31 Jan 2011 Baptisms and Bat Caves!

Friends, Family, Countrymen,


This week was amazing! One of the ladies, Alta, we have been teaching was baptized and confirmed! She is 80 but full of energy and she loves the gospel and the Book of Mormon. When she studies and reads The Book of Mormon she looks up all the cross references and says that "It really brings it out" She loves The Book of Mormon and we were so excited that she is now a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We have Stake Conference next week so yesterday was fast and testimony meeting and lots of the little kids got up and bore their testimonies and they were so sweet. Alta got up and bore her testimony and it was great. A little more lively and intense then what the branch members might be used to but I think she will really liven up the branch and be able to share her amazing faith with the people here. Also another man we have been teaching for several months came to church!!! And he brought his friend, we were soooo excited!!! Also a lady we started teaching a few weeks ago came to church for the second time in a row. It was a wonderful day, a day that makes all the other seemingly pointless tracting days all worth it. All the frustration and rejection is worth it when I see that people are changing and coming closer to Christ and learning more of Him and His gospel.

This week my testimony of fasting has been strengthened a lot, especially fasting with a purpose. I learned so much from fasting and I feel like the Lord was able to give me many blessings that he wouldn't have been able to give me if I hadn't. From Saturday evening all throughout Sunday I had such an overwhelming feeling of gratitude. I am so grateful to the Lord for all the wonderful things he has put in my path and all the wonderful experiences I have had. I know that one of the keys to happiness is gratitude. I am so grateful for President Monson's talk on gratitude in the last General Conference. Gratitude has been on my mind ever since then and in the last few days I have really seen the happiness that comes from gratitude. The other blessing I received from fasting this week is the feeling of self-control. As I sat Saturday night writing in my journal and really hungry I felt such a peace in knowing that I had control over myself. One of the reasons for us to be on this earth is for our Spirits to be in control of our bodies, the spiritual over the carnal, and I felt that this weekend. I know that through the Lord and His Atonement I can overcome myself and the “natural man.”

Last Monday I had an awesome adventure on P-day. Some members took us to "Alabaster Caverns" and we were able to tour underground caves and see lots of cool bats. It was lots of fun, and I just love driving over the wide open plains and being able to see the sky.

So pictures:

1. Sister Maude and I didn't want to take down our little Christmas tree, so we turned it into a Valentine's Day tree. I really like having it up, and if my next companion doesn't think I'm crazy I might have an Easter tree too.

2. Teaching a recent convert and their cat wanted to read the scriptures too. We we're just trying to "preach the gospel unto every creature"

3. Sister Maude, Alta, and me after she was baptized.

4. Cave stuff

5. More cave stuff

6. Me at the cave enterance

7. Bats! (they were in a tupor, i.e. halfway between sleep and hibernating)

8. Us on the way back from the cave

9. Me at "Boiling Springs" in JEANS!!! :)



Well that's all for now folks!

~Sister Lila Jenson

23 Jan 2011 Letter: Dealing with frustration

Dear Friends and Family,


We had two people at church on Sunday! And one of them is getting baptized on Saturday! We have eight people who have committed to baptism. We are going to be re-setting dates with many of them this week. Many of them haven't been able to come to church because they or their children have been sick. It seems like half of Woodward is sick right now. Thankfully Sister Maude and I haven't been.

One of our investigators hasn't smoked or drank coffee or tea since last Sunday and he is now starting to pray and read the Book of Mormon! He hasn't yet made it to church but we are happy that he is making some progress. Our next goal is going to help him understand the benefits and importance of church attendance.

We have about 11 people that we are teaching right now and it is exciting to actually have appointments and be busy!

Another push for this week is to try to follow PMG (Preach My Gospel) and have members at every lesson possible. We are also trying to prepare members before we teach with them because on Saturday we taught a “member present lesson” and didn't prepare them and the Plan of Salvation suddenly got way more confusing when people are trying to teach it in two different ways. When we were discussing how the lesson went Sister Maude and I also were able to discover ways that we could teach more in unity so we definitely learned from the experience.

I also learned a great lesson, when I'm frustrated the best thing to do is to think about how other people are feeling. After the lesson I was sitting in the car and feeling frustrated and I had this little thought come to my head "Well, how do you think Sister Maude is feeling?" I know this wasn't just my thought. I know it was the Holy Ghost trying to help me feel better and not be selfish. Once I started thinking about her and we talked about how the lesson went I started feeling much better. Thinking about this experience I know I can apply this to any time I'm angry or frustrated, as soon as I'm able to reach out of my own annoyance I feel much better. I'm sorry that I got frustrated but I'm very grateful for the lesson the Spirit was able to teach me and I hope that I can apply that to next time I am frustrated.

