Happy Independence Day from Argentina!

HAPPY ARGENTINE INDEPENDENCE DAY!

I am with a new companion here in Allen. His name is Elder Taylor from Rigby Idaho. He's a nice gentle giant, and he speaks really really well already. He doesn't understand anything yet, but when we are teaching, he is great. We are going to have a great two transfers together, and he is going to push me a lot, and I am going to push him some too. He has already started smacking my arm every time my hand gets close to going into my pocket (its cold here!) and likes to ask why I didn't do things when he thinks I should have. It's a bit of a test for me and keeping my 9 months of experience pride in check, but its good for me. I told him last night i like it when he corrects me, but he's got to tell me I do stuff good every once in a Jwhile too

This week we put 3 fechas more. We have that menos activo family we found on mothers day in the rain and their 16 year old son said he wants to take the charlas and get baptized. Naturally, his 2 younger siblings followed suit, and their mother is doing a GREAT job nurturing them and helping them grow. We came over one night and the night before they had all read Joseph Smith's testimony and discussed how the mom had come to know that it was true. Its great—I told them they were in the school of the elders—we were going to leave homework and have tests and whoever has the highest score gets baptized first. Haha. (I'm (probably) not really going to make quizzes. Well see) But they are really excited to learn this stuff. They didn't go to church yesterday because the mom had to work and they are a little scared to go alone, even if we came and picked them up. But that's alright—they are going next week and are going to get baptized soon!

Our other 4 fechas are doing alright. One, Sergio and Vanesa, are reading and doing well. We passed by on Saturday night to see how they were doing and make sure they were going on Sunday and they said yep... they had read what we left and more and had planned to go. But, unfortunately, They slept in this Sunday. They'll be going next Sunday for sure.

Our other two are fading....its a couple and they have slowed down their progress. We are trying really hard to keep them going, but they are losing interest a bit.

We had one of our great investigators, Tomara, go to church. She is 17 and has SO much animo. Its really fun to teach her and we have another girl in the ward who is 18 who has done an incredible job taking her under her wing. She loved church and said she is coming back this coming Sunday.

We found another MA family that was married in the temple but went inactive 10 years ago. We've got a noche de hogar with them and are going to try and get them to come back to church and help their 3 kids get baptized. They are nice, and I hope they will respond this time. I know that missionaries have worked with them before, but that's alright. We'll see what we can do to help them.

We have one more family that is a part member family who stopped going to church 4 years ago when the missionaries were pulled from Allen and they just thought the church was pulled, so they have started coming now too. We are going to try and help 2 of them get married, and there is a 22 year old who the family wants to serve a mission. They didn't come to church this weekend because they had a big fiesta on Saturday night. The 22 year old drank a lot and had some really really serious problems and it scared him really bad, and now more than ever he wants to change and come to church and get baptized because he realized he cant continue like he is or he'll die. I guess that's nice for us! I think everyone has their moment when they realized they have to change. Hopefully he'll remember and be persistent with that.

Last night I climbed up on the roof of our house to stargaze a bit and I discovered something. Our tank of water does not have a lid and is covered in green floating substance. I almost threw up because I drink that every now and then and use it to brush my teeth and shower. It was disgusting. We then had a little adventure here in the morning... its independence day and they shot of fireworks here in the morning so we stood in our door this morning to watch them for 2 minutes. A dog (our friend) came because he was scared and my comp thought he was going to go into the house so he shut the door real quick. Unfortunately, you cannot open the door from outside without the keys and the keys were inside on my desk. It is a very cold day. We spent about 40 minutes before we were able to break our way back in... it was quite the adventure. But during this adventure, we discovered something else really bad. We went around back to see if it was possible to get in from the back, and we discovered a broken pipe. This pipe releases all of our shower and toilet water directly into our backyard. GROSS. I want to move to a new house. I'll keep you all posted.

Today is Independence Day, so we are going to celebrate it like the argentines do—a nice asado! We are about to go cook it up now in our FRONT yard. It's kinda funny because we don't have any wood to burn, so we and the hermanas are picking up every stick we see today to use to have our asado. Wish us luck!

