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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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

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)

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

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