Possible Baptism and Transfer Calls

My shoes look most excellent after walking out in the storms for awhile.

Hello everyone!

This week has been a pretty good one. It felt a little shorter with Preparation day on Tuesday, but there was still plenty of work to do. So, let's start with Wednesday. District meeting was all focused on how we can better use technology in our Proselyting efforts. It was helpful, but I am still lost on how I am going to do this. If anyone has any ideas though, please let me know, because I am honestly down to try anything out.

After District meeting, we all went out to Costco to have District lunch, which was pretty fun. I hadn't had any good Costco food in a long time, and that was much needed. Then we went back to the church building to update our Area Book and other things.

Funny story there. So we were there, and a couple other companionship showed up, and we talked with each other for a bit, just because we were all getting stuff done. Then the YSA elders come along, Elder King and Elder Taggert, and Elder King tells us all to go out and get some work done, which we were about to do, since we were all finished getting our book all straightened out. Then, Elder Christensen kind of talked some smack (playfully) and he and Elder King ended up in some weird punching/wrestling match. They looked like they were having fun, but it was kind of serious too. Then, it happened. Elder Christensen ended up  picking up Elder King in an awkward way, and his suit pants just ripped right along the seam. Man, it was funny, but I do feel bad for him, because those were some nice pants. After that we all just left. Then we tried out some work, but not much else happened that day.

Thursday we went through the necessary evil of Weekly Planning again. It is interesting getting used to, because they have changed up the way that we do it now. For all of you returned missionaries, you are familiar with the 13 steps to planning in Chapter 8 of Preach My Gospel. Well, those no longer exist. In fact, Chapter 8 of Preach My Gospel is basically not used anymore. It has been substituted for a 5 step planning process. Those steps are:

1. Pray for and seek inspiration.
2. Review progress.
3. Set goals.
4. Make plans.
5. Pray again.

It is interesting to do, but I will get used to it. After that planning session, we tried some of our appointments, but they fell through. Then, our last one of the night, we got to talk to our Catholic investigator Gary. We took a new approach with him. After we did a Bible Study with him, we just talked about why the Book of Mormon is so crucial, and the importance of gaining a testimony of it. We showed him Elder Callister's talk from the most recent General Conference, "God’s Compelling Witness: The Book of Mormon"(which if you watched Conference, you know just how awesome this talk was! It was one of my favorites!). Man, that hit it with him a little. He only wants to read the Book of Mormon still before he commits to more, but I feel that he is going to read with a renewed purpose.

Friday, we had a "Cleanse by Fire" session with our Area Book, and we pulled out a list of people that showed some potential for learning in a specific section of our map. We went to talk to Daniel after that. If you recall, he is our hippie vegetarian investigator, but let me tell you, he can say some very profound things. He could be a great motivational speaker. So, why are we talking to him? He had met the missionaries awhile back, but then he went to Arizona for a bit, and fell off the map. But let me tell you, he had some great experiences down there, one of which is that one of his best friends just got baptized. That is pretty cool. He still has some reservations, but he basically said that if this feels right to him, he will do what he can to join. We can help him with that.

Then we went off to the area of our map that Elder Smith scouted out, and let me tell you, that was some inspired finding there. We picked three people that we wanted to visit, and none of them were there. But at each stop, we were able to have a gospel related conversation with someone that was around them. It was kind of interesting, because all three of the people that we talked to were Catholic. Coincidence? Then that evening we had another awesome lesson with Celeste. And guess what? She now has a Baptismal date for the 11th of November! This is super exciting! Now we just have to do what we can to keep her on date.

Saturday was a good day. We spent our morning filling out stuff for Ward Council, and after that, we helped Sister Combs and her daughter clean the building because they were the only ones that showed up to do it. Then we did lots of driving around because all of our appointments were super spread out. Then around our last stop for the night it started storming. It got bad enough that some of the streets started to flood. It was lots of fun to drive in though, I will tell you that.

We also got transfer calls Saturday night. I am going to be staying in the Schaumburg 2nd ward, but Elder Smith is out of here. He is going out to DeKalb to be a District Leader!(I just finished training him too, so that is interesting). My new companion is going to be Elder Figgins, an Elder that I know from the Naperville Zone, who is a pretty cool dude. It is going to be fun up here, I can tell you that.

Then lastly, Sunday rolled around, but there is not much there. It was a pretty easy day for us, so that is cool. We did somehow get one of our potential investigators to agree to come to a lunch with us and our Bishop, so that was cool. Now though, I gotta dash. I am going to go and enjoy a roasted pig with a bunch of other missionaries! Have a great day everyone!!!

Elder Jensen

This is a weird, but cool looking building in our area.