Fw: Merry Christmas!

Wow. Is it really christmas? It is a nice, toasty, shortsleeve day here. My
tan is looking good, ive got tan lines all over, and i carry around a water
bottle sometimes because its so hot. Anyone care to trade climates?

Christmas Patagonia style is a bit different. The big holiday is christmas
eve, which is called buen noche here. Its basically like the fourth of July.
We live on the 4th floor of our apartment building, so later tonight, well
be venturing up on the roof top not for reindeer paws nor santa claus, but
for a night of fireworks and eating food. It will be fun! the typical
holiday dish here is called an Asado (bar b que) its basically a big thing
of meat that they grill for a while on rebarb over the coals. Its pretty
good. But typical argentine food-- tons of salt, tons of fat. I feel like a
surgeon most meals as i delicately slice off all the enormous chunks of fat
to get to the good stuff. I am surprised people here dont just have heart
attacks here left and right-- all they do is eat fatty beef, bread, oil,
salt, and more fat. haha.

Right now in our zone, we have 10 elders and 2 hermanas. None are latinos,
so we are going to have to figure out a way to cook our Asado. I am
nervously anticipating what it is going to taste like...

News for this week before i get back to christmas and such: We had 3
baptisms this weekend!!! Bryan Cabrera (brother of ivan, son of vanesa) was
baptized by yours truly on saturday and confirmed on sunday. Monica passed
her interview on saturday and was baptized on sunday with her daughter,
Selene. Both were great experiences. I was especially happy with brian´s. He
is kinda a goof ball who dresses up like a rapper for fun and i was kinda
nervous about his commitment and desire to be baptized. As we were changing
afterwards, we were talking and i just said well you are the newest member
of the church. How does it feel? he said great, really peaceful, that he had
been nervous but now he feels good. I told him thats the spirit. a minute
later he said im also the most perfect member of the church now too, huh?
yep. another few seconds. And probably the wettest! haha. I love this kid. I
am nervous to see what the next two days will bring for their family because
the mom wants to go to Buenos Aires to be with her new boyfriend Maxi. Its a
tough decision because she thinks thats whats best for her and her family,
but my companion and i disagree, and so do the boys. Its a delicate thing
because we cant get into that too much, so we have to sit on the outside and
pray that they make the best decision for their family. Its turned into a
bit of a jerry springer affair with this whole family. The ex husband got
inot a fight with his nephew this past weekend and it was really bad. We are
just really hoping and praying for peace and love between these two families
and that both will reconcile and do what is best for everyone. It is a hard
time right now for both sides. Well see what happens.

Other news, We got the standard again last week!! weve now done it twice,
and we are the only ones in the mission to have gotten it. It is truly a
blessing i dont feel worthy of recieving because we have many weaknesses. I
am not a great teacher or a great spanish speaker, we have a few issues with
obedience, and yet somehow the Lord has decided to bless us with these
baptisms and has allowed us the privledge of helping these people enter in.
It is something i take very seriously and is something that daily i strive
to better myself so that i can merit more and be a better tool in His hands.

I am so greatful for this opportunity i have to be a missionary at this time
in Patagonia. It is an honor, and a blessing to be sharing this gospel. It
is always an adventure, every day i wake up more tired that i was when i
fell asleep, but thats the way it goes. We are allowed to stay out until 9
working or 930 if we are teaching a lesson and i think every night this week
we have stayed out till 930. Thats something that i like. We are maximizing
our time and finding a lot of good people to teach. We are running out of
good progressing investigators though because we are baptizing them all! its
also tough with the vacations here. a lot of our people are out of town till
the first week of january. But we are always progressing, always striving,
and always have a lot more to learn. I take very seriously my calling as a
representitive of Jesus Christ, and i know that the things i am doing here
are better than anything else i could be doing at this time with my life. It
is so worth all the feelings of exhaustion, hunger, thirst, homesickness,
and discouragement to have people like Carlos who was baptised on the 9th.
He is set to recieve the priesthood this coming sunday and we talked to him
on monday night about it. He said he had his interview with the bishop about
it and then came home and cried because he felt so privledged to hold the
power of the Lord. What a man! how many converts respect it that much and
are that excited about it? how many members? It has been a privledge to work
with him, to see him quit smoking in 4 days because he knew this church is
true. The work is fantastic. Not everyday is great. Monday and tuesday here
were really tough. But is it worth it? always. Always.

