Monday, January 30, 2017
Sneaky blighters
That's us ;) for more info, see Saturday.
Monday: Joanna and Lucas came to visit! We went to a Chinese buffet that was alright. I ate a small fried fish.
Tuesday: We did some unsuccessful passbacks and I got a pastry called a "penguin" because it looks like a horse. Totally kidding it does look like a penguin, I'll send a picture :) we also had a rdv with our old recent convert, she kind of has no teeth and is a little off her rocker, but she's hilarious! Elder Alvarenga cracks up every time we're around her. Oh and we met a Chinese girl, but she's not really interested in the Gospel :(
Wednesday: We went over to an older member's house at 10 in the morning to help him figure out his new smartphone. That afternoon we met Gregory our amazing amazing recent convert and we all shared little miracles and tender mercies from when we first got transferred here and he wasn't sure if he was going to keep taking the lessons or not. He said that when he other Elders got whitewashed out, he thought maybe that was his answer and that God was telling him not to meet with the Mormons anymore, but he took a chance on us and both he and we are so glad he did! That evening we also met an African man who showed up at the church wanting to increase his faith. There are no coincidences :) afterward we had that crazy Worldwide Missionary Broadcast! They made a few big changes, including to the missionary schedule and key indicators. We now have a half-hour lunch, a couple hours of proselyting in the morning with language study and lunch afterward, almost no more studies on p-day, and a lot of people now have planning in the morning instead of at night. In our mission President Brown decided to keep planning at night (which I'm happy about, it's a lot easier to fix rendez-vous and talk to members in the evening than in the morning). Also we now only count amis baptized and confirmed, amis at church, new amis, and amis with a baptismal date. No more counting lessons or referrals or conversations or anything. I'm happy about the change, to me it's a shift more towards the original missionary work done by Peter, James, John, Paul, and everybody else. Numbers never mattered, but now they don't even exist! :D
Thursday: There's a Chinese less active family here that we've been trying to see for the past 13 weeks, but they're super busy. He said we could pass by the university where he teaches Chinese to see him, so we've been trying to do that and it finally worked! We saw him in a classroom teaching and he came out to see who we were (didn't see the missionary plaques at first). He realized pretty quick who we were, but had to immediately resume class so we didn't get to talk at all. Still, just that bit of eye contact was a step in the right direction :)
Tuesday: We did some unsuccessful passbacks and I got a pastry called a "penguin" because it looks like a horse. Totally kidding it does look like a penguin, I'll send a picture :) we also had a rdv with our old recent convert, she kind of has no teeth and is a little off her rocker, but she's hilarious! Elder Alvarenga cracks up every time we're around her. Oh and we met a Chinese girl, but she's not really interested in the Gospel :(
Wednesday: We went over to an older member's house at 10 in the morning to help him figure out his new smartphone. That afternoon we met Gregory our amazing amazing recent convert and we all shared little miracles and tender mercies from when we first got transferred here and he wasn't sure if he was going to keep taking the lessons or not. He said that when he other Elders got whitewashed out, he thought maybe that was his answer and that God was telling him not to meet with the Mormons anymore, but he took a chance on us and both he and we are so glad he did! That evening we also met an African man who showed up at the church wanting to increase his faith. There are no coincidences :) afterward we had that crazy Worldwide Missionary Broadcast! They made a few big changes, including to the missionary schedule and key indicators. We now have a half-hour lunch, a couple hours of proselyting in the morning with language study and lunch afterward, almost no more studies on p-day, and a lot of people now have planning in the morning instead of at night. In our mission President Brown decided to keep planning at night (which I'm happy about, it's a lot easier to fix rendez-vous and talk to members in the evening than in the morning). Also we now only count amis baptized and confirmed, amis at church, new amis, and amis with a baptismal date. No more counting lessons or referrals or conversations or anything. I'm happy about the change, to me it's a shift more towards the original missionary work done by Peter, James, John, Paul, and everybody else. Numbers never mattered, but now they don't even exist! :D
Thursday: There's a Chinese less active family here that we've been trying to see for the past 13 weeks, but they're super busy. He said we could pass by the university where he teaches Chinese to see him, so we've been trying to do that and it finally worked! We saw him in a classroom teaching and he came out to see who we were (didn't see the missionary plaques at first). He realized pretty quick who we were, but had to immediately resume class so we didn't get to talk at all. Still, just that bit of eye contact was a step in the right direction :)
Friday: taught our old ami who struggles with believing in God when he hasn't seen any signs. We read Alma 32 with him, faith comes little by little!
