Area: Ottawa, KSCompanion: Elder Timmreck

Email address:  kenneth.jensen@myldsmail.net  

Mailing Address:
Elder Kenneth Jensen
Missouri Independence Mission
517 W Walnut St
Independence, MO 64050

So this week was kinda interesting.

It started off by deciding to try this little town called Greely. We had never been there and so we wanted to explore it. Greely is a really small town and it has a big Catholic Church which we are pretty sure every one in that town goes to that church. Everyone was nice but very much not interested. 

We were walking around Wellsville and everyone that we waved to waved back! That was a good boost. Plus I got to talk to some guy about his dirt bike.

We went on exchanges this week and we did back to back exchanges. So I went up to Olathe 3 area with Elder Sandkamp. This was cool because Olathe 3 is a deaf ward and Elder Sandkamp is deaf in one ear and knows American Sign Language, so that was fun.

Then the next day Elder Martinez (also an ASL) was in Ottawa. We were walking down the road and this guy (his name is Darrin) was working on something in the back of the truck. So we start talking to him and asked him what he was working on. Then Darrin said "oh just fixing my scythes". So naturally we had to go and see and hold and use them on the front yard grass. So we were talking to him and long story short we handed him a Book of Mormon while he was showing us his rabbit farm and holding a massively obese female rabbit.

The next day Elder Timmreck and I go and see if Darrin had looked at the Book of Mormon, and he had! We were able to teach him the restoration lesson. It was amazing. I had the strongest impression that Joseph Smith is a Prophet and that the priesthood was restored. It was a very good experience for me.

This week was fun, I love being a missionary and it is the most rewarding thing I have ever done. And the focus is never on me! Yeah!

Thank you so much for everything that you guys have done for me. It is amazing to hear from you all. Thank you!

With appropriate affection,

Elder Jensen

Area: Ottawa, KSCompanion: Elder Timmreck
 
Email address:  kenneth.jensen@myldsmail.net  
 
Mailing Address:
Elder Kenneth Jensen
Missouri Independence Mission
517 W Walnut St
Independence, MO 64050

This week has been pretty slow as far as missionary work is concerned. 

A few cool things have happened. On Monday we were running late and a member was dropping off dinner at our apartment so we just told the lady to leave it on our front door step. As we walked up the stairs to our apartment, both of us kinda forgetting about the food, looked down to see two kinda sketchy looking Taco Bell bags. So that was a nice surprise and we haven't died yet so we are pretty sure they were safe.

There was supposed to be this huge ice storm coming through and leaving 2 inches of ice on everything. So literally every appointment canceled and all the locals just cleared the Walmart shelves and then shut their doors. I don't know if Kansans are just a little paranoid or if we just completely underestimated freezing rain. The rain came, but it did not freeze very much and it was really lame. So stores, schools, appointments, cars were grounded for pretty much nothing. So we mostly did a lot of walking this week. And everyone was like "you crazy boys need to go back inside". 

We did have a cool experience this week. We were trying a potential that missionaries had talked to about 6 months ago. We knocked on the door and a man answers and it's the potentials husband and he is apparently already a member. He joined about 5 years ago in Kansas City. Then we were trying a referral we received a few weeks ago. We had talked with her, but only briefly. So we knocked on the door and are talking to her again and it came up that she was raised in an LDS home and is already a member. So that was cool. We hopefully will start meeting with both of them and help them come back to church.

Thank you all for everything you do. It's amazing to hear from you.

With appropriate affection,

Elder Jensen

Area: Ottawa, KSCompanions: Elder Timmreck
 
Email address:  kenneth.jensen@myldsmail.net  
 
Mailing Address:
Elder Kenneth Jensen
Missouri Independence Mission
517 W Walnut St
Independence, MO 64050

Hello everyone, I hope it has been a good week for you. I guess I will just start from the beginning.

