Elder Brody Jensen

First, I want to say thanks to all who reached out! I hope I didn't make 2 weeks ago sound horrible because God was there with me, but I appreciate everyone's thoughts. This week definitely felt better with the work and it is honestly crazy how in such a short period an area could see no progress to a lot! We have a couple new people we are teaching this week, including a young girl named Jenna Lee. Now I don't know if I have said this yet but kids here can be very bright. When teaching Jenna Lee, she is not afraid to ask questions, and she understands very well. She is 11 and her mom is an inactive that we are trying to get back to church. She is actually best friends with Martha, who I talked about last week. We will see on how meeting with them both continues to go, because how things go when teaching children largely depends on their parents and how dedicated they are.    This week we also had District Conference for the Mandeville District. That means that we got to go...

I will be straightforward this week. It has been hard but I still love it. Haha, sounds weird but really with the missionary work in my area, nothing much has happened this week. Now did I work any less hard? I don't believe so. The crazy thing about missionary work is that it is always, 100 percent, up to those we are teaching. All I can do is continue to work hard until we find the people that are ready for the gospel of Jesus Christ.  We did have zone conference at the beginning of this week and that was a spiritual high! Elder Schneider and I got to give a training on recognizing the spirit and I definitely recognized the spirit during our training. There were so many times that I knew that I was being given the words to say because I kept surprising myself as I would talk, haha. In Doctrine and Covenants 84:85, it promises that you should "...treasure up in your minds continually the words of life, and it shall be given you in the very hour that portion that shall be mete...

What a week! Looking back I have really grown an appreciation for the gift and power of the priesthood. This week I have given as many blessings as I have so far in the mission. Sometimes we forget how readily available God's help is for us.  A cool miracle happened early in the week where Tony, someone we have been trying to reach out to, ran into us "randomly" as we were walking up a hill because we decided to not wait for a taxi. He ended up offering to give us a ride home when we were done with our appointment because he lives close by. We ended up  needing  that ride because it was pouring just after our message. We got to ride with Tony and really just got to know him a little more. He is awesome and can't wait to see how things go with him! Later in the week we got to help with the grave digging for our Elders Quorum president, President Collins. He passed away a couple weeks ago. His family is doing very good and wanted to make sure that they had enough hands...

So we thought this week was going to be a normal work-in-our-area-all-week type of week, but turns out something always comes up, haha. We originally had exchanges with our Zone Leaders next week.  Because of changes in their schedule, early Tuesday they let us know that Thursday morning we were being picked up to go to their area. It all worked out and I actually had a great exchange with my ZL, Elder Peterson, in their area.  Now earlier in the week we had a fun interaction with a guy, who we never got the name of, that looked straight at me and said he knew me. I don't remember ever meeting him so I asked where he saw me. He said in Spanish Town. Now I definitely know I have never seen him because I have never been there. However, he was pretty sure he saw me and kept talking to us as we bore our testimonies of the Gospel, gave him our number, and a pamphlet and headed out on our way. We were pretty sure he wasn't all there, but we are still called to preach to all....

So last week I said I would look for miracles that have happened and I am pretty sure the devil read that part of my email ... it was a tough week. However, even when things were tough I saw many tender mercies from the Lord that I plan to share with all of you today! :)   First I will go through the smaller ones. We got a DRESSER!!! I finally feel at home, haha. Sadly it has been hard to get a dresser out to our area and I have been living out of my suitcases for 4 months. Another blessing was on a visit with a new friend. An old lady that had previously joined our lessons  with other friends  in that  area came  up to join our visit. We call her Mama Iris and she, apparently, had been "brought back from the dead after a week of being dead in the hospital" (probably in a coma but who knows ). She is a Pentecostal and is very expressive through her testimony of Jesus and her praising. Usually she can praise for over 30 minutes but she was actually very sweet and...