Goodbye MTC!!

I'm going to Korea in four days! I got my flight plans yesterday and we'll be leaving Wednesday morning at 4:30 AM. We're flying to Seattle first and then going straight to Korea. I think it will be like a 16-hour flight... but that's okay cause I need to catch up on sleep these days.

Also packing is gonna be so easy cause I never even unpacked! The first thing I said to my companions when I got to the MTC was "make sure you unpack everything cause my mom told me you'll get homesick if you don't unpack your suitcase." And now, 8 weeks into the MTC, I'm the only one who hasn't unpacked my suitcase lol. But hey I'm not homesick so that's good. And if I can go longer than a transfer without unpacking everything, I figure I might as well just not unpack throughout the whole mish. Also, I included the travel itinerary in my google photos if you wanna see more details

As for the MTC, not much new happened this week but shout out to T Page (Tyler Page) who just arrived at the MTC this week and is going to Singapore, Malay speaking!

General Conference was last weekend! I hope you all got a chance to watch it. There were so many amazing talks, and one of my favorites was Dallin H Oaks' talk about "Following Christ". Here's a short excerpt from that talk: “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.”

This is one of Christ’s best-known commandments—most revolutionary and most difficult to follow. Yet it is a most fundamental part of His invitation for all to follow Him. As President David O. McKay taught, “There is no better way to manifest love for God than to show an unselfish love for one’s fellowmen.”

I love these sentences! Love thy neighbor is one of the two great commandments from God, and that includes loving our enemies. I think since we can feel God's love through others, similarly, God can feel our love and appreciation for him through our love towards others. Feel free to write that quote down, I just came up with it on the spot and I'm feeling pretty wise. Anyway, I know that if we strive to keep this great commandment, God will bless our lives immensely!

Well, I guess that's it for the MTC exper (experience) 

Jensen 장로  

Dear Elder Joshua Jensen,

We are so excited for your arrival and we look forward to seeing you! Please read the following instructions carefully to ensure a smooth arrival process. If you will not be able to access this information electronically, please print it for your reference.

Please read the attached documents for additional information.

When you travel, please wear missionary attire and your missionary name tag at all times.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

All Young MISSIONARIES: YOU WILL MOST LIKELY NOT HAVE YOUR LUGGAGE WITH YOU THE FIRST NIGHT. Therefore, it is essential that you include in your luggage a small overnight bag filled with what you will need for your first night so that you can easily access it when the time comes to leave your luggage.                                                      

ALSO, You will receive your mission phone the next day at orientation. If you bring a personal phone with you, it will be locked in the Mission Office for the duration of your mission - you will receive it again at the time of your departure home.  Please record any passcodes in a safe area. Missionaries have forgotten their passcode & were not able to get back into their phone later.

FOREIGN MISSIONARIES: PLEASE BRING TO THE NEXT MORNING'S ORIENTATION:
1. Passport
2. Visa 
3. Copy of Passport
4. Copy of Visa
5. Copy of Mission Call Letter (found in Mission Portal)
6. One passport photo (on photo paper)

It is very important that you have a copy of your passport, visa, mission call letter, and a passport photo, when you come to the office for orientation the next day. You will need these documents to apply for your Alien Registration Card upon arrival in Korea. Keep all of these documents with your other important documents in an easily accessible bag. They will be used at different times during your entry processing.

Please be mindful of your travel snacks. Certain items are strictly prohibited from entry into Korea:
DO NOT Bring: 
Meat products of any kind, including beef or turkey jerky
Fresh produce of any kind
Egg products - whole eggs, egg whites, powdered eggs, etc.
Dairy products - milk, cheese, yogurt, butter, etc.

During Your Flight:
Please fill out all documents distributed by flight attendants on your flight. (in-flight documents may vary) 
1. Arrival Card (see attachment with directions for filling this out).
2. Traveler Declaration Form (see attachment). The flight attendant will ask you if you want one but you probably will not need it.  It is for duty free items.                                                                                                                                                                           

Arrival:
As soon as your plane lands at Incheon Airport and you can connect to Wi-Fi, (if you are traveling with a phone, if you are not traveling with a phone it is okay) please send a message via Facebook Messenger to AP's under "Neil Clifford", or President Kim 010-7107-2455 to set up a line of communication. President and AP's will be waiting for you as you exit the security doors leading to the main area where family and friends meet, (inside, not outside).  If you are traveling without a phone it is not a problem.  Keep these phone numbers with you in the event of an emergency, if that is the case there will be many airport attendants to assist you in making a call if  you need to make one.

