New York and Hubble pictures

These pictures are some we have taken in the last few weeks.  The first one is a picture of us and the Elders in our District at a district meeting before transfers last week.  From left to right is Elder Morrison, Elder Tanner, Elder Peck, and Elder Hunt then us.  The 2nd picture is a sunrise over the hill/trees.  The 3rd one is some white tail deer on the edge of a field by some trees.  The 4th and 5th ones are The Martin Harris home North of Palmyra. The 6th is looking towards Palmyra from the North of town, you can see 3 of the 4 steeples on the churches which are on the 4 corners intersection in the middle of Palmyra; at this intersection there is a different church on each corner, the steeple of the 4th church is on the right hidden by the trees.  At this intersection you go South a mile or two and you come to a road which goes to the right and this will take you to the Palmyra Temple and the Joseph Smith Farm and the Sacred Grove; if you keep going South another half mile you come to the Hill Cumorah Visitors Center and the Hill Cumorah itself where the pageant is held each July.  During April there has been a display put together by the Church which shows some images obtained from images taken by the Hubble Telescope in outer space; this display will travel to each of the visitor centers the church has.  Each image is accompanied by three pictures, one of the NASA description of the image, next is a scripture, followed by the image; however the first one is in a different sequence, it has the image first followed by the NASA description then the scripture.  These photos do not do justice to the display, they are impressive, the images are about 3 feet by 3 feet or some variation close to it.  In addition, the Hill Cumorah Visitor Center obtained a copy of the video of Elder Maxwell of the Quorum of Twelve from several years ago when the First Presidency and the Twelve did the video of the Living Christ where they each shared their testimony of the Savior with different backgrounds.  Elder Maxwell did his in an Observatory with the large telescope in the background.  This really adds to the display.

The last picture is a Canadian goose nest in a pond by the side of the freeway on the way into Rochester.  The nest is made of reeds and grass and in the top of the nest are the eggs the geese have been setting on; one of the geese is to the right of the nest.  There were no geese setting on the nest when we took the picture but the geese have been setting on the eggs almost constantly during all the rainy weather.  They should be hatching sometime this week.

Happy viewing.
Dad & Mom

25 April 2011 Message

We express our love to each of you and express our appreciation for your love and prayers in our behalf as well as prayers in behalf of all missionaries.  The Lord is helping the missionaries here find and teach people who are prepared to accept and live the gospel teachings.  The baptism statistics show a gradual increase and the mission president is praying and pondering to find ways to help the missionaries be more effective and successful.  There are some wonderful missionaries here who have been sent by inspiration; they really want to do all they can to help bring people to Christ.

We were asked to try to find out where several sisters are who have not been seen or heard from for a long time.  Two of them have moved, but we do not know where.  One of the members tried to find one of them whom he knew by using Facebook and twitter; but he was not successful.   We finally found the cell phone number for the third sister, from a ward member, and have called her and left a message to call us, we hope she will.  Many people in the ward have been trying to find members whose names are in the ward membership list but no one knows where they are now.  After much effort trying to locate them the Bishop approved sending a number of the memberships to the Church Membership Department to be placed in the Address Unknown file.  There are church service missionaries who then try a number of methods to track down where these people are and when found the memberships are sent to the bishop of the ward where they now live.  The Brockport ward members are great people and we are making good friends with more of them each week.  At church on Easter Sunday we talked with one of the sisters who play the organ.  As we visited with her and her husband we discovered she is a daughter of Arnold Wilson from Mapleton where Richard grew up.  And she is also related to Gerald and Neva Hutchings from Springville.  Gerald & Neva’s son is the same Hutchings who we mentioned in an earlier message is the 2nd counselor in the Stake Presidency in the Rochester Stake. 

We have been trying to help the two full time elders who serve in this ward as they work with a sister and her two daughters and her boyfriend.  These people are struggling financially.  The boyfriend has finally found a job and we gave him a ride to work this past week on a couple of rainy days so he did not have to ride his bike in the rain.  They know the church is true and they read the Book of Mormon daily and come to church each week.  They have some personal issues they are trying to resolve so they can be baptized.  Elder Morrison and Elder Tanner are the missionaries who live here in Brockport.  Elder Morrison was kind enough to make a birthday cake for Maxine on her birthday.  It was the first cake Elder Morrison has ever made by himself and he was very proud of it; and it was very delicious.  When they brought it over to our apartment we invited them in and had them to have some ice cream with the cake and alsoshare some time with us.  They are great missionaries and working hard to find people to teach and they are having some success.