So since we've been teaching and checking up on a lot more people we haven't done as much tracting :) but one day we were tracting for about 3 hours and hardly anyone answered their door! We talked to about 4 people an hour! And one time someone opened the door and I said:

"We're missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints"

The man responded "That's bad!"

"Why is that?"

"I'm (church name has been removed)!" and shuts the door in our face.

Fun times in Woodward!
Lots of love,

Sister Lila Jenson

More pics from Woodward

An awesome sign I saw on a long driveway to someones house.

One of the gorgeous sunsets.

Me with a lightsaber at a members home :)

The chair that is in front of our neighbor's door. Only in Oklahoma....

Me with lots of clashing plaids, some evening when we were both super goofy. 

Another beautiful OK sky!

Boomers is the highschool. This is just west of town.

January 11, 2011 Grounded by the Snow

Family and Friends,


Well, I've been officially grounded... from our car anyways. It's snowy and apparently the Church is very careful about what weather missionaries drive in. Any snow or ice and it's a no-go. Our district leader called us twice this morning telling us to be careful if we planned to drive, and then again after President Taylor called them, to officially ground us. But thankfully the Family History center we email at is only about a mile away, and in fact a random nice lady gave us a ride :) The snow here has been more like snow specks or snow pellets rather than snowflakes, but it's still making the roads a little icy.

Well, this week was a lot of tracting, because all of our investigators were either sick or busy or dropped us. But Sister Maude and I have started memorizing hymns that we can sing while we are tracting. On our 1.5 hr trip to district meeting on Friday we learned "Let Zion in her Beauty Rise." We both like that song and it's a fun one, plus it talks about missionary work and preparing people for the Second Coming of our Savior.

Well, this is about the part of my letter that I try to include some super spiritual experience...But nothing is really coming to mind....(Rereads journal) Oh well here's something. We were teaching a member couple after a lesson fell through and we were talking about the Armor of God. Sister Maude had written a lesson using both Ephesians 6 and Alma 43. In Alma it talks about 3 things the people did to have success in battle: before the battle they created armor, asked the prophet what to do, and during the midst of the battle when things were looking bad they prayed. This can have a spiritual parallel. We try to put on the armor of God and listen to the prophet to prepare us for trials and hard things in our life. But even with that there are times that things still look bad and we don't know how we will prevail. That is what prayer is there for, at the moments in trials when we don't know what else to do--we pray. The Nephites prepared all they could but they were still losing to the Lamanites. But when they prayed and called upon the Lord, the Lamanites started fleeing from them! I've been thinking a lot about prayer and it seems to come up in a lot of things I have been studying and teaching recently. I know that prayer can be that steadying and boosting power in our lives. I have talked to so many people who have such a strong testimony of prayer and how that gives them strength. Prayer is a major way we access the power of the Atonement. It is through prayer that we repent. It is through prayer that we can give up our own will and focus on the Lord's will.

I'm grateful for the teachings of the Spirit. I've decided I want to learn as much about temples from the standard works of scripture and the missionary library as possible, since as a missionary I don't get the chance to go to the temple very often. I love the temples. I'm grateful for what the Holy Spirit teaches. I've seen that almost everything I read there is something that refers to temples. I know that the Lord knows of my desire to learn about them and is blessing me to be able to see things I haven't seen before.

Sister Lila Jenson

P.S. Advice to writing to missionaries: Ask specific questions. Much of the time I'm not sure exactly what to say in a letter, so I love it when people ask me questions that I can answer. I have a feeling this is true of all missionaries (the letter writing ones anyways).

2010 Holiday Pictures

Sister Maude and Sister Lila Jenson toast the New Year with apple cider!

Sister Reid and Sister Jenson at the branch Christmas party

Mulled Cider with Martinelli's as a treat!

Red Christmas tree adds warm glow

Lila's district and zone leaders

Sister Jenson is a great warrior for the Lord and even has her own tank!

January 3, 2011 Chained up cat!

Hello!


