Ninety-Fourth Week Email

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   Another transfer call day and..... Elder Gibbons and I are staying. That will make 3 transfers with Elder Gibbons.  And I couldn 't be more happy about being here in Daejeon.  It's nice because all of our investigators know us really well so I'm excited for another six weeks.

 

   We did have a pretty interesting week with all of our appointments. We had to go with our back up plans and we were calling some pretty interesting audibles and making some back up back up plans as part of our planning sessions. But for some reason we ended up at home at the end of the night doing things we had absolutely no idea about before the day started.

   But lately we have still just been so happy with the change in everything over here in Korea when it comes to missionary work. Every week I get up in priesthood and talk about our past week, investigators, and our plans for the upcoming week. Well this last week after I talked everybody started to speak up about who they were working on bringing to church, and less active members they were reaching out to. Well we took up 30 minutes of the hour long block with nothing but missionary work and the Priesthood holders making plans together and with us for when we will meet these people. I still remember when I stood up just a couple months with a schedule for visits and it was completely silent haha. We also got completely random phone calls from some members telling us to get to there house becuase it was too cold outside haha. One thing you have to make really clear in Korea is that your meetings do need a missionary purpose or else members will kidnap us sometimes to have fun. President Shin has been trying to put a stop to that since he came but some of these members have too much fun with it. Especially in the smaller country areas like my second one. That branch president had too much fun with missionaries haha. But we as a mission have been keeping track of our gospel teaching time and that's what President Shin has made up a lot of programs for. So we have just been spending a lot of time role playing and then going out to our members houses for member role plays and members love to put us through the ringer. We taught a family where the son was budhist, the mom was catholic, and the father was a member of one of the Korean churches here in Korea that is pretty famous for finding our missionaries and not being so nice haha. So I feel like our members are really finding a lot of fun with all of this missionary work going on lately especially at the expense of the missionaries sanity haha. There's nothing like telling a member that you had plans to go out to the church to make some flyers and go put them up and they just laugh at you while they bring out fruit and hold you against your will. The Korean people have that gift and they really enjoy using it some times on these foriegn missionaries in their wards.

   Other than all of that I went on a split with Elder Barney who is in my district this last week and it was so great. We met a young high schooler name Cheol and this kid is just too much fun. He and his family have to be some of the nicest people I have met in a long time. His parents are very strict budhist but they have strongly encouraged Cheol to find his own way that makes him happy. And after we met him out on a bridge we have just had so much fun with this kid. I wake up to the funniest text in english with some pretty interesting questions like, "why did Nephi and Lehi leave gold and silver behind?" and about 20 minutes later just a text that said, "nevermind! found out why. haha see you tomorrow."

So Elder Gibbons and I just laugh at the text we have been waking up to lately. And we have still been meeting our little families weekly. Pretty funny story there though. Sister Kim (The twins mom) works at a old person hospital as a nurse. Well just like you are never suppose to tell a relief society member that you are feeling sick, you should never tell a Korean nurse that you're not feeling well haha. She brought a back pack that we called a pharmacy and right there in the church she pulled out a needle with, "pain reliever." in very broken english. So after not being able to refuse this unlabeled syringe from this woman I met a little over a month ago the Sister missionaries thought it would be funny to call President and have him to talk to Sister Kim about it and they did that strange Korean thing where they speak really fast and the next thing I know I'm getting a really big shot.... not in the arm. Anyway that was my living in a foriegn land moment for the week. But Tim and Kevin our little twins are just hilarious. They fight over who gets to say the closing prayers during english class and they pray for the strangest things sometimes like the sandwich that they ate at school earlier that day haha. It's great and they actually asked their Dad if they could come out to church but we're still working on that entire thing these days.

   Well it was a little scattered but we had a great week. Never really have a clue with what's going to happen. For example I just got called by my zone leader saying that we are changing our zone meeting tomorrow into two meetings and he is going to the other one out in the country side and I have responsibility over this one tomorrow..... fun. Well I have to get going so I love all of you. I pray for all of you all of the time and I hope you are all happy.

