Week 24-Nov. 19, 2018

Thankful 4 Taipei! ❤ 

哈嘍 Fam and friends!

A lot of fun little things happened this week! We met some Australians at dinner one night that were super nice, Sis Larsen helped them order and we got to share a scripture with them! We also went and danced with the ladies in the park twice this week! We bought sweet potatoes from the morning market that were so good! never thought straight sweet potato, peel and all, could be so good! We also took a recent convert and friend we are teaching and her husband and a member to the family history center by the temple and it was so good! It's super cool that they have books of families' records, like the Lin family or Chen family, etc. as well as so much online info! A lot of Buddhist and baibai (ancestor worship) people will be interested in family history if not the gospel. 

This week my English class went super well because the Lord provided and a lot of friends came and the spiritual share went smoothly! I showed the BYU vocalpoint video "I Stand all amazed" and we talked about how the Atonement of Jesus Christ can heal our hearts and souls like doctors heal our bodies (the topic was health and wellness) and the Spirit was so strong! It was another one of those moments when I am reminded why I am in Taiwan and why I love being a missionary- because I get to talk to people about Christ all day! 

After English class, we went to a 7-eleven to finish daily ministering (texting or calling the people we are teaching), and we went to sit down and there was an eggshell on the table so Sister Larsen goes to flick it off and flicks it right at this guy on his phone at the table next to us! He jumped like ten feet and Sister Larsen quickly apologized and looked as shocked as the guy was. Then we both silently laughed so hard we got tears in our eyes! This week I also accidentally said "the second thing, " after Sister Larsen said "and now sister Jensen will explain the gospel of Jesus Christ". That time the elders were the ones silently laughing until I realized my mistake and started over with "the first thing". 

One of the highlights of this week was on Saturday we had a ward activity were basically played big group games from 8-12 then had lunch! It was super fun, we played dodgeball, pop the balloon tied to people's feet, rock paper scissors group style, relay races, etc. We got a new friend to teach from the activity and I met this super cute young women who is going on a mission to Los Angeles in 10 days! We were immediate friends despite the fact that our communication was limited. 

Scripture of the WEEK:

Mosiah 7:33 "But if ye will turn to the Lord with full purpose of heart, and put your trust in him, and serve him with all diligence of mind, if ye do this, he will, according to his own will and pleasure, deliver you out of bondage."  I wanted to share something more "thanksgiving-y", but this scripture stuck out to me and my companion mentioned that when we turn to the Lord, we will find things to be grateful for and we will see His hand and miracles in our lives! That is so true! Trust in the Lord, turn to Him with all your heart, and serve Him by serving others and your heart will be happy and find things to be grateful for! Happy Thanksgiving!

Sending love and prayers!

You all rock!

Sister Jensen 

Random person we met and set up for the elders on Rainbow Bridge

Wu family FHE

New friend from the ward activity 

Some games at the ward activity (we were on the green team ;) )

Week 23-Nov. 12, 2018

On the warm side of perfect! ☀️

Hey fam and friends!

This week!!!

We had two awesome FHEs with part member families, Trainer Trainee Follow up meeting, Zone meeting, adorable primary program on Sunday, and we started a competition to pump up our ward to do missionary work before Christmas! It's called "Light Songshan" 光照松山 like (Light the World)! We gave them ideas for things to do to share the gospel (give a tract to a friend, invite someone to English class or church, share a scripture with a friend, take the missionaries with you when you minister, teach a lesson with the missionaries, invite a friend to a church activity, share some chocolate, etc ;) ) and rated each thing a certain number of points based on difficulty (chocolate is just 5 points ;) ) and the Relief society, elders quorum, and Youth/Primary will all compete to see who gets the most points! We will make homemade American cookies for the winners! ;) The leaders helped us out a lot with pushing it and helping get the members excited! 

We also had dinner at the Young Mens Presidents house and we helped him make omelettes, pancakes, and grilled cheese sandwiches! It was a ton of fun and they live on the 12 floor so there was a GORGEOUS view of the city from their roof!