This week was really cold, but we had absolutely nobody in particular to try so we just walked around and tried to talk to anyone and knock on a few doors. Turns out people don't like to talk when it's cold. So a lot of people would answer the door and say "you boys shouldn't be out in the cold like this" and then shut the door. So that was fun. We walked around Garnett then around Ottawa.

Elder Timmreck got hit with a 24 hour bug, so we stayed home to let him rest and we both got some needed sleep on Thursday. 

This week was my Year Mark! It was pretty exciting, but we didn't really do anything for it. Except at 9:30pm while we were planning we got a knock on the door from a Pizza Hut delivery who said that they had a pizza for an Elder Jensen. So we took it and the lady had kinda mentioned that it was from my mom. So we ate it and it was good... we haven't died yet, so hopefully it was from my mom. Thank You! 

We met a guy this week named Corey. We knocked on his door trying to find a less active member. We knocked on the door and Corey comes out and said that the member had moved. So we were talking to this guy and turns out he was born in Pocatello, ID, does insurance work for people in Salt Lake City and while on a recent trip to Iowa was contacted by the missionaries and was given a Book Of Mormon. So that was a cool blessing. He will not be available to meet with us for another two weeks or so but hopefully we can start meeting with him.

As we were walking down the street there were two little girls about 9 years old playing in the snow. As we walked by they started yelling at us and asking us questions about who we were and how old we were and they asked Elder Timmreck if he was a lawyer. He said no, then they asked me if I was a spy and I said Yes. I am not gonna turn down that opportunity. But it was actually kinda cool they asked us all sorts of questions about Jesus and why he is important.

That was most of our week. We had a couple of cool lessons with some less active members. No one has come to church yet, but we will keep working!

Thank you all for what you do. It is amazing to hear from you and see how life is going for you guys.

Make it a good one,

Elder Jensen

Area: Ottawa, KSCompanions: Elder Cox & Elder Timmreck
 
Email address:  kenneth.jensen@myldsmail.net  
 
Mailing Address:
Elder Kenneth Jensen
Missouri Independence Mission
517 W Walnut St
Independence, MO 64050

This week has been pretty boring honestly. I thought that my mission was making me less sarcastic, but I am realizing I am still just a sarcastic as before.

We did a bunch of service for a family (the Machnikis) who is moving outside of town into town. So we moved 12 book cases, painted a room and loaded a whole bunch of boxes into a van. That was fun.

We had dinner with the Gardners (the Bishop's family) and apparently they had contacted our parents and asked them what our favorite foods were, so that's what we had for dinner. It mostly consisted of breakfast foods :)

We learned that Elder Cox was getting transferred so we had to spend the night with a companionship who was closer to Independence. We stayed with the Stanley Elders as well as the Gardner Elders. Six Elders in one apartment, that was a fun night.

Elder Cox was transferred to Gallatin, MO which is the ward with Adam-ondi-Ahman in its boundaries. Which also is exactly where he wanted to go, so that's cool. It was awesome to serve with him and I gained a lot of knowledge and a good friend out of it.

My new companion is Elder Timmreck. He is from Stansbury Park, UT. He has been out for 16 months. He seems pretty cool, very sarcastic and intellectual. It will be an interesting transfer or two.

So Jeff Hansen (my trainer) was in the mission for a sealing and one of our recent converts picked him up and stopped in Ottawa. So I was able to see Matt and Elder Hansen, so that was kinda weird but really cool.

We had a family invite us over for a New Year's Eve party. We had dinner at another members house then went over and apparently they were planning on feeding everyone a big dinner too, so we were really stuffed that night. But it was good food.

New Year's Day was good, we had a really good Fast and Testimony meeting. We had a super cool lesson with a few less active guys. They basically committed themselves to come to church on Sunday. In the closing prayer he even asked for extra strength to come to church.

Thank you all for everything that you guys have done for me, it has been a blast so far. I hit my year mark on the 6th of Jan. - so this Friday. Thank you for making 2016 amazing and I hope that 2017 will be great for all you as well.