Elder Jensen

Ninety-Third Week Email

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   Well we had another fun filled week here in Korea. We saw a lot of great things this week and met a lot of great people. We had a Stake Activity and a few missionary meetings so we were pretty much busy all week. The winter is definetely here in Korea. Last monday when we went hiking we did it in the snow and it was such an amazing day. And we also got hit by the Christmas fever here in Korea. Sorry we don't have to wait until Thanksgiving to start the Christmas Season.

 

   One of the great parts of this week was meeting Brother Lee and his daughter. Working in the Sunhwa Ward has just been so great. Between the Sisters and Elder Gibbons and I we have 3 families we are teaching. It's pretty funny because when ever Elder Gibbons and I put up flyers for english we have women call us and whenever the Sisters put up flyers they have men call them. And whenever we aren't able to get a priesthood holder for lessons the sisters just can pick it up. And to add to the teamwork our ward mission leader is just amazing. He works at the church so he has met all of our investigators multiple times. Our Bishop makes sure to stop by our english classes and he gets to know everybody well. And like I have said the theme of the past month has been the work of salvation so we have been working really well with the members and church has been the highlight of our weeks here in Daejeon.

 

   Well back to Brother Lee and his daughter. The office Elder's found him while talking to people on the street and He really needs help. He has gone to every church here in Korea and has a pretty strong opinion about all of them so he was very honest when he said that this was his last stop for churches and he would be really honest with us about everything. Well we went over to find his house and Korea is in the middle of switching address systems because it is impossible to find addresses here. So we didn't have his phone number and we ran around his neighborhood for 40 minutes and finally found his house. We got there and taught his daughter english and had a great lesson. His wife was from Russia and right now she can't live in Korea so that has seperated their family and with everything in life right now Brother Lee doesn't have a lot of options. And through all of this he's still trying to come closer to god.

 

   We also had to pass off the twins this week to the Sister's because we couldn't find a Priesthood Holder to meet with us but the Sisters did a really good job. It really makes a big difference when everybody works together. And right now Sunhwa Ward seems like a completely different ward. We're still trying to make the big push that President Shin wants us too but I'm just so happy to see the progress.

 

   Sorry this is a short one but I have to get going. I love all of you so much. Have a great week.

 

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Ninety-Second Week Email

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   Well another week has flown by here. It was a pretty good week though. We spent the weekend at the church for stake conference and the rest of the week was filled with meeting new people and all of the people we are already meeting. It is always nice to have the entire stake together because you can always see the strong relationships that the Korean Saints make here. Most of them have lived in a couple different wards here in Daejeon so everybody knows everybody.

   We did find some pretty sad news out this week. We went over to visit our Investigator Brother Shin on Tuesday but he was running late coming back from the Doctor. So we were walking around putting up fliers for english class when Brother Shin walked up and he just looked sad. He talked to us a little bit and told us to come to his house after we were finished. So we finished up and headed over and usually Brother Shin opens up his door with a big smile on his face and yells hows it going but he was silent. We sat down and since we are his foreign missionaries who know nobody in his life he just told us that he got back from the hospital and he was double diagnosed with Alzheimer's, and a special lung cancer. But he kind of cracked a small smile and told us that if he studies hard that he can fight the Alzheimer's and the doctor said that the lung cancer was early enough they could work with it for a while. He said the doctor gave him about 10-15 years if he did everything right but he just looked at us and said that he was already 80. His sons and daughters were all grown up and had families of their own, and his wife passed away 8 years ago. He told us that he was planning on passing away sometime during those years anyways so he had to realize that everything was fine and he was just shocked that he could find out such news. And Brother Shin has such strong faith in God. He has now been a Jehovah's Witness for 40 years now and still takes his small bag out full of magazines a couple times and week and talks to people on the street. He also has to be on of the most patient people I have ever met. It has been pretty interesting to meet him because he gives us our time to talk and he listens and reads everything that we ask him to but once we pass a part in the lesson where we bring up other church's, such as talking about the Great Apostasy, it just sets him off haha. He will go off for 20 minutes straight about every church and everything he feels like they do wrong. Elder Gibbons and I just sit and patiently listen because of the culture and He is a Grandpa (that is his title that people will call him in Korean if they don't know his name) and we are so young. So not that we ever focus on "how every other church is wrong" (because we don't and there's enough people in the world to do that) we have just been focusing more then ever on receiving our own answers from Heavenly Father. And it has been nice because we have had some great discussions with Brother Shin and he is one of the happiest old men that I have ever met. He told us the other day that believing in God is saying this church or this church is the best but he believes that outside of his own religion that Mormons are the best haha. And then he said, "Number 1" (for some reason Koreans love to say that) and it made all of us chuckle a bit.

