Two pictures from Kristin

The post yesterday was Kristin's email plus one picture. This new attachment should have two pictures including one of Kristin and companion rainsoaked. Posted by Kristin's technologically challenged Mutter.

Post birthday e-mail

Hallo, wonderful family and friends!

Well, the highlight of the week was... sorting the recycling.
...
...
...
Okay, I'm just kidding. The highlight was of course my BIRTHDAY! :) :) :) :) I'm 22 now! Thank you all so much for the cards and letters for my birthday! I don't think I've had that much mail my whole mission! It really meant a lot to me, and I felt so loved. I love you all so much! I'm including a picture of my birthday schrine I made on my desk (if your card isn't in the picture it's because I got it this morning in the mail.)

We got our transfer calls and I am staying here in Friedrichsdorf with Sister Römer! We're actually really excited about it. Part of me wanted to see a new area, but at the same time I love being here, and I've gotten so close to the members in our ward that I can hardly imagine leaving. Sister Römer threw me such a wonderful birthday. She made me breakfast and bought me a really cute sweater (which was very puzzling, actually, because I thought, "When did you get this without me noticing? We're basically superglued together at all times!") and she even wrote to all of her friends and people in her home ward and told them it was my birthday, and so I got a bunch of really nice cards and notes from people who had never even met me! It was so nice of her. She's awesome.

Another cool thing just happened as we were sitting here emailing. A lady from the Phillipines came up to me, and asked me where I got my hand sanitizer (the one Matt and Melinda gave me that hangs from my bag) because she had the same one. Then she asked if we were mormons. She recognized our nametags because in the Phillipines there are like 20 million missionaries. I told her my cousin went on his mission there (Alan). Anyway, we offered to come and visit her family and talk about the gospel, and she said yes! We're going there on Wednesday! So cool.

One more thing: There was a ridiculous storm in Rosbach, a dorf in our area, and in the time it tooks us to bike from the train station to our appointment, we were completely soaked. Our investigators were laughing so hard. They said, "We thought you would for sure cancel with this weather! We thought, 'There is no way they're going to bike to our house in this storm'" Haha! Two points for dilligence! Anyway, so our investigator's wife threw our clothes in the dryer and gave us pajamas to change into. I can definitely say that was the first time I've taught a lesson in pajamas. Also, what she gave us were like... short shorts, and I thought, Hmmm... how should we handle this? I really don't want to explain garments right now. Luckily we were able to make it work, modesty-wise, and we had a really good lesson.

Well, this email is long, enough, I think. Enjoy the attatched photos! Thank you, again, for making it such a wonderful birthday! Love you all!

Sister Jensen

P.S. Photo No.1 is of us after the rainstorm
Photo No.2 is my birthday schrine, haha. And yes, I got a bottle of champagne from an investigator. Time to teach him about the Word of Wisdom!

Hi from Kristin's mother and latest e-mail from Kristin

Kristin's birthday is August 27 - be sure to wish her happy birthday. Mutter

Kristin's latest e-mail:

Hello,

So first off: This is the last week of this cycle (Europe is transitioning to a new missionary schedule, so we had a shorter transfer than normal), and I think I might get transferred, so for the time being, probably best to send mail and such to the mission office:

Germany Frankfurt Mission
Corneliusstraße 18
60325 Frankfurt am Main
Germany

Other than that, not much to report. We had a pretty good week, the weather was gorgeous, we had an investigator come to church yesterday, and I discovered that the grocery store near us sells my favorite yogurt! What more can I ask for in life? :)

Another REALLY cool bit of news: http://newsroom.lds.org/article/mormon-ads-new-york-city
Stuff like this is my dream job. This is what I'd love to be doing when I get back. Oh well, we'll see what the future holds!

I love you! Thank you for all of the letters and support. The work is hard but very rewarding. Coming on a mission was the best decision I ever made in my life.

Love,
Sister Jensen

Two Splits and a Funeral

Hello,

This week was pretty awesome! We're working on a couple of really cool projects at the moment, which we fit in whenever we have spare time, but it's cool because what we develop will be used for the whole mission. It's kind of hart to explain, but basically we're working on a program for the missionaries to work more with members, so we're writing up some workshops and stuff. So far it's been really fun.

I also had an awesome split with Sister Cannon last week, and tonight I have another split with Sister Bognar, the other sister from Darmstadt. Actually we're sort of having a sleepover with the Darmstadt sisters tonight, because they're coming to the temple with us tomorrow. And then tomorrow Sister Römer and I are going up to Dortmund (a few hours away) for a funeral. There's a woman in our ward who passed away, and the funeral is in Dortmund. None of her family are members, and the Relief Society was worried that no one would come to the funeral, so we got permission to leave our area and go support, sing a musical number, help out with food, etc.