Saturday: We forgot to do Weekly Planning on Friday, so we did it today. It went pretty well. Also this is the reason for the email title! We went to the Business University where a lot of Chinese people and some ward members go. Since we are young and 帅, nobody stopped us to ask what we were doing. We weren't actively proselyting because that would get us in trouble, just scoping out the area. It was fun :)
Sunday: I wore the new suit to church and Gregory was so sparky (he complimented me a ton on it, which is funny because he's the one who picked it out for me pretty much). During church I was thinking about why we have everyone in the ward take turns giving talks and not have a couple people with the calling of "Ward Orator" just speak every week? I realized that it's because in teaching, we learn. Yeah everyone in the ward understands the very basics (God is our Father, faith is important, etc.), but when preparing a talk we realize that we may not know as much about a given topic as we think we do. We want to gain a deeper understanding in order to give an enlightening talk and also because the things we're learning are actually important! In working through this process, we study, learn, and grow. In doing so we open our hearts to the Spirit who will teach us what we need to know. Also when speaking, we should testify. In order to truly testify, you have to have already gained a testimony about that topic! The process of learning a specific thing is completed when we apply it in our lives, which allows us to experiment upon the word and gain that testimony which will then touch the hearts of others as they hear it. One by one, every member in the ward has this experience and over time, we all grow together. Isn't that cool? So next time you're asked to give a talk, think about that :)
Thanks for reading! Have a great week, love you!
江长老
Saturday: We forgot to do Weekly Planning on Friday, so we did it today. It went pretty well. Also this is the reason for the email title! We went to the Business University where a lot of Chinese people and some ward members go. Since we are young and 帅, nobody stopped us to ask what we were doing. We weren't actively proselyting because that would get us in trouble, just scoping out the area. It was fun :)
Sunday: I wore the new suit to church and Gregory was so sparky (he complimented me a ton on it, which is funny because he's the one who picked it out for me pretty much). During church I was thinking about why we have everyone in the ward take turns giving talks and not have a couple people with the calling of "Ward Orator" just speak every week? I realized that it's because in teaching, we learn. Yeah everyone in the ward understands the very basics (God is our Father, faith is important, etc.), but when preparing a talk we realize that we may not know as much about a given topic as we think we do. We want to gain a deeper understanding in order to give an enlightening talk and also because the things we're learning are actually important! In working through this process, we study, learn, and grow. In doing so we open our hearts to the Spirit who will teach us what we need to know. Also when speaking, we should testify. In order to truly testify, you have to have already gained a testimony about that topic! The process of learning a specific thing is completed when we apply it in our lives, which allows us to experiment upon the word and gain that testimony which will then touch the hearts of others as they hear it. One by one, every member in the ward has this experience and over time, we all grow together. Isn't that cool? So next time you're asked to give a talk, think about that :)
Thanks for reading! Have a great week, love you!
江长老
Chinese buffet
Grenoble is getting a nice new chapel next year!
Small fried fish
Monday, January 23, 2017
小鱼不好吃
Hey y'all so last week I totally forgot to talk about something really important which was that on Sunday evening (so 8 days ago now) we had a special fireside about the Paris Temple! It was held in Lyon but we had it broadcast to the chapel here in Grenoble. They talked about how the open house, the cultural celebration, and the dedication itself will work. We don't have all the details but it's so exciting! It's been in the works for a long time, but it's finally happening! Wooooooo
So yeah, besides that here's how our week has been: on Tuesday morning all three Grenoble équipes met together and discussed how to be unified and efficient in doing the work here. It went well :)
Wednesday we got back in contact with this referral we got not long ago for a Belgian guy who lives at a ski station in the mountains about an hour from here. He sounds really cool, but doesn't come to Grenoble often so we'll see what we can do. He said we could take a bus out there though, I think we'll try to do that this week.
