A little longer letter from Elder Jensen

November 12, 2009

 

Hey all--

Well; it's been a rush so far. I woke up an hour early to email this morning because I just do not have time to do anything! It's really a different lifestyle. I have woken up at 5:30 or earlier more than half of my days as assistant. That's a lot different. These last two transfers I was always so tired that I was pretty useless from 6:30 to 7 ish until I got in the shower. But now, I'm up an hour early and working on projects or stuff like that. It also applies to the other end- we are supposed to go to bed at 10:30, but my comp and I have been staying up late because we get swamped with phone calls till 10:30, we have stuff we need to do to prepare for the zone conferences the next day, and so we normally are in bed at about 11 ish. I'm holding up well so far…it's just a lot less sleep than the sacred 8 hours we are supposed to have!

This week, we started zone conferences. First up was Zapala, the zone where Junin is. It was fun to see my old district there. The elders in San martin changed- one stayed and one left, and now the one that came in gets along incredibly well with the one that stayed. That made me really happy—he needed a good companion. Elder Henrie is doing alright, it looks like. His new companion is an x zone leader who was zone leader for a long time and is now finishing his mission. I think that he will help Elder Henrie a lot. For that zone conference, we had to wake up at 4:45 to leave at 5:30 and get there at 8. But the conference went really well. It was a pretty powerful one this transfer, and we're changed several things in the mission. All my mission I have had this strange obsession with contacts. President recently has also gotten that strange obsession, so that's one of the big things we are talking about in the zone conferences. I get really excited talking about it, and we've put really high goals in the mission to get everyone out and working more. President is calling this the New Era. We've put a goal to baptize a whole lot more this transfer, and that goal is being backed up by the zones. In the past week, the mission has soared from 70 fechas to about 90 as of last night. There is a lot of positive energy now!
Yesterday, we were here with one of the Neuquen zones, and it also was a good conference. Elder Cox is here in this zone, so it was fun to see him again. Its interesting being in each zone conference, because every zone has its own unique kinda feel. I think a lot of that also depends on the zone leaders- if they are hard workers and set a good example or not. Its also fun being at every zone conference because you get to see how the messages and principles adapt themselves to each individual zone.

Tomorrow we head on out to Roca, so I get to see my old district out there. Then Saturday and Sunday we get to work all day! Yay! Next week, we head on out south on Thursday afternoon and are gone till the 30th or so. We had a nice little miracle happen this week too. We had 8 new missionaries come at the beginning of this transfer, but 5 more were delayed. We've been really worried about when they were going it be able to get here. If we leave on the gira (the loop down south for the zone conferences), we would have to have them wait till December when we got back up here. That would really really be a pain, because there are 5 elders and hermanas here that have a ´mini missionary´ and not all of the mini missionaries can be minis that long. We finally got a call last night that they were going to arrive on the 18th. That is absolutely perfect—now we'll have a short little training meeting on the 19th and roll on out that afternoon. The Lord is mindful of us, even way down south at the tip of south America!
Its fun working in the office. It drives me nuts because we don't go out and work as much as a normal elder, but I understand why. I actually hardly ever work proselyting with my real companion, Elder Camacho. I work most of the time with Elder Nilsson, who spent 6 months in my district in Roca (Allen). It's really funny, because every time we did divisions down there, we'd always dream of how it would be if we could just be companions- what kinda things we'd do, how well we'd work together. Well, now we get to see! So I am happy because I have 2 great companions up here in the office. Elder Camacho is great too. He is Elder Foye´s trainer, so he has some fun stories about that. We also have the office senior couple that lives here in the house with us. They are HILARIOUS. The hermana is just so loving and nice and cooks us stuff a couple times a week. Her husband is a really… strong presence that just makes me laugh. He has no problem in yelling ´WHO LEFT THE DOOR OPEN! DO WE LIVE IN A BARN??´ it's also funny because he speaks very very limited Spanish, so when he needs to make a phone call he makes us do it. That can be good and bad. These past 4 weeks, the internet here in the office has been horrible, so he has made me call and be pushy with the internet people who are just a horrible company. He hands me the phone and says Elder Jensen these people are idiots and I want you to tell them that. Tell em every bad word you know in Spanish so we can get this thing fixed! Haha. (don't worry, I didn't tell em any bad words).

Next transfer, we are getting 14 new missionaries! And we are also going to do a mission tour with the Bowens. I'm excited for that. Also, Elder Taylor's baptismal goal is 15 this transfer. That made a pretty big splash here in the office. I talked to him last night for the first time in more than 3 months, and he sounds good. He is a great missionary.

Well, its time to shower and head off to a zone conference. I've been trying to throw a picture in this email, but the internet is being spotty again, so I haven't been able to upload it. Maybe next week if I call em up and give them a hassle again we'll have better internet!

I love you!

JENSEN