Week 63 - I'm an American that makes people strong so they can fly on airplanes

So many great things happened this week!! For starters, transfer calls were this week and we found out that Sister Shinkle and I will both be staying in Ellensburg for another 6 weeks together! WAHOOOO!!
On Tuesday we got to go on our temple trip and of course go to Costa Vida afterwards.  A member in the ward drove us and I got to feed her baby boy snacks in the back seat on the drive up haha so that was fun! While I was in the temple I got to see one of the members from Moses Lake! It was good to see her again.
On Wednesday we went to Mutual again and just met with the Teachers group to talk about missionary work.  They asked us all sorts of questions and it was a lot of fun! I was really impressed with them and how engaged they were with asking questions and listening.  The youth these days are the bomb-diggity!
On Thursday we got to do our first skype lesson with Molly and it was the best lesson EVER! We were teaching her about the Plan of Salvation and she asked us how she could repent because she has done things she knows weren't right.  Then she said, "I want to be baptized so bad!" So we invited her to be baptized and she was SO excited! She started crying and said, "This feels so right! I love this feeling!" Then we all were crying haha.  It was one of the most spiritual lessons I have been in for a while.  And it was over skype!! Even talking through a screen doesn't stop the spirit from touching our hearts.  We met with Molly again yesterday and had a couple of the young women in the ward come to the lesson.  We taught the restoration and it was so powerful to have the two young women there to share their testimonies.  One of them was even baptized less than a year ago, and was able to relate to Molly really well.  Unfortunately, Molly's parents don't want her to be baptized any time soon.  But she'll get there! Whether it takes months or years, she has a pretty solid testimony and is determined that this is what she wants in life.
DeWayne got baptized on Saturday!! He was so happy and really emotional.  Hes a pretty tall guy so they were worried about the guy baptizing him being so much shorter.  But he only had to be dunked once! I think he might have hit his head on the step... haha but he was probably too happy to notice! He was confirmed yesterday and interviewed to receive the Aaronic Priesthood :)
De'Aaron received the Priesthood yesterday and was ordained as a Teacher! We got to go in for the ordination and it was so so good.  Some very powerful things were said.  After church De'Aaron came up to us and asked us if being baptized makes you more attractive all of a sudden.  Lol I guess some girls at school told him he was a "10/10" and he thinks its because he has the Holy Ghost now.  
Oh yeah! We got to go to Primary yesterday for sharing time and talk to the kids about missionary work and what we do as missionaries. They are hilarious! When we asked them to guess where we are from one raised his hand and said "You're Americans!" hahah he wasn't wrong I guess.  We asked them what they thought we do as missionaries and one said, "you make people strong so they can fly on airplanes!" Haha close but not quite.  We also told them that missionaries love getting letters and they could write a missionary a letter. Then a little boy raised his hand and asked if I could write down my "number" so he could write me a letter.  How sweet is that?! 
Love y'all! Have a blessed week :)

-Sister Jensen 

This is a lot of pics so I hope it will send.... I took a selfie with a turkey on Monday when we helped someone clean out their chicken coop.  We found a mouse nest and a bunch of baby mice were running all over in the coop! Theres also a bunch of pics from DeWaynes baptism, and the temple.  And some pics of Molly! Oh and we split some more wood on Wednesday! 

Week 62 - I love Jesus

Exciting news! DeWayne had his interview last night and he's good to go for his baptism this Saturday! I've only been here in Ellensburg for a little over a month and its crazy how close I have grown to the people we're teaching.  DeWayne and Traci are amazing! And I'm so excited for them and the progress that they are making.  

Also! We are going to start teaching a 15 year old girl named Molly.  Its kind of a weird scenario.  So she lives in Cle Elum which is about 30-40 minutes away, and technically the Elders cover that area.  But the Elders don't have enough miles to travel there every week, and neither do we.  But Molly has some friends that go to high school in Ellensburg so they could give us a ride to see Molly! And they're girls, so that wouldn't work out for the elders.  So we got permission to teach her! We met her on Wednesday at mutual and she introduced herself as someone investigating the church then pointed at us and said, "so i'm all yours!" How cool is that?! We're going to be teaching her over skype too and we have our first skype lesson this Thursday :)

Well, today is not a normal pday.  We are going to the temple tomorrow for our semi-annual zone temple trip! So tomorrow is our pday this week.  