It has rained almost every day this past week including today.  We have never seen this much rain in just a few months in all the time we lived in Utah.  There is water everywhere including in the low places in the farmer’s fields.  One of the rivers we drove by Saturday was completely full and starting to go over the banks.  The weather man says more rain is coming this week.  We hope the rain and snow in Utah do not result in flooding for you.  We keep hoping the sun will shine so we can get some pictures to share with you.  We have tried taking pictures on days when it is cloudy and overcast and the pictures do not come out very clear.  We hope to get some pictures of the white tail deer when we get some sunshine so you can tell what you are seeing.

Thank you to those who sent birthday cards to Maxine and anniversary cards to us.  We also appreciate those who have called and skyped us to share your good wishes and let us know what is going on in your lives.  Thank you also for letters, cards,  and for email messages you have sent.  We appreciate hearing from any and all of you.  We are happy to hear that Shalee earned very good grades this last term in her school, keep up the good work.  Shay and Braden and Aaron are also doing very well in school.  We were sorry to hear that Brad’s family lost their newborn colt just a few days after it was born.  Mckinzi has done well in her Medical Assisting courses; she just needs to complete an internship and she will receive her Medical Assisting Certificate at the same time she graduates from high school.  Tyler and Chandler will also be graduating from high school, but we would like to know when the graduations are.

We had a great Easter Sunday.  Our church meetings were filled with the Spirit and we had our testimonies renewed concerning the Savior and His atonement and resurrection and His perfect example.  It has been a great spiritual feast to read the book To the Rescue about President Monson’s life.  He has had a life full of preparation and mentoring by other apostles and prophets to help him be ready to  be the prophet today.  We testify he is the Lord’s prophet and receives revelation to direct the church and kingdom in the way the Lord would have him do it.  We read the Book of Mormon and gain a stronger testimony of its truthfulness and inspired messages.  It blesses our lives each day.  We pray for all of you each day and hope you will receive the blessings and help you need in your life.

We Love You,

Mom & Dad

 

Message for April 18, 2011

Best wishes to each of you; we hope you have a great Easter Weekend.  We especially hope you feel the love and peace that comes from knowing the Savior came to earth and lived and taught us the way to live; and then sacrificed himself for all of Heavenly Father's children, His brothers and sisters, so that we could not only be resurrected as was He; but He also made it possible for us to repent and be forgiven of our mistakes so we could also have exaltation and live with Heavenly Father and the Savior forever.  We know the Savior lives and directs the Prophets and Apostles of His church and also guides all of us in our lives as we allow them to do so.

We are alive and well and happy in serving here in this unique mission.  We are becoming more acquainted with the missionaries and the members here in our area and we are learning what great people they are.  The missionaries are having success in teaching people who want the gospel and we are having baptisms each week in multiple areas.  As Spring comes the missionaries at the Church History Sites will begin seeing more people come and they will also see some people want to hear the gospel taught to them.

There are the beginnings of Spring but it is having a hard time showing up here in New York.  It has been snowing for several hours, but it has just stopped, but it is cold.  The last few days the wind has blown very hard and it has also rained.  We do not know how the soil holds as much water as has come in the form of rain and snow since we have been here.  There has been as much water fall from the sky in the last month as we get in Utah in an entire year, maybe more.  The grass is green and some of the farms have fall grain getting a good start, but the trees have not sprouted leaves; the buds are there and a few of the trees are showing a very little green but not enough to see from a distance of 20 feet.

This past week we have spent quite a bit of time helping with issues related to missionary apartments.  We traveled to one apartment, about a 2 hour drive, twice this week.  Our GPS (which we have named Molly) took us on a route along many back roads through the rolling hills in the country among the farms.  Some of the roads are a bit rough and narrow.  On one of the roads, which was narrow and lined with trees, we came around a corner and the road just appeared to end; it was scary enough to me that I slowed way down.  It was good I did because the road took a turn to the left and went down a very steep grade for about one fourth mile and then crossed a creek.  We live at an elevation of 690 feet in Brockport; along the way to the apartment we went over a hill that was at an elevation of just over 1700 feet, which was high enough that on the way back home we could look off to the North West and see Lake Erie in the distance.  Some of the farms are small and some are very large with a lot of farm equipment; tractors, disks, plows, harvesting equipment etc. and also large barns and sheds.  The dairy farms have the cows all enclosed in barns; with the capability of opening the sides to allow air in when the weather gets warm.

