Howdy folks. It's your friendly neighborhood Elder Jensen reporting
live from the city of Phoenix, Oregon.
The first week of the transfer
in the new area was really swell! There are a lot of really good
things going on over here that I'm so grateful to be a part of. It's
going to be a great place to start the final countdown of the rest of
my mission.
So nitty gritty. Medford is so much different from Eugene. The people
down here are significantly less...Oregonian? Everything has a bit of a
California vibe to it. The city itself is really nice! Medford reminds
me a lot of Bountiful in most aspects and has a lot of shops and
restaurants. It's a good place to be.
Last Monday I got shipped down here to be with Elder Davis, my new
companion. He's a great guy. He's from Arizona and has been out about a year and we get along great. We work together really well and are
on equal footing ability wise. We've been doing a lot of really good work together.
We spent the majority of our week going around and
visiting investigators that the previous Elders had been working with.
There's a lot of promise! I still haven't met everyone, but we do have
some really top of the line people who want to learn about the gospel.
We were also able to find some new people to teach. We street
contacted into these two guys walking home from school who had some
questions for us. We gave them copies of the Book of Mormon and are
hopefully going to meet up with them again. We had a lady knock on our
door selling chocolates, so we had an exchange - we gave her a dollar
and a Book of Mormon for some chocolate. It was like reverse tracting;
people are knocking in to us!
Other fun highlights from the week included doing service for an older
couple in the ward named the Greenwoods. They're such friendly people
and make a killer elk stew. We moved firewood for them, which is a lot
harder than it sounds.
We also did service as a Zone at the Phoenix
cemetery cleaning leaves and debris. I learned how to use a riding
lawnmower which is SO much nicer than a push oh my goodness dad what
were we thinking?! Night and day difference everyone. Technology is
amazing.
Anyhow, we also had an exchange with the 6th Ward Elders (where Elder
Peterson from Kaysville is!) we got paired together again and went out
to contact people for a while. Exchanges are awesome due to the fact
that they're like a giant sleepover.
We also worked this week with the
ZLs to perfect our barbershop quartet version of Brightly Beams Our
Fathers Mercy. It's going to be spectacular when it's finished. We'll
be the next Osmond's, or other famous Mormons.
A cool thought I had this week came during fast and testimony meeting.
As members went up to bear their testimonies, I thought of the all the
other members around the world sharing their testimonies across the pulpit. It's very special that the gospel is just as
important to us as it is to everyone else. I imagined the air being
filled with the sound of the testimonies from around the world. The
gospel is so fantastic.
Crazy Oregonian Spotlight of the Week. This week's shoutout goes to Donna, the purple lady. She's a member
of the ward here and just a hoot. She has a compulsive lying problem,
so she tells some out-there stories. (She lost 98% of her skull
apparently at one point.) She also only wears purple, even her hair.
Bright Purple. She's a great lady nonetheless.
That's it for me! Tune in next week to see if we can figure out our
rendition of choral hymns. Until then, let your light so shine!
Thank
you all for all that you do for me and all other missionaries too. We're very grateful for everything!
Play that funky music white boy,
Elder Jensen