In mosiah 4 or somewhere around there, it talks about us not running faster
than we have strenghth, but being diligent in all things. Or something like
that. that scripture has really hit me this week. I have been stressed about
the missionary i am and who i am becoming and expecting myself to just be
this incredible book of mormon type missionary or somthing. But thats not
who i am called to be. The Lord called Taylor Jensen to be a missionary. And
yes, i sure have to do my part in diligently studying my scriptures and
ensign and stuff in teh mornings (which, by the way, may be one of my
favorite parts of the day), but i am me. I just have to do the best i can
and that is what He asks. I will grow and learn and speak better as i go on,
but i am not expected to be a book of mormon type missionary now. That will
come :) I can stop stressing and calm down and listen to the spirit as i
teach rather than worrying about what i am going to say or what words i am
going to use as i say it. Ah what a blessing and relief the scriptures are
for me.

I think i am about out of time, so take care, have a wonderful christmas, go
sit in the snow for me, tell your families you love them, and be sure to be
in bed by midnight or santa wont come!

I love you all. Thanks for your support and prayers.
Until Monday,
Merry Christmas!
Love, Taylor Jensen

Fw: Helloo!!!

----- Original Message -----
From: "Taylor Jensen" <tajensen8@myldsmail.net>
To: <njensen@cinci.rr.com>; <kjensen@gaic.com>
Sent: Monday, December 15, 2008 9:58 AM
Subject: Helloo!!!

Is it really almost Christmas? What happened to thanksgiving? and Snow?
someone told us it touched 30 something centigrade. It gets HOT down here!!!
i wish there was snow... but thats alright. Itll be a fun christmas walking
around sweating in my short sleeve shirt.

News this week... Well we had a Zone Conference on friday, then a saturday
night and sunday morning session of Stake conference. It was great. We had
Pres. Cook and his wife, the Temple President and his wife, and Elder Shayne
M Bowen of the 70. The three meetings were all very powerful and made me
realize changes i need to make. It was great. We werent able to have a
baptism because it is stake conference, but we got everything else in the
key indicators! Id call it a success. Elder bowen came up to me and elder
valencia and said ´just want to let you know, i was sitting with Pres. Cook
and he leaned over and pointed you out and said ´see those two elders? they
are obedient with exactitud and they are successful and they are baptizing.
They are an example for our missionaries´Thats what the Lord wants from you.
its what He expects from you. We both didnt really have anything to say
other than wow. Thanks. We are trying with all our might. It was a good
conversation to say the least!

One thing i learned twice (once in a testimony during zone conference and
again during elder bowens talk) is that every meeting, we need to learn
something. If we dont have something we remember weve learned or something
that we are going to change, we havent been listening to the meeting and
more importantly the Holy Ghost. Heavenly father is trying to teach us,
trying to have us learn something and if we dont come out of a meeting
having learned somethign new or changed something about us, the meeting
didnt have any value. I need to work on that, especially here in spanish
land! haha. (my spanish, ps, is getting a lot better. I am being pretty
diligent about learning and working on my vocab. I can do better, and i will
the coming weeks so that by the new year, i can be fine in any conversation.
We are getting there. WE being me and my spanish brain. haha.