We are going to President Christianson’s home this evening to meet with the new missionaries arriving in the mission today.  They will then be taken to their first area of assignment tomorrow.  There are also other missionary transfers taking place tomorrow.  We have plans to meet with some of the less active members in the Brockport ward this week and see if we can be helpful in encouraging them to start attending church again, or do something to help them.  We just returned from the meeting with President and Sister Christianson where they welcomed four new sister missionaries and one new elder.  They are all great young people full of enthusiasm and the spirit.  Elder Pratt is the new elder, he was born with both arms missing above the elbow.  He led the music for our song, he can put on his own suit coat in smooth movement.  He can write with a pen between the ends of the arms; he can carry and open his scriptures and turn the pages; and he has a powerful testimony of the gospel.  He has had to prove himself capable of getting the education he has, and he can drive a car just fine.  The important thing is the Lord knows him well enough to trust him as a missionary so he is here and will do just fine with the Lord’s help.

We hope you ladies have a great time at the baby shower for Mckinzi on May 7th.  Mom made a couple of quilts for the baby before she left so Mckinzi would have them for the baby.  We hope all of the grandchildren will stay diligent and complete what is needed for school this year and qualify to graduate or advance to the next grade.  We are pleased Bailey received very good grades last term, keep up that good practice.  We would like to hear from all of the family and or friends as often as you can make time to send us a short, or long, email or letter.  Austin we still have not seen a picture of you and Josie?  Jana has set us up to use Skype, so if you would like to use that option call us and we can get on the computer with a better camera and we can communicate with you through Skype.

The other day on April 12^th I thought of my wonderful mother.  Since that is her birthday, she is 99 years old in earth life reckoning; next year will be 100 years since she was born of goodly parents who loved her, raised her, taught her, and helped her learn the gospel and gain a testimony of its truths so she could be the wonderful mother to her and Dad’s ten children.  Mother and Dad taught us just as Lehi and Nephi and other prophets taught their children and nurtured us in the ways of the Lord and helped us gain the testimonies we each have.  We now are trying to follow their wonderful example and teach these eternal truths to our children and grandchildren.  Heavenly Father’s plan truly is a great and eternal plan that will bring eternal joy to us as eternal families sealed together by priesthood  power restored in this last dispensation through the Prophet Joseph Smith and all the prophets and apostles since his day.  As Maxine and I have been reading the book “To the Rescue” together we are receiving a reaffirmed testimony on each page that President Monson is the Prophet of the Lord today and commune’s with Him daily and serves with all his heart, might, mind, and strength.

We love each of you and appreciate your faith and prayers for us.  We pray for each of you daily and trust you will be blessed in your lives.

Many blessings to all of you, we Love you.

Love,
Elder & Sister Jensen, Mom & Dad, Grandma & Grandpa, Richard & Maxine

11 April 2011 Message

On Wednesday Maxine and I visited a less active family here in the Brockport Ward.  Their names are Sterling and Carma Mason.  They both have health problems which prevent them coming to church very often, but they still live the gospel.  As we visited with them and asked about their younger years and their family, Sterling said he grew up in Springville Utah and graduated from high school there in 1954.  As we talked more Sterling said he had an uncle who lived in Mapleton when he was younger, his name is Harold Barker, who all of our Jensen family know well.  Sterling said he used to go pick fruit for the Barkers, as did some of our Jensen family.  He is also related on his mother's side to Lela Averett, one of Tom Wilson's aunts.  He is also related to George Hone, one of Leo Hones’ sons.  He worked at the old Eddington Cannery in Springville before it was shut down.  When he graduated from Springville High School he went to BYU and graduated with a degree in math and statistics.  He spent most of his life working here in Rochester for Eastman Kodak Co. and he also taught evening classes in math and statistics at Rochester Institute of Technology.  He and his wife own 50 acres, mostly hardwood trees which they use for heating their home and they also have an old wood stove on which they cook, also using the wood to burn in the stove.  Their kitchen with the wood stove and an old round oak table reminded me of our Jensen home growing up.  They have a good sized patch of raspberries and do a lot of canning and food dehydrating for their home storage, including dehydrating their raspberries, they do it well enough that the raspberries look like they were just picked.  They did 10 bushel of apples last fall.  Sterling does resemble the Barker family look.  He said Richard Barker died last year, but Reed is still alive.  This was quite amazing that we come all the way to New York and find people with connections to our Mapleton and Springville growing up years.  Just thought I would share this with you.

