362 days left Questions and Answers

Send me a picture of you and your companion RIGHT THIS SECOND!  

ok i don't have one of my comp and i yet but i will get that to you soon.

So, what did you do for your hump day?  Any missionary rituals?  

we used to be able to burn like a shirt at a year mark but some silly missionary burned his clothes while they were on him and in turn got it banned throughout the whole dang world!!!!!! lame sauce!!!!!!!

Send your sd card home?  

yeah i'll send it home.

what is the best thing about your companion?  

he is super funny and he's not from the US so i get to hear all about his life back in Kiribati. soo cool.

Are you taller than him? :)   

haha yeah i think by like 7 or 8 inches.

Had any special moments this week?  

mmm at the pagent. it was a good learning experince for everyone to see what the prophet and the saints had to go through.

How was the temple????  Did you get to do a session? Watch the pageant?  How fun!!  I'll sure take a picture of that too. hehe  

just got to go to the pagent. no temple yet. hopefully soon though.

How is your bike?  I bet you look so cute in your helmet.  Take a picture of you two together wearing your helmets.   

haha i have this goofy lookin helmet that you would wear if you were like a skateboarding like one of those round helmets. i got laughed at all the time.

Are you still training?   

no i'm done with training. :) he has to have language study  after our companion study but thats it. 

day 367 ONE year mark this week

well i have been transfered to the iowa city ysa branch! i just came from a college town and now am in another college town. this one is a little bit scarier because we cover all of iowa city and coralville and north liberty! just cause we are the ysa branch missionaries! i now have a respect for all missionaries who have to ride bikes on missions. i haven't really had to have one till now. we have so much to cover and i think i will have the hugest legs when i get done with this week alone!!! we are in another car share where we switch the car every week and will be having to bike till thursday after district meeting. it is sooooo slow here! we haven't taught one lesson while i have been here! everyone is working or going to school. i liked having the ysa in a family ward cause we had more people to visit and just a small area to work in that they were  all in. there is a guy in our branch who knows austin otto! he played with me at fort dodge! soooo cool!!! he said that we will have to get together and play sometime. soooo sweet!! so if you ever get the chance to send my cleats out to me do it! :)

 

i now have the opportunity to go to the temple and to the nauvoo pagent since i am closer to nauvoo!!!! woohoo and we are going tomorrow with a member and an investigator!! already this place is awesome! haha anyways...

i will answer the quote from christians email...it is from kid history!!! haha i had to think about that for a sec but then it came to me! :) 

uhhh i don't have much else to report on cause im so new to the area. i love you all so much and can't wait to hear from you again!

 

i love you again!

 

love

 

Elder jens smith

day 367 Questions and Answers

What was Elder Folsom's first name?  You sure you don't have any pictures of him?  I think it's time to send home an sd card....  

ok i will do that as soon as i get home today! i don't have any pics of him on my camara but i do have a hard copy of one that the sisters took when we were in the butterfly garden so i will get that to you as well.

Do you/did you get any pictures with the Cannon family? I would like to see who they are.  They sent a really nice paragraph about you on my blog.  Would like to put a face to it.  

yeah she has some pics of us on her camera cause my camera was out of batteries when we went over there so you can email her and ask her if she could send them that way. yeah they were soooo cool! i will miss them as well as a few other families there. 

Where'd you get transferred?   

as you can tell i got transfered to iowa city! home of the hawkeyes! they play byu some time in september i think. at least thats what all the people here are telling me. maybe i can get that approved to go to that. :) haha

Companion's name?  how long's he been out?  Where's he from?  

my companions name is elder tekanene! he is from the marshall islands called kiribati pronounced kiribis. say the r like a spanish r, almost like a d. pretty cool! he says that they eat shark and dolphin there and they are really good! haha crazy!!! he is pretty short and is the only convert in his family. he converted when he was 13 cause his parents sent him to live with his aunt and uncle cause the place where they were at didn't have a good school so they sent him to live with them and they just got back from the fiji temple where they got sealed and then he just went to church with them and was converted a couple months later! his family are super catholic and thats the main religion there in kiribati. he is pretty funny. he has been out for about 7 months now.

In your picture of the part member family with the 14 yo girl who got baptized...which parent is the member?  

they are both members. its the girl who is the only part of their family who wasn't baptized yet. i don't know what they will do with their three year old son...

Who are you going to miss the most from Ames?  

mmm i don't know...i think i will miss them all the same! they all made up ames. like i said i was ready for a new place not new people.