This preparation day we went to the Sun Yat-sen memorial hall and went shopping with another set of sisters after Christmas choir practice! So fun!

Funny story: One morning when we were getting ready to leave the apartment, it was my turn to pray and so there we were, standing by the door, and because it was Wednesday and English class, Sis Larsen had her pink ball in her hand and so as soon as I said Amen, she chucked the ball at my head and we both busted up laughing and couldn't stop until we started biking. It's the little things, ya know ;)

Joke of the week: What was the fruit that Adam and Eve ate in the garden of Eden? .......Mango! Because then God said, Man go! 

Scripture of the week: D&C 36:6 "Look into me in every thought; doubt not, fear not." I'm trying an experiment this week: every time a negative thought comes into my head (for example, I'll never understand Chinese), I am going to try to change it to turn it positive and to the Savior, Jesus Christ (Through Christ's power, I can understand Chinese well enough to teach His people His gospel and bring them joy.) It's a simple thing, but it has already started helping a lot! If you find it hard to get through your days recently or have a lot of negative thoughts, I would encourage you to try this experiment with me this week! 

Sending love and prayers! 

Keep being awesome!

Sister Jensen 

Marry Christmas! ;)

Xu Family FHE

Light Songshan!

The Sistas in our zone (Taipei East)

View from the roof

Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall (Sis. Larsen, Huang, Delong, and I)

Week 22-Nov. 5, 2018

Officially Christmas season! (😊❤)

Dearest Fam and Friends!

The Christmas season has begun!!! 

This week!

So Tuesday morning Sis Larsen was feeling a cold coming on and so she took some medicine but then during language study she was just SO TIRED and couldn't figure out why and so I asked her what she took and she was like, Benadryl.....Haha she then took a 5 min power nap and felt better the rest of the day! 

Wednesday we got to take two of the missionaries that arrived from the MTC with us for a night to English class! I got to be with the sweetest sister from the Philippines! She was such a big help in English class and it was super fun to watch her speak to the students and practice both her English and Chinese! We took them to the pumpkin dumpling place we love for dinner and a member showed up and paid for us all! So nice!

One day we were biking along the road in an area we weren't very familiar with and all of a sudden this loud voice (from heaven?;) ) goes "Lei jiemei!" and we stop and like look around like, did you hear that? and then a bus pulls up and the driver is a Songshan ward member and he smiles and waves at us! We were so happy to see him! Little miracle of the day!

This week President Owen (previous Arcadia mission President and now Young Mens general president) and Elder Homer came and visited our mission and spoke to us all Friday afternoon. It was so so good! One of the biggest things I learned was about always being filled with faith! When we have faith, we have hope, peace, joy and love for others! We also fill our hearts with gratitude for all the many blessings we have been given, first and foremost of which is Jesus Christ, our Savior. I am so grateful to be a missionary and so grateful for the Atonement of Jesus Christ. 

We had one of the most powerful lessons ever on Saturday evening. We had dinner at a members home and the elders had to leave early for an appointment, but we stayed to give a spiritual message to this sister, another sister from the ward, her daughter and two other young women, so it was all us girls. My companion and I decided to teach a power Restoration with an invite to pray about a friend who is ready to hear the gospel. I taught the first half and then Sister Larsen taught about Joseph Smith and when she recited the first vision, the Spirit was so strong, everyone could feel it bearing witness of her words. She bore a beautiful testimony and we both started tearing up as I added mine to hers. I truly know this church is true and is Jesus Christ's church restored through the power of God by His prophet, Joseph Smith. We both mentioned as we biked away how powerful the Spirit was and how we see future missionaries in all three of those young women and were honored strengthen their testimonies with ours.

Scripture of the week: 2 Nephi 25:26

"And we talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, we prophesy of Christ, and we write according to our prophecies, that our children may know to what source they may look for a remission of their sins." Lift up your head and rejoice:) And if you don't feel like rejoicing, remember Christ. He has paid the price of our sins and through Him, we can do all things.  Is that not something to rejoice about?

