October 14, 2013



Dear Family and Friends,             Monday,  October 14, 2013 at 1:09 p.m. (EDT)

Are the leaves about finished where you are? 
There are still some leaves on the tree, but the peak was last Sunday. They looked really good. Everyone said it was a weird year for the leaves. They said usually they all change at the same time. This year they all changed at different times. Some trees had no leaves left while some were still green. Most of the trees are on the downhill side of changing colors. 

So I read that the town of Pittsburg a few miles north of Colebrook is absolutely beautiful and that the drive north from Berlin on Highway 16 and then Highway 26 to Colebrook and then Highway 3 going north up through Pittsburg and up to Quebec is just a beautiful drive.  Will you ever get the chance to go up to Pittsburg?  I will probably never get up to Pittsburgh. The Colebrook Elders have only been there twice. Although it is technically a town. There is a very small population up there. In New England everything is incorporated in the Towns. It is basically like out west with Counties and Citys. Just like in Montrose if live in Montrose City you also live in Montrose County. But if you live outside of the city you are still in the County. that is how the Townships work. If you live in Berlin City you are also part of Berlin Town. But if you live outside of Berlin city you live in the Berlin Township. For example there is a township directly east of Berlin. I dont remember its name. But nobody lives there. Its National Forest. But it is still classified as a town. Kind of confusing, but does that make sense? So Pittsburg is about the same. There is very little there so the Elders never go there so unfortunately I will probably never go there.
 _______________________________
I                        I                              I
I                        I    Berlin Township    I
I                        I        _________       I
I  Some town      I       I                I      I
I                        I       I Berlin city I      I
I                        I       I__________I      I
I______________I_________________ I

Are you beginning to enjoy Berlin as much as Johnson, VT?
Berlin is starting to grow on me more and more. Lately we have seen an improvement in the work here in Randolph.  Just as it says in Alma 32:2 "After much labor among them, they began to have success." We are starting to see the success from our hard labor. We have a lot of up and coming potential investigators, and people are just coming out of the woodwork.

Monday:  We went to Lancaster to the Fousts like I said we would. We played a game called Dungeons and Dragons and it was the most ridiculous game I have ever played. I will never play it again. It is basically a role playing game where you pretend that you are some sort of medieval fantasy person and you pretend that you go around killing dragons and stuff. But all you do is talk about it. It took forever to play and we accomplished nothing by playing it. After that I went on exchange to Colebrook with Elder Erekson. It was pretty fun. I am going to go on exchange this week as well. So I will be gone for my birthday. Because of that I went ahead and opened some of my presents early. So thanks mom and dad for the ties and shirts and for the book. All of that stuff is pretty sweet. Thank you.

Tuesday:  Me and Elder Erekson worked in Colebrook. We stopped by a lot of people and taught a lot of lessons. It was a very good day.

Wednesday:  was district meeting. After District Meeting we went to Berlin and stopped by some less active members and some potential investigators. We stopped by one less active member and the lady downstairs told us that he wasnt home. We ended up talking to her for a while and found out that she used to be meeting with the missionaries. She said that she wouldnt mind being taught again so we are meeting with her sometime later on this week. Her name is Cassandra. After that we went to the church to share our new missionary idea with our Branch President. We are creating Member Missionary Gameplans for the Members in the Branch. We shared our idea and the Branch President really liked it. After that we went to a Bible Study at the Lutheran Church in Berlin. That was fun. Then we went to teach a potential investigator, Celena with Brother Botha. Celena wasnt there so we stopped by Danny, the Less Active that lives above Cassandra. We had a really good lesson there. It was a really good day.

Thursday:  We refined our Member Missionary Gameplans and visited a few people. We stopped by Celena. She was home and was really sorry that she missed us so we rescheduled to come by another day.

Friday:  We were going to have Weekly Planning, but a less active lady in the ward called us and asked if we could move some wood. So we went over there. Her husband is a nonmember and was injured in 2009 while he was in the Coast Guard. He messed up his whole back. He fell headfirst down a stairway during some sort of combat that they were engaging in, so he cant do any work. So we helped them move the wood into the shed. After that we did some service at the East Side Mall, a thrift store that is run by the Catholic Church. We vaccuum the carpets there. After that we taught Jules, a less active member and then had coordination meeting with our Branch Mission Leader, Brother Jaquier.

Saturday:  We did our weekly planning and then went to Lancaster. We taught the Member Missionary Gameplan to a less active member in the nursing home, and then stopped by a lot of the active members in Lancaster. Overall a pretty good day.

Sunday:  was a really good day. We stayed in Berlin but we were able to see a lot of people. We taught Dana an investigator at the church. He is preparing himself for baptism, but cant be baptized until 2016 because he is on parole. We also stopped by the Lefebvres, (pronounced La-Fives) an investigator family. They are pretty great. They arent super interested yet but they are thinking about Church Hopping. We are going to be teaching the Restoration to them on Wednesday. After that we had dinner and went to bed. Definetely a good week.

Elder CWJensen