General Conference

April 9, 2013

How are you doing? I'm doing well. General Conference was awesome! Elder Jorgensen and I took the front runner train down to Salt Lake to watch the Saturday morning and afternoon session. We brought one of our friends with us. His name is Trenton. He is a 25 year old inactive gentleman. He is making progress though. :) He is reading the Book of Mormon pretty consistently. We will have another lesson with him on Sunday, We'll see how that goes. We had a few other lessons this week and a couple of baptism interviews done in preparation for the 2 baptisms this week. Yesterday we had a traveling trainer come with us. They are basically like traveling APs. We are staying pretty busy, especially out in Bear river and Honeyville. Do you know if I have a missionary plaque? Did Ian have a plaque?? Well got to go. Hope all is well. Take care.

-Elder J

John's In Bear River

March 31, 2013

How is everyone doing? Good to hear that Easter went well. I got your Easter package yesterday. That was nice. Thank you. So how are things back home? What is Ian up to? Do you guys still watch that show "The Voice". It's kind of like American Idol. Well one of the singers on the show lives in Rexburg but, he is from Bear River (where I am serving now) and he sang at one of our Easter Sacrament meetings. It was pretty cool. Their names are Fred and Danny Hayes. So this week has been pretty good and busy. We taught a lot of lessons and will have 2 baptisms next week, for these girls named Sassy R. and Gracy V. We drove up to the Huntsville Valley to help some other Elders make some visits since they were out of a car and are in a pretty big area. Huntsville is super nice. That is close to where all the cool ski resorts are in Utah, So there are a ton of mansion vacation homes there. There are also a lot of Catholics there. What religion are Nanny and Grandad? Catholic right? What type are they?? We were going to take this Catholic guy to General Conference with us, but his wife just divorced him so he moved away somewhere. Now we are taking this guy named Trenton and his dad who is a very Less active member. Also we went and checked out the Brigham Cemetery and we found the grave stone of the prophet, Lorenzo Snow. That was pretty cool. For P-day today we are going to go golfing with one of our ward mission leaders( if it doesn't rain). This will be my first time golfing! Also this week I'm going to try grilling again. I think I might BBQ some Colby ribs. Do you still have the recipe for that? Could you email that to me? That is pretty cool that Ian is looking into a BYU school. I had a Bro Lemon as my science teacher at Rexburg and I just had dinner with his dad yesterday. It's a pretty small Mormon world out here haha. Glad to hear you guys are doing good. Have a good week. I love you.

Love, Elder Jensen

Happy Easter

March 24, 2013

 The mission is going well and the week was good. The weather has been pretty crazy.  It was pretty hot one day and then it snowed for 3 days so we had a few inches of snow, but then it warmed up again and it all melted. Yesterday and today it got back down into the 40s. We got the car back yesterday, so we have been staying busy and are getting a lot of work done. We picked up a new investigator from a part member family and taught her on Monday. Her name is Sassy. She is 9 years old and wants to be baptized. She is really elect, but doesn't really believe in the being resurrected part. We taught her the Plan of Salvation and the gospel of Jesus Christ and focused on faith. This week we went to go teach the foster kid, but we found out that he ran away to join the family gang down in Ogden. The police are out looking for him, they also think it might have been a kidnapping. Sunday we had a mission wide fast to help get miracles coming so we can baptize people and reach the mission goal for the quarter. I also had to give another talk on Sunday. The topic was on the Savior. I thought that it went pretty good. Today for P-day we went to the Brigham Temple and did a session. That was really cool. We might go hang out with a priest who is preparing to go on a mission. He said he would take us bow shooting today. We didn't get a chance to see the peacocks yet so we plan on doing that if we have time. That should be fun. After that we have a few lessons. One with a new Gator we picked up and another with a less active mom, who wants to get her 8 year old son baptized. How is work going? Ian is applying to BYU-I? That's a good choice. I don't know if I would like Provo unless I was doing a sport there..What is Ian going to do during the summer? Also, do you know the Prince of Egypt movie soundtrack?? I've been trying to get it to listen to on the mission, but I can't find it anywhere. Also when is Rhea's Birthday? Well I got to go. Happy Easter!! :) Take care. I love you.