   It has been really nice to spend time with Brother Shin though because he has seen so much. He speaks four languages right now and is working on English. He remembers very well when the Japanese were here and what life was like under the military government. He's full of the strangest knowledge about a lot of subjects that you would never think about. He taught us about Ginseng the other day and how there are two places in the world that are the best place for growing Ginseng haha. He has his little Desk in the corner of his room where he loves to study all day these days. He is also very determined to fight the Alzheimer's off by doing something he has always loved.

  I have just met some amazing people on my mission like Brother Shin.

   Well our little family is doing great and we are meeting with them tonight. We are also going hiking today on the coldest day of the year so far... it doesn't make sense to me. But I hope all of you have a great week and I love all of you.

Ninety-One Week Email

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   Well another week flew by and I really don't know what to tell you about. It was just all around a normal week. I guess i can be grateful for that. We had a lot of appointments cancel but we also met a lot of new people. We have been meeting our little family with the twin boys who are just hilarious. We designed our dream houses in english class and they made it pretty clear that they wanted slaves and not maids or butlers.... kids are too fun. Our little family is coming along pretty great. We meet them tonight and the two little boys love the Book of Mormon stories book. It's been really fun teaching kids about the gospel because you are a teacher to them. Everything you say is correct because they trust you. So we're trying to be very simple and clear and their mother has really appreciated it. I guess in their religious school they have been a little forced to learn a few things that their mom hasn't fully agreed with so it has been a little interesting teaching them. But Sister Kim loves the way we teach them and the boys absolutely love coming to the church to be with all of the foreigners.

   We also spent a lot of time this week with Brother Kim who has been doing so great. We went with him to the hospital to visit Brother Nam who will live in the hospital for the rest of his life. We got there and Brother Nam has been really sick this week and he couldn't have been more happy to see us. He was so happy to have a new visitor as well and him and Brother Kim could actually carry on a pretty great conversation. Brother Kim really enjoyed visiting him that he will be going back this week by himself. And Brother Kim was really able to open up more about his family. Right now Brother Kim is the only one who was baptized and he has felt a little opposition in going out to church but this time since he has been coming out he has been praying more and reading the Book of Mormon a lot more, and now it seems like his family is completely fine with it. He has had a lot of opportunities to actually talk about the gospel with his family now and He has loved coming out to all of the classes lately.

   We're still at the point of change in Korea these days. Every single talk we had at church yesterday was about doing missionary work. If you haven't read the power of everyday missionaries I strongly encourage you to do it. A Sister talked about when her husband brought it home and she thought it would be boring so she never started reading it. But last week she had some spare time and for some reason she just focused on the book and picked it up. She shared a really funny story about how her sons friends wouldn't come over often because they sometimes acted like brats and destroyed things. But as she changed her mind to now looking at them as people who aren't blessed with the gospel she has been having their families over for dinner and what not and they brought a family out to english class. All in one week She said that everything in the gospel just meant more to her this past week. Even waking up early for church to start the wrestle of getting her children ready was easier. She said now that there is a special spirit in their house they are dedicating themselves to living the gospel a little more and she is excited for the blessings in store for her family.

   It seemed like all we need here in Korea was just one week to experience this giant change. We are sitting here thinking about how close it is and all of us missionaries keep on hoping it will happen this week. And maybe the entire world feels like that right now with all of the talk about missionary work. But we all took a step back this last week and Korea has come a long way since I came to the mission. The change is happening and I'm so happy that I could be here for it. There's still so much room to grow but we're making progress over here with missionary work. And if it has to be one family a week that just means we'll be there in a couple months in this ward haha. The wards are a little smaller. I really hope I'm not recognizing this just because I'm a missionary but I really hope every member can feel that spirit when we go to church. When I came here I felt like we did have the missionary church and the member church but these days I actually feel like I'm attending church. They include us in everything and they work with our investigators. We had 4 people volunteer yesterday in priest quorum to come teach our little family.