Who did elder curtis get?  

elder curtis got an elder named elder morales. don't know a single thing about him.

day 360 Transfer Week

so this week was a good one. just flew by just like the rest of them but the coolest thing was when we were on exchanges with the iowa falls elders in our district. so i will tell you all about that and what happened just as we were about to leave there.

 we went to iowa falls to have that exchange and we got there and started off. we went to see some people and we then went to see a guy who could be called less acountable but was sooooo super funny!!! haha. we went on with our day and then went to bed. we got up and went to work out at this hospital gym that they have there and it was so good! it was nice to be able to work with real weights instead of  just doing push ups or sit ups and have a curling isolation pad. soo good. and so we did that and i was like man this feels good and everyone there was like "this guys huge"! and i was like no im not. look at me im just this little fat missionary who does some push ups and sit ups in the morning and maybe runs every now and again but im not big and they were all like calling me the giant jensen. hahaha pretty funny. i don't think i look that big. anyways...after we ended our exchange elder curtis and i went to walmart there to grab a drink for the ride home cause it was about a 45-50 min drive home. so were were there looking for stuff when we stopped and looked around thinking about which way we should go and so all of a sudden this guy comes out of nowhere and says "man you guys walk fast" and we were like oh ha well sorry and then we started talking and the whole time we were talking i was looking at his arm cause he had a tattoo on it, and i thought that this guy was not a member of the church and then he starts asking us where we are from and then tells us he is from knoxville, tennesee and that he was just up here for something...i don't remember what but then i think hmm i shouldn't judge a book by its cover and then he says " i really apprieciate what you guys do and am really thankful for you. he then reaches into his pocket, pulls out a wad of cash, about 60 bucks and puts it into my hand and starts running away. at that time i was like no way we can not take this from you and he just wouldn't turn around and take it back from us and just kept running. we then just decided to stop and think about what just happend. i was like wow, this makes me really think that this gospel is true if it inspires people to do something as genuine and as thoughtful as that. he told us to buy ourselves lunch and dinner and stuff like that and the thought came to mind when we were thinking about what to actually do with it and i thought, we should put this money to good use. so we decided to pay our fast offerings with that money. we split the money up 30-30 and paid our fast offerings yesterday. i don't think i have felt better about doing something with something that somebody gave me than that. haha thats a tounge twister. but yeah we have been so blessed and i love this work. the children of God who watch out for his servants are really out there and that makes this work all worth it. :) 

another good...no great thing this week that happened was i got to see amanda and levi hancock at church!!!!! aaaahhhh they came up yesterday and it was sooo good to see them! we were able to take pictures and all that great stuff and we remenisced about what we did and all the things we remembered that happened while was there and they now have 9 kids!!! 9 kids!!! thats crazy! oh and they just moved houses.  its about 15 mins south of where they lived previously. such a good week!!!

thats about it for now. i love and miss you all and can't wait to hear from you again momma! 

so the first picture is of the hancock family. the second two are of the part member family that is in utah right now. the taller girl on the right is the one who is 14 and got baptized in utah and the mom is from argentina. i love that family. i will be visiting them after my mission.

love

Elder Jens Smith

day 360 Questions and Answers

How was this week for you?  

well if you couldn't tell from my comments earlier this week was great!! oh and i am transferring out of ames. can you believe that i have already been here for 6 months!!! it does not feel like that at all!

What are you looking forward to in the next week?  l

ooking forward to having a new area!!

Played any soccer recently?  

mmm about 3 weeks ago we played pretty good soccer. i think i told you about that before. 

What did you do for the holiday (4th)? What did you eat? Where'd you go? Light any fireworks?  

well for the 3rd we stayed with a part member family out at the football stadium and watched one firework. one firework because we had to be in our house at 10pm sharp so we started to leave at about 9:54 and then as we were pulling away in our car the fireworks started going off so we didn't get to watch a single fire work. the 4th we went to a members house and had dinner and had a candy cannon that some one pulled out and watched that and then played a game with every one which is kinda like what we might do at home! it was pretty fun and reminded me of the games we played at home. like warewolf and mafia and those games.  and then we went in at 9 and that was about it for the fourth of july. pretty much like a day of missionary work. :) haha

 

day 353

hey momma this week has been better. i have tried to change my attitude with every thing and try to focus on the positive things out here. it has been pretty stressful though trying to get ready for our baptisms. three people out of four people either are getting baptized this week end or have already been baptized. two or those people have gone to utah to be baptized by friends who are in the church and the other two are here and we are trying so hard to keep them in line for baptism. we had a girl who had really a lot of anxiaty about eating in front of people and she had to have a feeding tube cause she lost a lot of weight. now she is off of it so thats good. 

im sorry for the rush but i don't really have anything else.

 

well thats all i have for now. im sorry. i love you all and miss you so much!

 

love

 

Elder Jens Smith

day 353 Questions and Answers

What was the best thing?  

the best thing is that we are already taking pictures of the families that im going to miss when i leave here! i don't know for sure if im going to be transfered but it is most likely cause i have been here for 6 months already!!!

How is your companion? and you with him?  

we are good now. we just have differences and we have to deal with those.