Water Follows Me Where 'Ere I Go..

Hello all!

SO. Last Monday as we were sending off emails Sister Holterman messaged me and asked if I would join her in a musical number and sing with her at MLC. I apologize now, but no, I did not get a recording of it. We sang "Abide With me Tis Eventide" and I will try my best to get a uke video up of it next week. We sang with one of the AP's playing piano for us and we didn't have much time to run through before performing so I didn't feel like I could ask to record it. Sorry I'm skipping now, but for reference, MLC was friday. Our musical number went well and I definitely learned a lot from MLC.

Backing up to Tuesday, we had our baptismal interview with Michael. Michael is (/was) our golden investigator that is(/was) ready to be dunked asap. Well really was. He dropped us a few days after the interview and asked for his baptism to be cancelled. Neither of us really know/understand what happened because he wouldn't meet with us to explain Sorry, I've jumped ahead again, but oh well. The interview on Tuesday went really well and he was pumped and excited, but must have not been telling us something. Then on Thursday we were scheduled to meet with him and he first texted us saying he was sick, but then was like "I should really be honest with you two..." and asked us to cancel his baptism. It was honestly heartbreaking and hard to take. We were pretty down the rest of the day and it's been sad not being able to meet with him since. He has had some very spiritual experiences though, so I have hope he'll come around eventually.

Friday, as I said before was MLC. Since I am serving as a Sister Training Leader (STL) I had the opportunity to go to Mission Leadership Conference, (MLC). MLC is basically a second Zone Conference where we discuss whats happening in the mission, set goals, and basically get spiritually uplifted by our Mission President, his wife, and counselors if they are speaking. It was honestly the best thing for Sister Ziegler and I to have after Michael dropping us the day before and I think both of us were able to put our discouragement behind us. Also, for reference, one of the pictures I added of us at MLC has all of Sister Ziegler's currently serving companions at a table. Also some pics of me and my mom Sister Thomas and me and sister Shill who is so incredibly sweet.

That evening we also met with one of our only investigators left, (everyone's pretty much cleared out for the summer😭) Gabriel. It was really neat, he is suddenly progressing a lot. He's met with missionaries in the past many a times, but is only now actually considering baptism. He's been taking our discussions very seriously and feels the spirit as we meet. I can't wait to see how he continues to progress(:

That evening Sister Ziegler and I went on exchanges withthe Sisters we cover out in Inkom. Sister Ziegler stayed in Inkom with Sister Farnsworth, while I went back to Pocatello with Sister Kartchner.

(Saturday) Sister Kartchner is super sweet, she's been out 4 weeks now. I was very grateful for the opportunity I had to be with her, I hope I helped to uplift her. Our exchange felt very uplifting and I came to know her much better. As we discussed the lessons we had that day She started to get overwhelmed with the subjects we were teaching, because she hadn't had the opportunity to teach them yet. It was very eye opening to see her stress and realize that I needed to first take the time to strengthen her spiritually before we could think about going out to strengthen others. I think this can be applicable to each of us, as we first have to fortify ourselves spiritually before we try to fortify others. Our lessons all went well and we saw some miracles while on exchanges, mostly in the people we were finally able to contact. So in all, it was a very good exchange(:

Sunday was fast and testimony meeting, which was all very good. Best part of Sunday though, we were finally able to meet with an investigator who has come to church 4 times on his own now, without meeting with us! He is from Islam, so his situation is a little intense, but he is looking for religion. We were able to sit down and explainthe whole restoration to him and what sets us apart from other churches. It was a great discussion and though he said he feels the need to survey other churches too, I think he'll be back once he recognizes the difference of the spirit you can feel between our church meetings and others. We'll see him again(:

Thus far today, our bathroom flooded. I guess Oregon never really leaves you. I included pics of the water and a video in my pictures.  There are also some really fancy houses because we ate in a super rich neighborhood and holy cow, these houses were beautiful. Anyways, I hope you all have a great week, I love you all!!!

Love,
Sister Jensen