Right now we are preparing for a big weekend... we had 4 baptisms lined up,
but Julia decided to go to the beach instead of church. Its really hard
sometimes teaching people the importance of church when it just hasnt been a
part of their life before. It is all too easy to find excuses for why not to
do something. And i dont have too much of a problem with her going to the
beach with her family. We just need to stress really strongly the importance
of coming to church in the morning and then heading off to the beach. We
have a cool new sheet that is kind of a path or map to baptism with all the
things you need to learn on it. its kind of like a check list type of thing.
We started that with her, and she was all ready to go to both sessions of
conference, but last second pulled out. It was a bit disheartening, and
showed us we just have to teach it more strongly, with more importance,
because it really is that important that we go to church.

Other people- We had a mother and daughter lined up for this weekend, but we
ran into a little problem with interviews, so hopefully that will get
settled out and they can get baptized this weekend. We´ll have to see. The
mother was really down yesterday afterwards, so we really hope we can get
this resolved so she doesnt build a wall in her head against the church.

Our last one is Brian, older brother of Ivan and son of Vanesa. We are
working really hard with him to get him baptized now because his family
situation is up in the air with where his mom is going to go and if they are
going with her. He is a good kid. He just needs some guidance. Thats what we
are here for, right? They as a family have been really fun to watch. For
years, they have struggled in family unity. Now, with the gospel, they are
saying prayers together over their meals (which are pretty sparing because
they dont have a fridge, stove, or anything besides a sink anymore) We are
just trying to get them reading as a family. Its interesting being a first
hand witness of the changes families make as a result of the gospel and of
the blessings those changes bring. By next week, we hope to have a lot of
change in terms of respect one towards another. This week, we are really
going to focus on helping them build una casa del espiritu. WEll see how it
goes.

Elsewhere, hmmm. the week hasnt had too too much going on. We are working
with the baptismal dates we had. We are working now on getting some new
people to teach. We are really going to work on using the members because
they are the key in getting good investigators. Our efforts contacting do
not work that well in getting solid investigators. The member references are
so much better. We really love setting up Noche De Hogars with people and
using that to get people teaching new investigators and such. Which leads me
to ask you, my fellow readers, What have you done to help the missionaries
this month?? Ill give you a couple of options-- Family home evenings (these
are key) Inviting them to a ward activity, or going on splits with the
missionaries. It is the Members responsibility to find, the missionaries to
teach and baptize, and the members to retain. And of course the members help
teach and baptize, and the missionaries help retain and find too. but it is
very effecient to have members giving solid references. Escecially now in
Christmas time, it is easy to work something in about Christ and His love
and the restored gospel. Go For it!!

I really dont have too much more to say this week... Onwards and upwards
always!! Its always so much fun realizing i have so much to learn and that i
can never hit a plateau on the things i am learning or on things like faith
and patience. I can always get better! (sometimes thats a little daunting
too). But the work is good here. We are happy, and excited for Christmas,
and excited to have a white christmas--baptism style!

i love you all, and i dont know exactly what our plans are for next week in
terms of christmas and such. I think christmas eve is a Pday, so i may get
on and write a bit after my phone call home. Ill let you know for sure in a
bit... i may have to get on and send a quick email later this week when we
find out for sure. I love you all, have a good winter break, and play in the
snow for me. But my white christmas is going to be more fun :)

With Love
Elder Taylor Jensen

PS. Big news. Hedwig had 2 eggs a couple weeks ago. One hatched halfway and
then disappeared, and hedwig was sad. We hadnt seen her for 2 weeks, so we
assumed the worst. We actually saw like 5 dead pigeons and every time we
were like áww hedwig! but big news! shes back, with another new egg, so we
have 2 again, and she and her husband, pidwigeon, are building a better nest
so their new babies cant escape. Its a joyous day for us! our friends are
back! the end.

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

Hey All!!! I am alive and well in Argentina. The Work goes on! It is really cool to see how the Spirit can work here in me and in the people that we teach. Every day i am striving to learn more and more how it works and how to keep it with me so it can work more and more.