AT AIRPORT:
You may be asked to provide the information below:
Mission President Name: President Kim

Cell Phone Number: 82-010-7101-2455

Seoul Mission Office Phone Number: 82-2-734-3653

Seoul Mission Address: 29 Wiryeseong-daero 22gil, Songpa-gu, Seoul-si, South Korea

Thank you for exercising patience, adaptability, and faith.  We are excited to welcome you and can't wait to see your smiling face!

Safe and Happy Travels,

Sister McKee
Korea Seoul Mission Secretary
2016818@churchofjesuschrist.org

010-2698-0497

 

Banana Stick Cup (Add videos)

"Can I take a picture with you??" "I'm a huge fan!" "Aren't you the guy that created banana stick cup?"

These are questions that I get asked on the daily. Is it hard to deal with the fame? I guess it gets annoying at times. But when you create the fastest growing game in the MTC, what can you do? 

It all started at lunch on Wednesday, when about a third of the banana I was eating fell onto the floor. Someone picked it up and put it back onto my plate, and I wasn't going to eat it, so I started poking holes in it with a chopstick. Then the gears started turning in my mind. The vision flooded into my head all at once. And then, banana stick cup was born.

What is banana stick cup? It's a fantastic game that consists of a banana, a stick, and a cup (naming games has never been my strong suit). The game starts with one person against another. You take turns poking a chopstick through a third of a banana, and then balancing the chopstick on a cup with the banana in the middle. The cup is half full of a drink of the previous banana stick cup winner's choice. It could be milk, apple juice, root beer, etc. The goal is to not break the banana in two, or have it fall into the drink when it's your turn to balance it. If one of those two things happens, the loser (the one who was trying to balance the banana when it broke) has to drink the whole cup with the banana in it.

As the holes are poked in the banana throughout the game, the banana gets weaker, making it more likely to break. When the banana breaks, everyone shouts in unison "banana, stick, cup!" And then the loser has to drink whatever's in the cup. So that's the whole game! As I mentioned earlier, banana stick cup has really taken off in the MTC (within my district). We've been playing it every day at lunch and have now created a tournament bracket which will determine the best banana stick cup player in the district. I'll try to include a few pics and vids in my google photos in case you need a visual.

Last Tuesday we had our general authority devotional, which was led by Elder Takashi Wada of the Seventy. He gave many personal experiences of how he came to be converted to the church. It was really powerful because the missionary who started his conversion process was a brand new missionary who was not great at the language and spoke in broken Japanese. Elder Wada then said that when this missionary began to talk about the restoration of the Gospel, his mouth was filled and his words flowed perfectly. I have a testimony that the gift of tongues is real, and I have seen it in my own experiences already. When I talk about everyday things in Korean it can be very difficult to memorize words and sentences. However, when I try to memorize phrases that pertain to the Gospel, I seem to be able to learn much quicker!

Sorry I don't have very interesting stories in my emails yet, we do the same things at the MTC every week so not much is new.

I would like to share my testimony on the spirit of the temple! Sometimes the temple can feel repetitive, but I know that if you go with an open heart and mind, you will learn something new every time! And you will also be more likely to have the spirit with you throughout your week.

Elder Jensen

Provo City Center Temple

 No letter this week, but here are a few pictures! 

Missionaries NO ️ Weathermen YES

In immersion this week we practiced being weather reporters and each took turns giving a "live news channel" weather report in Korean. For anyone who was watching that weather station, I will gladly pay for your therapy. In other words, it was really bad. Nonetheless, the Korean is coming along slowly but surely and with the Gift of Tongues we will all be just fine. 

Elder Gong came to the MTC!! He gave an awesome devotional on Tuesday. One of my favorite quotes was: "You don't know everything, but you have a testimony. Rely on your testimony when there is something you don't know." I love this quote because I've already come across some questions in Gospel discussions that I can't answer, and I'm sure it will happen more in Korea. It is important to always have a testimony to fall back on in situations like that, or even if you have personal questions or doubts. If you can rely on your testimony then you will be okay in any situation. That was my first time seeing an apostle speak in person and it was so cool! And I got to sit on the second row so that was awesome.

