These are the email's K.C. sent us the past few weeks. Hard to believe he's been out for 18 months now...but when I read his letters, I can see so much growth in him. It's like he said in a letter he sent a few weeks ago..."A mission is an interesting thing. The longer you are out, the more you know and the better you can work. But at the same time, the longer you serve, the less time you have to serve!"
I think he will realize soon that his time of service is not coming to an end...this has been his preparation for a lifetime of service that he will just continue after he gets home.
At the ward Christmas party we all wrote notes to the missionaries serving in the ward. Thanks so much for all the sweet messages to KC...it surely will brighten his Christmas!


Happy Thanksgiving!

Nov 23

Hey guys,
Sounds like you've had quite the week. I had no idea that Ann Dibs was President Monsons daughter, but as soon as I saw her in my branch building I knew that she was American and important. She’s way nice, I’m so glad she called too, I bet that was good to talk to her for a while. That’s an incredible experience you had with the piano too, man its amazing what we can do when the Lord is with us. I’m glad you got the letter, I only sent it 2 weeks ago and I put it in a weird little mailbox by our house. We made mashed potatoes today and are carrying them around in a big pot down town to the place where we are eating, we have had 4 comments and about a million weird looks hahaha. I cant believe Spencer is getting married, you will have to tell him congratulations for me. And send me pictures. We had some snow too, but it turned into really cold rain which is way worse. Elder White is leaving me and I am getting another newer companion. But it will be easier this time because our area is already pretty good. On Saturday we met a man on the street by our house and told him about the restoration and he said that he would gladly meet with us, and invited us to come to his house that night. So we went and met with him and his brother, they are both over 60 but look like they are 80 because they have been smoking for 40 years. Nice guys though, it was way funny to see how they interacted, you could tell that they hadn’t had any guests for a LONG time. He made borscht for us, and usually that’s a real treat, but do you remember the borscht that we made before I left? It tasted like that haha, but it wasn’t too bad. We had a nice lesson and lots of funny memories. We saw him outside yesterday and he said "Why haven’t you been coming over? When are you coming over again?" so we are going by tonight. I had a really nice interview with President Sorenson last week too, he is a great guy, I love him. On Tuesday the other elders in our district called and told us about a family that lives in our area, there is son that served a mission and now lives in America, and the mother was almost baptized but the dad was against it and that’s all that we know. But we have their address so we are going to try to get in touch with them. It would be way cool to see if the father has softened his heart. I’m so thankful for you guys, I hope you can feel it because I don’t know how else to say it. I hope that you guys have a wonderful thanksgiving. Don’t eat tofurkey.
KC

Date: Wed, 1 Dec 2010 16:53:25 +0300
Subject: Re: Utes
From: kelley.jensen@myldsmail.net
To: jkj51156@hotmail.com

Hey Dad,
Hows it going? Hows the ward doing? Are you still going to be in the bishopric when I get back? My companion is a lot different than all of my other companions, but we get along fine, so that just means that I can learn new things from him. The weather here is really nasty. This morning when I woke up I checked the thermometer and it said -20, that’s -4 in F. It was really cold yesterday and we didn’t have a lot of meetings so we had to spend a lot of time on the street, so we had every part of us covered except a little spot for our eyes and nose. The worst part was that the wind was blowing too, so it was bad. But no need to complain because its just the weather, and our missionary work is going really well. I wish you could meet our old neighbor that we are teaching, he is a hoot. Way funny and he can dance, mime and juggle, so its a blast to go to his house. He saw a few people who were baptized on Saturday get the Holy Ghost on Sunday and he really wanted them to bless him too, so we explained how and he agreed to get baptized on the 14 of January. We are way excited about that. I love you Dad, have a nice week. Don't freeze.
KC
Hey Mom,
Man I wish the baby would have come today, then I could have seen it, but I guess I can wait another week. I’m way excited for it. Tell Camille good luck from me...I don’t really know what to wish some one in that sort of situation, so we'll just go with good luck. Things are going really good here. Its way way cold, when I woke up this morning I looked on our thermometer and it said -20, that’s -4 in F. But don’t worry, we are dressed up all warm. We have been working with our old neighbor a lot. He came to church and loved it, he is coming this week again. And we agreed with him last night for him to be baptized on the 14 of January. He needs to learn a lot and quit smoking, but he wants to so I know he can with the Lords help. He is a way funny guy, you guys will have to come meet him when we come back. I got a new companion named Elder Page, he was Elder Grovers comp in the MTC, so he has been out since I trained Elder Grover. Things are going really well. Our area is growing a lot, it has been really neat to see the changes that have come in since I’ve been here. Today we decorated cookies to give to our investigators, is was way fun. We are going to buy a Christmas tree too, so that will be fun. I got your package and a package from Karen Neilson. Thank you so much for sending that, tell Karen thanks a ton from me. I will send her a letter and say thanks. I don’t know that doctor, I have been to the doctor a few times but I just went to the clinic because our area doctor went home a few months ago. Are you all excited for Christmas? Is the house all covered in snowmen? you should take a picture of the house decorations and send it to me. I really want to find a snowman martroshka for you that would be cool. Do you remember that one girl that we saw at the missionary mall? She went home on Saturday. I hope you have a great week. Love you. Send my love to Camille and kellen and Liv and the new boy...what’s his name going to be?
KC

Kelley Carson Jensen to me
dec 7
Yay! Im so glad that Camille had her baby. I thought about it pretty often this week. So glad that he is healthy and so is Camille. He is way cute, I like the picture where he’s wearing the hat. I like the name too. That was the best news ever. We are going to have a nice Christmas party on the 18th, all the missionaries are going to sing in a choir, which is hard because almost none of the Elders know how to sing. I am one of the worst. But it will all work out. We have had a good week. It was really cold, but what can you do? Just keep going. On we set another baptismal date with another of our neighbors, Alekcei. He is like 30, he is a way nice guy and LOVES it when we come over. He really wants to know all the commandments and do things right. He is going to be baptized on the 8th of January. And we should be able to set up one more baptismal date this week, that will be really good. I just got back from Kiev on last night, we spent the day at the Kiev temple yesterday. It was fantastic! We got there at just the right time, when a bunch of members or our mission who we knew had just finished doing baptism and the temple workers put us in charge of doing all of the Confirmations. It was really cool to get to do it in Russian, but it was hard. Russian names are hard, especially ones from 1816. But that was a way good experience, and then the workers decided to put on a special initiatory session for us, it was really great to be able to remember all the promises of the Lord. We are so lucky to be members of His true church. We have lots of investigators named Alekcei, its a way common name, but one of our other Alekcei's called us on Sunday and wanted to meet, so we went and met with him and had a really good meeting where we got passed this one problem that he has been worried about for a while, and then taught him about the 10 commandments, the Sabbath day , w.o.w and following the prophet. He is a really neat guy because he understands the reasons behind the commandments well and is willing to follow them once he finds out about them. I was thinking that you guys should make a list of questions and things that you want to know so that when we call on Christmas I can tell you all the things you want to know. On Sunday I had got to do an interview for baptism for one of the investigators of our sisters. This girl is deaf and can only read lips, and is hard to understand for an American, because its hard enough to understand regular Russian. Anyway, I was just praying that the Lord would bless me that I would be able to communicate with her, because I’m not Russian so my lips don’t make the right movements when I speak, so she really couldn’t understand me at all. So we figured out a way to do it where I showed the pictures and then wrote and the Lord blessed me to be able to understand her. It was really pretty incredible. Ive got to go. I love you guys.
KC