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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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