Miracles In Sioux City!! Letter 11

Dear World, 

This week has been so crazy. Looking back on it, I never ever would have pictured my life happening the way it has been! We are so blessed out here in the Sioux City 2nd ward!! :) 

Highlights:

-We got THREE baptismal sets this week! And all of them are SO cool!!! Lonny (Joviann's husband) committed to baptism, and even told us later in the week that he wanted to be baptized sooner than the date we had set for him! So cool!! Toenisha, (Lisa William's daughter) is way more prepared for the gospel than we thought!! She shared some really cool experiences with us, and I know she has a real desire to bring the light of the gospel into her home and family. Carter, a member referral, is 18 and a senior in high school. We were a little bit worried about his intent, but we had the first lesson with him and he is so cool! I know he was able to feel the spirit very strongly, and I'm excited to see how much he grows from this. :) 

-On Saturday, we had the opportunity to go to the temple with Sylvia!!! She was able to do baptisms for some of her family members who had passed on. And.... I ran into this bunch of crazies at the temple! (pictured) I knew they were coming, and at first I didn't want to see them. But then we found out we were scheduled to attend the temple on the same day, and I prayed about it and decided avoiding them would probably be harder than seeing them, haha. So my Dad got to baptize Sylvia in the temple!! It was pretty much the coolest thing ever. 

Missionary work is the most amazing thing!! Our ward is definitely starting to catch the missionary fire a little more, which is AWESOME! They are so supportive! We are very blessed to be a part of it! :) I'm so grateful for this wonderful opportunity I have to serve :) 

Love, Sister Jensen

Pictured: For my fellow parks and recreation fans 

My cute fam!!! It was fun seeing them, not gonna lie :)

 

Church History Trip -- Sister Jensen

Rick, Jared, and Janelle were able to see Sister Jensen today!  Rick had this church history trip with the kids planned for months before Sister Jensen received her mission call.  So when Sister Jensen got called to the Nebraska, Omaha mission, Rick was thrilled because this was the last stop of their church history tour and he was hoping to be able to visit her.  He also knew that it might not work out, however, and he was fine with that too. 

Sister Jensen was assigned to Sioux City, Iowa, which would be an hour an a half trip from where Rick and the kids were staying.  Rick had talked to her mission president about it and he said that it would be okay to set up a visit with her.  Rick wrote Janika about it but she said that she didn't want to see them.  Rick was disappointed, but dropped the idea. 

So instead, he stayed with his normal scheduled itinerary, which was to bring the kids to the Winter Quarter's Temple in Omaha, Nebraska to do baptisms for the dead and then go to the trail center visitor's center.  He sent a Facebook message to Sylvia, who Sister Jensen and Sister Riggs had the wonderful opportunity of teaching and seeing baptized two weeks ago, and asked if she would like to  meet him and his family at the temple on Saturday to do baptisms. She replied back saying that she was planning to be at the temple that day and she was going to be there with Sister Jensen and Sister Riggs!  We wondered how that could be since the temple is pretty far and not even in Sister Jensen's current area. 

We learned that her mission is encouraging new converts to go do family history and go to the temple as soon as they can and when they go to the temple, their missionaries can go with them and help them through the process.  How exciting is that!  So Sister Jensen learned that her Dad and brother and sister would be there at the temple the same day she was going to be there.  She prayed about what to do since it would be awkward to try and totally avoid them. She felt like it would be okay to see them and got permission from her mission president.  

So they did meet up and Rick and the kids were able not only meet Sister Jensen and her companion, but also Sylvia, and two wonderful families from Sister Jensen's area who also came to the temple with them.  Rick told me that the experience was AWESOME!!  He was able to baptize Sylvia while she did baptisms for her grandmother and Jared was able to be baptized in proxy for her grandfather.  Rick said that the spirit was so strong and that it was just an absolutely perfect way to end their church history experience.

We feel so humbled and grateful for the tender mercies of the Lord and allowing to share in this remarkable experience.  We have seen so many amazing miracles and blessings happen through missionary work. We want to thank all of the wonderful missionaries who are serving the Lord.  It makes us excited to serve our own mission again someday!

 

EFY -- Jase

EFY was so much fun. I love it so much and I'm glad I got to end it with a fun year. I am so grateful for all of the people I met and things I learned there. This year I did the musical program because my counselor Scott made all of the guys do it and it was actually a really good experience. I'm excited to use what I learned this EFY on my upcoming mission. There is so much I learned and I can't wait to apply it.

 

Friends, Fun, Fireworks!!

Pioneer Day!

We were disappointed that Ivins wasn't doing their parade this year.  We decided to check out the Days of 47 Parade in Washington City instead. We ran into our neighbors, the Poultons, and so that was fun to have someone to visit with.  It was your basic "small town" parade -- mostly ward groups and primary children dressed in pioneer clothes and some local businesses.  The missionaries were in the parade and so we gave them a big cheer!  There weren't really any floats, but St. George Children's Dental decorated a big ski-boat and threw out beach balls. That was about as fancy as it got. Pineview High school band marched in the parade. The only princesses in the pageant were the Ivins princesses.

We were near the end of the parade route and so almost everyone had run out of candy by then.  I think the kids walked away with only one piece of salt water taffy each, which was fine by me but disappointing to them!  Josh did win a T-shirt that was thrown out and he was pretty excited about that.  I had checked the Internet and Washington City advertised that there were festivities going on at two different parks with a shuttle going between the two.

We went to the first park but there was only one activity -- where the kids got to throw tomahawks and knives.  They thought that was pretty cool and tried it several times. They also enjoyed wading in the little ditch.  But we wondered where all of the other activities were.  We decided to check out the other park, and sure enough, there were TONS of activities going on and LOTS of people!  We noticed that most of the little games required tickets which were for sale at a nominal fee. 

I would have liked to have stayed, but the lines were huge and Jaiden and Jenna had a dress rehearsal for their patriotic program at noon in Ivins and we needed to eat lunch before that.  So we decided that we had better head out and try the park activities next year.  We went to Denny's to use the "free kid's meal" coupons the kids had earned from their library reading.  I thought we could use all three at the same time but when I went to pay afterwards they said that I could only use one (with one adult entree') and so it ended up being more expensive than I thought it would be.  We ran into Ron and Georgia Slobe at Denny's. 

After lunch we hurried to Ivins for the girls' dress rehearsal at noon.  The practice lasted until 1:15 and then the kids hung out and ate some snacks until their performance at 2:00.  I was SO impressed with their performance!  It was only twenty minutes, but it was darling!  The kids had a great overall sound and had all of the songs and speaking parts memorized.  They had some simple but fun choreography and actions on a couple of the numbers.  I had taught them the ASL to America the Beautiful (and they actually did pretty well with it) and Jaiden sang the second verse of that song as a solo and sounded great. 

Four cute little boys sang solos in Yankee Doodle as a little girl walked by twirling an umbrella as they sang "I've a Yankee Doodle Sweetheart" and tipped their hats. It was a really cute program and I even became emotional and found myself wiping away a few tears on the closing number "I'm Proud to Be an American" which included a nice slideshow and the kids marching out and encircling the audience.  The show was similar to the patriotic program that the fifth graders put on at the end of the year at Arrowhead Elementary, but this was a little more expressive and personal.  I was also impressed with the Veteran's Home in Ivins.  It is really nice!