I don't have a lot of time so sorry I didn't write about much.  Love you all!

-Sister Jensen

1: We got our flu shot this week :(

2: Pumpkin carving

3:I made this at a relief society activity! The relief society president bought it for us as an "early christmas gift" 

4-5: We did some service for a member and she has the cutest little boys!!

6-7: District council day

8: The finished product

Week 61 - I believe in Christ, so come what may

General Conference was sooo good! But before I talk about that, I'll start at the beginning of the week.

Monday for P-day we went to a guy's house named Butch.  Butch built his house and all of the little shacks around it out of apple crates! He also had underground tunnel/bunker things.  And TONS of food storage.  I think hes preparing for the end of the world haha. But he is way cool! I'll send some pics.  Apparently, he said he had only shown us 5% of the tunnels...

Monday night we had Family Home Evening in the Pearson's home and invited De'Aarons whole family, and they ALL came! De'Aarons mom is named Abril and she was talking to Sister Shinkle about how she would love to be baptized like De'Aaron.  We shared a message about General Conference to get them all hyped and they loved it! Paul, De'Aaron's step-dad, said to us afterwards, "you two need to come over more often.  We need this in our home."  Isn't that a miracle?! He usually doesn't even come out when we are there.  SO EXCITING! 

On Tuesday we had zone conference.  I felt like the main theme was becoming fishers of men! We also talked a lot about how faith precedes miracles.  

I hit a milestone in my mission last week.  I got a call from the mission office known as the "trunky call". Sister Shinkle and I are going home at the same time so we both got our call the same day.  Its basically just a call to confirm our information and they let us know that they booked our flights.  Its weird to think that I am close enough to coming home for them to book my flight.. yikes.

In between General Conferences sessions on Saturday, Sister Shinkle and I got to go to a wedding!! Dewayne, who is getting baptized in two weeks, married Traci who has been a member for most of her life.  It was a really small ceremony in their living room and Bishop was the one to marry them.  The only people there were Traci's sister and her nieces and nephews, and us! So we felt pretty special to get an invite :')

Two hour church!! I LOVE the idea of home centered, church supported learning.  Two hour church has been a big rumor going around so I wasn't super shocked by the announcement of it.  But I am sure this is going to strengthen families SO much! I think it is going to be easy for a lot of people to miss the point.  Its great that church is shortened, but now we all have much more of a responsibility to be teaching the gospel in our homes.  No doubt that this instruction has come from the Lord, He is a wise man :) 

I think one of my favorite talks from conference was Elder Hollands talk.  A statement he made really stuck out to me.  I'm not exactly sure how it was worded, but he said something to the effect of- our relationship with our Savior is strongly related to our relationship with others.   

Its a great reminder of how important it is to love and be kind to each other :)

We watched each session at a different place.  The institute building, the church building, at the Pearson's home, and the last session we watched with a lady named Terry who is not a member of the church.  But she was so sweet and invited us over to watch it with her and have cake and ice-cream.  Lol she fell asleep during it though and started talking in her sleep.. so if conference wasn't entertaining enough, we had her as well ;)

The music at General Conference was bumpin! The Spirit that I felt as I listened to the words they sang was unreal.  I've been singing "This is the Christ" all morning hahah.  

Oh and I loved pondering more on what it actually means to take upon us the name of Jesus Christ.  A lot of speakers brought it up, and it goes right along with the correction of the church's name that President Nelson spoke about.   

I LOVE BEING A MEMBER OF THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST! There is no greater blessing, or anything more important.  I hope everyone enjoyed conference as much as I did, and if you didn't watch it yet, go do it! 

