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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