Hey all!!

June 15, 2009

This week was GREAT. We had so much success. We had 6 people come to church this week (it was a satellite transmission from salt lake—it was good). We taught 23 lessons and found some good new people. And the best news is that we are going to have 2 baptisms this Saturday! Tamara passed her hour and a half interview (she is incredible. She just started bearing her testimony as soon as they shut the door and kept bearing it and she got very emotional. Its very special to see someone like her or like Carlos. We only saw her Tuesday this week (and yesterday of course) because she went out to Beltran—about 3 hours away where her mother lives. She is still doing great. She told us that we came to her house that day and that these things are things she's believed all her life but never found anyone else who believes them. She says she's always tried to keep the Sabbath day holy, she's always wanted a good relationship with Christ, and she always wanted a place like the church where she just feels good. Its increased my testimony a lot that there are really good people here that are just waiting to find a place that they are looking for (even if they aren't looking!)

Our new fecha for this Saturday is named Juan Carlos (he always tells us to call him John Charles, baby! Haha)  But he was there when Tamara finished her interview and he told us we was getting baptized on the 20th too! Surprise! Its great—he's come to church 4 times and we could never teach him because he never told us where he lived, but this past Sunday i got smart and told him we'd teach him in the church. And he comes, a half hour early, to be there and learn. He always tells us how much he loves the church and how he knows its the true church. He asked our ward leader 2 weeks ago for a tithing slip even though we hadn't even taught about it! Its interesting with him. He used to be an evangelical preacher and still has a bit of that running in him. When we teach, we tell him the doctrine and then he says ´hold on, boys. I'll explain it to you.´ And it works great because we can check and see if he's understanding the doctrine or not. We have to work with him on being more tranquilo in his prayers, but other than that, he's doing great! The members like him too, and that helps a lot.

On Friday, I had my last zone conference with Pres. Cook and it was good. Their last talk, they talked about enduring to the end. He gave us a lot of advice, and it was really tender as they bore their testimonies about wanting to go to the celestial kingdom and wanting to see each of us there. I was sure to give my thanks to him for all he's done for me. In my interview, he just talked about how I'm being a good leader and how the baptisms in my district are a result of that. I like being a district leader. When we get back to the house, i used to just change into pjs and eat and go to bed, but now I stay in my suit until 1025 making calls and organizing and verifying—I feel like I'm working really hard, and I hope its paying off!

On Friday, we stayed in Roca to give a baptismal interview for the zone leaders. We ended up just staying the night there, then I gave 3 baptismal interviews in the morning for 2 elders in my district. We then came back to Allen and I gave another one to the hermanas fecha for this weekend. Then we started working again! It was a really run experience giving 5 interviews within 16 hours. It didn't get boring or anything. I love talking to people and asking why they decided to get baptized or why they decided to listen to the missionaries. It always helps me in my testimony, hearing how these people came to know its true. I always like to give complements and advice. I love that part of being district leader.
We started our jogging early this week. Usually we wait till Sunday to jog in the morning gathering all our people to go to church. This week, we did it on Saturday. We ran to a bunch of different houses and ended up teaching 11 total lessons. It was an INCREDIBLE day. I had a few really special lessons we taught this week. 1 was to a man who has Parkinson's and literally flops around in his chair. He's a guy we found with Elder Argueta and never went back to teach, but we went with elder Taylor and it was a really touching lesson. I shared with him some stuff that helped me have peace when dad was diagnosed. I felt the spirit testifying to me this week exactly how it did a year ago—overwhelming love and peace. I shared Romans 8 16-18 ish and as I looked into his eyes to tell him he is a child of God and his spirit is still in good shape, I knew it was true. It was really neat. He asked me to pray to end, and it was maybe one of the most heartfelt prayers I've said in a while and it was incredible to see what happened to him. He stopped moving. Completely. And stayed that way. We chatted for another 2 or 3 minutes, and stood up and left. He didn't get up to come show us to the door because he said ´elders—this is the most tranquilo I've been in months. I'm just going to stay in the chair and not break it. My door is always open for you two.´ It was a very powerful experience for me, and I know we touched him and brought him a lot of joy that day.

Another one was with the family Marquez. They are so good. They open right up to us and we are just great friends. And its not like friends friends. Its friends that brought a huge change in our home and we want to thank you friends. Gonzolo (16) is having a few issues in deciding if he wants to follow the church or the world/friends. I had a fun moment—I took off my plaque for a second and talked to him as his friend instead of as a missionary and told him about high school for me and how I passed through the same exact situations. I told him how worth it it is, and exactly the specific blessings I'd received. I then put my plaque back on and said ´as a servant of the Lord, I can promise you that you too can experience the exact same things.´ It was a really good moment. I love having teaching experiences like that, and i really feel like I'm having more and more as I try to figure out how the spirit works.

In other news, the house is 100% functional now. Hallelujah. My companion is doing GREAT! He is starting to come out and show his personality, which is Jreally hard to do when you speak another language. He is smiling too

We had a nice little asado today—its flag day, and the argentines will take every opportunity to not work they can get. It was a fun asado- we ate it with 3 members.