I was lucky enough to go to Jared's wedding this morning! He happened to be getting married at the same temple that my district and I were doing sealings at, at the same time, and on the same day. It worked out so perfectly and was such a blessing! It was a little weird seeing my family while being on my mission but it was still fun. 

Chocolate milk - upon arriving at the MTC, I made a goal to only drink chocolate milk every meal since I'm on the bulk. That only lasted about a week until I got sick and I haven't had chocolate milk since so yeah. Ever since then, I've been quite addicted to apple juice. Boy do I love apple juice. I drink it with every meal. I had no idea how underrated it was until the mish. And then all of the sudden, yesterday morning at breakfast when I went to get my morning cup of joe (apple juice) I saw this: 

                     OUT OF ORDER. 

Are you kidding me. I was absolutely livid. I used to think the days here were long, but it doesn't even compare to a day here without apple juice. It's officially been two whole months (two days) without apple juice. Will things get easier? I sure hope so. 

I gotta go but I'll write more next week.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/NE4hqKEuajBNpJgu5

Chorean

My first full week at the MTC went swimmingly. We started immersion this week, which means our classes are in full Korean, and no one is allowed to speak English. It really brought me back to the Chinese immersion days. It even made me remember a ton of Chinese words I had forgotten. Every time I think of something I want to say in class, I can always remember the Chinese word for it but never the Korean. And sometimes I mix up the two languages, and half of the sentence will be in Korean, and the other half Chinese, so now my brain is a melting pot of languages. Hence the E-mail title, Chorean. 

 The devotionals at the MTC are awesome. On Tuesday, we had a general authority, Amy Wright, speak to us. It was an amazing talk about missionary work and facing challenges that are uniquely difficult for each one of us. I don't have my journal with me so that's all I can really remember off the top of my head. 

Music Withdrawals - I thought it would be much harder to stop listening to music suddenly for two years, but it hasn't been too bad so far. The only weird thing is that I will randomly get weird songs stuck in my head that are so random. Like this morning, we were on the bus ride to the Timpanogos temple, and I had "silver bells" stuck in my head. Like the Christmas song. I hear that song maybe once a year. But for some reason, that one has been stuck in my head on at least three separate occasions. If you thought that one was weird, just wait until you hear the next one. The Lorax soundtrack. And I'm not even talking about the songs, like "Let it Grow" or "Thneedville". I'm talking about the random background music that plays during scenes that don't have talking. Like the music that plays when Ted and company are running away from Ohare while trying to plant the Truffula seed. That music being stuck in my head makes a little more sense though, cause I have seen The Lorax probably 200+ times. 

Cool scripture: 2 Nephi 31:20

Wherefore, ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men. Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father: Ye shall have eternal life

It doesn't get plainer than that! This is an awesome promise. God really does love each one of us!

Korean phrases I learned this week - 

저는 Jensen장로입니다. 저는 축구 좋아합니다. 저는 Utah 주 에서 왔습니다. 저는 서울에서 봉사하겠습니다. 저는 예수 그리스도 후기 성도 교회 선교사들입니다. 감사합니다. 안녕히계세요!

I JUST ATE DOG IN SOUTH KOREA!! 🤯 🤯 🤯 (NOT CLICKBAIT)

Congrats, you fell for my clickbait email! I haven't actually eaten any dogs yet. Actually, I haven't even left the MTC yet so yeah. This was my first week!! It went very well and is one hundred times better than the at home MTC. It is pretty hard to adjust to the new schedule though. You know how time is different in Heaven? Like how it goes by way faster or whatever? Well, time is also different at the MTC. Each day in the MTC lasts about a week. At least that's what it feels like. But it's okay because they are very productive days.

I have an awesome district who is very on top of things when it comes to gospel knowledge, and I'm grateful for their testimonies that have helped me tremendously this past week. The MTC is a very cool place with a spirit unlike anywhere I've ever been. I'm lucky enough to be able to go to the gym for an hour a day with some other people in my district, and that helps wake me up when I'm super tired. My body is used to getting like five hours of sleep at night, with an extremely necessary 2.5 hour nap during the day, so my new schedule is a little different. 

