Happy Easter!

Hey Momma!!

I'm so glad that you got that video from Hermana Diaz :) She's not in our ward but she's in the H4 ward in Sugarland, which is in our zone and the other building around here that has a baptismal font! She was like "what's your moms number I'm going to send her a video!" and no that was Elder Tautu, he's one of the assistants to the President and he and I were just talking, my companions are behind the camera somewhere!

So this week was great! We are teaching two really great investigators named Jennifer and Levy. Jennifer is a referral from a member in H4 and is SO prepared, in our first lessons SHE asked US when she can get baptized, so she has a baptism date for 3 weeks from now and is super nice and great :) then we have Levy, who is the boyfriend of a girl in the YAS group in our ward. He's a little tentative about being baptized but he wants to find out if the church is true or not which is great! We have a few more but we still need to take some time to see if they have potential.

My week was GREAT! We have found a lot of new people to teach and we're super excited because three of them are families which is our favorite! One of the great parts of this week was the fact that Emily got set apart as a misionera! The girl we went to the temple with? She got set-apart last night and it was SUCH a great experience. It reminded me so much of what President Palmer said when I get set apart. Emily will spend tonight with the sisters in the ward and Tuesday morning she's gone! It has been so cool to get to work with her and help her get out on her mission :) the other great part of this week happened last night. So our ward had an english baptism yesterday! Wierd right? I serve in a Spanish ward. So this girl named Roxanne is super good friends with a few girls in our ward and seeing as our Young Womens is in English, decided she loved coming!!! So she has been coming off and on for the last year. She's 17 years old and just about to graduate from High School. Anyway last night she was baptized! President Hall said it was alright because she has friends in our ward. Get this though, none of her family was ever very interested in the gospel, but they always supported her in her decision. As she bore her testimony at the end of the baptism is reminded me SO MUCH of you. I could just see that she has such a great future and it was sweet to see a story exactly like yours. Though her family aren't members I have NO doubt that she'll become a super strong member of the church. It was a tear jerking experience to go through this experience because it showed me that what we do here is important. Someone like Roxanne in 20 years might have a son leaving on a mission to go help more families! Anyway, great week it was refreshing and full of the spirit :)

I'm glad you guys had a great week! I love to hear about your adventures and see the pictures. I love you all so much! Thank you for your example mom, you really are the best in the entire world :) Love you lots!

Elder Jensen

A Week in the Life of a Spanish Speaking Missionary in the Houston Texas South Mission

Elder Jensen has been SUPER busy in this new area and has not had time to write a group email for two weeks now. He has been emailing me so I thought I would include his letter to me this week. I asked him how he was doing and to tell me all about his week. He wrote back with a day-by-day in the life of a Houston Texas South Spanish speaking missionary!: (and lots of pictures too!)

Hey Mommy!

Okay so sorry last week was so crazy, it was a nuts weeks because of all the temple stuff but it all worked out in the end :) First to start, I really am okay :) There's ups and downs but for these last four weeks I've been really good. It's a lot more fast paced but fortunately I love that! We're more than halfway through this transfer and it feels like we just started! So long story short: I'm doing really well :) It's been an uncomfortable experience but I've grown! As the saying goes, "there's no growth in comfort and no comfort in growth." I really am learning that SO much and I love it :) I love seeing the person I was 6 months ago (spiritually speaking) and I have changed for the better. It's great, it really is.  I can see why serving a mission is a priesthood duty for men- because it really prepares you to be a father and that's so very important. Anyway for this week I'll just go day by day :)

Monday: No P-day because we wanted to go to the temple with Emily so we went and did some quick monday chores: shopped, bought medicine for Elder Sharp and took Carlos to grab a suit then we saw the 2nd counselor's (a member of the ward) family and had catfish and shrimp with them (by the way I have become 100000X less picky, I'm not even picky anymore aren't you proud? :)...) then after we went to go try and find some new investigators, saw these kind of not going anywhere investigators that promised they would come to church (and didn't again...:(...) and that was pretty much it!

Tuesday: We went to go see this lady named Joyce who Elders Sharp and Escobar found and she's already in Mosiah 29!!! So we went over to clean her lawn and pass her off to the English Elders in the area. Then we realized Emily's endowment session was at 10AM and we would have no time to email so we ran to the library super fast and finished emailing! Then after we went to go see the Penillas (best family ever) and they bought us panda express (which I LOVE now for some reason) then we had to go to this JustServe stake committee meeting because we're a part of it! The Church wants us doing more service so we go to this stake committee meeting to coordinate and it was good! Not much happened, just talked about what JustServe is, offered our help, etc... it was good :)