My district is doing great right now. The past 2 weeks I've tried really hard to get some animo and excitement, as well as boldness to talk about baptisms. In the past two weeks, we went from 1 fecha to 13 that we have now. The only problem is that only two companionships have fechas, so we are really working hard to get our whole district on board with this whole success thing. I love being district leader and my district really trusts me for some reason, so they are always asking for tips and suggestions. Our district is a really fun one now.

 

That's about it for now... I've got to go cook an asado!!
Love you all!
Elder Taylor Jensen, el Asador

Hey All

May 18, 2009

 

Hey all!!!!!

I've had a crazy week so get ready. First of all, we put 4 fechas this week and have some incredible investigators that are progressing. It has been BY FAR the best week here in Allen. We had 12 lessons with a member present—a new record for me. We have one guy in our ward named Victor who is awesome. He has a full beard and looks hippie, but he is really excited to go work with us. He's 22 and we are starting to work with him to get him prepared and excited to go serve a mission. This is someone that I really feel like I've had a big impact on. My 2nd or 3rd Sunday here, I sat by him and just started talking to him and we talked for a long time in between classes. It was fun—he does a lot of really cool things and makes a lot of things and I took a little interest in that. Now we are great buds, and last Wednesday he took off work to come and work with us all day. We had 5 lessons with our investigators and they were great! Its fun to see results of the things you do, and I feel like part of the reason I came to Allen is to be friends with him and help him progress. Its great!

WE have 2 families that we are teaching that have fechas. One of them is especially good—the parents of both have fechas. We have 2 menos activo families that we are teaching, one with 4 unbaptized, and the other with 3 and both are reading and progressing. In the family of 3, they didn't come to church for some reason, but we went to see why and the mom (a member) said hey gonzolo wanted to talk to you guys because he wants to take the charlas and get baptized. Needless to say, Elder Argueta and I were stoked. We are really excited because we are seeing some tangible fruits of our labors.

That brings me to my next point. We were planning and really excited because we had alot at the chapel yesterday.  We were planning Saturday night when the zone leaders called and told us transfers. I'm going to preface this with another story. I hope you're following. We were walking around Saturday and elder Argueta was saying ´I'm leaving. I'm going to comodoro rivadavia.´ I said ´no way. We are working too well together to split up. If you leave, I'm going to train again.´ So then we get the call—elder Argueta—Comodoro rivadavia. Elder Jensen- you're training! We knew it. And we are still in denial. We are really devastated that we have to split up. We don't see eye to eye all the time, but really we have helped each other so much. I read what elder Argueta wrote in my journal and I am really glad I came here to work with him. He is a kid that I've had a big impact on this transfer because he saw a big difference between me and his trainer. He is leaving with a lot of animo and excitement to go and work hard in a new area. He is really really sad to go, but president cook told us that he had to think really hard about us and if he was going to split us. In the end, he decided yes because elder Argueta is going to go and help reconstruct a struggling area. And I'm going to have another kid! My new missionary is coming into a really really strong area. I guess I've learned a little patience here. It really was a battle the first 4.5 weeks, but now we have some really really really good investigators. We are going to have a lot of baptisms next transfer—just the way it should be with my kid.

It did stop raining on Tuesday. My shoes were just caked in mud everyday. It was fun. Our area is pretty poor, so there are a lot of mud streets. I also found a new aide for my stomach—crema de bismuto. I was really bad this week, but I took this medicine and I've been great ever since! I've now added that to my arsenal of things to calm down my stomach.
It is pretty cold here now. We walk around in our sweaters and suit coats now a days. I use my hat a gloves about every morning and night too. But there is a good solution of staying warm—entering houses! Haha.

My companion did get to speak to his family this past Saturday. Finally. It was really good for him—he had a really tough time with it. He is a really good guy and I'm going to miss him. Its been really fun being with him, and we have a ton of really good memories together. I am sad we don't get to be together for the baptisms we're going to see next transfer! But, that's the way the cookie crumbles.

I love you all—take care and have a good week!

Elder Jensen