Love, Elder J

Happy St. Patrick's Day

March 19, 2013

Hey family,

How is everyone? I'm doing great. Happy St. Patrick's day! On Sunday we had corned beef and cabbage as well. It was really good. I had to give a talk on St. Patrick's day, and that went pretty good. The wards here are only half full so the lesser amount of people made me less nervous. How is Ian doing? Does he still have the "RM goggles" on? Seems like he is getting used to normal life quickly. What does he do all day? I can already tell that it will be weird to come back and not have a companion with you all the time. So this week has been fun. We had a couple lessons almost everyday. We are staying busy. The 14th was Pi day so we made some treats and took them to some of our gators and ward members that have really help us out in this area. The weather here has been really nice and warm. It cooled up a little bit yesterday and actually snowed! That happened as we were tracting, so that kinda took us by surprise. It is also super dry here. So I have had some pretty gnarly nose bleeds the past 4 days. What is the weather like in Fairbanks? Last Tuesday I made a new scripture case from scratch out of leather. It looks really cool. I will have to take a picture and show it to you guys. This P-day we are going down to Ogden to shop and to go bowling. I'm not a big fan of bowling, but Fat-Cats gives missionaries free bowling on Tuesday, so we are going and seeing how it is. Then we will probably go play a zone vs. zone basketball game down in Far West. We have an elder who is 6'8" and he can dunk like no other, so I think we will win. We also have a member with a white peacock farm, So we might check those out today out in Honeyville. Last Tuesday we started teaching this man the missionary lessons. His name is Fred. He is hilarious. He is kind of stuck in the era of hippies. He is old and has COPD from all the smoking and drugs he did. We asked him how many years the doctors gave him till he dies and he said, "I got as many as I want man" in a really Tommy Chong under the influence type voice. I don't know if he is in denial or if he is just crazy. But his wife says the doctors gave him 5 years and it's already been 3 and a half since then. He says that everything we teach him is true. He already has read the whole Bible and Book of Mormon and believes it all to be true, and that baptism is essential to make it back to live with Heavenly Father, but he still doesn't think it is right for him. He told us that he doesn't have a reason why, but he just isn't ready yet. So we will see how that goes. Hopefully he opens up more so we can understand what his real reason for not wanting to be baptized is. The kid that went to jail is doing a lot better. We talked about the Word of Wisdom with him and he really took it well. We also have a lesson with him tonight. Most likely we will teach him about the baptismal interview questions and why you need to be following certain rules and commandments before you are baptized. Well I have to go. Hope everyone is doing well. I love you.

Love, Elder John

I need a haircut...and more music!

March 10, 2013

I'm doing well. How are you? Mission life has been a blast. I really see why/how this mission is so special. Anyways today is P-day and we are going over to a bishops workshop and we are going to make leather scripture cases. That should be fun. Also I'm getting a haircut cause my hair is way too long. We had a General authority come to our mission last Thursday. And I had to gel my hair down a ton to make it look short ha. It was Elder Clayton from the Presidency of the 1st quorum of the 70, He gave a really nice talk about the Atonement and about being a better missionary. Missionary work has been interesting this last week. 7 lessons canceled on us! So we taught like 2 lessons the whole week, that was a little frustrated because all we did this whole week was go tracting and nobody was interested at all. Tracting is like the least affective way to do missionary work. The one investigators who got put in jail for selling/doing drugs who is only 15 is out now. We will teach him tonight and see how he is doing. We got conference tickets for the Saturday afternoon session so we will be taking one of our investigators down to Salt Lake for that. I'm sitting on the balcony section so maybe you guys will see me..If you watch conference he he I know Nick and Brianna will probably be sleeping :) That's exciting that Ian will be home soon. Make sure to take pictures and send them to me. He should be with you guys when I Skype on Mother's day right?? Also could you guys send me some CD's with conference talks and good church music (not MOTAB) General conference talks are free online, It think you just have to do some formatting to get them on a CD. So I have been trying to learn to play the Ukulele on my Pday, It's really hard though. Maybe Nicole can send me some pointers and some notes to help me learn since she played guitar. Also I tried sending you guys a package but it got returned to me in the mail and said the address is wrong..what is Nicole's mailing address??? Well I hope you all are having a great day. Make sure you keep me updated on everything. I love you.

- Love, Elder John

Transfers

March 5, 2013

Hey Guys,

I'm doing well. Today was transfer day, but I ended up not getting transferred. I'm pretty happy about that. My comp and I are both staying in the Brigham North area. It's a pretty cool place. We live on 400 N main in Brigham if you want to Google map search the trailer park ha it's pretty ghetto. I think this is Ian's last day in the mission. That's pretty cool. When will he be back home? We had a baptism last Saturday of a boy named Travis. He was pretty golden so it only took 3 weeks from the time we taught him till his baptism, so that was really cool. We have a few more investigators that are pretty prepared for baptism. We should have 3 by next transfer. It would have been 4 but this foster kid we were teaching got arrested for having marijuana in school. :( it was weird because he is only like 14. All in all it has been a good week. Hope everyone is doing okay. I love you

Love, Elder J. Jensen

Let it Snow!