We visited Julia on Tuesday afternoon. It was incredible to see the change she had had! On Saturday, she told us she had thought about killing her self and even had the knife out (i missed that part.. elder valencia filled me in on that on Tuesday) and that her family life was miserable and her daughter hated her and all this stuff. Then when we were there on Tuesday, her family was all there packing and they were going out to the campo together! We were a bit bummed because she is ready for a baptismal date, but we were a bit shocked and very pleased to see her family is coming back together. Her daughter even made her a cup of coffee while we were there! We´ll take it. But her countenance was way different and she was smiling and happy and we knew it was because of church and because she met some awesome people there who immediately became her friends and she wanted to go to enrichment but was going to be in the campo but she gets back tomorrow, so hopefully all goes well. We were stoked!

So last week we set some incredibly high goals for our companionship. Way higher than anything elder valencia has ever done before. And we accomplished most of them! We had a HUGE!!!!!!!!!!!!  Day on Wednesday. We contacted 65 people, got 10 new investigators, and taught 35 other lessons. Those easily were the biggest numbers of the week in the mission. It was so easy—we just talked to everyone we saw. It was almost like a game- we´d cross the street to talk to people, we´d be smiling and bubbly and talk to people, and we found some good people. We have been trying to follow up with the people and its been tough. Some of them gave us fake addresses, some werent there but we taught...4 i think in the past 2 days and they have been pretty good. One was kinda a nut and didnt really accept what we were saying, but we´re going back with our elders quorum president this week to talk to him. We had 2 ladies who were very nice and receptive, and one family who was AWESOME but werent that interested. This family was probably the first normal family i´ve met here, including members. People here are nuts. Weird. I love it though!

We only had 1 investigator in church this week, and it was the 9 year old friend of a member, so it was a pretty weak one to count for us. We were bummed. We had spent a lot of time talking church up and getting people excited for church, but no one came. We are going to have to work harder this week. Its been fun seeing how things change here. Sometimes i kinda question who is the trainer in our companionship. There are so many ways we can become better missionaries that every night during companion planning i kinda throw out an idea- hey why dont we focus on this tomorrow? Why dont we study this and put it in practice tomorrow? And so far it has really changed how successful we are and how much work we get done. I had a fun experience with it Saturday that i want to share too—

We have a part member family that we are working with. The boyfriend is an ex missionary and his girlfriend is an AWESOME lady. They have a daughter together and 2 kids from previous marriages. We just found out this week that the hubby has been drinking and thats been causing a lot of problems with their ´marriage´ and the vanessa just left the house and got a new place this weekend. We are DEVASTATED because they are stinkin AWESOME! Weve been trying to figure out what to say to them that will help them. WE were walking back from a Noche de Hogar (FHE) and e valencia was asking me about movies and my favorites and stuff and i was kinda annoyed because he always wants to talk about that kinda stuff and in the MTC we NEVER did because we were trying to focus and stuff, but here i havent really put my foot down and told him i didnt want to yet. I had wanted to stop talking about it and talk about stuff that would bring the Spirit but didnt  ´man up´ and do it yet. Then along comes vanessa down this random street. We had really really wanted to see her that day because we had talked to Ariel, the boyfriend, and really wanted to talk to her too. So she comes and tells us all this stuff thats going on and we really didnt know what to say. Afterwards, Elder valencia was like man! Why didnt i know what to say!? Why didnt the spirit tell me? And i was just like Its because we were talking about movies. We werent ready for it. We hadnt prepared ourselves. It kinda sunk in a little bit, but he always wants stories from my life and stuff still. I just need to tell him to forget it! Haha. We´re missionaries, not story tellers! I felt guilty, almost reprimanded for not being ready to act. I am not letting that happen again.

Now a bit on trelew. Everyone here is obsessed with the US election and they all hate Boosh (bush) (it cracks me up how they say it) and they all assume e. Valencia is black (hes a light brown) and that because of that he voted obama, and because im white i voted mccain. Sometimes we mix it up and say i voted obama and he voted mccain. Its fun. But i´ll be glad when people stop thinking were spies and eleccion counters and who knows what else.

