Surprise visitors and sickness

A non-member family we ate dinner with on Sunday.  They have a son on a mission and a daughter at BYU preparing to go on a mission though!

Yes, I am sick this week, and it is not fun. More on that in a minute though. I will start off with some cool stuff though. On Monday, as you all know, we got to sing the National Anthem at the Kane County Cougars game, and that was super fun! We did a most fantastic job I feel. I have heard that there is a video of us singing floating around on Facebook or YouTube somewhere, so if anyone can find it, give it a watch! We also got to stay and watch a bit of the game, but I don't know who won because we had to leave pretty early. Missionary curfews are not something to be toyed with.

Tuesday was fantastic because we had Zone Conference. Man, that was really cool! I think that the main message of this conference was how important it is that we obey the rules in the white handbook, and the other rules that President has put in place. It really got me thinking about the things I do in my day and how I can improve them (not that I am a naughty missionary or anything....). There was also a big theme on trying to strengthen our testimony of Jesus Christ. One of the challenges that they issued a while back (which I am still working on because it is a LONG one) is President Nelson's challenge of going through the topical guide and finding and highlighting EVERY scripture under the section that have Jesus Christ mentioned in them. Man, it is a lot, but it super cool to see how my faith in Christ has grown. If anyone as the time, I challenge them to take up this challenge.

After the Conference, I ran into someone that I was not expecting to meet at all. It was my Grandmother's sister and her husband. They were in the area and they remembered hearing that I was in this mission, so they called up the mission office and figured out that I was going to be at Zone Conference the whole day, so they drove over and took Elder Faimalo and I out to dinner at Portillo's. It was so fun to be able to meet them and talk with them about family. Seeing them was a surprise, but it was a welcome one. We actually nearly didn't go out to eat with them because it is usually not allowed, but President let us do it this time.

My Grandma's sister, Paula and her husband Laur.  They took me and my companion out to dinner on Tuesday.

Elder Faimalo and I after eating at Portillos with my great aunt and uncle.

After that, we headed over to another church building so that Elder Faimalo could conduct a Baptismal interview for one of the Assistants investigators. Man, those elders are beasts! While we were there, they received a referral, set up an appointment to meet with him, and then put him on date for baptism! They haven't even met the guy yet! It was really cool to see them do that, and it is kind of pushing me to get some of our investigators on date.

On exchanges with the Zone Leaders

The next day, I was on exchanges with Elder Young. Not much happened on our exchange, mostly because we were just having a really slow day. Also, we had to drive 40 minutes to and from a dinner appointment in the Assistants area that they couldn't make it to, so that took out a lot of time that we could have used for work. We went on another exchange the next day with the Zone Leaders, which is where I got sick because Elder Hadlock was sick, and he passed it off to me. It also didn't help that I got a terrible night's sleep because the air mattress that I was seeping on had a hole in it that we did not know about, and I woke up in the middle of the night on the floor. The next day was when it really hit me because I was working with Elder Hadlock all day. We tried really hard to get work done, and we got some stuff done, but man,  it was really hard to do because we both felt bad all day. It was also like in the 50's all day too, so I am not sure if that contributed to us getting even more sick or not. It was a day that was just randomly super cold when it was supposed to be hot. Illinois is weird.

That sickness traveled with me to the next day (and I still do have it) and that halted the work a little too. That morning, we helped a lady move a ton of stuff into 4 different storage lockers. She though it would only take 2 hours, but we were there for 5, and probably would have been there longer had we not expedited the process the last 2 hours.

After that, we started weekly planning, but got distracted and ended up visiting one of our investigating families, and we ended up walking around outside with them for 2 hours. It was nice to do that . What was really funny was we ran into a member and his daughter on their segways, and they let us try them out. Those are super fun!

The garden we walked around for two hours with Victor and Maria

A monument we walked by

Sunday started off a little bad. I woke up really late because I just felt really bad, and we only ended up going to the first hour of church because I did not want to get anyone sick. I just rested for a long while, and then we went to a dinner with a family. Let me try and explain their situation. None of the people that we ate with are members. But, the oldest son is on a mission right now and the daughter right below him is out at BYU and is about to serve a mission. They basically wanted to have us over and ask about missionary life and stuff because they wanted to try and know what exactly their son was doing out there. It was super cool to talk with them! And they really appreciate the work that we are doing. Who knows, maybe they will decide to investigate the church in the future. That would be super cool. And we ended that night by once again talking with Brock and Marie, which is always a highlight of my week. They might be coming to church on the 20th because we told them about a returned missionary who is going to speak that day. I think that would be super cool for them to see.

Anyway, I hope that y'all are having a most fantastic week!

Elder Jensen

A most delicious cake we had on Sunday for dinner. (and Mom! It was dairy free!)

A most excellent pie we had after Sunday dinner!

Here is a picture of the P-day squad (or most of them) Jaren (the one next to me in the BYU shirt is here for the last time because he is headed off to Thailand for his mission.