February 26, 2013

How are you guys doing? How is the weather? Is it warming up yet? We just got 2 pretty big snow storms this week. It put down another 10 inches of snow. Tell Alex Happy (28th?) Birthday for me. I got the Valentines package the other day. That was nice. Thank everyone for all the goodies. Especially for the Star Wars stuff ha, and the heart box with a mustache on it. Thank you for the money. That really helps. So things have been going pretty good this week. We are planning on 2 baptisms this Saturday. One seems pretty shaky though. I think it will get postponed. We still haven't gotten the car back yet so we are still walking a lot. That's really cool that Karlie and Mallory got their calls. I already heard that she got called to Korea, but I didn't know that Karlie was going to Japan. That is pretty exciting. If she leaves in April then it looks like we will get off our missions at the same time. Well, hope all of you have a good week. I attached some pictures to this email so you all could check them out. 

Take care/ I love you.
Love Elder John Daniel Jensen

The Days Go Slow, but the Weeks Fly By

February 19, 2013

Good to hear that Rhea's surgery went ok. How are things going in Fairbanks? I'm doing pretty good. Have you gotten any mail from BYU-I about anything? or any particular tax forms?? Could you send those to me please?? So far the trailer seems to be doing a lot better. The trailer we have now is actually fine, it just doesn't handle the winters too well. The owner is actually the Relief Society president. She said she gave us the best trailer that was vacant, all the other ones are even worse haha. It will be a lot nicer when we get our car back because we can get more work done and have more time to find and look for a new place. So far this week has been pretty good. It went by really slow because everyone has been getting sick with the flu so half of our lessons got cancelled and we had nothing to do but tract. The family with the non member/ catholic dad and daughter are still doing really well, and still have plans to get baptized in March so that's good. They seem to be really solid gators who have been prepared by the Lord. Right now they are the main focus because all of our other gators are struggling with really keeping commitments and don't really seem like they want the gospel, they just like the company of the missionaries. all in all its has been a good transfer so far. It's crazy that it's already half over. The days seem like they go by slow but the weeks just fly by, it's really weird. We also started teaching this boy named Travis he is really cool, I think he is 8. He plans on getting baptized in March as well, so that's exciting.. Well I hope you all are having a good week. Take care. I love you guys

Love, 

Elder John Jensen

John got a BBQ (It's his favorite way to cook)

February 12, 2013

How are you? I have been doing pretty good. We definitely are staying busy with all the teaching that has been going on. We have had to go on a lot of splits with priests recently because we have a lot of appointments double booked so we have to divide and conquer. Our trailer is doing a lot better. The roof is still leaking but everything else is working good. The trailer we live in is over 50 years old apparently. The stake presidency is looking around for a better place for us to live for location and living standards and also one that is free since the mission pays about 600 per month for the trailer. Today was pretty good. Went to a sock store and got some new socks, it was good because I needed some nice socks for all the walking outside. I also got a mini BBQ so we can start grilling instead of using the oven. Maybe you know some good recipes for cooking hamburgers and hot dogs? Maybe even steaks? Yesterday for dinner we had lamb steaks at this member's house for dinner and than he took us out to his barn and showed us all the brand new baby lambs. It was really cool, and we got to hold the new born lambs. That was out in Honeyville, the farm town. We recently picked up a new investigator out in Honeyville who is Catholic and wants to be baptized, so that's really cool and super rare. Out here most Catholics turn us down. This guy seems really solid and cool though. Both him and his daughter plan on getting baptized in March. In the same town there is this little store that an older lady owns and she is one of the few nonmembers in the area so we always visit the store and buy HI-chews( missionaries love HI-chews) just so we can talk to her and be like "Are you sure you don't want to meet with the missionaries?". So far she hasn't budged, but we got her little son really interested. We hope that turns into something good. We should be out visiting a lot more when we get the car back. The office says it should be about another 3-4 weeks. We had to ask a lot of people( to drive us around for p-day) before we found someone who wasn't busy already. P-days have been a lot more chill lately. We went to the Temple this morning and did initiatories, which was pretty cool. The Brigham City temple is really nice. Since it is so close we will probably go every week. Has there been any ward temple trips recently?? Now that Brianna is 12 she can go down to Anchorage and do baptisms for the dead! Well I got to go. Have a good week. I love you all.

A few weeks later...

January 31, 2013

Hey guys,

How are things going? Sorry I didn't E-mail the last 2 weeks. Didn't have much time. We recently moved into a trailer park so that took up a whole Tuesday, barely had enough time to read the emails before I had to leave for a lesson. and then last week for some reason the computers were not working. These last 2 weeks have been pretty good. We had zone conference last Thursday, that was really good. My mission president used to be a motivational speaker so he gives really good talks. This weekend was really fun. I had a baptism in my old area so I got to go back to Benson and see my buddy Harold get baptized and we also had one of our investigators here in Brigham City get baptized as well. This 9 year old boy named A.J. was the second and we also got to see him get confirmed on Sunday.

So the other week we moved into this trailer park...