Sending hugs and prayers!

Have a FANTASTIC week!!!

Sister Jensen 

Week 21-Oct. 29, 2018

"Naughty, naughty....." 

Hello friends and family!

I hope you all had an awesome week! I think and pray about you all the time!

As for my week, we started waking up 15 min early to bike to the river to jog, bike, or do stairs in the mornings because the weather has just been absolutely perfect and it's so nice to exercise outside where there's people and a nice breeze! 

The most exciting part of this week was probably our ward Halloween party! It was super fun and a ton of little kids from Sister Larsen's English class came and we got to talk to their parents for a while! The members helped a lot with decorating and preparing the games, and we even got to do a little game/spiritual share at the end! So good!

Funny story: There's a kid in Sister Larsen's English class who always says "naughty naughty [insert name or activity]" in a funny British accent- I don't know where he learned it, but its hilarious. And one time Sis. Larsen was gathering all the kids up to read a story and was holding the picture book she uses to tell scripture stories and one of the other kids was like "Are we gonna read about Jesus?" and she was like "yeah!" and then the little boy was like "Naughty Naughty Jesus story!" Haha so funny. Little kids are the best! 

Also, our district leader is a gymnast and we set some goals on Tuesday in district meeting so for extra motivation, we decided to: if we dont have 2 gospel conversations each before noon, we have to do 25 squats per conversation missed, 4 more convos by 5pm and that's 25 push ups for each missed, and then 4 more by 9:30pm and that's 25 burpees per convo missed. Haha needless to say, we been getting a lot of good exercise recently ;) 

So my STL says the more mistakes you make, the closer you are to being the missionary you want to be. A couple nights ago, I started a conversation with a couple on a moped next to me at the stoplight and ran out of things to say, so I asked if they had kids, only to have it dawn on me a few seconds later that they are probably not married and that was a really awkward question to ask... my trainer luckily joined in the convo and smoothed things out a little and somehow related what they were saying to the gospel but I felt really awkward for a while after haha. Ya live and ya learn! ;)

Thursday morning we decided to go for a walk for exercise and we saw about 30 older ladies in the park doing little line dances! It wasnt like taichi, it was like hip songs (like Remember me from coco) and pretty intricate footwork! We watched from the sidewalk for a second and one of the ladies saw us and waved us over! Haha it was pretty hard to keep up with what direction to face, etc., but it was so much fun and they were all super duper nice!

Miracle: Last week some missionaries from the Philippines finally got visas and came to Taiwan in the middle of the week/transfer, so President was sending them down to Taidong for a week or so until they would get their official areas. The office elders tried to book tickets on the 2pm train, but it was all full, so they took the 1:30pm train. That afternoon the 2pm train had a huge accident, fell off the rails, and 17 people were killed. It was truly God's doing that the precious new missionaries were not on that train and arrived safely in taidong. President's wife called them later that day to make sure they were all okay and they sang "I am a child of God" for her over the phone and brought her to tears. God is so very merciful and is watching over all of His dear, dear children. 

Scripture of the week: Alma 26:37 "Now my brethren, we see that God is mindful of every people, whatsoever land they may be in; yea, he numbereth his people, and his bowels of mercy are over all the earth. Now this is my joy, and my great thanksgiving; yea, and I will give thanks unto my God forever. Amen." I know God is mindful of all of His children, no matter what land we may be in! He knows His children in Africa, Taiwan, Philippines, Europe, Canada, and America! He watches over us day and night. His grace is sufficient if we do our best to follow Him and trust in the power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ, His Beloved Son. 

You are all amazing! Keep pressing forward and being a light to the world! You make a difference! The Lord is on your side! 

Sending prayers and hugs!

Love and miss you bunches!

Sister Jensen 

Bethany and Roy (naughty, naughty...) at our Halloween party!

The Plan of Salvation (God's Plan because He loves us)

Dinner with the Xu family at a Thai place

Hot Pot with the Ling family! (yes, they gave us live shrimp that were still moving...and a whole squid)