July 9th, 2012 Letter

Hey!                                                                                                  9 July 2012

I had a good week and an Awesome Weekend!!!!
I'll start with last Monday. We went shopping, I got a membership at this place called BJ's its like Costco. So we were able to buy a lot of our groceries in bulk. Then I bought some hair clippers so I could cut my own hair! OH! I also had Little Caesars for the first time since coming on my mission!! It was so good.  We went over to the House's and did our laundry, had a couple of water balloon fights with their kids. Then we went bowling with them. I won twice. My highest was 131. Then I cut my hair that night, I left it long on top, and then cut the sides really short, I like how it looks! Tuesday, we went out to eat at Chinese buffet with two of our investigators, Danny and Susan. They took us out to lunch for doing some yard work for them. That night we went over to our Branch Presidents House. He had some big trees fall down in his yard from a storm a while ago. So some young men and us helped cut them up with chainsaws and then stacked the wood up. Wednesday, 4th of July!! In the morning we stopped by some less actives and some former investigators at the bottom of our area. It was a hot day! I got some of the pictures of the Alpine fire that Dad sent me. That’s crazy about all the fires and stuff going on over there. I showed the pictures of the fire to a lot of the people we visited this week. The Haws Family invited us over for dinner. He is our Branch Mission Leader. We just helped them move into their new home last week. Then we went over to the House's and had another dinner. It was also their daughters Birthday (Clarissa) so we had cake and she opened presents etc. Then they had a few fireworks that we stayed over to watch.  We saw a few big fireworks on our way home. Thursday, we had district meeting, it was on learning our mission language and setting goals. Then we had our weekly planning session. Then we went out to eat at a place like Chuck-a-Rama. We went with a big group of missionaries. Elder George was there with the missionary he's training. And Elder Fitzgerald one of my past zone leaders, was with us too. Then we had interviews with President Schaefermeyer. My interview went really good! We were supposed to come with a scripture from the Book of Mormon that answered a question of the soul. I chose, "why does God allow bad things to happen?"  I had two scriptures for that - Alma 14:9-11 and Alma 60:13. Then he helped me a little with some stuff I should say in my talk. After interviews we started an exchange. I was with Elder Rowbottom in my area. I’ve been on exchange with him before in Philly, when my last companion went to the temple. The exchange went pretty well. I was a little worried because I don’t know the area super well yet. But it went good. Friday, we continued the exchange then switched back companions. I got a letter from Ryan Moon, he's in the MTC right now. He wrote me back super quick! He's learning German! That night we went out with our Branch Mission Leader and visited some less actives Saturday!!!!! It was a really, really good and long day. Elder McCrae got to go to the Temple with my Last companion and their recent convert. So we left our Apartment at 6AM and drove down to Philly. Kevin Mass drove Elder Fredrickson and Elder Flake to Philly and they met up with us. Kevin took Elder Flake and me back to Jersey and my new and old Companion headed down to DC. We had planned this for a week. And I told Kevin not to tell the rest of his family that I was coming back, so that it would be a surprise! We got to Kevin’s house, and Autumn came down first, she looked at me then looked away then she took a second look, and said what are you doing here!? Haha, it was funny. Then Kyra came down and pretty much did the same thing. It was really, really good to see the whole family. And Caitlin Lemma was able to come over too and see me. I planned the whole day for Elder Flake, because I had a lot of people I wanted to visit. And I got to drive! Haha.  We visited Steve Parker, and Nancy. Then we went up and saw the Berdugo Family! Then we had our break, and I finished my talk. It was cool to go back to my old apartment. I actually forgot some of my stuff there from when I got transferred. So I was able to get that stuff. I also took some pictures of the finder binder I made to show you guys. We stopped by some less-actives, and actually caught some people home, that I had never got to answer the door before in my 7 months there! We found out some good information. The Foulk family invited us over for dinner, cause they heard I was back. They are awesome!! Then we went and saw Jessica, Sam and Chelsea Divece. Then we went back to the Mass home for the rest of the night, until we had to leave. We were able to teach Kyra a little about the Sabbath day, and Baptism. Then we left Jersey around 10:15 and headed to Philly. They didn’t get back from DC until a little after 11 because of traffic. We had to stay the night over at the missionaries’ apartment there, because President didn't want us traveling so late. We weren’t expecting to stay, so we didn’t have anything with us. Elder McCrae and me had to each share half of a couch. It was sooo uncomfortable. We didn’t get any sleep. Then we woke up at 5AM Sunday morning, and left to go back to Milford. We got there around 6:15 took a quick nap, and then we had to get ready for church. We both spoke in Sacrament meeting. Our talks went really well, I talked about sharing the gospel while there is so much attention on our church. And our Lesson in Priesthood was actually on sharing the Gospel. Some people actually brought up my talk a few times during the lesson! People were actually listening to my talk, haha. Then we came home and slept! We were soooo tired. We also found out that we have bed bugs.... YAY ;).. My companion has bites on his legs and arms. So today we vacuumed everywhere, and sprayed some stuff for bed bugs everywhere!!! And we’re washing everything today. Hopefully that takes care of it!
Well that's the week!! Nothing really new with investigators... we don’t really have a whole ton of them...the area's doing good, I’m still getting to know people and my way around.

Oh, so on the 4th of July we shared this scripture with people. Its 2 Nephi 10:11-12, "And this land shall be a land of liberty unto the Gentiles, and there shall be no kings upon the land, who shall raise up unto the Gentiles.   And I will fortify this land against all other nations."
So I actually read that scripture back in December, and when I read it, I said I’m going to use this scripture to share with people on July 4th, which at the time was far away. And I was able to use it!! Pretty, pretty cool beans!
Cya!

-Elder Jeremy Jensen