You ready to run a 5K?

April 16, 2018

You ready to run a 5K?

On our way to a 5K. Me, and Elders Scoresby, Lake, and Parkinson.

Hello Everyone!

Well, well, well. Here we are for another week in Bloomingdale. I will say, I had a good time this week. Let's jump into that, shall we?

So, Tuesday we started off to go and see Mario and Lester. Mario wasn't around unfortunately, but we were able to talk to Lester. He is a Police Officer, and he is super religious, and loves to talk. I learned something from him. 1. You can't pull over a Post Office vehicle, and they don't have to have license plates. 2. The DMV is allowed to take your license plates off your car when they stop you, but no one else can. The more you know. After that, we went through and texted about 50 formers from our Area Book, and my thumbs did not feel too good after that. We actually had someone respond, but it sadly didn't go anywhere(It looked like it would, until they texted "Hail Satan" to us. Yeah, we left that alone.) Well, we went to see Brother Carr after that, and we had some more temple talk. He is progressing a ton, and he got excited to do family history work, so that he could have names for the temple. Then we went to dinner at the Filio's, and we tried to teach Jeremy but that fell through. So we stayed in the area, and we met Jose. Remember that name! Then, the Hermana's called us up, and told us to swing by someone that they had found, and we had a pretty good talk with him. More on him though if we are able to meet with him again.

Wednesday, we started off finding since there was no District Meeting. Pretty easy going there. After lunch, we spent a really long time in Jeremy's area. We weren't feeling too good, but something amazing happened. So, we are walking along the road, and we hear someone yell at us from across the street. We look over, and we see Keontae, a guy that we are teaching. He yelled, "I can't get over, let me try!", and the proceeds to ride his small bike across 4 lanes of traffic, nearly getting hit 3 times, and when he gets to us, he said, "I did the for you! You know what? I did it that for the Book of Mormon!" I love Keontae.

Well, we then went and actually taught Jeremy, and he thought that The Plan of Salvation was pretty cool. We almost have I'm coming to church, which is really good. And that evening, we had a lesson with Richard, who was steps away from baptism. We had a super spiritual lesson, mostly on acting on the faith that we have, and resolving his concerns. Seriously, there was like literal beams of the Spirit being shot around that room. Our main message though was that we had taught him everything that we could. What he needs to do now is to pray about it and see if this is what he wants. It was really cool.

And here comes Thursday. That day, April 12, 2018, I hit my year mark. One year ago from that day, I woke up super early in the morning, got on a plane, and went to the MTC. Man, time has really flown. First thing that I did though was open up a box from my family that had been sitting by my desk for the past week. Oh, it was fun to open! Lots of fun little things in there. That morning also, we went to see Patrick and Marvin. Man, they have it rough. They want to come to church, but they both work all night, and it makes them really tired during the day. It really stinks, but we are praying hard for them. After them, we went to do some Weekly Planning. After that, just a bit of finding, and then some dinner. Then, we met up with Brother Carr at the church building, and set him up with the family history specialist there so that he could start getting some of his family history figured out. Progress!

Then we did a quick run out of our mission (side story, we almost drove all the way to Chicago. Brother Filio should NOT give directions.) to go and see the Calderon's. We had a pretty good time there. We had a great lesson on the blessings of coming to church, since they were able to make it the week before. We also had a bit of fun. So, we all decided together that I was going to speak in an Australian accent during the lesson, until they noticed and said something about it. I kept it up for an hour before Brother Calderon asked, "You are from Washington, right?" 😂😂😂 Good times. And when we got back to our apartment, we realized that Elder Parkinson forgot the keys in our room, so we couldn't get in. So, I had to boost him up to our balcony, so that he could let me in.

Friday was great! We had Zone Conference that day, and let me tell you, President is not playing games anymore. He came in dressed in all white, and began immediately talking about baptism. Oh yeah, things are getting real up here. We also had a huge focus on getting people to come to church, since that is one of the big things that people who we teach have to get to. I liked it a lot.

After that, we went out with the Filio's or dinner, and to celebrate my one year mark and for getting 16 people to church, we went and got sushi. I had my doubts about that stuff, because I can't recall ever having it, but man, that was some really good stuff. My favorite was the Hand Grenade, which is sushi with some orange cream stuff on top, and it is on an orange slice. Man, that thing was so good! After that, Brother Filio went with us to see Jose again, the guy we met 3 days earlier. He is a funny guy. We had a good talk with him though about families and everyone working together to support each other. He really liked it. We got another appointment with him, and he is now a new investigator! That night though, we got a text from Richard, and he basically told us that he wasn't having it. It is sad when people drop us, especially after a really spiritual experience, but it happens, and everyone has their agency. He just needs some space.

Oh my goodness, what weirdness Saturday morning was. So, I walk out of the bathroom after my shower, all ready to do some studies, and I see Elder Parkinson is all geared up for a run. I point at him questioningly, and he says," You ready to run a 5k?". So, I turned around, got ready, and we went. It wasn't a big event, which was probably due to the fact that it wasn't advertised very well. The majority of the runners were missionaries, and there were 6 of us doing that. I had a ton of fun though! I also think that I did it pretty well for not having trained at all for it. I ran a 22:35.57, which isn't fantastic, but I'll take it. I did finish first out of everyone. Didn't get anything, but man, that felt good. We then went to get breakfast at Denny's with Elders Lake and Scoresby. That was fun. Then it was some studies and out to work. We did a lot of walking that day, and man, our legs were not having it (they still aren't). Our main thing was we went out and got a shirt for Mario to wear to church(he couldn't make it still, but it's the thought that counts right?), and then we walked to our dinner. We took a trip with Brother Filio to Barbara's place, and talked about callings with her since she was about to get one. She is the Missionary Meal Calendar Coordinator. She is very excited to do her calling.

And then comes Sunday. It was a pretty easy day. Church was great, we had lunch it the Majia's, and another fantastic MCM with Brother Filio. Good things are gonna get going here in Bloomingdale!

Well, that is about all for me. I just want to say, I know that through God, I can do all things. I can do anything that He needs some time do, because He will give me the strength to do them. I mean, I managed to somehow stay out here for one year now, and I know that He will sustain me for this next year of my mission. Well, I hope y'all are having a great day wherever you are at!

Elder Jensen

Eating sushi for my one year on a mission mark!