March 18, 2013



Monday,  March  18, 2013  1:27 p.m. (EDT)

Letter for Everyone

This last couple of days have been by far my hardest. I know what type of missionary I want to be but no matter how much I try I cannot achieve it. I feel that I am gaining great trust from some ward members, but losing much trust with other ward members because of little things like forgetting to call them. Last week we got our truck stuck in a snow covered ditch. We were stuck for about 2 hours. We eventually got a member to pull us out. We called all the members in the area. One of which was Brother Cornelius. He started driving his car out. We got out before he got there but we didnt have cell service to call him back. We forgot about it until later that night. He was pretty upset we didnt call him back. 

Another story is Sister Baker. She is studying at Johnson College and she has a 10 year old son. The other night we stopped by around 8:00. Her son answered the door. He said his mom was busy at the moment and would be right out. He started talking to us about Star Wars and wanted us to fight him with his light sabers. We talked to him for about 10 or 15 minutes, when Sister Baker came to the door, told her son to go to bed and yelled at us for stopping by so late. She sent an email to the Relief Society president of the Ward, Sister Larsen. Sister Larsen told us and about the whole ward that Sister Baker was really upset at us. I felt terrible about that because we didn't realize it was so late and her son said she would be right out to talk to us. 

Elder Smith and I are doing great with teaching investigators, but it has been really hard and stressful for me. The highlight from doing the 12 week missionary program has been watching The District. In The District they film missionaries while they are out serving. I really learn a lot from them because by watching other missionaries I gain confidence in myself that I can do that too.  (The District can be found at https://www.lds.org/callings/missionary/the-district)

A miracle we experienced this week was when we taught Tucker. We got Brother Worthington to come with us because he connects with Tucker. We were able to get through the whole Plan of Salvation with him, which had been nearly impossible previously because he had so many intellectual questions. Brother Worthington has a real forceful personality which was surprisingly perfect for Tucker because whenever Tucker had a weird question, Brother Worthington would say "We'll get to that later... this is what is important."

It is really good to hear about everyone. This last week has been tough, I think I'm getting homesick. It sure is pretty out here but it is no where near as good as Montrose. Hearing about Casey makes me wish I was in his shoes again. It was so good to spend time with him right before I left.

St Patrick's was interesting. We were walking the streets of Johnson. Johnson's a college town so there were a lot of drunk people on the street. We knocked on a potential investigators door and it was right in the middle of a party.  It was interesting.

It is hard to get member meals.  We are so limited on miles (about 1300 a month) and we cant visit very many members. We have dinner about once a week at the Weeds house because we are teaching their son in law.  Its funny his last name is Beaver, so we teach a family of Beavers in a house full of weeds.

Also we found out how to talk about the gospel out here. We talk about Snowmobiles and Salvation, (Dairy) Cows and Christ, Birds and Baptism, and Mapleing and Missionary Work.

Our members give us a lot of food to take home though, so we are blessed in that aspect. I am the DD until Elder Smith leaves at least. It depends on who gets trasfered in, but as long as it is Elder Smith and me, I will be the DD. We leave the apartment at around 11 or 12 depends on when we have lunch, and we get back at 9. 

I hope next week goes better.

Elder C. Jensen