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

Guten Nachmittag

Guten Nachmittag!

This week was pretty cool. Sister Römer and I have been getting to know each other a little better, and having lots of fun. This whole week it has been POURING down rain (in July! Crazy. Must be the Second Coming.) But we're mastering the art of riding bikes with umbrellas.

Highlight of this week: Mission Leader Council. They always invite one companionship of Sisters to come, but I had never been before! Part of it was just talking about numbers and how each of the zones are doing, but we also talked about Europe as a whole and how missionary work is going, and what plans the Europe office has, and it was fascinating! Apparently things are going really well, and there are a couple of countries, Portugal, for example, where missionary work has just taken off and they went from having a couple hundred baptisms a year to a couple thousand! Germany will be next :) We gave a talk in Relief Society and Priesthood about missionary work yesterday, and now the members are really getting excited, and everyone is catching the vision!

Please pray for missionary work here. Pray that we can find the people who are ready. Also, please pray for our investigators, especially the da Luz family, the Quiring family, and Peter. We could really use your faith!

A couple in our ward got sealed this weekend (they've been married for almost 10 years), and we helped make the wedding cake and decorate the church building for the party afterward, and then we gave a temple tour to the guests who couldn't go in the temple. It was a really cool day! It made me think of Grandma and Grandpa Jones, getting sealed after so long being together. The Spindens (the family that got sealed) were so happy! You could just tell they were glowing inside. So cool!

Sister Römer is helping me tons with my German, and I'm helping her with her Englisch. It's kind of cool to not be the only one making ridiculous language mistakes all the time, haha. But my German is getting way better! And she's also teaching me a few phrases in Swiss German, which is actually an entirely different language. When Sister Römer talks to people in Swiss German, I have no clue what she's saying. It sounds cool though!

That's about it. Hope all is well at home! I heard the last Harry Potter movie came out last week! Hope it was awesome. I'll be stoked to see that when I get home.

Love you all,
Sister Jensen

Louis Got Baptied

Hallo,

Highlight of the week: Louis's baptism!

It was so cool! It was such a beautiful service. Almost the whole ward showed up for his baptism. All the members love him already, which is really good, because now he has lots of friends to keep him active in the church! :)

We also went down to Frankfurt for another baptism right after ours. The Elders in Frankfurt were teaching a really cool girl about our age, and she came up for a temple tour one week, and she said it really helped her feel the spirit, and after that she decided to get baptized! She asked Sister Schenk and I to be there and sing at her baptism, but then Sister Schenk got transferred, but luckily Sister Römer can sing, too, so we did that.

What else... oh, so we had interviews with President Schwartz. He is such a good man. So far, I've never seen him not smiling! He gave me some really good suggestions and advice. After our interviews, he and his wife came back to Friedrichsdorf for Louis's baptism, which was cool.

Other than that, not a whole lot to tell, just staying busy! It's been crazy hot here. We've been eating a lot of frozen grapes. It's our new favorite thing.

Love you all,
Sister Jensen

New Companion

Hello!

Highlight of the week: A day in Darmstadt

I had a really fun split with Sister Cannon last week, down in Darmstadt (hometown of President Uchtdorf). We made some really awesome contacts on the street, and we made mexican food for dinner. Germany has zero good mexican restaurants. It was so awesome to see Sister Cannon again.

Also, we had a meeting on Friday where our new mission president and his wife (President and Sister Schwarz) introduced themselves a little and gave a very inspiring spiritual thought. They are a really nice couple. President Schwarz doesn't speak much English, so from now on all of our meetings will be in German.

I also have a new companion now. At the Friday meeting, we found out that Sister Schenk was going to be transferred out of Friedrichsdorf. That night she packed all of her stuff and on Saturday we travelled to her new area where I said goodbye to her and picked up my new companion. The sad thing is that Sister Schenk is now really far away, way on the other side of Germany, so I probably won't see her for a long time.

My new companion is really nice, though. Her name is Sister Römer. She's from Switzerland. I'm attaching a picture of us that we took at the temple this morning.

Love you all,

Sister Jensen

Another awesome week

Hallo,

Well, yet another awesome week! As always! Sister Schenk and I are having an awesome time.

Highlight of the Week: Ninow's goodbye party (see attatched photo)

President and Sister Ninow end their mission this week, and my new mission President arrives on Wednesday. We had our last Zone Conference with the Ninow's last week, and Sister Schenk and I wrote a little song for them and performed it, and then yesterday the Assistants organized a surprise party at the Ninow's home. There were about 10 missionaries, including us, and it was really sweet. We sang "God be with you 'til we meet again" (Sister Ninow cried) and presented them with a scrapbook from all of the missionaries. It must be very emotional for them. They've been on their mission for three years!

Lots of other eventful things happened apart from that, though. First of all, Sister Schenk's stalker showed up at church again yesterday. Have I told that story yet? There's a creepy old man who was in her old ward in Frankfurt, and he wrote her a love letter, and then started showing up at our ward building here. A couple of the brothers got him to leave, but Sister Schenk was still a little shaken up. We talked to President, and he said he might have to transfer Sister Schenk to a new area if it continues, but he doesn't want to do that, obviously, so Sister Schenk is writing her stalker a letter telling him she's not interested, and to leave her alone. He also now has a restraining order on our church building, which should help as well.

Other things of note:
- We taught primary yesterday and they were so cute. There's a four-year-old boy from England who told me he wants to marry me. It was adorable.

- I'm going on my first ever split this week! It's pretty rare for sisters to go on splits, because we're so spread out. Anyway, I'm really excited because I'm going on a split with Sister Cannon!

- We celebrated the first day of summer by breaking out our winter coats and scarves again. It was freakishly cold! But today it's 35°C (about 95 degrees) and feels like real summer, haha.

Love you all!
Sister Jensen