Also on Thursday evening the Rochester Stake High Priest Quorum had their annual High Priest Quorum meeting in the Palmyra Church 1/4 mile from the Palmyra Temple; then following the meeting we went to the temple and all participated in doing temple ordinances.  The 2nd Counselor in the Stake Presidency is a son of Gerald and Neva Hutchings who are Jay and Lonnie's close friends, he came to me and introduced himself, another small world experience.  Of course I recognize that these experiences come about by divine design, not by coincidence.

We also visited with a Sister Dumont who has not been active for years.  She has some health problems which prevent her from attending church meetings.  In visiting with her I think she really never got a testimony of the gospel when she was baptized.  She said she was baptized as a teenager because her mother told her she should join a church; and she chose the LDS church.  She was taught the discussions, the Anderson plan version, but she does not have much knowledge of the church.  Brother Davis, the High Priest Group Leader in the ward was Bishop when she asked him to marry her to the person she chose to marry.  They had two children and then were divorced a few years later.  We will continue to visit her and see if we can help her develop a testimony.

During the week Sister Jensen and I did apartment checks on all of our 12 apartments.  We called the missionaries ahead of time and arranged to come when it was convenient for them to be there so we could meet them and they could also meet us.  The apartments were in pretty good condition.  We provided some things they needed for their apartments, mops, light bulbs, and few other things.  A few of the missionaries needed a few more things which we have picked up and will get to them on Monday before or after the Mission Office Staff Meeting.

We express our congratulations to our grandson Austin and his fiance Josie on their engagement to be married.  We are happy for them and hope Austin will send us a picture of her or call us on Skype so we can meet her electronically.  We are glad that congress approved the federal budget for the rest of the fiscal year so Brandon and Chris still have jobs for which they will get paid.  We are also glad those in the military will get their pay so their families can carry on in their lives at home.  Chandler and Holden , we would love to hear how you are doing in your rodeo competitions; how did you do in the Fallon rodeo?  We have had letters from a few of the grandchildren and would love to hear from more of you, either by snail mail or by email.  We hope all of you do well during the rest of the school year, and that those who are going to graduate actually do graduate.  How are things going for you McKenzie?

We very much appreciate you remembering us and all the missionaries in your prayers, prayers are answered according to the wisdom and timing of Heavenly Father.  We know the gospel has been restored and Joseph Smith is the prophet of this dispensation; President Monson is the Lord’s prophet today.  The Book Of Mormon was translated by the power of God and contains the doctrines of Christ, who is the author and finisher of the great plan of happiness, which makes it possible to return to Heavenly Father after this earth life is completed.

We love all of you, we consider all of you family.

Love,

Elder & Sister Jensen, Mom & Dad, Grandma & Grandpa, Richard & Maxine

Hill Cumorah pics

April 4,2011 Message

This past week has been a little more normal of what we expect our mission to be like.  Our Mission President (In all the future messages I will just refer to him as President Christianson (pronounced Christensen)) has been greatly blessed in recovering from his heart attack and heart surgery very well.  He is not back to normal but is improving more each day.  Due to the uniqueness of his heart problems the Head Doctor of the Rochester Univ. Hospital Cardiology is doing some follow up evaluation and tests on the President two days each week.  One of the nurses who monitors his exercise stress tests has been asking him lots of questions about the church while he is doing the exercises.  I don't think I shared very many details about his heart attack but as he and I have talked a few times since we arrived here we have both come to the conclusion that the Lord was truly in the details of the President's life.  The Lord provided the inspiration to call him to this specific mission rather than another one.  The home where the President lives is only 10 minutes from the Rochester Univ. Hospital so he was able to have his wife get him to the hospital in time to save his life, if they had waited for an ambulance he would have died.  In addition, the head cardiologist was on duty at the time the President arrived at the hospital.  All the tests and evaluations that were done did not show any blockages, so they were going to send the President home; but he refused to go because he knew he had to have help.  So the emergency department people got the head cardiologist to come and give his advice.  After looking at all the results and checking the President himself, he made the decision to bump some other people who were scheduled for heart surgery and put the President right in to surgery and he was there during the surgery.  There was one heart artery with 100 % blockage, and three others with partial blockage; they cleaned out the three partial blockages and also the one with 100 % blockage and put a stent in it.  This doctor said if they had sent him home he would have died before he could get back to the hospital.  There were also other details that were all coordinated by divine direction to save his life and make it so he could stay here and continue serving as the mission president.  I hope none of you will ever doubt that there is divine direction in the details of your lives; I hope you will always take time to recognize these blessings and thank Heavenly Father for His help.

