Message—13 September 2011
Dear Family & Friends,
Sorry that I am a day late getting the blog message done this week. Yesterday was a long day that started at 6 am and ended a little after 11pm, and we were not at home with access to the computer until after 10 pm. We had to do our Book of Mormon reading between 10pm to 11pm before we could go to bed. So the blog message did not get done until today.
What were we doing during all that time you might ask? Well we will tell you. Monday and Tuesday (yesterday & today) were zone conferences for the whole mission, which were organized to take place by request from Elder Marcus Nash of the First Quorum of the Seventy. He is in our mission by assignment from Elder Packer to do a mission tour. He arrived Sunday with his wife Shelley and spent the rest of the day with President and Sister Christianson. The zone conference yesterday was for the Buffalo and Rochester zones, which includes us; then today was for the Palmyra North and South Zones. It takes about forty minutes for us to drive to the Westfall Chapel where the meeting was to be held, so we left home shortly after 8am. We were instructed to be in our seats by 9am sitting quietly reading scriptures and listening to the prelude music and preparing to receive the instruction to be given and try to be in tune with the Spirit. Elder Nash started an hour earlier at 8 am interviewing some of the missionaries. Elder and Sister Nash and President and Sister Christianson came into the chapel at 9:20am, we were each invited to go up to the front one row at a time to shake hands with all four of them. When our turn came we introduced ourselves by name and elder Nash said he was privileged to serve with two Jensen’s in his assignments; Elder Jay Jensen and Elder Marlin Jensen. We told him Elder Jay Jensen was my brother and he said then I need to give you an “abrazo”, Spanish for embrace or hug. I asked him to share the “abrazo” with Elder Jensen when he returned, and he said he would. He said he loved Elder Jay Jensen. After all the missionaries had shook hands with Elder Nash we began the zone conference meeting. Sister Christianson and President Christianson gave us instruction and their testimony for about 15 to 20 minutes each. Then Sister Nash gave us instruction and a testimony for about 30 minutes. Then Elder Nash began his instruction and took about an hour. He said that what he hoped would happen in this training and what he prayed would happen was to have the Spirit rain down upon us; and that is what occurred. There was a great outpouring of the Spirit all day. We then had a lunch together. We were invited to sit at the table with President and Sister Christianson and Elder and Sister Nash and were able to visit with Elder and Sister Nash. Then we returned to the chapel and Elder Nash gave more instruction for about an hour and a half. He is an awesome teacher and had much participation from the missionaries. There was excellent instruction under the guidance of the Spirit. After the conference we had some items to give to some of the missionaries for their apartments. We then went to the mission office to take care of a few items and then drove to Palmyra and had dinner. Then we drove to the Hill Cumorah and started on our Book of Mormon reading for the day, we only read two chapters, then visited on the phone with Lynne for a few minutes. We then attended a meeting at 7pm for all the missionary couples, including those who serve at the Church History Visitor sites, which was held in the theater at the Hill Cumorah Visitors Center. In this meeting President and Sister Christianson and Sister Nash gave five minute testimonies, and then Elder Nash took about an hour. To begin with he asked if anyone had questions they would like to ask. In response to the first three questions his answer was I do not know. He did talk about the factors and issues related to the questions but he repeated he did not know the answer. In response to one question he shared several experiences from his last assignment as Area President in the South America Northwest Area. It was a great meeting; it ended at 8:30pm. We then had some refreshments and made connections with Elder and Sister Whipple to give them some things for them to give to the missionaries who had the zone conference today. Elder and Sister Shepard completed their mission as of today and were starting their drive home today. They wanted to take some group pictures with everyone in front of the Christus Statue in the Hill Cumorah Visitors Center, so we did that also. It is about an hour to drive to Palmyra, or back home; we left a little after 9pm and got home about 10pm and then read our seven chapters from the Book of Mormon. It was a very long day, but it was filled with the Spirit and was more than worth the time spent. Our testimonies and knowledge of the gospel continue to grow and be strengthened each day. We know Heavenly Father and the Savior live and love us all and are closer than we might think in helping us in our lives with all the trials and challenges. We look forward to hearing from the prophet and the apostles in the upcoming General Conference. Joseph Smith was and is a prophet and the Book of Mormon is true and has the power to lead us to the Savior if we will read it and pray to know it is true.
Last Saturday President and Sister Christianson invited the members of the mission office staff (ten of us), including Sister Evertsen and Sister Price who are in their last month of their mission; to go with them to see Niagara Falls. The President drove us and we had a great experience together, including getting lost a time or two. We also rode on the Maid of the Mist boat which takes you right up next to the Horseshoe Falls. After leaving the Niagara Falls Park area there was a Perry’s Ice Cream (they make ice cream that is as good as BYU Creamery Ice Cream) near the entrance to the park. We all decided that since our mothers and grandmothers were not with us we would have an ice cream dessert before we went and had dinner; so we did. The president then took us to eat at Duff’s restaurant a few miles from downtown Buffalo. That will likely not mean anything to you, but this is a restaurant which is the 2nd place in the USA to start selling Buffalo Wings. We all know buffalo do not have wings; but that is what they called chicken wings with unique sauces and since they were first made in the city of Buffalo they coined the name Buffalo wings. Two of the hottest sauces have the names of “suicidal sauce” and “death sauce”, in other words the sauces are very hot and spicy. Other restaurants try to imitate the Buffalo wings, but they originated at the Anchor Bar. The Anchor Bar in downtown Buffalo is the original place where Buffalo Wings were first cooked and sold, but it is in a pretty scary part of Buffalo, so the President took us to Duff’s instead of the Anchor Bar. Duff’s brags about having President Obama and his family come and eat at their place last year.
The rest of last week we spent almost every day going to check on missionary apartments. On Thursday we rode with Elder and Sister Whipple, who live at the Peter Whitmer Farm, to do their final apartment checks at the apartments in the South part of our mission, in Wayland, Hornell, Wellsville, Bath, Penn Yan, Shortsville, and Geneva.. The Whipple’s complete their mission this month and will return home. Since we have never been to these apartments we went with them so we could see them and see how to find them so we could take Elder and Sister Jeff’s on their first trip to check on these apartments next month after missionary transfers the first week of October.
We hope Chris stays safe while fighting the fires in Texas. If Brandon is sent on a fire in the next week or so we hope he stays safe also. We were happy to hear from April that Olivia’s surgery on her ears to insert tubes was successful. Her eardrum in one ear is 5 times thicker than it should be, so that is why she is not hearing very well. The doctors have prescribed some medicine to help the eardrum get thinner so the sounds will not be distorted and muffled for Olivia. The medicine and the tubes to drain the fluids in her ear should help her to hear much better and she will hopefully be able to start talking. We hope all goes well for Tyler in his military training at Fort Sill, OK. Kendra’s sister, Rhonda, will be having more surgery and treatments for her cancer; we hope and pray all goes well for her and that the cancer will go into remission. We hope Jana and her family all get over the flu and sickness they picked up the first week of school. We hope all goes well for Norm with treating his tumors. We hope the new great grandchildren both grow and develop and will be strong and healthy and happy. We also hope the mothers recover well and can love and care of the babies as needed. We hope Travis continues to get the help he needs to continue recovering. We hope Justin continues to do well with his work and being a new father. We hope Britt will do well at completing his GED, and that he will also do well with his new job.
We love you all and hope all is well with each of you. We appreciate your thoughts and prayers for us and messages you send.
Love,
Mom & Dad, Grandma & Grandpa, Richard & Maxine
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