A Bunch of Raccoons and Some Horrible Sewing Skills

We tried some finding at an apartment complex, but we only ran into a bunch of raccoons, and they were not interested in our message.

Hello Everyone!

   This week has been pretty decent to my companion and I. We found a less active on Tuesday that was actually happy to see us, which we thought was kind of cool. We got a return appointment for them, but on the day we went back, they weren't there.

A little while later that day, I got my new crazy story (though, the lesson that turned into our investigator getting stupid drunk and singing a bunch of famous country music songs and claiming them as his own is really close to this one.). So, we knock on this lady's door and it is this really old lady, and she was kind of skeptical about listening to us at first, but she decided to let us in, and then proceeded to talk to us and herself nonstop for about an hour. That was really weird, but we left her with a Book of Mormon, so I hope that helps her find some peace of mind.

Wednesday, I began studying the Addiction Recovery Program workbook, mostly on assignment from our Ward Mission Leader because he wants to see if we can use it in a way that can be used in our 5th Sunday lesson. Man, that is a powerful little booklet, and I love it a lot! Seriously, any of the ARP material is awesome stuff! We also cleaned up our apartment because we were going to have an apartment inspection on Friday, and we weren't going to have time to clean on Thursday for it.

And on Wednesday, a ward member took us too a really cool and good place to eat called Texas de Brazil. It is basically an all you can eat meat place. You have a card that you flip one way if you want the guys walking around the restaurant with various meats to stop and put stuff on you plate, and you flip it the other way if you want them to stop. It was amazing! I also really likes the pants of all the guys who were walking around. I don't know, they were just really flowy and cool looking.

We tried some finding at an apartment complex, but we only ran into a bunch of raccoons, and they were not interested in our message. Thursday was pretty busy. The morning and afternoon were filled with weekly planning, which honestly did not take as long as I thought as it would. Then Elder King came in with some amazing news! There are some new videos in Gospel Library in the missionary section that basically put forth how you can use technology to it's fullest. I am really considering setting up a Facebook out here for proselyting purposes after watching a bunch of those. Honestly though, we should be using technology more. The Lord is hastening His work through these valuable tools, and we should be using them to there fullest, and I know that I have not.

After that, we went and I got to meet Phil Willis, a tough cookie of an investigator. Basically, he is being way to logical about things. He does not feel like he is receiving answers to his prayers because he feels that if he wants them answered, he will be making up those feelings by himself and it won't actually be an answer to his prayer. Basically, he lacks and does not understand faith. This is super frustrating because  this is basically the only thing that is stopping him from being baptized. That, and he wants to basically go to every single church out there and see if he can find the right one by comparing all of the religions. He is going to be doing that for awhile. We are really trying to help him overcome this barrier though, but it will take time.

We stopped by Kala's house(one of our investigators) after that, but we did not teach her. We ended up teaching two of her friends and like five other kids that were there. It was pretty cool! Dinner that night was with the Bateman's, and we had a most fantastic time with them. We also got Brother Bateman to come out with us to two lessons after that. One was to a recent convert youth, who we are hoping to get to come to church consistently. It was kind of funny. We walked up to his building right at the same time as his mom and sister walked up, and we kind of surprised her. We also brought him out to actually teach Kala, which we found out in this lesson that she was actually going through a really hard time. We had a really good time explaining the Plan of Salvation to her, especially the Atonement.

On Friday we had an apartment inspection, that we passed with flying colors. Elder Smith also had another amazing inspired moment, and we went to Julian's house and taught not only him, but his cousin who had met with missionaries like 6 years ago. It was really cool to go over the Restoration with them.

We then went out by the YSA elders apartment to teach a Polish investigator that we found, but that fell through, so we decided to have a little fun. The YSA Elders left their door unlocked, so we went in and wrote all over their white board and flipped all of their chairs upside down. We felt very proud of ourselves. We then brought Brother Reese out to us to meet Celeste, who we had a really spiritual time with, and we even got her to commit to coming to church(she didn't come, mostly because she wasn't feeling well. We will get her out to conference though.).

Saturday turned both my brain and Elder Smith's brain into mush. We spent basically all morning and afternoon writing to ward council, writing out a progress record, getting more familiar with apps that we have that we can use on our tablets, and preparing a lesson for gospel principles(that did not end up actually happening). That took a lot out of us. Then all of or potential lessons fell through, so that just added onto that. Then we ran into our 9 year-old investigator, Jayden Feliciano. Man, he is one of the most happy and energetic kids I have ever met. It is super fun to teach him, but you really have to keep him on task. I like him though. Not much else happened that evening.

Sunday was a pretty easy day. I think that the coolest thing that we did was we went out and brought the Sacrament to a couple of people who are physically unable to make it to church with two other ward members. That was really cool. We had Tacos for lunch with them afterwards. We also got some really good homemade pizza from Sister Riismaa that night, and we ate it at a park and did a bunch of finding there. Not much came out of it, but we were doing work, so that was good. Well, that has been my week! I hope that y'all are having a most fantastic day!

Elder Jensen

PS: I forgot to mention,  it has also been like 90 degrees all week out here, and the heat stinks. People keep telling me that the temperature is supposed to drop, but I think they are lying to me. It is just way too hot. 😰

Look at all those ducks!

Texas de Brazil was so good!

I got pretty excited about this section of Preach My Gospel

This is the section on finding through members.

I may have used all the colors...

I found a pair of pants in my closet when we were cleaning, and they fit me pretty good so I was trying to figure out why they were left here when I saw the hole in the leg. So, I whipped out my horrible sewing skills and closed that hole up. I thought you might like to see another adventure of Elder Jensen sewing things up, even though he does not had a clue what he is doing. It didn't rip open so far though, so I suppose I did something right.