We spent some time trying to meet with some inactive members and follow up with one non-member contact the previous missionary couple left for us.  Due to illnesses we were not able to visit with any of the inactive people.  We did find that one inactive member has moved some other place.  The non-member had decided she was not interested in learning more about the church.  We went to our first district meeting with the Elders in our district.  We spent some time role playing teaching investigators.  We also met with the mission office staff, of which we are included, including the President and Sister Christiansen.  The President does still receive inspiration to direct the affairs of the mission.

One assignment the President gave us was to work the details of getting one set of Elders moved from the apartment they were living into another apartment that would get them out of a bad situation.The apartment they were living in was upstairs in an old home; there were two other apartments in the same home.  The other two apartments had younger people, university age, who smoked a number of types of things, and also drank and were up late into the early morning hours with loud crude music and other things missionaries should not be around.  The challenge in getting them out was that we had only had the missionaries there for two months of a one year lease.  The land lords of the apartment were not very happy when We first talked to them on the phone, so we were concerned about whether we could get out of the lease agreement.  We read through the agreement carefully and found some language that concerned us even more.  So the President asked us to call our Area 70, Elder Cook, who is an expert with real estate issues.  We manged to contact him just before he was leaving to catch a plane to attend General Conference and got some good advice from him about the lease agreement wording.  Sister Jensen and I prayed mightily for the Lord to soften the hearts of the landlords so we could get out of the lease and get the Elders out of the apartment.  Again the Lord was in the details of this one apartment for two elders.  He did soften the hearts of the landlords so that when we met with them, we were directed in the words to say, and they agreed to let us out of the contract.  The same day we met with the landlords we had also been blessed to find an apartment in much better surroundings that was less than a mile from the one we needed to get them out of.  So with the Lord's help to get them out the one apartment, He also got them another apartment; so within three days we got them moved to the new apartment with the help of the Zone Leaders who had a van and a trailer which the the Mission uses for moves of Elders and Sisters and for other things as well.

We were blessed to have the chance to hear the sessions of General Conference Saturday and Sunday.  The Brockport Ward priesthood has a tradition of having an ice cream social a half hour before the Priesthood Session of General Conference; so I attended that to hear this session.  We were able to connect our laptop computer with a TV to see the other sessions in our apartment.  This took the help of both April and Jana to help me make this work; but it worked great.

On the subject of more mundane matters.  The apartment complex we live in has a large lawn area out the back door.  There are squirrels in the two large maple trees which entertain us when it is not raining.  We also have a variety of birds in the trees around us.  One bird decided he was cold so he got in the vent pipe of the bathroom fan so the apartment maintenance guys had to come and rescue it.  We apparently are a jinx for flame sensors on gas furnaces.  The one at our home in Provo had to be fixed before we left for New York, and the one in our apartment had to be replaced last week.  The furnace guy was quite impressed that I knew what the problem was.  We have seen lots of deer in the fields next to the trees that are so plentiful.  There are large puddles of water in almost all of the farmers fields and also most of the trees look like they are in the swamps of Florida.  There are small dairy farms and some very large ones.  We are in the area of New York where lots of apples are grown; in fact the 1st counselor to President Christiansen is one of the top specialists in the Northeast US on growing apples, he is a professor at Cornell Univ. here in New York.  We live about a mile from the Erie Canal which has a lot of history to it.  We cross it every time we go to our church or to other small towns West of Brockport.

We would love to hear from any of you who would like to tell us how things are going for you.  You can email us at richmax816@msn.com ; or you can send a snail mail to

189 Viking Way
Brockport, NY 14420

We wish Todd and Laurie a happy anniversary this month and also Jana and Jason have their anniversary this month.  Happy Birthday in this month of April to Austin, Justin, Baylee, and April.

We thank you for your prayers in our behalf, and express our love and gratitude for being who you are and being part of our lives.

Love,
Elder & Sister Jensen, Mom & Dad, Grandma & Grandpa, Richard & Maxine