Sis. McKenzie's Mission Memoirs: I dont think were in Utah anymore Toto. 😊

Hello family and friends!!! My first area is the Labanon Tennessee North area!! Ive only been here for 5 days and i absalutly love it. The people here are so sweet.I love my trainor Sister Knegt. (Ca.nnect) She is so so sweet. Sis. Knegt is from Orange County California. Which i thought was really cool! This week i have seen many mericals happen.

Heres how my week went:

7/31/17 (Monday)
The last day of classes at the mtc. It was really sad because i gotten to grow and love my district and i knew i will miss all of them. In Brother Griffiths Class we practiced tracting. (for those of you who do not know what tracting is its were you go and knock on doors and teach the gospel from there porch) It was really intresting to practice that because we wernt at an actual front door. But it was good to practice because so you know what to say when they answer the door. After all of our classs we went to dinner and did some laundry. Because we left on a tuesday which was our pday we got to do laundry early and email our family and friends early as well which was nice! That night our district got together for the last time and I cried becauase i was going to miss all of them. During our meeting we played what are the odds. One of the Elders dared Elder Alm to chew on a piece of grass and moo like a cow. He did it of course and some of the sisters walked by and just stared at him like he was crazy. Lol it was so funny.

8/1/17 ( Tuesday)
FIRST DAY IN THE FIELD!!!!! This morning we had to get up at 3:00am because we had to be at the travel office at 3:45. It was really hard to get up that early. I think I only had maybe 3 hours of sleep that night because the sisters in our room kept talking and stuff which was okay because i wasnt really that tired. We got to the airport about 5:00am and went through security. We had about a 2 hour wait until our flight left at 8:00 to go to Antlanta. That flight I think was about 3 hours. So it wasnt to bad of a flight. The antlanta airport is really cool because there is this one hallway were its like a jungle and there is fake birds flying in the roof. In the Atlanta Gorgia airport I got to talk to my parents! It was really nice to be able to talk to them again. Later on we borded our flight that took us to Knoxville. I have to say that flight from georgia to knoxville was one of the most shortest flights ive ever been on. It was only a 28 min flight. We were then picked up by our mission president and his wife and taken to the mission office to check in and head to the mission home. The mission president and his wife cooked us pulled pork sandwhiches. They were so yummy. After dinner we had a get to know you meeting and went to our hotel that we stayed in that night.

8/2/17 (Wednesday)
Today was my first full day in the field. We went to the church and took some pictures with president pickett and his wife. After which we had a little meeting. I got to meet my tranior Sister Knegt! She is so nice and we get along really well. That night i taught my first lesson to Sam and Judy. We taught them the plan of salvation. I cried when i bore my testimony to them because I felt the spirit so much They are an older couple that are probably in there 70s. They are the sweetest people. Sam is just thursty for knowledge which is great and he is an amazing cook. At our lesson that night he cooked Sister Knegt, Sister Kefe (one of the sisters in our ward) dinner. We had spegettii squash and Sam said that he was cooking his sauce all day. I thought it was really sweet of them to do that. After the lesson and dinner with Sam and Judy we went back to our apt and went to bed.

8/3/17 (Thursday)
This was my first official full day in the mission field. We got up and excersiced and got ready for the day. At 11:00 we had a district meeting. Our district is tiney compared to my district in the MTC. We only have 4 elders and us sisters. So there is 6 of us in total. In our district meeting we talked about tithing and fast offerings. It was really good. Our district leaders name is Elder Macdonald. Hes such a nice guy. He has been out for about a year and a half. We also talked about what went well during our week and how many baptisimal dates we have. And just talked abouf our new investigators. After the distroct meeting we went back to our apt. To finnish unpacking and then went tracting. It was a pretty cool experance. It was really scary because it was my first time ever doing that. Funny story we tried to give someone a book of mormon and he all the sudden started to cast out the devil on us. He kept saying that is the wrong book and grabbed our hand and started shouting. So that was a great first experiance. I keep praying for that man that one day he will realize that the book of mormon is the word of god.

8/4/17 ( Friday)
We read the book of mormon with Boogie today!! Boogie is a recent convert to the church for about a year now. Boogies real name is Cary but he doesnt like his real name so everyone just calls him Boogie. Boogie had just quit smoking and hes still going on strong for about 2 weeks now he hasnt had a cigarette. Which is awesome! After reading with boogie we went and ate lunch and went to a member apointment with the Beaty`s. They are so nice. They are a young coiple who just barly got married about a month ago. There probably in there late 20s or early 30s. We shared a video about hope and bore our testimonies about hope and how it can really keep you going. After the beatys we stopped by a less actives members house and we shared with them a message about christ and invited them to go to church with us. It was pretty cool. On our way home to our apt. I got to see my first ever lightning bug!! It was pretty dang cool.

8/5/17 (Saturday)
Many mericales happened today. When we went tracting we coukdnt get very many people to listen to us. As soon as we were going to go back to the car we stopped at a house and knocked on the door we wated for a bit but it didnt seem like no one was home as soon as we started to walk a way a older man whos name is Chris which is probably in his 60s came out. We found out that he got into drugs and did some pretty bad things in the past but he is over them now. We showed him a video about how our church brings us peace.We gave him a book of Mormon. He kept saying " this is exactly what i needed. Thank you" i wish so badly that we can teach him what we know but sense he lives with 3 other guys we arnt aloud in. So we are just going to refure him to the elders to come and teach him. So that was a pretty amazing experience

8/6/17 (Sunday)
First sunday in the field. We woke up at 6:30 and got ready for the day and then went off to church. Church was really good. During sacrament. I got this strong feeling that i needed to bare my testimony because i was told that it made a really goos first impression to the ward members.for those of you who know me know that i do not like to bare my testimony innsacrament meeting. But i did it anyways. After church we went back to our apartment and did a little bit of studying. Then headed out to see some people. We saw the brownings which are members from our ward. We shared them a video about gratatude and asked them to make a gratetude list. It was pretty cool.

I absalutely love being a missionary. I just wanted to bare you guys my testimony that i know that this church is true and i know that our savior died on the cross for us so that our dins can be forgiven. Ever sense i had been out here i can tell that my testimony is growing stronger and im geting closer to god each day.
I miss and love you all so very much and i hope you have an amazing rest of the week!!
Sister Jensen

Scripture of the week:
D&C 100:5

Quotes of the week:
"Blast"-Sis. Knegt
"Even the bald spots on my head?"- Sam