Message 30 January 2012

Message—30 January 2012

Dear Family & Friends,

Tuesday morning we left our apartment about 9 am to drive to Lancaster, which is south and east of Buffalo.  We had called Friday and Monday to make arrangements to see some apartments in the Lancaster area to find an appropriate apartment for Elder and Sister Wood to live in.  They will be arriving in the mission next week.  We picked up the elders who are assigned to the Lancaster area to go with us to help us determine if the apartments we were going to see were in their area or outside of it.  We went to 5 different apartment complexes.  Two of them were very run down and would not be appropriate to live in.  The other three were nice apartments and would have been alright; but one had some odd application procedures which we have learned create problems for us in the future, so we did not choose it.  Of the other two apartments we chose the nicer one, cleaner and better maintained, and also a little farther off main roads so it would be quieter.  We obtained the needed application information to take back with us for Elder Servoss in the mission office to do all the application process.  We called Pres. Christianson to get his approval to rent the chosen apartment; he asked us to call Elder and Sister Wood to be sure the rent and utilities amount was within their budget, which they said was fine for them.  We took the elders to buy them lunch at a nice restaurant.  We enjoy visiting with the elders over lunch and finding out more about them and how their missionary work is going.  They told us they have a family with 10 children and their parents whom they are teaching.  They teach this large family in the home of a member couple who have 7 children.  So when they meet each time there are 17 children and 6 adults in one home; and it is difficult to teach, but they are having great success.  The investigator family have been coming to church every week and eager to learn more about the gospel.  The 10 children range in age from 18 down to an infant.  When the time for baptism comes, there will be the parents and 5 children of baptism age.  After lunch we drove back to the mission office to give the apartment application information to Elder Servoss so he could call and make arrangements to hold the apartment for us while the application process was completed.

On Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday we spent the day in the mission office learning more about our new office assignments.  We had a number of problems and other things come up to help us experience things we will need to know.  When we arrived on Wednesday we learned three new vehicles had been picked up from car dealers on Tuesday while we were gone.  All three are 2012 Chevy Colorado pickups with 4 wheel drive.  I helped Elder McVea do all the processing and preparations to prepare these trucks to go out to replace three older Chevy Colorado’s with over 50,000 miles on them.  Then on Thursday we picked up four more new 2012 Subaru Legacy’s with all-wheel drive.  The four wheel drive vehicles are assigned to areas in the south areas of our mission because these areas have a lot more snow and there are some dirt roads and steeper hills on which the missionaries have to drive.  Sister Jensen also met with Sister Christianson to plan ahead for meetings for transfers this next week and also for some upcoming training and zone conference meetings in February; including food that will be needed.

President Christianson came in to the office on Thursday and let us know that the elders who speak Spanish and teach people who speak Spanish needed to be moved into a different apartment.  The Elders called and told us they had found two apartments for us to come and look at to see if they would be appropriate for them; and also that they had made an appointment to see them at 12:30 pm on Friday.  So during our lunch on Friday we went to see these two apartments with the elders.  The first one we went to was a great improvement over the one they currently live in.  We also went to the second apartment but the owners did not want to have the church, a third party, paying rent; so we called the Pres. and obtained his approval to proceed with the first apartment.  We obtained the application information and took it back to Elder Servoss and he began doing what he does so well to secure the apartment for the mission.

On Friday morning we also had the privilege to meet Elder and Sister Ellis who just arrived in the mission Thursday evening.  They are from Friendwood Texas, just south of Houston a little ways.  They are a great couple and will be taking over our apartment assignment.  We were able visit with them a little and make arrangements to have them come and attend our Brockport ward church meetings on Sunday; then stay and have lunch and visit with us after church.  Elder Ellis is related to President Christianson through their mother’s side of their families.

Saturday we had a P-day and got a number of things done that needed to be taken care of, such as washing the clothes, cleaning our apartment, and doing some grocery shopping.  Sister Jensen also got her hair done.  I went to Brother Arrington’s and worked on my wooden bowl project some more with Lee’s help.  He has so much knowledge and experience; I would love to learn more of what he knows.  I was able to get most of the lathe work and sanding done; there is still some more sanding to do.