Our apartment is pretty nice. We have carpet! I think were the only ones. We also have a nice balcony and e valencia and i like to eat  a bowl of cereal every night out there to relax and decompress. We eat cereal for breakfast, eat with members most every lunch (lunches are HUGE!) and then cereal for dinner. Its great. Cereal here just isnt the same though. Feel free to send Chex, Honey bunches of Oats, or Crispix. I like those! 

What else.... i just bought a ping pong paddle. Every chapel here has a table, and we play that and basketball and soccer every pday! I love my life here. This place was made for me! The work is going on. We worked our bums off this week. One day we walked 25000 steps (!) thats ridiculous. But its all good.

On the very end of our area, we have a new neighborhood. Its great because they open one block of 30 houses every week, so this week we had the first batch! And we beat the jehovah´s witnesses there! Ha! (there are a lot of testigos de jeovah here) but we have about 10 more blocks that will open in teh coming months. Its great! We have had a few member families move in and its sweet because they are really nice dirt cheap houses that only families can move into. Its prime! We are heading back over there tomorrow morning to open the next block. I love it! I hope this week we can keep working hard, keep being diligent, and get some good investigators! I am starving and my hour is about up, so i will try and stick on some pics, but i dont think it´ll work on this comp. We´ll see.

I love you all, thank you so much for your love and support. I got 3 dear elders that were sent while i was in the MTC last week and that was fun, but none this week. I hear its about a 3 or 4 week delay ish. I hope its not too bad! I love you all! Be strong and smile at someone.

Elder Jensen

News from Argentina

November 3, 2008

 

Well, it has been a blur of a last 2 weeks since i last wrote!!! so much has happened! my last week in the MTC was filled with fun-- birthday, colonoscopy, sweet devotionals, sad goodbyes. But it was time to go. For sure.

Monday I left bright and early as you know from my itinerary. I landed in Buenos Aires and we kind of just hung out for a while at the Buenos Aires Temple (it was closed for renovations so we couldn't go in. Blast!!!) And then we went to the airport at around 3. Unfortunately, the 4 o'clock flight was cancelled so we just had to sit around and hang out until about 915 when our flight to Neuquen left. It was really fun trying to talk to people in Spanish and actually have them understand us!! We met one guy who is a park city chairlift mechanic and was originally from Neuquen and who was investigating the church pretty seriously. WE talked to him for like 2 hours. He was way cool. We ended up meeting his parents in Neuquen. Good man.

We met Pres. Cook, ate some empanadas and then went to bed on some bunk beds in the mission home. I've never slept so well in my life!!! It was awesome. As you know, I cant really sleep on airplanes, so I had maybe 2 hours of sleep since Monday morning (and that day I barely got any because we got up at 4 and went to bed at like 1230.) The next day, we did some legal stuff and then had a little orientation. We met our trainers (our 1st companions who kind of show us the ropes) Mine is Elder Valencia from Reno, but he was actually born in Peru. But he isn't a native speaker. He is kind of a little bit quiet, but he is smart. He got a 34 on his ACT, so we've taken a guess that we may have the best combined ACT as a companionship on the mission. haha. Hopefully brains will turn into successes together.

I am assigned to the Trelew area. It is a city about half way down in my total mission. I had to take about a 12 hour over night bus ride to get here, but hey I'm here. Our area is ENORMOUS! The rest of the Trelew areas are pretty small, but ours is huge. It's like the city is a hamburger. The buns are divided into 3 or 4 areas each, and ours is the entire meat. It's big and wide. It's the richest area though, so that's nice. We walk 10 or more miles a day (trust me, my pedometer knows :)) but it is good here. We also have the downtown area too.

It's a little tough because we really don't have many people that we are currently teaching. Elder Valencia likes knocking doors, and I think that just stinks to be honest. It doesn't do anything. I've been working really hard to figure out other ways to find because knocking is a waste of time. E. Valencia even said he's never had a baptism from knocking doors.

