Tana Life

Hey everybody,

So here I am in Tana at long last. I feel like I've been living in the jungle for the last year, but that's all over now. I finally made it to the big city. Its noisy, smelly, and dirty, and I totally love it here. It's definitely a different kind of missionary work though. On top of that it's a whole new language again. But all in all it's the same old work as it always has been and I love it so much.
So on Tuesday I finally got on a plane and made it to my new area. The APs picked us up and took me to my new house, where I dropped my stuff inside the door and Elder Lake and I went out to work. We had a good few days of work and a great Zone Conference. The work here in Tana is going extremely well, I was impressed. We have a ton of times and people to teach. Almost too many to be truly honest. We have been trying to sift through those who are maybe not quite ready so that we can make room for those who are. I only have a year left after all. That's not near enough time and we can't waste a second of it.

On Thursday Elder Lake and I took a 2 hour bus ride into the center of town where the mission office is. I havn't been there in a full year. We had a really big zone conference. It was all of the missionaries in Tana and also Antsirabe, plus Mahajanga, Fianarantsoa and Tamatave. Basically there were about 10 missionaries who weren't there. Because it was so big, Elder Lake and I didn't have to do much, just a zone report and President did the rest. We talked a lot about preparation and being ready to be guided by the spirit and also to know and find the needs of each individual investigator rather than just slipping into a routine on each lesson. There was also a comment made that hit me really hard. They said that the moment you try to convert someone by how much you know, and not by the spirit, you're doing it wrong. I feel like ever since I started picking up the language I have kind of started to just teach people the gospel rather than letting the Holy G

host truly convert them. It was definitely something that I needed to hear.

I sure love you all, til next week,

Elder Jensen

Scripture of the week: Mosiah 4:9

(I may have already used this one, sorry bout that I just really like it, it's way awesome in Malagasy)