Thursday we taught a guy who was dropped by previous missionaries for whatever reason. He's cool! Has some habits he knows aren't the best and has to get rid of, but that's the first step to change. He accepted a baptismal date for the end of February, so we'll do what we can there as well :)
On Friday we went to the home of a man in the ward whose wife isn't a member. We had a good lesson about prayer and how we can know that God is there. They have a cat named câlin, which means "hug." We also went to Ward Council, which went well :)
Saturday morning we taught our 88 year old ami who struggles with believing in God, so we brought our favorite member to teach with. He's 72 and is a convert himself and is so so so good in lessons. He's been around the block a time or two, has a really strong testimony, and has lots of free time. He's the kind of member I want to be when I'm older :) we also went and dropped off a letter for the Chinese less-active family we're working with. We've already prepared another letter for the end of this week's big event: CHINESE NEW YEAR!! 🎆🎊🎁🇨🇳💴🎉🇨🇳㊗️🎆🍜🎉🎊💴🍲🈴🎁🎇🎆🈷💴
Sunday night we went chez another one of our favorite members, the half French, half Czech family. They even gave us a referral for some of their neighbors! Yay :D
We've been doing a lot of passbacks this week for people whom we called and who said they were still interested, but we haven't been able to catch them at the right time of day. Nevertheless, you only lose if you quit! Something we like to say to each other is that "no effort is wasted." We are called of God to spread the Gospel, and although we're not perfect we're trying to do what we were called to do. Someday we'll know a lot more clearly why things have to be so hard. The people we're trying to serve will one day thank us for never giving up, just as we thank Heavenly Father for giving us the opportunity to grow. I need this advice as much as anyone, but be grateful for your trials! You never know when you might look back and realize they were blessings in disguise ;)
Love you aaaallllll
江长老
So yeah, besides that here's how our week has been: on Tuesday morning all three Grenoble équipes met together and discussed how to be unified and efficient in doing the work here. It went well :)
Wednesday we got back in contact with this referral we got not long ago for a Belgian guy who lives at a ski station in the mountains about an hour from here. He sounds really cool, but doesn't come to Grenoble often so we'll see what we can do. He said we could take a bus out there though, I think we'll try to do that this week.
Thursday we taught a guy who was dropped by previous missionaries for whatever reason. He's cool! Has some habits he knows aren't the best and has to get rid of, but that's the first step to change. He accepted a baptismal date for the end of February, so we'll do what we can there as well :)
On Friday we went to the home of a man in the ward whose wife isn't a member. We had a good lesson about prayer and how we can know that God is there. They have a cat named câlin, which means "hug." We also went to Ward Council, which went well :)
Saturday morning we taught our 88 year old ami who struggles with believing in God, so we brought our favorite member to teach with. He's 72 and is a convert himself and is so so so good in lessons. He's been around the block a time or two, has a really strong testimony, and has lots of free time. He's the kind of member I want to be when I'm older :) we also went and dropped off a letter for the Chinese less-active family we're working with. We've already prepared another letter for the end of this week's big event: CHINESE NEW YEAR!! 🎆🎊🎁🇨🇳💴🎉🇨🇳㊗️🎆🍜🎉🎊💴🍲🈴🎁🎇🎆🈷💴
Sunday night we went chez another one of our favorite members, the half French, half Czech family. They even gave us a referral for some of their neighbors! Yay :D
We've been doing a lot of passbacks this week for people whom we called and who said they were still interested, but we haven't been able to catch them at the right time of day. Nevertheless, you only lose if you quit! Something we like to say to each other is that "no effort is wasted." We are called of God to spread the Gospel, and although we're not perfect we're trying to do what we were called to do. Someday we'll know a lot more clearly why things have to be so hard. The people we're trying to serve will one day thank us for never giving up, just as we thank Heavenly Father for giving us the opportunity to grow. I need this advice as much as anyone, but be grateful for your trials! You never know when you might look back and realize they were blessings in disguise ;)
Love you aaaallllll
江长老
Monday, January 16, 2017
Machins
Yeah I'm artsy.