Elder Jensen

Area: Ottawa, KSCompanion: Elder Cox
 
Email address:  kenneth.jensen@myldsmail.net  
 
Mailing Address:
Elder Kenneth Jensen
Missouri Independence Mission
517 W Walnut St
Independence, MO 64050

Well, this week was honestly pretty uneventful. Elder Cox has been sick most of the week and we have not been able to get out and do to much.

Tuesday we went on exchanges and Elder Smith and I helped this family move a super heavy air hockey table with a couple of guys who only spoke Portuguese so that was fun. Then as we were driving around Olathe in Johnson County I saw some of the biggest houses I have ever seen in my life. They were huge! You literally had to drive under part of their house to get to the courtyard where the garages were.

Then through a failure to communicate I ended up forgetting all of my stuff at the Heritage Parks apartment, so for two days I slept on just a plain mattress with a sweatshirt for a blanket. That was fun...

We went Christmas caroling with a family in our ward. It was actually pretty fun. The family we went with could actually sing, so I just stood in the back and tried to not ruin it.

We went to go get my bedding and stuff back and as we pulled into the parking lot we realized that our bumper had fallen partially off and was dragging on the ground. We had lots of appointments and we were pretty much busy for the next two days and then it was Christmas time and everywhere was closed. Our car guy just told us to duct tape it, so thats what we did.

Christmas Eve was pretty normal. We had dinner with a family with little kids and after dinner we helped the dad move a big trampoline up from the basement. He said once it was all set up that we could jump on it. :) 

Christmas day was awesome! Thank you so much for the stuff you guys sent me. I think I have more candy than I have ever had in my life.  We opened gifts, went to church, had lunch with a family who made home made pizzas, then went straight to dinner with another family. Then we got to Skype our families. That was really awesome. They said that I need to send more pictures of me in my emails so ... we'll see what happens.

Thank you all for your support, the mission is awesome! 

Make it a good one.

Elder Jensen

Area: Ottawa, KSCompanion: Elder Cox

Email address:  kenneth.jensen@myldsmail.net  

Mailing Address:
Elder Kenneth Jensen
Missouri Independence Mission
517 W Walnut St
Independence, MO 64050

This week has been pretty interesting. We didn't do hardly anything because Elder Cox has been sick a lot of the week, but the stuff that did happen was pretty cool.

On Monday we stopped at the church to use the wifi to sync our Ipads and people had just finished setting up for the ward party. Well, apparently the Fishers (a recent convert couple) left their phone there so we offered to take it back to them but we had to go to dinner first. So we get to our dinner appointment, it was good then at the end the brother was sharing some of his favorite scriptures and it was a pretty spiritual moment then all of the sudden we hear fire alarms going off and a voice saying "its the wife, its the wife".  Then Elder Cox pulls an IPhone 6 out of his pocket and apparently Sister Fisher was trying to call Brother Fisher. It was hilarious. Later we were curios to see what Bro Fisher's ringtone was for us. So we call the phone and the Hallelujah chorus from Handel's Messiah started playing. It was awesome.

Tuesday morning we had to be up at Liberty, Missouri for a Zone Conference. So to make it on time we had to stay the night with another set of elders. So you have 4 elders, 2 beds and 1 couch, that still leaves someone on the floor, and I was the lucky one for that job. So instead of sleeping on the flat ground, I slept in their tub and it was actually really comfy and I slept really well. The conference was awesome and as a Christmas gift we all did a session in the Kansas City, Missouri temple. It was cool to see 60 missionaries all standing in a little celestial room.

Wednesday Elder Cox was sick, so we went to the church and watched cheesy church videos and played the piano. I took a nap underneath the piano.

Thursday was cool. We were trying a potential investigator, it was probably someone the missionaries had tracted into about 2 years ago. So we knocked on the door and the guy opened it and let us right in because it was cold. He used to live in Wyoming and knew lots of members there. He said that he had always wanted to read the Book of Mormon but never had the chance. We informed him that we had a free copy to give him and he was very excited, he looked like a kid on Christmas. Then as we were leaving we found out that it actually wasn't the person we were looking for, he must have moved some time ago. This guy was just a total stranger and had never really talked with missionaries before. We set up a return appointment for this coming week.