   Well I love it here. We have a lot of work to do this week and I'm excited. I hope all of you have a great week and I know that we will. Love you.

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Ninetieth Week Email

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   We had a pretty fun week here in Daejeon. I have no idea what's going on but it feels like every week that passes by the focus on missionary work is just growing. Our ward is a little small and on occasion there has been some of those awkward times during fast and testimony meetings so Bishop told us to be ready to talk if one of those silences came up but that time never came. Every member who stood up talked about how they shared the gospel this past month. We had a few investigators out to church as well and you could just feel the energy in the ward. Sorry I know I'm a missionary but there's a big change happening over here right now and we love it. One Sister in the ward even told a story of how she wouldn't buy her sons smart phones because they would turn into phone zombies, but after all of the training we have been receiving from the church, stake presidency, and ward she thought of drawing up a contract for her sons to have a monthly family missionary coordination meeting and discuss how they are using their new smart phones to help share the gospel. I was completely blown away the entire meeting. Another Brother got up and talked about President Uchtdorf's talk at general conference and how he had the same desire to actually be doing the work. So as he was working this past week in his family owned restaurant he got the opportunity with a long time friend and they are meeting twice a week and he's teaching him about the church. He told everybody how he has already planned the dates to meet with the missionaries and his baptismal date haha. Another Sister talked about bringing scripture study back into her family when they haven't been out to church for years. She made the decision to come back after she got home from New York and she was talking with her father and suggested reading the Book of Mormon together and they started to do that. She talked about how her family still isn't at church but that they all made one step together and it was an answer to her prayers.

   I was just blown away. We just watched each member get up over and over again and talk about these experiences and I couldn't have been more happy. A missionary goes to an area for 6-18 weeks on average and they are just being told over and over again to help the members with their missionary work. Missionary houses are a little creepy because we have a giant map with all the members houses labeled on it. We have a giant record book full of member records that have notes about the members from missionarys for years. Next to our Investigators we are thinking about members all the time. For missionaries they are just crushed when they have to leave an area but for members it's just another set of missionaries coming in haha. So as we make efforts to visit with members and try to help them as much as we can, we are so happy when members are doing missionary work and telling everybody in the entire ward about how happy they are.

   It was just an amazing week. And after all of those amazing experiences our phone was just going off from other missionaries giving us referrals for people who wanted to meet in our area. We also get to meet Tim and Kevin tonight (the two twin boys who have been coming out to english class). Sister Kim their mother has just loved bringing her three boys out every week. She told us on Saturday that all the boys ever talk about is Jensen teacher and Gibbons teacher (Teacher in Korean is a title that they have to stick with a name for respect on older men or just teachers) They even tell their friends at school she said. And I could not have been more blessed to get a couple packages this week for halloween. Elder Gibbons can be a little soft and got cornered by the twin boys and another younger girl from english class and they made him do a special pinky promise to exchange candy this week. But we HAD to bring american candy haha. So thank you so much Dannielle and Tawns because I can't imagine what would have happened to Elder Gibbons if we didn't bring american candy. because that Korean pinky promise means a lot. But Sister Kim told us how she has been just enjoying so much coming out to english class and she sees the other young men from our ward and how respectful they are. And she told us that she has been thinking about her sons having a religion and how it would be a great thing. So we scheduled to meet the boys twice a week and the whole family on the weekends. The father has had a lot of bad experiences with religion in the past so Sister Kim is really worried about that but he seemed like a really nice man.

   Well I'm excited for this week and we will be really busy. There's a lot of change happening over here and it's a great time to be in Daejeon. I love all of you and I hope you have an amazing week.

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Eighty-Ninth Week Email

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   What a wonderful week. Transfer weeks are always fun and this transfer brought a lot of great changes so we're all happy. And I don't know what happened but it seems like everything fell into place for every companionship this last week and there's just so much excitement going on in the Daejeon Stake for missionary work.