Well it was quite a week. I bought more Christmas music on Monday. I love music and I have been amazed that even with the mission music standards there is still so much music that I love. I am so glad that there is so much beautiful music on this earth and I am so grateful for all those who have developed the wonderful talents they have. I know that these talents are gifts given by God and I am so grateful that he gives them to people. Because, of course, then I get to listen to all of their wonderful music! :)

OK, another random tracting story. We walk up to this house and there is a cat with a huge thick collar attached to a chain leash and stake and the cat was meowing ferociously at us--which we found very odd. We talked to the people, who weren't interested and starting walking away. Then a huge mean looking dog runs around happily (without a leash) through their front yard. Talk about a backwards house. The cat is chained up but the dog runs free.

I finally had a "Tim-Tam Slam"! Yum!!! The Elders from the city traced some down (tim-tams) and brought them to district meeting :D If you don't know what a tim-tam slam is, look it up on youtube.com.

Wow, the Lord surely works in mysterious ways. One of the people with baptismal dates was going to have her interview and the missionaries were going to drive from Clinton to Seiling (about an hour’s drive) to interview her so she could get baptized. But she cancelled last minute on us. I was really frustrated because I didn't want to be an imposition on the Elders. But I said a prayer and asked Heavenly Father for peace about the situation, and then received a few ideas about what to do and the situation was resolved and I felt much better about it. Then as we were visiting a few people who had said they were interested in learning more, we were able to teach a wonderful lady who was really looking to come closer to the Savior. It was wonderful to be able to teach her and see her understand what we were saying. She had been confused by how preachers could say that a degree from a college or anything like that could give them definitive authority when all it was was their opinion. When we told her how Joseph Smith was called and explained about modern revelation she really was glad to hear of it. After we taught her we realized that if the interview had happened we probably wouldn't have been able to teach her. I'm so glad that Heavenly Father is directing this work and not me. I'm pretty sure I would mess everything up, for after all "believe that man doth not comprehend all the things which the Lord can comprehend." Mosiah 3:19 and "My thoughts are not your thoughts neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher then your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts." Isaiah 55:8-9

I'm so grateful for the Holy Ghost and his ability to direct us here on earth. I am so grateful for a prophet who can lead and guide us in the ways of Christ and who has all the truth.

Love,

Sister Lila Jenson

Christmas in Woodward OK

December 27, 2010


Dear Family and Friends,

I had a wonderful week and weekend. It's amazing how being close to the Lord and following very strict rules actually allows for a ridiculous amount of fun.

Friday we had a lovely District Meeting. We talked about inviting people to come unto Christ and the importance of not shying away from teaching people about the commandments the Lord has given us, because, of course, following them leads to happier lives. Then we watched Special Witnesses of Christ which is a wonderful video of the Apostles and the First Presidency giving their testimonies of Christ, his birth, life, and ministry and it was filmed in many different locations, at the Jerusalem Center, Gethsemane, the Nauvoo temple cite (it was filmed before it was rebuilt), etc. It was a wonderful way to start off the Christmas weekend.

For Christmas Eve we had a picnic dinner with Sister Reid, an 80year old lady in our branch. In Sister Maude's family they have a "shepherd supper" and eat pita bread sandwiches and dates and almonds and grape juice on the floor with a blanket under the Christmas tree. Kind of an American version of what the shepherds might have eaten. (FYI: Finding Pita bread in Woodward was no easy task!) We had a lovely time and read the Christmas Story in the Book of Mormon with her.

Saturday we had a lovely time--we opened presents in the morning, had our typical study time (8-10am) and then baked Danish Pastries for several hours and then delivered them and caroled to lots of people in the branch. Then we went and had dinner with a wonderful family in our branch and played Apples to Apples. :)

Sunday was great and for our studies we sang Primary songs for about 30 minutes and planned how you could teach the Restoration, the plan of Salvation, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and all the commandments using Primary songs. We found songs for all of them, including the law of chastity (with a little twisting) but couldn't find any songs at all for fasting. I was shocked that that was the one thing we couldn't find a song for.

I guess I will end with my testimony. I know that Jesus is my Savior. I know that it is only through Him that I can be made free from sin and death. I know that reading about Him in the scriptures has given me great strength and has given me a lot of joy. I know that because Heavenly Father wants all of his children to know about Jesus he has called a prophet and apostles to lead us. I have had the wonderful privilege to feel of some of the Savior's love for the people I have taught and I am so grateful that I get the opportunity to serve as one of His servants. I am grateful for His birth and for His dedication for His choice to always choose the right way. I know that I want to learn all that I can from Him and His life.

Sister Lila Jenson