Wednesday: WE WENT TO THE TEMPLE!!! WOOHOO! It was my second time going but first going to do endowments. We woke up on time, got ready and we're at the church where Emily and her escort (a lady in the ward) were going to be but LONG, LONG story short the lady ditched us and we were super bummed :( but as said in 2nd Nephi we are saved by grace after all we can do :) so we called! And called, and called and found a RM that was visiting and he took us! Saved the day! But then we missed the endowment session by 5 minutes BUT then the Temple Matron (I came here with them on the plane so the temple president and matron and I are tight it's pretty sweet it's got great benefits :)...) and so we explained the situation and she of course couldn't stop the session but could let us do an ordinance then go to the Celestial Room to wait to see Emily! So we did and then she let us into the Celestial Room! Coolest experience of my life. We studied by ourselves in silence for an hour. I learned so much and received a lot of revelation- absolutely the coolest experience of my life. Then we went and learned how to teach English and had a training for the class we're starting next week. Then we went to meet one of our investigators Levy and had a great lesson on the BoM.

Thursday: Elder Sharp got really sick and was throwing up so the English Elders came a picked me up and I went with them to District meeting, we had a great meeting about the BoM and how important it is. Then President came and interviewed one of our candidates for baptism named Hassan- he's the son of a family in our ward they've been working with for 6 months! Then we organized and studied at home as Elder Sharp slept. That was about it!

Friday: We taught an English class, we saw a few recent converts and saw a family that fed us dinner it was a pretty normal day of finding, teaching, etc.

Saturday : Same thing, that's our day to work because we have no planned meetings so we visit a lot of people, just saw some families, taught some new people we'll see how they go!

Sunday: We had ward counsel at 7AM and church at 9AM, then after church we went to go see Alex, the husband of the girl that was baptized my first week here (Lydia)! We're working with him before he goes back to Guatamala too! Then at 5 was Hassan's baptism, it was a great service :) then afterwards we went to a new member devotional where we talked a lot about the importance of the BoM. Then we had to get home super fast and call tons of people and submit the zone's numbers for the week. 

And that's the week in my life :) About as crazy as all weeks. It's super fun  and I love it a ton. I'm glad you guys had a great week! I love you all and miss you tons, how are YOU? :)

Love you lots mom!

Elder Jensen

*JustServe.org is a website still in development that coordinates service opportunities in local communities and connects them with people who want to volunteer. Some areas, like ours, have a well developed resource- I can type in my zip code and find loads of service opportunities for me and my family. Other zip codes are still being built. Elder Jensen is helping build the Houston area.

PICTURES!

Celebrating Elder Escobar's birthday:

Visiting with some of the Young Single Adults in their area:

His friend Noe from his last area came for a visit:

At the Houston temple:

With a young adult getting ready to leave on her mission:

At the baptism of a new friend:

Elder Jensen versus Baptismal Font Episode II: Revenge of the Eldridge Building

Que honda mucha?!

Dearest friends and family, I hope that all of you are doing so very well and that you're enjoying life to the fullest. This week has been SUPERbien, last week I traded out hipster downtown Histonians (yeah that's actually what people call them) for lots of cows and goats and old retired Hispanic people...and I love it! I only moved about 30 minutes west and technically I live in the outer Houston area, but the world here is completely different! Whereas every single city block in Downtown Houston has a large building, everything out here is wide and spread out and super duper tranquilo. It's been the best experience ever! The ward (or area) that I am in now is comprised of a much older population and it's been weird coming from the city. I really love the members of this ward and they are all so nice to us! I have two companions once again, Elderes Sharp and Escobar both from Orem, Utah and we have such a great time together. 

The greatest stories of this week revolve around a baptismal service that was held yesterday for this lady in our area named Lidia. Lidia is super awesome and really just the best. She's a 30-year-old sister of one of our members and decided last Tuesday that she wants to be a member of the church. It was really exciting so we spent the whole week teaching her and she was baptized yesterday! It was a really great service and she was so happy afterwards which made all of us happy. The only words in English that she knows are "Thank youuu" so when she said that to us after the service, it made us really super duper happy. 

As we went around cleaning the building up afterward, that's when the real fun began. We pulled the plug on the baptismal font and went back 15 minutes later and the water hadn't drained at all! So we pulled the plug again, same result. So Elder Jensen, thinking he was all smart because he had some experience with clogged drains, asked to be lowered into the font full of water to check it out. That's when all of his earthly possessions decided to be baptized and fell into the font. 30 minutes  later Elder Jensen had successfully retrieved a soaking wet planner and other various possessions, That is also when Elder Jensen found the switch that turned the font pump off. So that was fun. 

Today's spiritual though is inspired by a quote that a great friend sent to me today.."If you only do what you can do, you'll never be more than you are now". I hear that Kung Fu Panda III is out and it rocks. More this week than ever, I have learned that change is a super good thing and can help us all to grow to become better people. That's basically what Christ did for us. He died so we have the opportunity (by grace) to become such better people. I know that if we keep moving forward everything will be okay. I love you all so much and miss you more!

Love,Elder Jensen