Love, Sister Jensen 

1-4: I made President and Sister Jackman take a selfie with me at zone conference haha.  Sister Jackman gave all of the sisters this poster so we hung it up in our apartment that night.

The rest is a bunch of pictures from Butch's house.  He puts these big tanks underground.  So most of the pictures are us underground, pretty crazy right?? 

Oh and a couple pictures from Dewayne and Traci's wedding :)

Week 60 - "I'm suppose to get baptized tomorrow!"

De'Aaron got baptized on Saturday! It was such a crazy weekend!! Saturday was his original baptism date but last week his mom, Abril, told us that she wouldn't be able to get work off.  So we pushed the baptism back a week and told De'Aaron that it probably wouldn't happen until October.  But then on Friday night De'Aaron called us and said, "hey can we meet tonight? I'm suppose to get baptized tomorrow." And we said... no you're not... and he was like, "no, my mom is coming! I want to get baptized tomorrow!" hahah so we made him call his mom and double check again and it turns out, she was going to be able to make it! So Friday night we had him come to the church and called Elder Ready to come interview him.  We also had to put together the program and make a bunch of phone calls to set things up.  Oh and we had to tell all the missionaries that have taught him in the past so that they could request permission and try to find rides to it.  It was pretty stressful, but an exciting stress! 

Everything worked out and De'Aaron was baptized.  His friend Levi baptized him and TONS of youth came to support him.  They all sang "Peace in Christ" at his baptism because De'Aaron said that was the first song he remembers hearing at a youth activity or something.  He has been fellowshipped so well! His whole family came and his mom cried the WHOLE time.  In the beginning, she was really against De'Aaron being baptized.  But when she saw how it  changed him and made him happy, she supported it.  And now she wants to be taught and has even talked about baptism! Oh, and all the missionaries were able to make it!! De'Aaron has been taught for over a year I think so there were 5 different missionaries that we contacted.  In total, there were 14 missionaries there! I wish all of you could meet De'Aaron.  He is reading the Book of Mormon for the second time and has a really powerful testimony of it.

Another highlight of this week was exchanges.  I got to be with Sister Shepherd and bring back the good ol days of being companions with her! We had a lot of fun together.  On Wednesday morning we went and helped a member stack wood.  It was hard work!! We stacked so much wood but then he said it would only last them like a month and a half! Can you believe that?? Dang I would hate to have to do that every year haha.  But it was a lot fun for the day! Sister Shepherd and I also had a lesson with a man named Doug who is dating a member.  They've actually been together for over 20 years.  We invited him to be baptized and he accepted! His goal is November 24.  Him and Alberta will need to get married, but he seems pretty determined to take all of the steps necessary!

Oh we also had our interviews with President this week! Chatting with Sister Jackman is the best haha she always has good things to say.  

Our district right now is just us and a set of Elders.  With just the four of us, it kinda looks like a double-date...And on P-days, we live too far from the zone to be with them every week.  So its literally just us and 2 elders haha.  Which is technically against the rules, but President says its fine because we can't do anything about it. Anyways, we went to a corn maze last week so I'll attach some pics from it! :)

I can't believe its OCTOBER! Dang gina where does time go? 

I hope you're all excited for General Conference! Lds.org has some great ways that we can prepare to have the most spiritual experience. Somebody read a story last week in church I think it was where some members told their friend that there was a prophet on the earth today.  The friend was so amazed and said, "What does he say?!" and the members couldn't remember what he had said recently.  The friend then said, "You're telling me you have a prophet of God on the earth, and you don't know what he has said?" 

Lol.  So make sure you know what the Prophet is saying these days.  Its always important, and its a miracle that we have a living Prophet.  #Blessed

LOVES!!

-Sister Jensen

1: Stacking wood

2: We had to drive to yakima to the toyota dealership on Friday so we got Dutchbros on the way back.  Lol basic white girls ya know? 

3-12: De'Aaron's Baptism and our photoshoot pre-baptism hahah

13&14: Corn-Maze for P-day!