Dear Family!
What a wonderful week it has been welcoming Sister Martin (from Bountiful, she lives over by Washington Elementary, her mom passed away last Sept from cancer) and Thackerary (from Skull Valley Utah, she lives on a farm and is not used to being around so many thousands of people) to the companionship! It is a little crazy trying to get everyone showered and read and out the door in the morning and in bed at night. We are managing though.
Training is going well, Sister Keys is doing a fantastic job it is amazing to see how much she has changed in just the past few days. She went from being so cautions and nervous to confident and aware of the Spirit's guidance. What a blessing it is to have her helping me with these new sisters. Sister Thackerary and Sister Martin did not get along well at the MTC and were excited to get new companions, so it was a little bit of a shock when they stayed together and all got me as a trainer, thankfully things have calmed down and we have so much work to do that there really is never any time to dwell on that. Sister Matrin has been dealing with culture shock and homesickness pretty bad the first few days, she finally started to open up after the Relief Society Conference, now she is smiling and laughing and adding into conversations and lessons. Em I am greatful that you shared your feelings about your mission, that has helped me relate to her and help. Sister Thackerary is a talker I am praying for ways to use that skill for missionary work, but at the moment we are hearing great stories about her home and childhood. I have been doing 3 hour rotations each day so that they all have an opportunity to work with everyone. Those blessed hours and night working with Sister Keys while Sisters Thackerary and Martin do member visits in the Living Center are a tender mercy. It has been hard to just send them off with those investigators that you have grown to love, but there is no other way for them to learn.
Investigators: We had 5 investigators at Church yesterday, it was fantastic.
Grace: she is progressing beautifully. Sister Keys and Thackerary taught her the Gospel of Jesus Christ and during that the issue of baptism came up, she said that she had already been baptized. She did come to Relief Society broadcast with Catherine. Sister Thompson talked about the power of covenants (fantastic!!) and then Grace came to church on Sunday. After Church we followed up with her about all that had gone on that week. She asked about the Relief Society and Baptism. We were able to answer her questions then extend a baptismal commitment and she light up and smiled huge and said YES! It was a beautiful moment, we paused and just felt the Spirit confirming that choice. Then we set a date, October 22!!
Hiva, was also at Church, he is reading from the Book of Mormon and asking great questions. We were able to teach him the Restoration. He was concerned about Mohamed and him being a prophet, when we testified about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon being the fruits of Joseph Smith's works he was very excited to read Alma 32 about Faith.
Xiao finally came to church!! We have been working with Xiao for the past month and she finally showed the faith and came to church. She also for the first time to a lesson alone, she is always bringing friends. We were able to read from the Book of Mormon with her, she had read up to 1 Nephi 5 and so we read that along with her and explained what was happening. Then we talked about the importance of prayer and we closed with a kneeling prayer. She all knelt and prayed one by one so that she would have a better example of what prayer is and the feelings that come from it. We paused after the last prayer and after a few seconds I asked what she was feeling. Light, happy. I am so excited for her!
Danny is one of those people that we all pray for on our missions but don't really expect to find. Danny actually called us on Thursday afternoon asking if we would be able to meet him and let him come to church. We set an appointment for Friday and I took Sister Martin with me to meet with him. He is 26yrs old from China but studying Hospitality. He learned about the LDS church from the Marriott Hotel chain. He also has a good friend that was just baptized that helped him find our phone number. During our first visit he told us that he wants to learn everything. As I told him the outline of what we were going to be learning over the next few weeks and that we focus people on baptism as an end result of our teachings he happily said GREAT! He prayed for us in closing and said that he felt very good inside. Danny was so excited to get involved with our members that he came to our day of service on Saturday and made a lot of new friends. He also came to Church on Sunday and was a great help with Xiao in translating what was going on. He said that during testimony meeting he wanted to get up and share what he felt inside but didn't know how or what to say. He has been prepared. We are meeting with Danny on Tuesday and will be setting a baptismal date! What a blessing he is in our lives. He also helped Sister Martin find some hope for being out here serving!
Tia is still meeting with us although she is not progressing much because her prayers are not sincere. We have talked about prayer and faith before but there just seems to be no application. Today we are meeting with her and Sister Martin and I are planning on teaching about praying with real intent and talking about what that really means. I think that Tia doesn't fully understand what the answer to her prayer about the Book of Mormon really means, so we are hoping to clarify that today.
It is fascinating to me to feel that when we really understand that God in our Loving Heavenly Father and that He desires to hear from us that it becomes our desire as well to talk with Him in prayer. I have seen that in my life this past week, there have been a lot of adjustments and new challenges and questions that I have no clue what the answers are, but God does and He is always there to help me along my course. I was studying Elder Bednar's conference talk about Revelation and he said that, "Sincere desire and worthiness invite the Spirit of revelation into our lives." Again it goes back to desire. Amazing how often that word appears in the scriptures and how key it is to agency. It is up to us, we just have to ask God for help and blessings and if it is right we receive. It is a good thing there is revelation because I personally would have no clue what to do daily without the help and guidance that we receive.
I am eternally grateful that whom the Lord calls He qualifies, there would be no other way that this companionship could work if that were not true. Thank heavens He does and everything has worked about beautifully so far!
January 25 is my new release date! Thank you for being willing to have me extend, I know that it is not the "home in time for Christmas" that we planned on but it is what needs to be done.
PLEASE pray for us, Sister Keys, Thackerary, Martin, and I. It is going to take a lot of work but it is going to be great once we all get in the rhythm of things, I pray that we find that soon.
I get to sing at Zone Conference again, I am singing Lead Kindly Light with Elders Hill and Clawson. Should be interesting...
Thank you for you help and support.
Mahal ko po kayo!!
Sister Rebecca Jensen
I hope you all have a wonderful conference!!! Seriously Sister Jensen absolutely LOVES this time of year, fall weather, fresh green apples, garden veggies, canning, and conference. Could not get better. Mind you this year it is store bought produce, personal contacting, lesson teaching, commitment extending, super-training and repentance crying. Either way Conference is just AMAZING!!
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