Friday, November 21, 2008

News from Argentina

----- Original Message -----
From: "Taylor Jensen"
Sent: Monday, November 17, 2008 10:40 AM


Hey All!!

Greetings from Rawson today-- we are having a zone activity. We were
supposed to go to see the penguins, but it was way too expensive. BLAST!
probably a good thing- i have 80 pesos in my wallet and 0 in the bank (i am
in deep trouble this month!) 80 pesos is about 25 bucks. WEll see how i do.
rice, cheap cereal and pasta here i come!!

It has been an incredible week this week. Last week i think i talked a
little bit about vanessa? i hope so. she is the awesome one who was living
with her x missionary boyfriend. Well, he left the house, and we swung by on
tuesday to talk to her. We talked (we set up three chairs on her front door
with us outside and her on the threshold--we dont break rules!) and talked
for a while. She expressed a deep testimony for an investigator and just had
a fear of going to church. When i heard that i was like oh yeah im all over
this! we had practiced this SO many times in the MTC with me and elder foye.
So i started talking and just helped her realize it doesnt matter what
members think of you, if you are doing whats right they have nothing to say.
It makes it hard because her boyfriends dad is the 1st councellor to the
bishop and mom is the relief society president. We presented her name at
ward council to be baptized and the bishop wasnt there and it was just the
1st councellor and he just shook his head and said no no no no. it is going
to be an adventure getting her baptized, but anyone who has their head on
straight knows she had a stinkin SOLID testimony and knows everything she
needs to. WEll see.

The next day, we got a call from her while we were getting dressed. IT went
about like this-- elders i have something to tell you. (we were both about
to cry) Ivan ( her 12 year old son) wants to get baptized too! ( at this
point we both burst out yelling, in english of course, about how excited we
were. Haha. its going to be a great day on the 29th when they can be
baptized and enter into the Lords fold.

We then went out on thursday and talked with Julia. We had a really good
discussion on baptism and the spirit and invited her to be baptized the 29th
with vanessa and ivan, and she accepted!!! we were all really happy. She is
going to love it. She didnt come to church this sunday because she was in
teh campo, so we have to move her date back, but thats alright. We are going
to visit her later today i think.

Friday and Saturday, we didnt get a fecha (baptismal date). But we did on
Sunday! There is a 9 year old girl who comes to church all the time and we
always are like hey tamara when are you getting baptized? and she responded
oh on the 30th of november with Rocio (another 9 year old girl who is in a
reactivated family) and we were just like wait what? So we now have 5 (if i
am counting right ) baptismal dates. WOW! what a week.

We have a new investigator named Carlos. HE is a stud. He has read the first
6 chapters of the Joseph SMith manual before we even met him. He had a
Family Home Evening with a family (sorry this story stinks. He is renting a
room from a member) and they had a Noche de Hogar with another hilarious
family and they got him started. When we met with him a few days later, hed
read a ton. We then had lunch with him on thursday and on saturday he was 8
chapters into the book of Mormon. The man is rolling! he is just excited to
learn EVERYTHING! he flips open to random pages and just says teach me about
this. i want to learn this. ITs so awesome to have an investigator who is
taking big steps at a time towards baptism. HE came to church this week and
liked it, so hopefully next email we'll have another fecha story!

We have been meeting with Osvoldo less and less. When i first got here, he
had a fecha and was the best investigator they had. It was weak. He hasnt
read anything or progressed at all and is a bump right now. we would have
dropped him, but his wife is a menos activo, so we still go over there to
talk and try to get them to church. They came last sunday so that was fun.
But it is always so interesting talking to all of these people. ONe of my
favorite things to do is to bust out the Family proclaimation to the world
and talk about families and how to sustain a family and keep it working. I
never realized how hard it is! vanessa has issues, Julia has issues with it,
Osvoldo and Manuela have issues with it. This week has just really
strenghtend my conviction on what a family is supposed to look like and more
importantly what my family is going to look like. It is so important to read
the proclaimation to the family and live those principles. Its just like no
brainer! even if i wasnt mormon, those principles are like what your mother
would teach you about how to treat people and be nice. Read the
proclaimation and LIVE IT! thats our commitment to a lot of people this
week.

What else is going on.....Elder Valencia and i are EXHAUSTED this week. WE
average 12 miles walking a day. We hit 16 one day this week. Man. ITs
ridiculous. We work our buns off and it feels so good to hit the mattress
and fall asleep within 5 minutes every night. I wouldnt want it any other
way. We are always running around trying to find our people and teach them,
trying to contact every person we see and invite them to listen to us. IT is
WORK! sometimes its tough because for some reason we arent allowed to conact
ladies on the street so its tough during the day when everyone is working.
We zig zag accross the streets all the time when we see people. Its a fun
game we play. And it is great because we get ridiculous amounts of contacts
and lessons taught each day.

We had Zone Conference on Thursday and it was great. WE talked about
contacting and about involving the members in our work. One new activity we
are doing is sitting down with the members and writing down every single
person or family they know that is not a member. It takes a while! we then
write it really nicely on a piece of stationary and bring it back a couple
of days later and do a nice presentation on ways they can share the gospel
with people on the list. WE then kneel and pray and invite them to be
receptive to see if anyone on that list comes to their mind and then tell
them to go share and well check up to see how it goes. Apparently in some
south american missions, it has multiplied baptisms by 100. It'll be
interesting to see how it works here! im excited!

I think thats about all i have for this week. No pictures-- im in rawson and
dont have my cord. Sorry!! Oh and i got my first batch of letters today! i
got ones sent between oct. 28 and Nov 2 ish. the oct 31 mailed one from mama
got here today, and the dear elders got here too from oct 28 through nov 1
ish. NOt too bad! thats only 2 weeks! i can handle that!

Anyways, i love you all, and i hope all is well in the States. I hear things
are crazy. Stay strong and smile!!!

Love always
Elder Taylor Jensen

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