Elder Abney (the one with the voice of an angel) wanted me to translate The Prayer while he sang it
留
Well we had transfers this week! We were speculating that maybe I'd go to my last ville or Elder Alvarenga would swap with Elder Vera and try his hand at Chinese work in Lyon, but against all odds we stayed together right here in Grenoble! This makes our 3rd transfer together! The only other comp I did three transfers with was Elder Pien, my trainer, so it's kind of fun that I get to stay three with my trainee as well! En plus they're both Montréalais, crazy right?
I left my old planner in the apartment so I don't remember exactly what we did last week, but it was fun. The sisters had the baptism of a 15 year old girl who is actually our DMP's (Ward mission leader's) daughter. It's a long story but he is so so so happy to have his daughter on the path to eternal life :)
I have some pics and videos to send you, so this email is going to be a little shorter, sorry. It was fun to see how much snow and ice there is in Oregon! We got snow here as well, but not as much as you and we don't get to have as much fun with it...oh well.
Oh yeah today we went shopping with our recent convert and he helped me pick out a French suit! It's pretty fly ;) it's getting slightly adjusted and I'll pick it up next week, so pictures coming soon.
As my spiritual thought, remember that you are a child of God! Yes we need to respect Him as the Supreme Creator of Everything, but He is also our Father. He loves you so so so so so much and so how could we ever get discouraged? Yes life is hard sometimes, but do what you know is right and He'll be right by your side. He wants you and I to succeed, I promise :) read your scriptures if you have any doubts! I love you all bye!
Elder Jensen
江长老
I left my old planner in the apartment so I don't remember exactly what we did last week, but it was fun. The sisters had the baptism of a 15 year old girl who is actually our DMP's (Ward mission leader's) daughter. It's a long story but he is so so so happy to have his daughter on the path to eternal life :)
I have some pics and videos to send you, so this email is going to be a little shorter, sorry. It was fun to see how much snow and ice there is in Oregon! We got snow here as well, but not as much as you and we don't get to have as much fun with it...oh well.
Oh yeah today we went shopping with our recent convert and he helped me pick out a French suit! It's pretty fly ;) it's getting slightly adjusted and I'll pick it up next week, so pictures coming soon.
As my spiritual thought, remember that you are a child of God! Yes we need to respect Him as the Supreme Creator of Everything, but He is also our Father. He loves you so so so so so much and so how could we ever get discouraged? Yes life is hard sometimes, but do what you know is right and He'll be right by your side. He wants you and I to succeed, I promise :) read your scriptures if you have any doubts! I love you all bye!
Elder Jensen
江长老
Monday, January 9, 2017
Pics 2
The members we visited had a giant American fridge!
We had raclette for lunch today because we can.
Hey look a mountain
Hanging out with Kenny, the JA who served in Milan. We did some service with him today.
A Feelsy Week, ft. Week 6
Our apartment is sadly a little messy right now, but it could've been waaay worse. Last Monday we deep cleaned a couple of the rooms and it looked pretty nice, but as you can tell from the title of the email we've been a little busy this week and apartment upkeep has been a low priority.
On Tuesday I was on exchange with Elder Mason from San Diego. He and I get along really well as we're pretty similar in a number of ways. Lately he and I have been making the joke that for transfers next week he and I are going to bluewash Poitiers (context: bluewash = replacing Sisters with Elders, and Poitiers has been a sister ville for a long time but has been recommended for a bluewash for the past little while). We'll find out this Friday! We tried to pass someone that lives right at the foot of the mountains in Sassenage area, like northwestern Grenoble. We couldn't find their house 囧 Welcome to missionary life, I guess. Apparently Elder Mason found the house on another exchange a couple days later, so ça va. We also went and saw a member from Ghana who wanted us to meet his friend (yeesss!) who works at the mall. We all went to the mall together and saw his friend, he was a little busy with work but seemed willing to meet with us at least once and spoke impressive English, so hopefully that'll go somewhere soon!
