Saturday, March 19, 2011

Greetings from Brockport NY

We now have internet access here in Brockport so we can begin sharing mission experiences.  We had a wonderful week at the MTC getting trained to do what we will need to do on our mission.  It would be good for everyone in the church to go through that experience so they could be better member missionaries.  We started our journey to NY on Saturday the 12th of March.  We arrived in Cheyenne WY and spent Saturday night there. We attended a Sacrament meeting at a ward in Cheyenne and then headed accross Nebraska.  We only made it to Kearney before a bad snow storm stopped us, so we spent the night at Kearney.  Monday morning we took off again and drove through a lot of fog most of the day and made it to Princeton, Illinois and spent the night there.  Then Tuesday we started off again and drove through rain all day and made it to Mentor, Ohio (just North of Kirtland) and spent the night there.  Wednesday morning we got cleaned up and put on our missionary attire and made it to the Mission President's (President Jack Christianson (pronounced Christensen)) home.  Sister Christianson visited with us while we waited for President Christianson and his daughter Emily to return from the ariport to pick up another daughter Rebecca.  Sister Chirstianson and her two daughters fixed dinner for us all while the President talked with us and explained more about our assignments.  The President had heart sugery on Saturday (the day we left) and had some heart artery blockages removed and one stent inserted.  He has been greatly blessed by the Lord and is doing remarkably well but he is still recovering and gets tired and has naps as needed.  After dinner the President and his wife and daughters led us to our aprtment here in Brockport, which is about a 35 minute drive from the President's home.  We spent all day Thursday getting everything put a way and organized and got food and other things we needed.  Friday about 11 am we got internet set up and then spent the afternoon trying to find our way to the places we need to know about; we have a good GPS (Molly) to help us find our way to places we spell correctly, she is remarkably good at getting us to the right places.

While we were talking with the President in his home we learned from him why our calling came so quickly.  He was planning missionary transfers for Monday March 7th and came up with one assignment not being filled.  The President asked his AP's what they were missing and the President also wondered and asked what he needed to repent of so he could get the answer.  He came up with an alternate plan but knew it was not right.  We called the Mission Office while we were in the MTC to try and find out where we were supposed to report because we had never received any information from the Mission Office. After receiving our phone call the Mission Office staff talked with the President and they disovered that our assignment was to do Member and Leader Support (MLS not master of library science), which really means proselyting. When they discovered this, Sister Christianson called and apologized for not communicating with us sooner, they had assumed we had been assigned to the visitor center sites.  When the President knew we would be doing MLS, he knew why the transfer had not worked out right; we were the missing piece of the transfers.  The Lord knew we were needed at this very time and He coordinated through inspiration to the right people including the Apostle who was assigned to make mission assignments on the day our names were considered. We are assigned to provide MLS for the Brockport Ward; in addition we will be coordinating with two other couples to check the missionary appartments as needed, usuallly at transfer times.  In addition the President would like us to help with some Mission Office assignments which we will learn more about on Monday at the Mission Office staff meeting.  We spent last night going through the Brockport ward membership lists which were left for us by the previous missionary couple Elder and Sister Yost.  We are hoping to get to meet with the Bishop tomorrow and have him help us with some information about some of the names on the member list.  We can then begin meeting with the inactive members who still need to be contacted and also help in any other way the Bishop would like us to help.

The Lord truly is in the details of accomplishing His work, we hope we can follow the Spirit and do what He wants us to do and not get in the way of doing what He wants done.

Love, Elder and Sister Jensen (Mom & Dad/Gramdma and Grandpa)

1 comment:

  1. I am glad you made it safely. The Lord truly has a hand in our lives, as evidenced by your call. You both are in my prayers and I am excited to read more about your mission experiences. Much love.

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