P-day next week is a Wednesday—we have transfers on that day too. Its 5 days early to get us ready for our new president. I am terrified I'm getting transferred. I am really torn if I want to or not. We have some really great people we are teaching now and I don't want to leave them. I also have 2 people who have told me they want me to baptize them in July...I don't want to leave that! But I know it's not my choice, so I'll just keep working and do what i do!

I'm out to go shopping. Thanks for all the love and all you do. I'm glad you had a good trip to Minneapolis...I'm going to go visit someday too! And Clayton will have to give me 1 Nephi 3 7 too! Haha. Take care!

Elder Jensen

Hey all!!

June 8, 2009

 

Hey all

I'm sleeping laying down again, so i guess that means I'm feeling better. I just decided last weekend I was done calling hermana cook because basically all that's going to happen is me taking crema de bismuto, immodium, or Ja stomach relaxer. All is well. Most of the time

This week has been a great one. We did a lot of good things. I feel truly blessed, and i feel like I'm breaking through a little bit and really learning and feeling the spirit. I have had about a million great experiences this week, but I'll save you all and only write a few.

This Sunday morning, we went out early to go and pick up some investigators. For the past 3 or 4 Sundays, I've gotten a workout in by running. Running from house to house, waking people up and (trying to) get them out the door. My jog normally includes a 2 km sprint to the chapel when we realize the meeting is about to start, so it's always fun. It keeps us warm too! This Sunday, we walked with 2 people to church, and were blessed to have 5 more of our investigators waiting for us there!! It was a huge blessing and I know its because we have been really pushing ourselves to teach better and to help others grow their faith more. I was so happy! Something happened in our jog though that was really funny. We went with victor to go grab our families and we left him with one family then we sprinted about a kilometer to another investigator. On the way, (we were fasting and I was tired!) I pulled something very un- tjensen8—I tripped and totally bit it. Hahaha. I was running like a football player with my scripture bag tucked under my arm and I fell and basically did a somersault and popped right back up and kept running. I brushed all the mud and dirt off as we ran and I just laughed the rest of the morning. It was great. I was in my nice Sunday suit and had just polished my shoes and my companion thinks I'm nuts. Laugh or cry. I laughed. Hard.

Tamara is awesome. She wants to be a missionary and is already preparing. SHE ISNT EVEN BAPTIZED YET! But she wants a missionary manual, she reads, she prays, she bears her testimony and teaches her sister who has no interest everything she learns. She is the Carlos Busselli of this area. It is so fun teaching her because she is just like a sponge. And she's like a mix of my cousin Megan Kern and Erika Koth—always smiling and laughing and happy. She's fun to teach, and yesterday she told us that I was going to baptize her and Elder Taylor was going to confirm her. ¡Que bueno! Its fun when you don't have to push and verify and push and verify with your investigators. She just does it on her own!

I hope everyone read the Liahona from June--- I LOVED the article about Heavenly Homes. IT was great—I have a lot of room for improvement in my slang and in what entertains me. It was a great article. Ps have you gotten the May Liahona with the conference talks? We're still waiting!

Oh! Big news! WERE GETTING A WASHING MACHINE!!! I am so happy. Its basically a bucket that spins your clothes, but its better than the bucket that doesn't automatically spin your clothes that I've been using. Yay. Also- the tank is still green, and Hector Matus (who ( I have a lot of sadness) is inactive. He hasn't been for 4 or 5 Sundays now and it really breaks my heart. He is still reading—he and I are having a race to finish the book of Mormon. (I'm winning by 12 pages—in Alma 17 estoy) But it just breaks my heart. But hector is fixing our broken pipe as we speak, so little by little things are getting better. And we get to paint the apartment! What fun.

Its chilly here. I like wearing my sweater under the suit, but we haven't had to use the huge jackets too too much. That's fine with me.

I have a huge testimony of choosing to be happy. I said my comp thinks I'm nuts—its because I have chosen to always be smiling. Friday we had a tough day and walked around literally all day. We were sore from soccer the night before and it was tough. But you just have to choose to have energy and be happy with whatever comes in life. I give  a bit of credit to my cousin Megan for teaching me that

Victor is doing alright. He wants his mom to wait till October for some reason. I'm going to have a chat with him tonight. His mom needs to get baptized and wants to and victor is ready to do it, he just wants her to wait. I talked to pres. Cook and he basically said ´that makes no sense to wait!´ we'll see what happens. Their family is doing great though; Victor has really taken it in stride.

My new companion is doing alright. I think the problem with a lot of new elders is that they don't smile enough, because they're tired or don't understand or whatever. He speaks really well though! A lot better than my last new missionary. I'm just trying to get him to be happier and smile! I like training a lot. I feel like I've done it my whole mission so far—2 being trained, 2 transfers training, 1 re-training elder Argueta, and now (at least) 1 training elder Taylor. I like it. Is it easier the second time around? No---its still tough. And it might of been harder this time because i wasn't in love with the area when he first got here (i like it better now).