Friday we volunteered at a retirement home and we got to play a game with about 6 old ladies. We all sat around the table and had 2 ft long pool noodles and we just hit a balloon around. It was hilarious and those ladies had the time of their lives. Our job was to get the balloon when ever it fell out of reach.

Sat it stormed pretty bad and we couldn't do a hole lot but we made a couple of visits. The ward party was supposed to be that night but they canceled it because of the bad road conditions. Then on Sunday they canceled church because people have to drive from 45+ minutes on really bad roads to get to church. Since the roads were bad enough they grounded our car, so we ended up walking all day and it was pretty cold. It said about 0 degrees but with the wind chill and the humidity it felt about -15. I learned that no one really likes to talk to you when it's that cold. It was pretty fun though the roads were slick enough and my shoes were bald enough that I literally was skating down the street like I had ice skates on. I'm guessing it looked pretty comical to watch two Mormon missionaries skating down the street. Although Elder Cox being from southern Nevada does not know how to walk on ice. It was a good day.

Thank you so much for all that you guys do, it really means a lot.

Make it a good one,

Elder Jensen

From: Kenneth Michael Jensen <kenneth.jensen@myldsmail.net>
Date: December 12, 2016 at 9:37:37 AM MST
To: Mindy Jensen <mindyjensen@hotmail.com>, Donald.Roberts@myldsmail.net
Subject: Week 49

This week has been great with some unique stuff. First off we helped an older couple move a fridge and the fridge was literally frozen. The morning was really cold and it had snowed/iced and the Fridge was covered in ice. So that was fun.

I hit my 11 month mark, that's weird.

On Wednesday it SNOWED! Finally. But i was on exchanges in Olathe and didn't expect the snow so i only brought a lite Jacket. And we were in a walk area. Yay!  So we walked all over Olathe and froze to death and preached the gospel. That was cool. I have also learned that humidity just makes things worse, either colder or hotter. So a 11 degrees here (which thats about what it was). It probably feels like about a -5 back home.

We have had a couple cool lessons this week mostly with Less Active members. We have mostly been sharing the Churches new initiative Light the World. Which is awesome and its all about service.

On Saturday we caught a ride with a member up to Olathe for the Stake Leadership meeting and then the Adult session of stake conference. And at the adult session Matt Pennington, a man i had the privilege to teach and help join the church, was asked to bear his testimony, And it was very powerful. It has had an amazing impact in the way i view my calling and knowing what one missionary, as he is guided and really is just a tool for the Lord to do his work. It is amazing.

Then on Sunday the Fishers a couple in the Ottawa ward were asked to bear there testimonies, and although i was transferred into Ottawa the just 5 days after there baptism, i feel a sense of responsibility for them, I have been able to help them an new converts entering into a brand new world and being the person they can answer questions and seek council. I feel a great source of joy from our union. Nothing has brought me more happiness that seeing someone change there lives and come to a knowledge that God loves them and they are where they need to be.

I am reminded of D&C 15:6 where the Lord tells us the thing that will be of greatest worth to us.
"6 And now, behold, I say unto you, that the thing which will be of the most worth unto you will be to declare repentance unto this people, that you may bring souls unto me, that you may rest with them in the kingdom of my Father. Amen."

I know of no better place to be than in a place where we can affect the lives of others in a positive way. I know that this is the true church. That Jesus is the Christ and it is only because of His Atoning sacrifice that we may become perfected and live as a family with our Father in Heaven again. I have seen the joy that comes to people as they change, I have seen it when people have the "light bulb" moment when everything makes sense and i cannot describe the feeling that comes and the happiness and the honor i feel to have a friendship with these people. And i cannot wait for the time that we may rest with them in the kingdom of our Father.

Thank you all for the support that you have given me you all are examples to me.

Make it a good one,
Elder Jensen