I guess I have a loving father to thank for that.

Exchanges this week with Elders Champneys and Miner

Hello Everyone!

So, this letter might seem like it is a little shorter than the other ones. This is because I do not wish to bore you with a full account of Elder Smith's and my adventures trudging through snow and cold. But this week wasn't completely lifeless, so let's get on with that stuff!

So, Tuesday's big thing that took up a bit of time was interviews with President Griffen. It is always good to talk with him. He actually came over to our apartment for those, so Elder Smith and I did a quick tidy up of the place(we are NOT dirty Elder's, I will have you know). There were just a few things that we fixed up that made the place look even better than it was before. But, we just kind of talked about the area a bit, and about my awkward sleep patterns. We are still trying to figure out what the heck is up with those, but nothing has come up as of yet with that. Oh, and also, I got a little bit more info on how my mission is going to be divided up. So, it is getting split in half. The Peoria Stake will be taken from our mission, and will be put into the Iowa Des Moines Mission, and everything else north of Peoria will go to the Illinois Chicago Mission. So, I will either get to possibly go and actually serve in the city of Chicago, or if I somehow end up in Peoria at the time of the split, I will get to go into a part of Iowa (I am pretty sure that is how it works, but don't quote me on that. More info will come out as we get close to the split date.).

District Meeting on Wednesday, in my opinion, could have gone way better than it did. I blame sleep deprivation, because I was having a super hard time even putting my sentences together in that. But, what I was trying to get across was a pretty ok discussion on our purpose as missionaries, and how we can have a better focus on our purpose as we go about our work. I may try and revisit that topic again in a future District Meeting, if I get the chance. We also went to see Jeff that night, and we had a pretty good time with him. We mostly had more of a "get to know you" lesson with him, since we did not know too much about him, and that lead into some good discussions, especially about temples. He is just such an awesome guy!

Thursday, we brought the Zone Leaders over here for an Exchange. This time, I worked with Elder Champneys. I will talk a little more about this day, because a lot happened. So, we went out to this apartment complex, and we started handing out movies like they were candy. I honestly did not think that those would be super effective things to use, but hey, they were working that day, and we found 3 potential investigators in that area because of that. It was pretty cool. We then went down to see if we could talk to George, but he was out of it, so we just wandered around. We ended up shoveling someone's driveway, and that was pretty fun. They do not know that we did it. It was a former investigators house, and they did not answer the door. So, instead of leaving them a note, we decided to break out the shovels we had brought with us, and we got to work on their driveway. I liked that a lot. We then went back to the chapel to do some Area Book work, and that is when we found out that there was a pretty big snow storm that was headed our way. We finished off the work for that day, but we decided to end the Exchange a little early, since it was said that the snow would affect travel pretty bad.

Friday we were stuck in for a little bit, but later on, a member came and picked us up and we went to help remove a bunch of snow from people's driveways. That was a ton of fun. We also got donuts and ice cream out of it (because Brother Gillespie is awesome) so that made it all the better. That evening we also went and talked with Danielle for awhile, and played a bit of hide-and-seek with Becca. That was fun. We also figured out that she needed some help cleaning up some things around her apartment, so we offered to help the next day when we could get another guy in there with us.

So, that was our big thing for Saturday. We went over there for a couple of hours, and we cleaned up a majority of the floors, took down all of the Christmas decorations, washed a bunch of toys, and put up all the dishes. That place is looking much better, but could use a little more love. Man, give me a day in that place, and I could whip it into shape. I guess I have a loving father to thank for making me like things clean. I did not appreciate it as much then, but man, I really do now! I just like to clean things up now. And after that, the member who was with us took us to the store, and basically bought our groceries for the week, and that got us super excited! That was super generous of him, and I am super grateful for that.

And Sunday was a pretty normal day. The only thing that was a twist for that day was that President and Sister Griffen were in our Sacrament meeting. Now that was a surprise for us. President was just there so that he could have  a meeting with a bunch of Stake Leaders. But it was really cool having Sister Griffen in our Gospel Principles class. She knows her stuff.

Well, that is about it for me this week. There are still many more adventures to be had out here, and I am excited for them all to unfold! I also just want to say, how grateful I am to be out here serving my God. It has truly been a wonderful experience, and  I am surprised that I am nearly halfway done! I hope that y'all have a most excellent day wherever you are at!

Elder Jensen

Exchanges in my hood

Outside our apartment

So much snow!

Snow forecast