Sunday we had the Brockport Elder’s ride to church with us in a snow storm with the roads very icy and slick.  We met Elder & Sister Ellis at the church.  Sister Ellis was talking with Casey Reichert, the 16 year old young lady who was baptized last October.  Their conversion experiences are very similar so they are already having a good connection.  Sister Ellis said she will make sure she keeps in close contact with Casey and help her through her trials with her mother.  During the last meeting of our block, we had a combined meeting with the priesthood and relief society and also included the youth.  The topic we discussed was concerning our ward mission plan and how the members can be a major part of the finding and preparing of people to be taught the gospel.  Sister Jensen and I shared some ideas and thoughts, for about 10 minutes, on how to listen to people and let the Spirit direct your words as to what you should say to share the gospel.  After the meetings we had the Ellis’s follow us to our apartment and have some lunch with us and we then shared with them some of the general information about what their apartment assignment entails.  We left our apartment about 4pm and drove to Mendon NY.  We, both the Ellis’s and ourselves, had been invited by Elder & Sister McVea to meet in the home where Elder & Sister Servoss live, which is across the road; to have dinner with both of these couples along with two other older couples.  The other two couples are Elder and Sister Morely and Bob & Eileen Haven, who are not members.  The Morely’s will be having their 60^th wedding anniversary next month and are in the same ward as the McVea’s.  They also were the missionary service couple who took care of the apartments before we arrived in the mission.  They helped us learn how to do our assignment with the apartments.  The Haven’s live about a mile through the farm fields, from the Servoss’s.  The homes where the Servoss’s and McVea’s live are two parts of the original home where Brigham Young’s father, John Young lived with his family.  Brigham lived in this home at the time Samuel Smith, the Prophet Joseph’s brother, gave the first copy of the Book of Mormon to Phineas Young, who was Brigham’s brother.  Phineas was a lay preacher and read the book twice in two weeks and was converted; and started preaching from it to his congregation.  This same copy of the Book of Mormon was then given to Fannie Young, a sister of Phineas and Brigham.  She read it and was converted the first time she read it.    Fannie gave the copy to Brigham who read and studied it for two years before he was converted.  The original home at some point was divided in to two homes, one stayed on the north side of the road, and the other was moved to the south side of the road.  Eileen Haven had lived in both of these homes at different times of her younger life.  After dinner, we all visited in smaller groups.  Sister Jensen visited with some of the Sisters.  I visited with Elder Morely, and tried to hear some of what Eileen shared about the Young’s home, but I missed most of it.  Elder and Sister Morely served a mission at Martin’s Cove.  He was the first senior missionary to present the Ephraim Hanks story to the groups at martin’s Cove.  Elder Morely and Elder McVea had made a very good quality sign, with more description than the previous sign, to be placed at the site where Brigham Young and Phineas Young and Heber C. Kimball and about 60 other people were baptized into the church.  Bob Haven has been the self-appointed care taker of the old sign; and had asked Elder McVea to make a better sign to put at the site.  For about 35 years or so, Bob would take the old sign down and take it to his home every fall before the hunting season began so it would not get shot.  He then replaced it the next spring after the snow melted.  The site where the baptisms took place is also where Brigham and his first wife Miriam lived and operated a saw mill and furniture making business.  They lived in a one room area above the saw mill.  The stream ran beneath the home and mill and the water was used to turn the water wheel that ran the saw.  We plan to make visits to Bob and Eileen after we move to the home where the McVea’s live.  We are greatly blessed to have the chance to be in some of these special church history sites; there is a special spirit in these places.  Our testimonies are reinforced through these experiences.

Since this message is so long already, I will wait until next week to share an experience the Ellis’s experienced in getting here to the mission.  The Lord is truly in the details of our lives in many ways; sometimes we do not recognize them all, but we know and recognize HE IS THERE daily in our lives.

For the month of February we hope the following will have wonderful birthdays: Jay Jensen on the 5^th, Madison will be 4 on the 18^th, Landon will be 9 on the 20^th, and Colby will be 13 on the 24^th.  Bless Chris and Lynne’s hearts, they are now parents of a teenager; what wonderful experiences are ahead.  We hope you all survive the rest of the winter, which is one third gone now.  We had about 5 inches of snow over the weekend.  Our Elders built a 9 foot tall snowman on our sidewalk by the front porch while we were not at home last night.  They had a missionary tie on him and was going to call him Elder J, but they did not get that far; then the snowman tipped over during the night.

We love each of you and pray for your success and well-being and protection.  We are very grateful to have each of you in our family and as friends.  Blessings to all of you.

Love,

Mom & Dad, Grandma & Grandpa, Richard & Maxine