The trailer is pretty cool, It's actually a lot nicer and gives us more space than our last apartment. So that's good. The pipes freeze up really easily though. We had a little colder weather than usual (-5) so everything got frozen, so now we are told to keep everything dripping until march so they don't freeze again. Yesterday it got down to -7 and my comp pulled the car over and pulled out his camera to take a pic of the thermometer ha. He is from Cali so It must have been a big deal for him to be in negative temps. I thought it was pretty funny. Things here in Brigham are getting a lot better. The work was super slow over the holidays, but now it is picking back up. I met a member who used to cut hair for a living, so me and my comp got haircuts from him the other day. It's nice to serve in Utah because almost everyone is willing to help out the missionaries in whatever way they can. Do you guys see any of the missionaries back home? Have you invited them over for dinner yet? Did you guys get to watch the CES Devotional on the BYU channel. Pres Uchtdorf talked. I heard it was really good. Today for P-day we just kind of chilled for a while and then went down to Ogden to go bowling. I was able to finish reading the book Jesus the Christ. That book is really good. Been doing a lot of reading lately. I think I'm going to start the book The Miracle of Forgiveness, but just listen to it on CD so it's easier and I won't be tired of reading when it's study time for the scriptures. So how are things back home? How is the weather? Done anything fun recently? How are the sports going? I hear there isn't a lockout anymore for the NHL and that the 49ers and Ravens are going to the super bowl. Well hope you all have a good week. Love ya

Love Elder Jensen

(a second email...)

Things getting fun up there in Fairbanks? I'm doing pretty good. The trailer is pretty cool. It gives us lots of chances to meet new people who aren't members. Most non members live in the poor parts of town so it's good to have all the work close to home ha plus it's good because living in a trailer humbles people which makes it easier for us to get our foot in the door and share the gospel with them. We already got 3 new gators in one day so that's a plus! Transfers were just last Tuesday so I got my new comp on Wednesday. His name is Elder Jorgensen. He is pretty fun. He is from Vegas. Seems like the church is getting a lot bigger over in sin city. So I have been taking lots of pictures but I forgot the chord that connects to the computer so I can't download and send them to you guys in emails. :( if you could, can you look for it and then mail it to me please. How is Alex's family doing? I drive past Washington Terrace quite a bit whenever we have to go to the mission office. So Mitch already left? To the MTC or the mission field? Well hope everything is going well. hope you guys have an awesome week! Love ya

Love Elder John!

Happy New Year!

January 1, 2013

Happy New year!  How was your New Years? Mine was good. For New Years Eve we went to a members house and had a little party/BBQ, (steak kabobs and grilled shrimp) it was pretty good. We could only stay there till 9 though (because of mission rules) so we where in bed when it was officially New Years. I met a guy at the party who is stationed on Ft. Wainwright, so he must be in the same ward as you guys. He was just down in Utah visiting family. Things are going good in my new area. I haven't been asked to talk yet so that is good. We found a few new people to teach. This 9 year old girl Acacia and this other lady who I forget her name. We were going to have a baptism for this girl Amy this week but when we went to go over to visit with her yesterday we found out that she is in prison now for doing drugs. (That is pretty common here I guess, we are in the ghetto part of Brigham City) So that's a bummer. That will delay her baptism for quite a bit. We should be having a baptism next week though for this 9 year old boy, AJ. Hopefully since the holidays are over more people will be less busy and able to have the lessons. These last 2 weeks have been super slow because we pretty much had no teaching appointments because everyone was busy and canceled them. How have things been in Alaska? BTW I should be sending a package home, I found another one of nicks shirts I still have. I hope you guys have a good week! I love you.

Love, 

Elder John 

Ogden Mission Dec Newsletter

December 17th, 2012

This is the newsletter from our president and should have some pictues in it of the whole mission conference. I am the one wearing the dew rag towards the middle in the silly picture and I am on the edge of the "O" in the serious one. Hopefully you can see it well on your computer.

John's First Week at the Missionary Training Center (MTC)

October 24th, 2012

Well, it's going good. The MTC is pretty cool. I have two comps here. Elder Vickers and Elder Seamon. We got Tri-companionships going on. They are pretty cool. I'm the senior comp and they are the junior comps. The first few days of the MTC were kind of hard to get used to, but it's fun now. All the buildings look the same here! It's easy to get lost. ha. I found out that I will be here for a little over 3 weeks. I leave the 6th of November. Today is my first P-day and the end of the first week at the MTC. I got to go to the Provo Temple today, that was cool. We ate breakfast there ha I didn't know temples had cafeterias. The food at the temple is a lot better than the food at the MTC. How are things in Alaska? How is everyone doing? The gym time is fun here. I'm pretty much a boss at 4 square ha ha. Also it snowed today!! I should be taking lots of pictures so I'll send some later.

Love John (Elder Jensen)