Wednesday we had a rendez-vous with a guy whom we met when he helped decorate the chapel for the New Year's party. He came in contact with the church because his neighbor is a member, and it turns out he's studied with a lot of other religions already. He was pretty intense, but we had an awesome member with us and it ended up being an alright rdv! That evening we saw Gregory and he's sooooo cool.
Thursday we had district meeting and it was really good! It's Elder Abney first time as DL and he did a great job. He also made samosas the night before and ordered sushi, so lunch afterward was really good as well (^-^) That afternoon I had the craziest experience ever basically! We were out with the zone leaders who had come for a baptismal interview and Elder MacArthur (from Eugene by the way) started talking to this woman at the tram stop. She had a suitcase so he asked if she was going or coming, and she said that she was in transit, and I quote: "I'm French, but I live in Norway." WOOAAHHH 🇳🇴 so all three other missionaries immediately looked/pointed at me and I freaked out a little bit and started talking to the lady in Norwegian. It was the most Norwegian I've spoken in a long long time and it was really rough, but this lady was super stoked to hear Norwegian from a random American missionary! I talked to her on the tram for a long time, at first in Frorwegian and then just in French. It was so cool and she was sooooooo nice. She talked about how she got disenchanted from her original religion and switched to Protestantism when she met some really good people who were part of it and is active in it and everything. I asked if she'd like to meet missionaries in Norway and she declined, but she said she'd look up my uncle and aunt! She lives really close to Moss actually, so that'll be awesome.
On Friday we had a great rdv with an 87 year old man, he was really honest and really awesome. We should have more news on him soon! We also saw Gregory again, he's just as great as ever.
Sunday we went to a member's house for dinner, I felt so at ease at their home. It's an older couple but you wouldn't think they're a day over 50, it's really impressive. We ask the husband for help with rendez-vous all the time and he's great. They have four daughters and one of them is a French teacher at BYU, isn't that cool?
Just this morning we had a phone call with a member who was mad at us. We were really confused, but tak tak tak and apparently our teaching pool is now short two people. Yay opposition!
Yesterday we taught Gospel Principles class, and then we repeated the lesson three more times, twice when we brought the sacrament to people after church and once at the members' house. Tout simplement: God gave us a gift called repentance. We give Him a gift when we use it. Don't we want people to use and enjoy the gifts we give them? So show respect to God and Christ's Atonement and repent! If you don't know how, ask the missionaries :)
江长老
On Tuesday I was on exchange with Elder Mason from San Diego. He and I get along really well as we're pretty similar in a number of ways. Lately he and I have been making the joke that for transfers next week he and I are going to bluewash Poitiers (context: bluewash = replacing Sisters with Elders, and Poitiers has been a sister ville for a long time but has been recommended for a bluewash for the past little while). We'll find out this Friday! We tried to pass someone that lives right at the foot of the mountains in Sassenage area, like northwestern Grenoble. We couldn't find their house 囧 Welcome to missionary life, I guess. Apparently Elder Mason found the house on another exchange a couple days later, so ça va. We also went and saw a member from Ghana who wanted us to meet his friend (yeesss!) who works at the mall. We all went to the mall together and saw his friend, he was a little busy with work but seemed willing to meet with us at least once and spoke impressive English, so hopefully that'll go somewhere soon!
Wednesday we had a rendez-vous with a guy whom we met when he helped decorate the chapel for the New Year's party. He came in contact with the church because his neighbor is a member, and it turns out he's studied with a lot of other religions already. He was pretty intense, but we had an awesome member with us and it ended up being an alright rdv! That evening we saw Gregory and he's sooooo cool.