Our district is going to have about 6 or 7 baptisms. That's pretty good—this past week we worked on being REALLY bold and getting into houses. It works. I basically walked into 2 houses this week. Its fun, but it takes guts to do. Really fun. But when it doesn't work, its really awkward. Oh well.

Thanks for everything you do for me and for all the love you send me! Enjoy reading Carlos´s letter... its really touching for me. Tell aunt Corrine that i was working in the Taylor the argentine picture—you just cant see the multitudes of people gathered around! Haha.

Love you all. Have a great week!

Hello from Taylor

June 1, 2009

 

Hellloooooooooooo family!

It's been a strange week. Here we go.

On Tuesday, our good friend Victor's dad died. He fell into a coma last weekend and passed away this Tuesday. They had the funeral for him on Wednesday and buried him on Thursday. We ran over for the viewing Thursday morning (they do viewings for 24 hours straight here) and we got there just 5 minutes before they carried him out. It was really good that we went---victor was really appreciative. He's handling it really really well. He is such a great guy. And now, his mom is able to get baptized (they weren't married). I really want to be here to see victor baptize his mom. The Lord works in mysterious ways sometimes, but i think seeing that baptism would be incredible. His mom has come to church faithfully for the past 8 years. I really want to be here to see that.

This past Friday, we ate lunch with a member and got SO sick. It hit my comp right away, and hit me that night. So that made Saturday an interesting day. We woke up and went down to Roca to give a baptismal interview. We got back, taught a lesson to someone named Betti who is really good. It was a funny lesson because when I opened my bag, I realized it wasn't mine and that we had accidently switched with some of the elders in Roca. Unfortunately, my keys are in my scripture bag. More on that to come. We then we were walking to our next lesson and we both felt so bad, but I stuck a smile on my face and we kept going. Our next 2 appointments no-showed us, one was 3 of our fechas who are now not going to get baptized when planned because they were going out of town, so 3 dropped fechas, our lunch with the ward mission leader no showed us, and by then we were about to die because of our stomachs. At this point it became crucial to have our keys to go to our house to eat. We tried breaking in for a little while (we broke in last Monday) but we were unable to today because we had locked the door when we left. We (luckily) had the cell phone and called up the zone leaders who told us the elders in Roca were in their chapel. We jumped on the bus and went and switched and came back and went to bed. It was a tough tough day. After one of the citas no showed us, i made a list of all the things that went bad in that day. This list included our stinky (hahaha) house situation, the owner not doing anything about it, my lack of shower because of gross green water, and so on. It was a list of about 15 things. But then I made another list of things that were good on the day. I put one thing—I'm still smiling. Then I wrote in red underneath it ´That means I win!´ Thats one thing I'm really happy with—I just forced a smile and it made all this bad stuff durable. I think that's the attitude we have to take with our lives. It's like elder Wirthlin's last talk—we just have to smile and laugh stuff off. It would be very easy to get bitter, but that doesn't do anything.

I had a funny night last night. I woke up 2 or 3 times with stomach pains and the 3rd time, I couldn't lay back down because it hurt. I then set up my pillows and slept sitting up! Haha. It was funny to wake up sitting up—its really weird. When I woke up, I put on my soccer shoes and started kicking a soccer ball around the house. It was the best morning workout yet! I was dribbling around singing along with my music. It was funny. (I'm not sure if ) but it was a good way for me to relax and say this is going toJmy comp agrees  be a good day. I think I'm going to be playing soccer more in the mornings now!

Speaking of soccer, we're going to start playing on Thursdays now. We have a lot of people here who love it and it's a great opportunity to meet the people and the church. Yay.

Tamara is progressing incredibly well. We only had that one charla with her, and she has come to church twice and institute twice. The members all LOVE her because she is a happy outgoing girl that's filled with energy. Its been great to see how the members all take her under their wing. I wish that would happen with every person we bring to church! But yesterday, the teachers were all calling on her to answer questions and share her favorite scripture and stuff like that. Its so fun having incredible investigators. She's like Carlos Buselli from Trelew (ps I got a letter from him explaining a class he gave and a talk he gave—that guy is incredible. He is so good. I wish i had time to translate it for you all!) Tomara is going to get baptized the 20th.

Our other fechas all fell this week. We're going to try and help them come to church so they can get baptized. Normally I try to put my fechas for within a month ish. They have to come 3 times to church, and if like moving quickly because if you draw it out, Satan has more time to fight against them. But I feel like if they will keep their commitments, they can easily get a testimony and get baptized in three weeks. Example: Tomara. Other example: Carlos. There are people who need more time too and that's okay.

Question—what is the difference between the law of the harvest and receiving blessings for what we do? I know that if I study Spanish, I'll be able to speak it. So where does the study it and God helps us come in? I didn't explain the question well... sorry.

Other question—why is it so hard to find the gospel in the world today? It is so hard. Is it our pride? That's what I think, but its really hard!

I love you all—

Have a great week!

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