I'm not a teenager anymore!

January 30, 2018

I'm not a teenager anymore!

Birthday dinner at Portillo's!

Hello Everyone!

Yes indeed, I have finally shed the "Teen" from my age, and have officially turned 20. That feels very nice, and I will talk about that in a minute.

First, I promised to talk about the lesson that we had with Ana last Monday. To sum it up it went very well. We taught her about the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and she liked that lesson a lot, especially when we talked about the Gift of the Holy Ghost. That stuck out to her because she has had experiences recently where she was able to feel the influence of the Holy Ghost in her life. We also extended a soft commitment to Baptism, and she is on board with that. What she is really waiting for is for Joseph to leave on his mission before she makes any solid decisions, which I think is good for her.

Tuesday morning stunk, because (and this has basically been going on for most of the week, which is really annoying me) I had been awake until about 2am the night before, and I could not get myself out of bed. I really wish that my body would conform to a regular sleep cycle, but I guess I am cursed to be weird in that way. So, when I got going, things got better. Sort of. Elder Smith had a really weird pain in his hip that lasted a few hours, so we let him rest that (if we had a car, I would have just gone out anyway, but you get a very good workout every day here on our bikes, so we didn't want to accidentally break him). The good thing about that though was I got my whole District Meeting planned out, so that was one thing off of my plate. We put our rears into gear though once we got out though, so that was good. Not much happened, but if I am working, I am happy. We had dinner at the Bishops house, and that was a ton of fun, and there was some good food there. Then we went and taught Cynthia. That lesson though for the most part was her ranting about her stolen cat, and how it was still alive out there (sure....) and she knew who had him, but she did not want to confront them.

I think Wednesday through Friday can be summed up in one word. Stinky (in the sense of it smelling bad, and that the days were bad.) At about midnight on Wednesday, Elder Smith barfed up his guts (we think he got food poisoning from the Bishops dinner, which is kind of ironic because Sister Child is a nurse) and that was not fun. There is a nice stain on the carpet now where it all began. So, we were stuck inside those three days as he recovered from that. It was most boring. Friday was interesting though because in the morning, the fire alarm went off (apparently it does that a lot here), but we just kind of slept through it because nothing was on fire. Elder Smith was better enough though to do some cleaning, and we got our Weekly Planning out of the way, so that was good.

Saturday, we were going to have a lesson, but that fell through, so we had a bunch of time open up for us to do a ton of biking to the far reaches of our area. We went and talked to George, our investigator who is confined to his bed, and we read the Book of Mormon with him. He could technically be baptized if he gave up coffee, and we figured out a way to get him under the water with all of the stuff that he is attached to, but one challenge at a time with him. Then we tried to find some people around him, but no luck there. I want to find out there more often, but it is just a really long bike ride. Oh well.

Sunday we started teaching the Commandments to Ana. Once again, things went well there. And since we went there before church, (we have 1pm church in this ward) we got to eat waffles with them before going to church. Those were most excellent. And at church, I ran into a member from my first area, Brother Weisler! That was super cool to see him again. Dinner that night was super fun. We ate at the Baker's, and they are full on British, accents and everything. Oh, it was amazing. And dessert was fantastic. It was a bun (round loaf of bread/very large roll) that had a homemade cream and strawberry jam in it, and then a very nice icing on top. Elder Smith just studied it at all angles for a few minutes before even eating it, he was in so much awe. I will say, it was most excellent.

And then Monday rolled around, which was my first day of being 20! I woke up maybe a little early from excitement to open up gifts sent to me by my family. That was fun! After a little bit, we went to go talk to Sister Washburn, who has finished her Temple Prep class, and is now trying to get an interview so that she can go and take out her endowment. She is really going to try and get us there with her, which would be awesome if President allows it. We then went around the town to stop by people, but no luck there. We did go and talk with the Isome family again though. They are still going through a really rough time, but Mr. Isome talked with the Bishop, and he is trying everything he can to help them out. I think us being there put him a little more at ease though. After that, Elder Smith took me to Portillo's for my Birthday dinner. That was awesome, especially the cake shake.

Well, there is my week for ya! I now need to get myself out to the temple, so I bid you all adieu until the next week! Thank you everyone who sent their Birthday wishes! Have fun wherever you are at, and God Bless!

Elder Jensen

I have found a new breakfast that I like! I use an apple, banana, 6 ice cubes, 2 eggs, some milk, and a spoonful of peanut butter. It is surprisingly filling.