Elder Sam Jensen

Heyoo, Wow, this transfer flew by! I have already been here in Santa Barbara 6 weeks, and it feels like a lot less. This past week we had a Zone conference in Santa Ana. They presented the new Christmas video for this year, in Spanish it is called "Ilumina el Mundo" (Light the world). It is about "lighting the world" through little or big acts of Christlike service. We can share the light of Christ that we feel with others who are maybe passing through a difficult time in their lives and need us to help them. Everyone should watch the video using #Lighttheworld, or on mormon.org! We also were able to continue to teach Patricia Rogel, and she is going to be baptized this coming week. The cool part is that her brother that got baptized a few months ago is going to baptize her. They are both super cool people, and have great testimonies of the Savior. This past week we helped a family clear a piece of land by their house. We used a machete to cut a bunch of huge w...

Hey! This week was great. We went to a part of our area that is probably the biggest part of our area called "El Jilote" every day this week. It is about 15 minutes from our house, and it is basically a road that winds up the side of one of the mountains and every so often there is a group of houses, or a path that leads to a group of houses. We had an appointment to teach José one day this past week, so we started the uphill. We got to his house, which is at the end one of the last paths on the mountain, and when we got there he wasn't there, but his mom and brother were there. We taught them and talked with them about the church, and his mom told us that she had been a member of the church, but had stopped going. Then, she told us that she had been praying about how to overcome some problems she was having. She said that she had finished that prayer, and then we had knocked on her door. It was amazing, and we could feel the spirit strongly as we were talking with her...

Heyoo! This was a good week! We worked super hard and have seen a ton of results. We found some new investigators that are really excited to learn more about the Gospel. One of them is José Alvarado. We had been told that José had requested a Book of Mormon. When we got there to give him one, he had already found one and was in the middle of Alma. He is super cool and wants to learn more. I have learned a lot about the talk from President Uchtdorf about learning from Alma and Amulek. In our lives, we need to be looking for the people that can help us progress in whatever part of our lives that we need to progress. We have found several people here that are always willing to help us find new people to teach and are always ready to be a friend to the new people that come to church. We can also find people in our lives that are like Alma, that we can learn from and that we can help. We had a change in the Branch Presidency this past week, so we have the opportunity to learn from an...

Hey! This past week was great! We were able to baptize Alicia and Kevin! They were both extremely excited to be able to make that step in the gospel. They are both great! Also, this week we were able to teach Patricia and she has been reading the Book of Mormon and tells us she really likes it. We also met a guy named Moises and he is really interested in the gospel. He saw the change it made in Kevin's life and he has a lot of questions for us. He is a super cool guy. We can do sooo much good if we are an example to other people in the world. I really like the scripture in Matthew 5:14. That is what the Christmas initiative is about, it is about serving others to be the light in a world that needs a little bit more light. We can all start to be more Christlike by being a light on the hill. Anyway, I hope everyone has a great week!!! Elder Jensen