My Dear Friend Harold. Part 3

A MONTH!!  A whole month since I've written?!  

Life right now for me is like a rug that's been pulled out from under my feet;
                                like trying to walk after riding those spinning things at the park

                                                like having both hands on the saddle of a galloping horse trying to jump on!!

         Do you get the picture??  

It's been crazy awesome exhaustingly wonderful month of my life but I'VE HAD NO TIME to write and tell you the rest of Harold's story! BUT it's here!  It's finished.  And I hope from this last part of Harold's story you feel the spirit of what I've been trying to share with you.

*By the way this is part three people!!  For the beginning of his story click here!  For meat of the story click here!!*

Harold explained to us that night, "I have lost the faith I once had in God. And I want it back." We testified there was a way!

Invited to church and an appointment made to meet with us, Harold walked away from his meeting with the bishop with a new book in hand and a new hope for his life.

As soon as their car left the church parking lot, my companion and I...celebrated!! We were so excited to help someone who had sincere desires to increase their faith in God. Knowing we had exactly what he needed to do so, we jumped up and down all the way to OUR car, then sang at the top of our lungs all the way home.

Abnormal and way boss

To our surprise, soon after arrival to the apartment we received a text from Harold informing us that he had finished reading the chapter we gave him (2 Nephi 2) loved it, and asked "what else can I read?"
THIS IS NOT NORMAL in the life of a missionary. We frantically flipped through our scriptures to find another chapter that would best continue the faith growing journey he had now begun. We landed on Alma 42, skimmed it, knew it was the right one, and sent it along.

The following morning we awoke to another text from Harold! "Read it! Now what?" I looked up at my companion, back down, back up, and the celebrating began again and so did the frantic, yet joyful, scripture flipping for yet another chapter for him to read.

The first meeting with Harold in his home included us opening up to his first Book of Mormon reading, and asking, "Harold, what did you think and how did you feel?"

"For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things."
2 Nephi 2:11

"Well, I felt that it was true. I think verse 11 really helped me understand a lot what Bishop Potter was explaining to me."

"Do you feel like it helped your faith in God increase?"

He answered in the affirmative.

As we taught him about the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ that beautiful summer morning, something began to happen to Harold. It was like he started to wake up, spiritually. (Although sometimes at our morning lessons he had trouble being awake physically!) He was smiled more and talked more. At the end of the lesson we testified that through baptism by the Priesthood authority we had taught him about he would rebuild his faith, and receive all of God's promised blessings.

"So Harold, will you follow the example of Jesus Christ --" "YES!" "....by being baptized by someone who holds this priesthood authority of God?"

"Oh!...uh..."

He had totally interrupted us and as a result said yes to something he had not seen coming!! We didn't know what to do!! So we just sat there quietly and personally very tensely, unsure what was going to happen, waiting for him to absorb what we had just invited him to do.

He sat and pondered, then said, "Yes. I will!"

We sighed extremely relieved and excited. We extended a specific baptism date for the following month and he accepted. Now it was our turn to walk away from a meeting and I like to imagine that it was Harold's turn to celebrate, jump up and down and sing at the top of HIS lungs!...I've never asked him if that's what went on after we left, so for the sake of the story we'll say it happened, why not?!

A few days later. *ring, ring ring*

My Dear Friend Harold. Part Two

Harold's story continues...

If two seconds ago was the first time you've heard Harold's name, I really suggest you stop, hold your horses, and click right here! So that you can first read Part One of this post series.

Alright, now that is taken care of, roll the second reel of My Dear Friend Harold.

A whole two weeks later, and on another warm California night, the exciting event finally took place of meeting Harold! This night, although another great night in SoCal, had some differences from when we had visited Maxine and first heard about Harold. The differences were that it was a Tuesday instead of a Monday night and instead of this being our fifth back up, it was our number one, top of the rung, first priority, plan!

And the plan was simple. All we had to do was meet Maxine & Harold at the church where bishop was waiting to help. And all they had to do was show up.

A "Mormon" meetinghouse in Provo, Utah

My companion and I tried to make small talk while we waited outside the church for them, but we were so distracted with checking our watches every ten seconds! I was bouncing up and down on my heels praying that they would come and not ditch out or need to cancel. (Which by the way happens all too frequently in the life of a missionary!) Then suddenly, there before us, was our soon to be acquaintance and friend, Harold.

We hugged Maxine and shook Harold's hand. He wasn't what I had expected...

My Dear Friend, Harold. Part One

Me & Sister Hawker exasperated with time!

There are three very simple answers to the question: Why have I not posted in weeks and weeks and weeks??

The first answer: A heavy dose of Writers Block. Similarly to the movie "Stranger than Fiction" I could not think of what I should write next, the difference is that my story doesn't involve death or taxes...at least...not yet...and hopefully not for a while when it comes to the first, and unfortunately inevitable when it comes to the latter.

The second is rather unfortunate: I. Am. A. Procrastinator. 
There I said it! I need to go to Procrastinators version of AA. "Hi I'm Sister Jensen and I'm a procrastinator."  No seriously, ask my mother. I have dealt with
     hardcore
          to the extreme
                stupid frustrating procrastination all of my life!

Thirdly and finally: TIME. Time has not been my friend lately, in fact we are kind of on the outs as of the past two weeks. He keeps slowing up, speeding down, doing cartwheels, laying around, all sorts of ridiculous things, that is making me very irritated with him.

During all this Time of procrastinative writers block, I've done a lot of reflecting.  These ponderings are mostly about the experiences I've had between January 2013 until now. I've thought about the families I've
been able to teach.  These people have changed my life for...forever! I've thought about the good times, the bad times, the door slams, the overwhelming love, the ugly words, the truth, the conversion and the spiritual experiences. But mostly I've thought about Harold.

Harold is who I want to write about; but first I have to preface the rest of this blog post with the source of this idea.  During this time, I came across a blog post about another missionary and his "Harold." Elder Choe inspired me with his story and experience teaching Athena while on his mission somewhere in "Utahland!" So to Elder Choe I say thank you! And to everyone else reading I say, here is the story of my dear friend, Harold.

*This is a true story*
*Names have been changed*

It was a beautiful warm California Monday night when we first heard Harold's name. All the plans we had, totally failed and we. were. frustrated.  We had only one plan left, to go and visit Maxine. We prayed that Maxine would be home and allow us to teach her.  (We plan out our days as missionary's so that we are as effective with our time as we can be.  And it is SO hard when it doesn't work like we think it should...but it ALWAYS works out the way God wants it to.  As evident here because it lead us to Harold.) 

We had been teaching Maxine for quite a while and although Maxine loved us and our visits, we were starting to see that she wasn't interested in acting on the message we were sharing with her.

Alma 56:46-48

This particular summer night, Maxine was very upset, but we had no clue!  This was because when we got there she was her usual upbeat, happy, energetic self.  We shared a story with her from the Book of Mormon about young stalwart warriors and the great faith they had in God, the which they attributed to their mothers. "Maxine" we said, "You are one of these mothers. You have raised your son Larry with so much faith in God." She became very emotional and we learned that her family was really struggling. That they needed help.  They didn't know what to do anymore.

They had recently received into their household a nephew named Don --jk! The nephew was Harold!(dumb joke. I know.)