Missions are tough. I never realized just how hard they are until now. Trying to find people, trying to bring the spirit into their homes, trying to feel the spirit and figure out how it works in me, trying to plan and be efficient. We walk a lot more and teach a lot less than I hoped or thought we would, and that is really discouraging for me. I'm going to work way hard this week to change that.

Spanish wise I am actually not too too bad. People can understand me pretty well, except for the occasional time I say the wrong subject or when I'm asking a question and am not clear and direct. But really my Spanish is ok. Everyone is way impressed with me abilities!

Listening, however, is a different story. They talk so much faster than they did in the US!! haha. And the accent isn't bad. I understand it and can do it. No big deal. But we were at one house and these two girls about my age were just sitting there laughing at me because I was just looking at whoever was talking kind of smiling trying to figure out what they were saying. They made fun of me and were asking me if I was on drugs. Oh well. We're going back there tomorrow and I'm not looking forward to it.

One challenge I am having is getting along with the new way of doing things here. in the MTC we were told not to stay at members houses too long, not to chit chat with investigators too long before we got down to the point and started sharing the gospel. We (well not me because I can't speak Spanish) struggle with that and really need to work on that so that we can work harder and with more people. It's just really hard to figure out how to be a missionary. I know the missionary I want to become and how i want to be, but not very many other missionaries share the same vision because they are too worried about it being too hard or too much work to plan or not fun or basura like that. but each day during planning I'm trying to pipe up and say how I feel about things (like last night--point blank Knocking stinks and is a waste of time. lets find another way to contact)

We've only taught one real lesson since getting here on Thursday(osvoldo). It went pretty good. I did really well at explaining the book of Mormon. But the people didn't drag themselves out of bed the next day to come to church. I've found that the people here are really lazy and not doing stuff almost all day, but some how they are always occupado. always. interesting.

We taught another lesson on Saturday afternoon to a lady (Julia) and really dropped the hammer on her about coming to church and how that would really help her with all the problems she was going through. Early Sunday morning, we got up and went 2 miles away to osvoldo and he was sleeping and then 2 miles back and then out to Julia's and she didn't answer, so disheartened we went to church empty handed. But to our surprise, she showed up like 15 minutes later!! YES! She had been in the shower when we rolled by, so she couldn't answer the door. But a lot of the ladies there talked to her and we think she felt really welcomed. We are going to swing by later tonight or tomorrow to check up on her. Hopefully all is going well!

Other news--we contacted an absolute NUT on Friday. He talked to us for an hour on the street and wouldn't let us say a word or leave. He talked about a flaming sword God had given him and a fiery cart he was baptized in. He tried to get us to come to his house but we were terrified and had a lunch appointment. We swung by the next day and his house was way nice! But he just kept talking and talking about biblical prophets and all this crazy stuff. He was nuts. His wife brought out a 7up and cups and he yelled at her and was like they don't drink 7up! And on the tray the wife brought out there was a knife!!! haha we thought he was going to kill us or something. But we had to leave and invited him to church kind of half heartedly. Well, he showed up! haha. We heard Sunday school was a bit strange, but he talked to me after sacrament meeting and was way normal. it was kind of weird! Maybe he is normal while in church. Anyways... I think we may just kind of avoid him for now.

Its hard being down here and not getting mail on a daily basis! No one here writes letters anymore so I don't know what the best way of doing it is yet. I tried to mail stuff from LA but they didn't have any mailboxes. I'll get some out today, don't worry. Hopefully they'll get there soon! I'm throwing some pictures on here too... give me a sec. The food here is alright. Pizza is good, bread is good, noodles are alright, I've only had a little beef and chicken and they've been alright. Its fun because they all eat huge lunches and then no dinners so I like eating that way because then in just fall into bed and sleep so so so soundly. It's good to get a good night sleep every night.

Sorry I don't have any good pictures of trelew yet... next week I will for sure! it is hot, dry, dusty, dirty, no clouds, and warm borderline hot. So far so good. I'm already working the tan a bit!! haha.


I love you all. Smile!
Love,
Elder Taylor Jensen