Dear Family and Friends Monday, March 25, 2013 3:07 (EDT)
Well we got an announcement
today that we as missionaries will now be allowed to write emails to both our
family, and our friends. So if anyone wants to send me an email, that would be
fine. I would still prefer written letters, because I can look at them on days
other than Mondays, but if someone doesn't like writing letters, just send me
an email. I enjoy getting letters from everybody.
It snows a lot. We got grounded
on Tuesday. It snowed about a foot and a half. We had to walk all day. The
hill from our apartment to Johnson is long and steep so it was no fun walking
home that night. There is about a foot on the ground right now. There is
about the same in each town. There is always snow on the ground. Two weeks
ago it nearly all melted off but then it snowed again.
The last week has been really
great. I really forgot about myself and I went to work. My companion, Elder
Smith is not getting transferred. He received
the calling to be a District Leader, which means that he leads
our district which is us and the missionaries that serve in St
Albans, Vermont. He will be in charge of District meeting once a week and
he calls St Albans and reports to the Zone Leaders what is going on
in our district.
A weekly goal that I have made
is to forget about stressing out to be perfect while teaching, and just
remember that as long as I try my hardest that the spirit will guide me. A
blessing that I have experienced about being obedient is that if I look at the
Missionary Handbook as a book of rules I wont receive many blessings, but if I
look at it as a guideline to success, I have many more blessings.
Kim did not get confirmed yet.
Her back is killing her. She has some extreme health issues. She injured her
back working at Price Chopper (our equivalent of City Market). We have six weeks to confirm her or else
we will have to rebaptize her.
Jake is a nonmember. His
family is all baptized but his mom got divorced and went less active when he
was little. But he really wants to get baptized. He is 12
and hopefully he will bring the rest of his family to church. Last week his
mom and her boyfriend drove him to church, but yesterday the Weeds
took him.
Tucker realized that if the
Book of Mormon is true he has to commit to the church 100%. We really invited
him to read it and pray about it because we know it will really help
him out.
We found out that Jessie, and
Jamie and her daughters did not understand the true nature of God. We
asked them, "Who is God?" and they said, "God is
everything but God is not a person. We taught them that God is our Father in
Heaven and that he loves us. We taught them that Jesus Christ is God's son and
that through Christ's sacrifice we are able to return to live with our
Father. We taught that the Holy Ghost is a spirit and that the Holy Ghost gives
us good feelings and promptings to do good. This made sense to them
and prayer made more sense to them since they are praying to a real person.
Carlee has been struggling with
reading the Book of Mormon. We told her that the Book of Mormon is a scriptural
account, just like the Bible, but it is a record of prophets on
the American Continent. The Book of Mormon adds to the truths found in the
Bible. If the Book of Mormon is true then The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has authority
from God on the earth again. We asked her to read and pray about the Book
of Mormon.
A miracle that we saw this week
involved a man we are teaching, Jay. Last Monday when we got done with
emails we drove to Morrisville and put the truck in the shop. It was making a
funny noise. (Even though I'm a mechanic the mission wants us to take our
vehicles right into the shop) We dropped off the truck and walked to the store.
We realized we couldn't buy groceries without having the truck to haul it
in so we walked around Morrisville. We were bored so although it was our
day off we went to some of the people that we teach in Morrisville. We
thought about visiting Jay and Aliza but we decided to visit them after we
talked to some other people. Well we talked to about 3 families before we
felt that we should visit Jay and Aliza. We showed up just as Aliza's parents
were picking her up. Jay had been drunk 3 days in a row so Aliza
said she was moving out until he sobered up. We consoled Aliza and her
mother and then we talked to Jay. Of course he was drunk so he didn't realize
the weight of the situation but we told him about the Addiction Recovery
Program that the church has and we taught him a lesson about how if he had
faith in Jesus Christ that he could stop drinking. He didn't think
that the alcohol was the problem. We taught him a little more and then we
left. We definitely were guided by the spirit to show up at their
house at that time. I don't know what we really accomplished but I do know
that we were meant to show up at that time.
It is so wonderful to be a
missionary that I have the opportunity to strengthen people's faith in Jesus
Christ and that we can bring them to know that Christ's true church is once
more on the earth, and that we have the authority from God to act in his name.
It is just so awesome that there are miracles that happen today and that I can
be a part of them.
Elder C. Jensen