Thursday we had district meeting and it was really good! It's Elder Abney first time as DL and he did a great job. He also made samosas the night before and ordered sushi, so lunch afterward was really good as well (^-^) That afternoon I had the craziest experience ever basically! We were out with the zone leaders who had come for a baptismal interview and Elder MacArthur (from Eugene by the way) started talking to this woman at the tram stop. She had a suitcase so he asked if she was going or coming, and she said that she was in transit, and I quote: "I'm French, but I live in Norway." WOOAAHHH 🇳🇴 so all three other missionaries immediately looked/pointed at me and I freaked out a little bit and started talking to the lady in Norwegian. It was the most Norwegian I've spoken in a long long time and it was really rough, but this lady was super stoked to hear Norwegian from a random American missionary! I talked to her on the tram for a long time, at first in Frorwegian and then just in French. It was so cool and she was sooooooo nice. She talked about how she got disenchanted from her original religion and switched to Protestantism when she met some really good people who were part of it and is active in it and everything. I asked if she'd like to meet missionaries in Norway and she declined, but she said she'd look up my uncle and aunt! She lives really close to Moss actually, so that'll be awesome.
On Friday we had a great rdv with an 87 year old man, he was really honest and really awesome. We should have more news on him soon! We also saw Gregory again, he's just as great as ever.
Sunday we went to a member's house for dinner, I felt so at ease at their home. It's an older couple but you wouldn't think they're a day over 50, it's really impressive. We ask the husband for help with rendez-vous all the time and he's great. They have four daughters and one of them is a French teacher at BYU, isn't that cool?
Just this morning we had a phone call with a member who was mad at us. We were really confused, but tak tak tak and apparently our teaching pool is now short two people. Yay opposition!
Yesterday we taught Gospel Principles class, and then we repeated the lesson three more times, twice when we brought the sacrament to people after church and once at the members' house. Tout simplement: God gave us a gift called repentance. We give Him a gift when we use it. Don't we want people to use and enjoy the gifts we give them? So show respect to God and Christ's Atonement and repent! If you don't know how, ask the missionaries :)
江长老
It didn't snow a lot, but we got a little bit!
Monday, January 2, 2017
Driving with the Paris Temple President (Video)
Driving around with the Paris Temple President ;) he's really classy.
Time keeps on slipping
2️⃣0️⃣1️⃣7️⃣‼️ Happy New Year everyone :) We had a good week, but it was slightly tarnished when I woke up sick this morning. I could feel it coming on yesterday though. I haven't been wearing a coat much lately because we mostly just have to walk like 30 seconds from our apartment to the church or to the tram stop so we're never outside for very long. Last night we went to visit a member family and ended up waiting 20 minutes for the bus, so that's what really did me in. I've been trying to follow my companion's example (he never wears a coat, says it's not cold enough for that), but my immune system reminded me that he's from Québec and I'm not. Waaah :(
In other news, Gregory got baptized this week! :D he was so prepared and awesome. However, we were having some font troubles and donc spent about 2 hours filling it up with cold water from the sink. It was still filling with warm water like it should, but soooooo slowly that we would've had to push back the baptism like 3-4 hours, and ain't nobody got time for that. It's a good thing Gregory's not super tall. When the baptism started, the water was already lower than normal and by the time he got in the font with Elder Alvarenga, it was curiously even lower than before. He almost had to lay on the floor to get immersed, but he got baptized gosh dang it!
Part 2 of that story is that when someone turned the knob downstairs to empty the water, they turned it too much and it emptied too fast and came up through the sinks in the bathroom and the janitor's closet and flooded the downstairs of the church. It was ironic because before the baptism I had told Gregory a story of when someone I knew (who may or may not be reading this email, wink wink) was filling the baptismal font on their mission and flooded the relief society room, and we assured him that we wouldn't do that. Whoops. With the help of diligent RMs who know what our lives our like, we got it all dried up (except that the next morning we got a call from a member saying that the church was flooded so we ran over there and cleaned up the exact same mess. Apparently the drainage system had been left on overnight and reflooded the church. Whoops again).