Great scripture I found this week - 2 Nephi 2:22: And now, behold, if Adam had not transgressed he would not have fallen, but he would have remained in the garden of Eden. And all things which were created must have remained in the same state in which they were after they were created; and they must have remained forever, and had no end.

I like this scripture because it shows that without Adam's transgression, all of us today would not be able to learn from our mistakes and improve, because we would have remained in the same state forever with no end.

I've done a lot of pondering this week and also asked and answered a lot of questions. But an elder from my district (Elder Rigby) said something that really made me think. He asked, "does water just go away when it dries after it lands on something? Or does it leave a clear stain?". I guess we will never know the answer to that question, because if there was a clear stain, we wouldn't be able to see it anyway. Sorry I was yapping there, wasn't I?

One of my favorite spiritual experiences since I've started my mission was when our district sang the Hymn: His Eye Is On The Sparrow. It is one of the new hymns that just came out. 

Why should I feel discouraged?

Why should the shadows come?

Why should my heart be lonely

And long for heav’n and home,

When Jesus is my portion?

My constant Friend is He:

His eye is on the sparrow,

And I know He watches me;

His eye is on the sparrow,

And I know He watches me.

I sing because I’m happy—

I sing because I’m free—

For His eye is on the sparrow,

And I know He watches me.

I really like how this song- "oh great, now I'm stuck in this font," he says to himself. 

There we go. If you can't tell, I'm not the most tech savvy. But I love this song because it really shows how Jesus watches over and cares for each one of us.

That's all for this week!

Elder Jensen

MTC Drop-Off! (Mom Post)

Rick, Josh, and I left at 7:30 to head up north. We stopped in Orem at the car rental place so that Rick could rent a car for the next few days, since he would be staying up north and I would be driving back home. Josh and I both tried to sleep in the car on the way home, but I don't think either of us were very successful! 

Rick listened to a couple of good church talks on the way. Then we pulled out the letters that everyone had written to Josh and gave them to him to read. Then Rick said he wanted to read them and so I read them out loud to Rick and Josh and that brought all the tears! I read the letters, bawling the whole time! Our kids are so so awesome! They wrote such thoughtful, heartfelt letters and gave such amazing advice! I am so glad that we started this tradition of having all of the siblings write a letter to their brother or sister when they leave on a mission. They are treasures! 

After renting the car we all met at the Golden Corral. It was so funny because we ran in to Mark Tarr (a friend from Snow College) and his family again, just like we did when dropping off Janelle three years ago! At that time he and his family were dropping off their daughter to the MTC, and this time they were dropping off their son to the MTC, same as us! And what is even more ironic is that their son is going to Korea on his mission too! Only he is in the other mission. So we introduced his son to Josh and they got to visit a bit. They will probably see each other quite a bit in the MTC!

Janika and Brandon were able to take a little time off work to come to the Golden Corral with their boys, and so that was fun! Ellen also came with Evan and Eli and they made a cute little poster for Josh. She also brought a polaroid camera in order to take some pictures with Josh that he could take with him, which I thought was such a great idea! Josh loved them! Janelle and Bryton also came. Josh's good friend, Adam Parkhurst, was also to come since he was up north for Education Week. We had a really nice lunch and took some pictures. 

After that Josh said goodbye to the rest of the family and those of us seeing him off met at the chapel right next to the MTC. Usually we always take pictures at the Provo Temple, but it is not there any more! They tore it down and so now it is just a grassy field! So Jaiden was the last of our family to get pictures in front of it. We then headed into the parking garage to drop off Josh! I was fine until that final hug and then I was crying again!! We all were! Well, I don't know if Josh was, but I am sure he was feeling all the feels too! 

I sure wish I could be a fly on the wall those first few days at the MTC to witness everything he is experiencing! After our goodbyes we all went our separate ways! Rick was staying up north since he had meetings in Salt Lake this week. I was rushing back because I was scheduled to interpret for Frozen at Tuacahn that same night! So that was stressful. I listened to the show over and over the whole way home in order to prepare. I mean I had already prepared lots of hours, but this was the final preparation.

At least it forced me to take my mind off of Josh leaving, ha ha! The play went really well tonight. It was fun, but I was glad to get it behind me! So that was our day!!