I finished reading the Book of Mormon again, and I was struck with what a wonderful gift it is. Sometimes I forget how miraculous it is that we have the Book of Mormon. There are so many glorious, life-altering doctrines in it that I think I take for granted. We are teaching a woman right now (who reminds me strongly of Jessica, actually) and we gave her a Book of Mormon, and when we came back she had already read the introduction, witnesses, and a bit of 1st Nephi. She said she had started reading it every night before bed because it made her feel peaceful. She has a lot of questions about what happens after death, and it occurred to me that the Bible is pretty vague about what actually happens. When you read in the Book of Mormon, however, Alma 38-42 or so, it is so clear and answers pretty much any questions. That, combined with what we learn in D&C, paint such a clear vivid picture of God's plan for us. We're so lucky that we live in a time where the fullness of the gospel is on the earth.

Love you all!
Sister Jensen

Returning lost iPhone to grateful owner :) :)

Hallo,

We spent our P-day in Frankfurt with our district, so I don't have much time to email! Gotta head off to an appointment soon.

Highlight of the Week: We found someone's iPhone lying on the street in Friedrichsdorf and called a few contacts until we found the owner. They were really grateful and drove down to pick it up. We noticed that the background picture on the phone was an adorable family photo of a young couple and a little daughter. We thought, "They would be great Mormons!" so we prepared a passalong card to give them along with the phone. When the husband drove up, he saw our name tags and probably knew right away who we were (everyone in Friedrichsdorf knows the temple), and he asked us a few questions, and we offered to come by and talk about what we believe, and he said yes and gave us his phone number! We're really excited.

Also, I'm going on another split with Sister Cannon this week, which I'm really excited about! This time she's coming up here to Friedrichsdorf, which should be fun. For sisters, splits are basically really spiritually pumped-up sleepovers.

Well, I have to run. I'll send pictures we took today next week. We went up on a really high tower in Frankfurt and got pictures of the whole city and skyline and everything.

Love you!
Sister Jensen

New Cycle

Hi everyone!

Things are going well here in Friedrichsdorf! The weather is finally warming up, we found a couple of new investigators last week, and we're both healthy and well. :)

The Highlight of the Week was a spontaneous temple tour on Saturday. The temple called us and said that there was a non-member woman by reception who wanted a temple tour, and only had about half an hour. Normally we're not in Friedrichsdorf after 11:00 am (we're not allowed to proselyte in Friedrichsdorf, so we go to other cities to work), but luckily on Saturday we had gone back for something and so we were able to bike down to the temple really quick and do a tour. At first the lady seemed really cold and defensive, and a little annoyed that she wasn't able to go inside the temple, but during the tour she completely changed. She softened up and smiled more, and when we showed her the temple video she was even crying. It was a really good, spiritual experience. At the end she asked where she could learn a little more about the Church. She lives in Hanover, which isn't in our mission, but we got her contact information and we're going to put her in touch with the missionaries there. It was so cool!

I also got an AWESOME package from Grandma Jones this week! I was especially excited about the brown sugar, and the Rieses peanut butter cups. :) I shared the Rieses with my district and they were almost uncontrollably excited, haha. Thanks Grandma!

We also have some new Elders in our district, and they're all really awesome missionaries. There are actually a couple of Elders who were best friends before the mission, and now they're serving together! So cool. That would basically be like if Kelsey or Hailey was serving in my mission and we got put together. And the crazy part is that our mission president had no idea they knew each other! It must have been inspiration. They were so funny at our district meeting. We've nicknamed them 'the Sunshine Elders' because every time we see them they're grinning from ear to ear and laughing and just look like they're having the time of their lives.

We have one new sister in our mission, Sister Gates, and she is adorable. Sister Schenk is training her. Sister Römer and I went down to Frankfurt for the street preach to welcome the new Goldens. I had a couple of really awesome conversations on the street with people who were stopped to listen to us singing. Music is one of the most powerful tools we have as members/missionaries, I think. Music invites the spirit so much.

I'm also attaching a photo of me by the Freidrichsdorf Zwieback sign. I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but Friedrichsdorf is famous for this stuff called Zwieback, which is a food that supposed to have all sorts of health benefits, you can eat it when your sick, etc.. Basically it's just really dry bread that they toast twice, but everyone around here swears by it, haha.

I love you all!

Sister Jensen