Monday: Fastest. P-day. Ever. Oh my heavens. I felt like we maybe had an hour to do stuff cause it just flew by! We decided to do something fun though and we met up with all the Elders at the Saxtons MANSION
(no joke... giant house) and went sledding for an hour or two. Haha I have a couple battle wounds from that one, but it was fun. Two of the Elders in our ward have never seen snow and this was their first time sledding so that was fun to watch. That night, our dinner appt. cancelled on us so we went into Winterset for a little bit and saw Deloris. She is doing good! She is slowly beginning to understand more and is still reading the Book of Mormon. We are hopeful she will understand the importance of baptism and have a desire to be baptized.
Tuesday: What a day! We got more done today than we have the last week! Since we don't have training any more, we get out of the house at 10. We figured since we didn't have bingo till 2 and we have so many extra miles, we drove to Earlham to find some people. MIRACLES! We were able to see some less actives who Sister Barker has never even met and she has been here 7.5 months! We were able to have lessons with them all and introduce ourselves. One of the ladies even gave us fudge and clementines when we left. Haha she loved us. :) We hadn't had lunch yet so we decided to go to the one restaurant in Earlham. It is called Chestnut Cafe and it is the cutest little thing I have ever seen. After that we headed back to Winterset for bingo. We ended up not even having it though cause someone had come in and sang so we just helped them decorate instead. Their Christmas tree looks bomb. We left there and decided to do some tracting. That is when we met the See family. They are devout Jehovah's Witnesses and just a darling family. They have two little girls who are 7 and 3. They invited us in and we ended up talking for about an hour! They asked us a billion questions and we were able to answer most of them which is awesome. They even offered us dinner. Haha they love us! We have another appt. with them tomorrow so we will see how it goes. We only left because we had an appt. with Karissa so we headed there after. She is doing good! She was not ready to be baptized this weekend, but we are hoping by the end of the year.
Wednesday: Kind of a slowish day. We helped the assisted living home decorate some more which was fun and then we did mormon.org time which I always love. After that we were able to see one of investigators who we haven't seen in a while. They were tending their grandson so we couldn't have a very good lesson with them so we just read a scripture and headed out. That night we had dinner with the Turners who are a darling family! They have two boys who are their own and then they have 4 kids that they adopted from China. They are just the funniest kids! Their littlest one, Talia, made the best comment ever. We were talking about Christmas and Sister Turner said, "Maybe the Sisters will get packages from their moms for Christmas." Then Talia said with the most confused look I have ever seen... "You have moms?" Haha it was the greatest moment ever. She was even more surprised to find out we had dads and siblings and nephews and nieces. She was baffled. 3 year olds are the cutest. That night we decided to go to mutual cause we had never been and we didn't have any appts. It was awesome! We played some basketball (Yes. In skirts. Rocked it.), baked cookies, sewed pillow cases, and ate chocolate. What could be better! It was a fun night!
Thursday: ZONE CONFERENCE! Best thing if my life!! Our mission is so big that when they do these conferences, they split the mission into three different conferences so we were there with only about a third
of the mission. There were still about 120 missionaries there though! Our mission is giant. Cause it's cool. Anyways, It was a wonderful day! The first half (9am-12pm) was spiritual. Amazing training form President and Sister Jensen, the AP's, and some of the senior couples. It was awesome because the AP's asked Sister Barker and I if we would sing so we were able to sing "I believe in Christ" again and it was fun. We did it a capella so it was a little more challenging but it was amazing. Then we all had lunch and then it was time for the fun stuff! President asked all the districts to put together a skit... and let me tell you. The missionaries in the IDMM are hilarious! We were laughing uncontrollable with each skit! HILARIOUS! I wish now that I would have recorded them, but maybe next time. :) Then President had a special treat for us... we all watched Ephraims Rescue together! Sister Barker and I have seen it quite a couple times. but it was still fun to watch it with all the other missionaries. It was just a fun day! After, we did some knocking in Van Meter and then went home early to do some studies. It really was just an amazing day! I wish you all could have been there.
