The Hermanas stole my apartment

April 09, 2018

The Hermanas stole my apartment

Joan's baptism!

Hello Everyone!

Well, did I just land in a mess of work. There is a ton of stuff going on up here in Bloomingdale, and I like it a lot. So, let's get on with the show, shall we?

Tuesday was Transfer Day, so I had to say goodbye to Elder Brimhall. I am going to miss him. He is a good missionary, and a lot of good things are going to happen for him in his mission. We also went over with Elder Lake to say goodbye to Malik. He helped us out a bit, and I am going to miss him.

So, when we got to the church, I met up with my new companion, Elder Parkinson, and we drove off to the new area. We then spent a good minute getting shopping done, as well as getting all the things unpacked. We then went to dinner and did some contacting. Our last stop of the night was weird though.

So, the Hermana's (Spanish speaking sister missionaries) had been talking with their neighbors, so they wanted us to come by and meet them so that they could pass them off to us. So, first thing, we try and find them in the directory on the buzzer thing. As we are going through, we find that #228 is under the name "Jensen Elder". Remember this. A few minutes later, we get a call from the Hermana's, and they wanted us to come around the building to them. We come by, and they are trying to get their luggage into the building, so we helped them get their stuff in. Guess what apartment was theirs. That's right, #228! And that apartment was a really nice one! I need to figure out why the Hermana's stole my apartment.

Wednesday was good. I didn't have to teach District Meeting, so that was different. Elder Parkinson did a great observation though. We had a long talk on how we can create a baptizing culture in our mission. I liked it a lot. We started a goal as a District to baptize 6 people this transfer. It is time to get to work.

After that, I had a doctor's appointment to go to, and that took up a bit of time. More sleep stuff there. When I came out of there, my companion was talking to another guy in the waiting room, and was basically teaching him about the Book of Mormon. So, I sat right down and jumped into that. We ended up getting his info and getting him a Book of Mormon, and then passing him off to the Assistants since he lives in their area. That was pretty cool. He is in some good hands.

After that, we came back and headed off to dinner with Brother Carr, a less-active that we are working with. He fed us dinner, and then we read a chapter of Gospel Principles together, and really talked with him about getting to the temple. He wants to go, he is just holding himself back really with a few things he wants to work out. It is good, but it would really help him get over those things if he went to the temple. He is very close though, so that is good.

Thursday we were pretty busy. We started off with a few stop bys, which were alright. We then came back and tried to start some Weekly Planning, but then a whole bunch of phone calls came in and we had to take care of those. One of those was from a less-active who needed a ride to pick up some things to fix his car, so we helped him out. That took way longer than we thought it would, which is not too good, but at least we helped him out.

Then we went and attended to the needs of another call that we got. A recent convert, Barbara, was having problems with her stove (it was leaking gas) and she couldn't cook on it. So, Elder Parkinson and I cooked a meal for her and her two sons, and brought that over to her. She was really happy about that one.

Then it was time for us to have dinner at the Filio's. Oh my goodness. They are one of the best families ever! Brother Filio is a super sarcastic guy, and he just says so many funny things. He is also our Ward Mission Leader, and he is honestly one of the best that I have worked with so far. Read on to know more on that. His twin girls (who are 4) bare also the most energetic kids I have seen. They blinded me for a bit with my hood, and would climb on me like I was some kind of jungle gym. It was fun though. After that, we got together with Brother Filio, and we went to teach the Calderon's, who are a less-active family that lives outside of our mission. That is the 3rd time I have left my mission, and that number is going to get higher, since we visit them weekly. We had a really good lesson there though. Our main goal was to get them to commit to come back to church, and we played a lot on exercising our faith to follow the commandments God has given us, even if we can't see the blessings immediately. It had an effect on them.

Friday we did some apartment finding, but no luck there. So, after a few hours, we came back to our apartment and got our Weekly Planning finally underway. That had to be one of the longest sessions I have done. There are just so many people to plan for in this area! A little after that, we went back to the Filio's for dinner and then to have an actual lesson with Barbara. She is a sweet lady, and she loves to talk about stuff. We were there for a long time. When we made it out, we did a quick stop by Sister Crippen because she had some food that she wanted to give us, and then we turned in for the night.

Saturday started off most excellent. Do y'all remember Joan, the really old lady that Elder Figgins and I were teaching? Well, she got baptized on Saturday! I am so happy that I got moved to an area that was close enough to where I could just go to it. It was also great to see a bunch of familiar faces, especially Celeste and Meka. They both look like they have been doing most excellent since I left.

Well, after the baptism, we had surprise interviews with President since he was at the baptism, and then we came back for some lunch. Then we went to see Brother Carr again, and we just talked a lot about the temple with him, and listened to President Nelson's talk on personal revelation from this past conference. He liked that one a lot. There, we also got him to commit to come to church, which was fantastic! Then, it was off to the third dinner in a row with the Filios, and then we talked with another less-active, Brother Valero. He is a really nice guy, and we talked with him about service and ministering. We also got him to commit to come to church, but also bring someone with him. We then got to ride home in his Mustang, which was pretty fun.

Sunday was a nice day. Church was nice, and it was really to hear the many testimonies from the members. Also, everyone that we had committed to come to church (except for like one or two) showed up! It was amazing! Church over here is at 9am, so that means we have a bit more time afterwards to get some work done. So, we went to a pass off lesson with the Schaumburg YSA Elders (I seem to do a lot of work with the YSA wherever I go. Interesting). We were teaching Joneil. She is a nice Filipino lady, but she also spent the better part of an hour trying to convince us that we all needed to become nurses. It was kind of funny. What was really cool though that came out of that was her daughter kind of came in and out of the lesson, and she actually had some good interest in what we were talking about. The YSA Elders talked with her a little, and got her a Book of Mormon. That was cool. We then took them to our dinner since they didn't have one, which was good because there were some YSA non members and less-active there. The lesson though went a little weird. We were just trying to teach about the Book of Mormon, and that's all, but the member couple started going off on basically every principle in the gospel. It kind of overwhelmed them. We brought it back after a bit, and then we actually got one of the guys there to take a Book of Mormon, which was great! We might see him at Basketball today.

And to wrap up the week, we ended with probably one of the best MCM's that I have ever had. Let me tell you, Brother Filio takes his calling very seriously. We went pretty in depth into all the people that we were teaching, and how we can best help them this week. We also set a couple of goals for us to accomplish this week (from like people at church and the number of lessons that we were going to teach). That was pretty cool. It was honestly like we did another Weekly Planning session with him, just kind of a shorter version. But man, was it powerful.

Well holy dang, this one got a little long. There was just so many cool things that happened this week! I am super excited to be in a new area, and I can't wait to see what more it has in store for me. I hope that y'all have a most excellent week wherever you are at!

Elder Jensen