   Well we started off the week in a trio with Elder Peterson so it was basically a small version of the MTC. But between the Sunhwa schedule and the Doonsan schedule we were all over Daejeon for three days. Last week we ended up going to every area in the Daejeon zone except for one. We were just all over the place and had no time to do anything it felt like but it ended up to be a good time. Right off the bat on Monday night our schedules clashed and we decided to go with the Doonsan missionary's schedule. So we went to go visit a member and her husband who was in the hospital. They told us that they would be moving back to the area where she was baptized in a couple weeks but that her husband wanted to start taking the lessons and to be baptized. He told us how religion has been important to him his entire life and he wants to be with his wife in everything so he'll get baptized. It was so great to see them make that decision and we promised him how happy he will be with all of it. And this entire time their young little boy was just running around jumping on us and trying to beat us up. If you weren't looking he would kiss you on the cheek and just be a crazy little kid. So we just talked with them for a little while and headed out for the night with a great feeling knowing that an entire family will be living in the gospel together.

   After that we just had appointment after appointment. We went from last week with only one to this week with having our days planned about 90% of the time. We met with Brother Shin who is our older Jehovahs Witness. We have been having some great lessons with him and he's so excited to hear our messages. He does reassure us every time that he has been in his religion for 40 years and knows the bible forwards and backwards but he has really enjoyed the Book of Mormon lately. We had given him some of our family english pamphlets and when we met with him last week he introduced us to a family that he knows and we are planning on meeting with them this week.

   We also had english village out in one of our countryside branches last saturday. We had rooms set up like post offices, clothing stores, restaurants, and movie theaters. People would come in and we would only speak english and they would pretend to be in america for 3 hours. It was a ton of fun and Elder Gibbons and I were in charge of going out on the street and wrangling people in haha. And there we met Karen who lived in Texas for a year and was basically from america. She has studied about so many religions and she had some LDS friends back in Texas but she knew very little. She had actually started looking at the church websites a little over a month ago and reading a little bit about our church but she was surprised when we stopped her on the street. She stayed for all 3 hours and was happy to get a Book of Mormon and set up some times to meet with the Sister Missionary's down there. 

   That night we had to hurry back in time to make it to Joon's baptism. The Elder's in the office have been teaching Joon for a month now and I have met with Joon on splits about 3 times. I was also able to do his interview and saw him come out to all of the events we had this past month. But I couldn't believe how fast he progressed in the Gospel and was so prepared by the time he was baptized. I was sharing an experience of how I felt the spirit that week one time and it made everything completely worth it. And he stopped me and asked if the Elders had told me about his prayer experience and I said no. So he told me how he was praying 3 weeks ago and he just got the weirdest most comforting feeling and ever since then he decided to read, pray, and come out to church and he said that he's still getting used to that strange comforting feeling but he's going to do everything he's been taught to do so he can continue to feel that way. He also bore an amazing testimony at his baptismal service and now he's just part of the ward. Already has relationships and friends in the ward. He's been marking his scriptures and I'm not going to lie when I looked around the room at all the investigators there I saw young kids with piercings, old men who said their hobby was drinking, and others who have more than once told the missionary's that they are only there to learn english. I thought of how different they are in every way and Joon was the exact same with his beard and lifestyle. And all I could do is just remember what President Uchtdorf said during genreal conference. The church is designed to nurture the imperfect. These people don't have the dockers and button up shirts that most people assume we wear haha but these people are making the biggest changes in their lives to live according to the gospel and they slip up sometimes. But we can still see what direction they are heading in and I couldn't be more excited to see a room filled with all of those different people. And then I thought about how I slip up most of the time but I'm happy I am now in a place I need to be to learn the absolute most that I could from those experiences and have so much help from everybody around me. And now I'm happy for Joon and he seems so happy and is about to face some of the challenges that come with change. But he's in the perfect place to make all of the changes that he wants to make.

   Sorry i'm getting into the mood again where I'm just typing everything that comes to mind. There's so much that happened this past week that I want to tell you but times up. I have to get going but I hope all of you have a great week and I love all of you.

Elder Jensen

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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