A few days later the Sœurs had a baptism so we made sure the same mistake didn't happen twice, and we succeeded this time :)
On New Year's Adam we had our ward party, they did it that night so that people wouldn't be dead for church the next morning. It was funny to see which members are willing to get up and dance like no one's watching! New Year's Eve we had the right to stay out until 10h30, so we got 3 giant pizzas and played spoons at the church. At the pizza place they were showing New Year's celebrations from Asia and Oceania who had already passed midnight, so we saw little clips from Auckland, Sydney, Taipei, and Hong Kong. All the fireworks shows looked incredible! We weren't liberally watching TV, but it was a little hard to avoid while we were waiting for our pizza so we also saw the last vœux of François Hollande as le Président de la République Française. Most interesting.
That's about it, New Year's wasn't too exciting for us but I hope you all had a great one! The more holidays I spend on the mission the more it feels like I've been out here for a while. I want to see my family again! That's why I'm so grateful for the Plan of Salvation which lets me know that no matter what happens to us here on Earth, I can be with my family forever! 2 years can seem like a long time, but it's really not and the time does go slipping by so quickly. I'm grateful for the temple and the blessings in my life that I have because either I or my parents went and made covenants with God. He'll never let you down!
Love you all! Ciao ciao,
Elder Jensen
江长老
In other news, Gregory got baptized this week! :D he was so prepared and awesome. However, we were having some font troubles and donc spent about 2 hours filling it up with cold water from the sink. It was still filling with warm water like it should, but soooooo slowly that we would've had to push back the baptism like 3-4 hours, and ain't nobody got time for that. It's a good thing Gregory's not super tall. When the baptism started, the water was already lower than normal and by the time he got in the font with Elder Alvarenga, it was curiously even lower than before. He almost had to lay on the floor to get immersed, but he got baptized gosh dang it!
Part 2 of that story is that when someone turned the knob downstairs to empty the water, they turned it too much and it emptied too fast and came up through the sinks in the bathroom and the janitor's closet and flooded the downstairs of the church. It was ironic because before the baptism I had told Gregory a story of when someone I knew (who may or may not be reading this email, wink wink) was filling the baptismal font on their mission and flooded the relief society room, and we assured him that we wouldn't do that. Whoops. With the help of diligent RMs who know what our lives our like, we got it all dried up (except that the next morning we got a call from a member saying that the church was flooded so we ran over there and cleaned up the exact same mess. Apparently the drainage system had been left on overnight and reflooded the church. Whoops again).
A few days later the Sœurs had a baptism so we made sure the same mistake didn't happen twice, and we succeeded this time :)
On New Year's Adam we had our ward party, they did it that night so that people wouldn't be dead for church the next morning. It was funny to see which members are willing to get up and dance like no one's watching! New Year's Eve we had the right to stay out until 10h30, so we got 3 giant pizzas and played spoons at the church. At the pizza place they were showing New Year's celebrations from Asia and Oceania who had already passed midnight, so we saw little clips from Auckland, Sydney, Taipei, and Hong Kong. All the fireworks shows looked incredible! We weren't liberally watching TV, but it was a little hard to avoid while we were waiting for our pizza so we also saw the last vœux of François Hollande as le Président de la République Française. Most interesting.
That's about it, New Year's wasn't too exciting for us but I hope you all had a great one! The more holidays I spend on the mission the more it feels like I've been out here for a while. I want to see my family again! That's why I'm so grateful for the Plan of Salvation which lets me know that no matter what happens to us here on Earth, I can be with my family forever! 2 years can seem like a long time, but it's really not and the time does go slipping by so quickly. I'm grateful for the temple and the blessings in my life that I have because either I or my parents went and made covenants with God. He'll never let you down!
Love you all! Ciao ciao,
Elder Jensen
江长老
We taught the Plan of Salvation over Skype in Chinese
Me filling up a bucket to dump into the baptismal font
A Twingo Bingo! Three Renault Twingos in a row, a truly coveted sight by missionaries. I've been watching for one for over a year :D
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