lives. That's been so true in every happy moment I have ever found myself on my mission and I have been nothing but blessed being here and learning the things I have learned.

 

   I also realized how much I love my family. Especially thinking about what my ancestors have done for me. I love talking about my Grandpa. I realized that in a Taxi ride across our area last night with an older man driving us. We had the normal conversation of how we speak Korean and why we're here but occasionally it can turn into how much I love Korea. He asked me if I even knew about Korea before I came here and I told him about Grandpa coming here for the war. And the Taxi driver started to tell me what Korea use to be like especially at the time of the war. He told us how he was in Vietnam as a marine for Korea. And he said something that was so simple but for some reason as soon as he said it I just felt just such a deep understanding for it. He said that "nobody wants to go to war and see those things, but they did and now his grandchildren don't have to go through what he did growing up." It can surprise me to think about everything that has led up to me being here and me being this happy and I owe so much of that to my family. That ride ended with the Taxi Driver telling me to tell Grandpa thank you and he drove off with his Book of Mormon.

 

   Well I'm out of time... that's ironic. But That was my last week here in Daejeon. I don't want to leave Korea. I don't want to leave these people that I love. I have met some of my best friends here. Sister Kim from Suwon, Brother Kang in Jeonju, My mission mom Sister Jang in Jeonju, Ienseo, Seominsung and the twins here in Daejeon. I get to call all of them this week and it's going to be so hard but I can't wait to talk to them. And I can't wait to see all of you. I don't know how I would have done any of this without  all of the love and support from home. Everything that Tawns, Dad, and Micah did for me every single week. Can't wait to see my favorite Brother Travee (He's my only brother). And It feels like so long since I have seen Ash and Mom. I can't wait to see the two little princesses Isla and Kai. I'll be over to eat all of your food Grandma and Karla. I love all of you so much and I'll see you soon.

 

   The Gospel is true

 

   Elder Jensen

Ninety-Ninth Week Email

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   Well like I was telling Tawns today I'm not really sure what to talk about today. We had a pretty good week in Daejeon. We spent most of the week with our investigators and they are all so amazing. Last week was really interesting. We went from having the most baptismal dates in the mission to now having none and for some reason 4 of our investigators are moving this week or next haha. I kinda just sat there last night when we reviewed our week and I honestly don't know what happened but we still had an amazing week with all of them.

 

  Our biggest focus these days is brother Iem. He is our Senior in High School and he is such a punk haha. He calls me Hyung 형 which means big brother in Korean and he is a pretty funny kid. They just make fun of us so much whenever we meet but I have met about 15 of his friends in the past month. We are teaching 5 of them right now and Brother Iem is in Mosiah right now with the Book of Mormon. We have been able to meet his parents a couple of times and they just love us. They are pretty strong Budhist but they love what we are doing. His mom loves teaching us the strangest Korean and we can't leave their house without a full stomach and food in a bag. It doesn't help when they are all pretty fluent in English so they tell me what to do in my native language. But Brother Iem has been asking some amazing questions lately and whenever we talk about him getting baptized he says that he still just needs some time. He did say that Praying before bed just seems comfortable now and it gives him some time to think about his day a little more and in a more positive way. So we have been focusing on giving him the more specific commitments with praying for specific things and really excercising his faith. He's still not sure exactly what kind of answer he's looking for but we told him just to take his time and he'll find it.

 

   Brother Iem is just one of the people we have been working with lately and it has been so much fun. I'm pretty sure that Elder Gibbons and I went to a high school party last week along with 2 business parties. I promise that we're not party missionaries but we have been able to meet so many of our investigators friends and we have started to meet them as well. We have been averaging about 3 appointments a day lately and suprisingly we are teaching half of them english and the other half the gospel only. I feel extremely blessed these days but there's just the giant elephant in the room wherever I go and it usually starts with a question about when I'm leaving. Also Brother Iem and his friends learned the term dying missionary from some of the missionaries here in Daejeon and that's one of their favorite things to tell their friends. I still have no idea what to think right now. Church was so much fun yesterday and at the same time it was super sad. I went to a ward council meeting and when we talked about missionary work it was like a 30 minute question and answer time with Elder Jensen. And I still live by a very strict rule of being sick and not telling the relief society president. Well that backfired on me yesterday and I was in a lot of trouble. But the presidency of the relief society came over yesterday to do the monthly cleaning checks on our apartment and filled our kitchen and our medicine cabinet while talking to me like I was a child haha. I feel loved here so much though and Daejeon has been one of the greatest parts of my mission so far.

 

   Well I have to get going but I love all of you so  much. I guess I have one more of these e-mails and I'll try to make it good. Have a great week!

 

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