Friday: Weekly planning. Woop woop. Of course, that took up our day but we did get out for a bit and let me tell you it felt like summer. It was 30 degrees outside and we were stoked! We didn't even wear our coats! It was sweet. ") That night, we had dinner with the Elders at our ward mission leaders house! It was fun as always and she made bomb spaghetti. Sister Jackson is just awesome! During the lesson she made a comment that has really stuck with me. One of the general authorities said that people need about 7 times of contact with a member of this church until they will look into it. We were talking about that and Sister Jackson said, " I just want to be one of the 7." How amazing is that! Sometimes we don't know if we are #1 or #7, but we will be one of those numbers contributing to their journey to their Savior. What a great example she is! That night, we headed over to the McCalls to say hi and ended up staying for quite a bit. We had the most powerful lesson that we have ever had with them. Sister McCall and their two girls were all baptized in July and they are just killin it! The testimonies they and Brother McCall bore in our lesson is something I will never forget.
Saturday: Today was my officially 4 month click day!! Can you believe I have been "Sister Jensen" for 4 months now??? I am baffled!!! Where have they gone?!?! Time is flyin people. We spent most of the day
knocking in Winterset, but the night was the best part. It was the Raccoon River wards Christmas party!! AHHHH! So fun. I don't know why but on 3 of the 4 click days I have had, the ward has had a party of
some sort. Haha I like this trend. :) Anyways, the party was a blast! Great food, great company, great program. Just a very fun night! Sister Barker and I also wore ugly Christmas sweaters so that was pretty sweet. We stayed the whole night there, so after we just headed home and passed out.
Sunday: Sundays are seriously always great! Church was wonderful. Relief Society was probably my favorite part. It was hand down the most spiritual relief society lesson I have ever heard. There was not one dry eye in the room when it ended. Sister Barber did a wonderful job! She is an amazing lady. I am going to miss her when I leave Raccoon River so much! She is like my Raccoon River grandma. Ya can't beat that. After church, we went over to the Jackson to talk to Sister Jackson about Jehovah's Witnesses. She used to be one before she became a member so we were asking her all these questions for our lesson with the Sees tomorrow. We are pumped! Then we headed home and had lunch and did studies. Then, dinner with the Thomas family. Yea... that pic of the house you see. Theirs. I was dying!!! We have only ever been there when it was dark so this was the first time I had really seen their house. Isn't it amazing! The inside is just as gorgeous! We were a little surprised though to walk up to the door and see a deer leg sitting there. Haha dogs will be dogs... Anyways we had a wonderful dinner with them and then we headed to the stake center for the Christmas program. Basically the stake choir just sang a bunch of songs and it was wonderful! Most of the missionaries in this side of the mission where there including President and Sister Jensen so it was very fun to see all of them! It was inspired for us to go though... we were about to leave and our zone leaders call us over and say, " Hey. This couple behind us.. introduce yourselves. You will be teaching them." Then they walked away and we met the Wolfs. What a darling couple! A member of another ward had brought them and they had an amazing time. The crazy thing is that they actually live about 40 minutes away but in their area there are only Elders and they requested Sisters so the Zone Leaders approved us to teach them. Of course we said yes and then after they left we started thinking... there are many sets of Sisters who are way closer to where they live. Why does Heavenly Father want US to teach them? We are so excited to find out! So that was our cool story for the night. :) Seriously.. this week was amazing!! It was full of miracles and blessing and I couldn't ask for anything more. I am absolutely loving being a missionary. I cannot believe I only have 14 months left, but I am going to do my best to find those people I promised I would find. This is my time to serve. I hope you all had a wonderful week! I miss you all dearly and pray for you everyday. I love you all! Have a marvelous week!! :)
-Sister Jensen
"Is this Heaven? No, it's Iowa."
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| The house we had dinner at last night. Are you kidding me right now? |
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| Deer leg anyone...? |
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| My girl Sister Muirbrook at Zone Conference! Crazy story... we met through facebook before we both left and found out that we were going to the same mission on the same day! She actually took my family and mission photos as well. She is freakin amazing! We are convinced we will be comps at least once. It will happen. |
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| Brittney and Gavin Tunney! Gavin is probably one of the cutest kids I have ever seen. He is a doll! And Brittney is a hoot. We just laugh... all the time. Haha she is 13 and quite sassy. That is why I like her. |
