Tell us about your mission and the people.
I am currently serving in the Idaho Boise Mission (although the mission is splitting and I am most likely going to be reassigned to Pocatello). As a Spanish missionary, I have spent most all of my time in rural farmland. I have absolutely loved getting to learn all about the agriculture industry. Two of the biggest crops are potatoes and sugar beets, so I have gotten the classic Idaho experience. There are also a ton of dairies. Because of this, I have served in areas where there are more cows than people.
The people in Idaho are absolutely incredible. I love them. Family is incredibly important and that has really strengthened my desire to remain close to my family members now and grow closer to them and my future family. I am grateful for the many strong examples I have seen. The people are extremely hardworking. This can be seen in the family with roots back to when the area was established to the families moving in. I have seen countless examples of parents sacrificing basically everything to work impossibly long hours in hard labor with no rest so that their children can have a better future. I will never be able to understand the sacrifices they make or what they go through, but working with them has truly humbled me.
What led you to the decision to go on a mission?
I have always wanted to serve as a missionary. At first, it was just the excitement of singing about it in Primary and wondering about which of the exotic places I would get called to. But, my desire has grown to so much more than that. As I grew in the church, my testimony began to develop. As I read from the scriptures and went to Young women’s and seminary and prayed and taught, little by little my testimony and my foundation grew. During my time in high school, especially in my last two years, I began to recognize the difference between me and all the people around me. While my friends and acquaintances were succumbing to stress, peer pressure and cynicism became almost the norm, I realized that I had truly had joy in my life. Sure, I was still exhausted somedays and would get overwhelmed with all that I needed to do and didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life, but I had the answers to life’s most important questions. Going to church and having the gospel in my life put those trials in perspective and allowed me to overcome them and become better because of them. Because I could see the difference it made in my life, the Lord blessed me with a strong desire to serve and share that joy with others. For me, I couldn’t understand why anyone wouldn’t want to serve a mission.
What advice do you have for the youth and YSAs members of the stake that are thinking about serving a mission, but haven’t yet decided?
Prepare to serve a mission anyway. Take the time and effort to study scriptures, clean up anything in your life that you need to, go to church and activities, pray and do anything that will prepare you to serve. This will allow you to develop a closer relationship with the Savior and be able to more clearly understand how the Spirit communicates with you. By doing this, it will be much easier to receive an answer to whether or not to serve a mission. When you receive that answer, you will be prepared to act on it, regardless of what it is. And even if the answer isn’t to serve a mission, you will never regret taking that time to strengthen yourself spiritually. You need that whatever you in life.
What advice do you have for how best to prepare for the mission for those that have decided to go and are just waiting to put in their papers or for the call?
Read the Book of Mormon. My perspective of it has changed and appreciation of it has greatly increased since being a missionary. Actually studying it and understanding it has helped me so much. So, I would recommend taking the time to truly understand it. Whether it be 2 verses a day or 7 chapters, do what will help you understand it.
How have the changes allowing for contact
with your family impacted you personally?
I firmly believe that the changes in the communication policy were more for the mothers than for the missionaries. I have seen it really help missionaries and I have also seen it increase homesickness. It hasn’t changed too much either way for me. It does make sharing what’s happening a lot easier as I can talk about way more things than I could in the same time as writing. This makes it a lot easier to share what is happening and more about people I am teaching and working with. It is also a lot more personal being able to talk and share that excitement with them. It is also good because we teach about families all the time and so it brings more power to our words when we have our own family connection on our mind.
Were there any fears that you had when you were considering serving a mission that you found were simply not warranted or melted away after you began serving?
Probably my biggest worry about leaving on a mission was talking with everyone. I have always been more reserved and talking with others, especially people I don’t know well, has never been my strong point. Fortunately, my desire to serve overrode my lack of a necessary skill. I definitely won’t say that it immediately melted away or wasn’t warranted, but the Lord definitely helped me. Because talking with everyone is an integral part of missionary work, I got lots of practice. It took a little while for me to break out of that shell and be able to go up and talk to anyone, but it wasn’t as a big of a major challenge as I thought. The Lord blessed and helped me so that I could have that. There are still times when I still struggle with what to say or how to say it. But, looking back, I can see how much I have grown and how incredibly far I have come. It’s incredible.
As I read from the scriptures and went to Young women’s and seminary and prayed and taught, little by little my testimony and my foundation grew.
Sister Jensen
