January 12, 2014

Dear Family and Friends,     Monday, January 12, 2014

this week has been awesome. we have seen an increase of work, almost double, since last week. This week has been really long. Transfers were on Wednesday. as expected both Elder Williams and I stayed in Prune Hill/Grass Valley wards in Camas. Elder Williams however is now District Leader. it will be really interesting being trained by a District Leader. This has been my week so far...

Monday - today is preparation day! I went to Panda Express for lunch (and dinner). Today we played volleyball as a zone. we have played volleyball the past few weeks and i am getting tired of it. i enjoy playing basketball a TON more that volleyball. Today's lesson fell through because we could not get another man to be there (we have a rule as missionaries that we need one more male to be there if we are visiting one or two women). we rescheduled the lesson for tomorrow.

Tuesday - today we had lunch with Elder Livingston and Smith. we ate at Dairy Queen. a member works there and she paid for our lunch (i always feel guilty accepting free food from members). Dairy Queen has really good food for an ice cream place. We had a lesson planned. He said he did not want us the stay long because his kids are sick. He ended up just telling us about conspiracy theories.  We did slip in a little message about the book of mormon. We also went into Vancouver because Elder Williams needed to get a new drivers license because his Kansas one is expiring soon. After that we dropped by an investigator family. they are really religious and love mormons, but are not super interested in the church. She can not grasp the book of mormon. He says everyone needs to spread the word of Christ (which is true). After dinner we had a lesson. We taught her about the law of Chastity and other commandments. it was good because her boyfriend was there. it was good that he heard her commit to living the law of chastity. (her boyfriend is her friend's brother)  After that we had a lesson. He is a past investigator. we taught him the Restoration and he understood it really well. we have high hopes for him! Today was the last day of my first transfer. here is what my district and zone looked like for my first transfer.

Wednesday - Transfers! We are staying and Elder Williams is now a district leader! We ate lunch and did some of our morning study over at the church today like we often do (Elder Williams likes to play the piano at the church during lunch break). After that we taught. We taught him some commandments, including tithing and fasting. he hates fasting, but we committed him to fast the next fast Sunday. After that we had a lesson. He is the old guy that is from India. He has had a stroke witch affected his speech (he is hard to understand). we taught him about the plan of salvation. during the lesson he was drinking warm milk (yuck!). he also had us teach him how to play a dvd on his laptop. After dinner we stopped by a man that is on an interfaith council and knows a lot about our church. he is one of those guys who is interested in all religions, but not interested to convert.

Thursday - Today we visited an older couple who cannot go to church anymore because of their age. they enjoy us visiting them. We also had a lesson planned, but his dad had to work overtime. Today we went to Dairy Queen and grabbed some blizzards (yumm!).

Friday - Today Elder Williams had to go to a District Leader Conference. I just hung out with the other Elders that are companions to District leaders. afterwards we all went to Olive gardens for all you can eat salad, soup, and bread sticks. we started weekly planning.

Saturday - Today we had zone breakfast where President Shafer (stake president) talked to all the missionaries in the zone (the zone covers the same territory as the stake). the rest of the day we did some more weekly planning (we had a ton to plan!). After dinner we went walking around. it was REALLY foggy and creepy. I saw a coyote while we were walking. there is quite a few of them here, even in the city.

Sunday - today was really long. We had ward council at 9:30, another
ward council at 10:30, a sacrament meeting at 11:00, another sacrament
meeting at 1:00, church till 4:00, An investigator baptismal interview at
4:30, dinner at 5:00, lesson at 6:00, and a lesson at 8:00. As well as our ward mission leaders in
both wards were released and we received two new ones, in the same
day. The Baptism interview was awesome. She was really nervous about it,
even though we went over what it would be like. Afterwards she was
like, " there was nothing to be worried about! It was so easy!" The
lesson with at 6 went well. We taught the plan of salvation. He is
still set for baptism on February 14th. We taught keeping the sabbath
day holy and tithing at 8. 
 
Well, today was long.

Elder Casey Jensen