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

Hello from Taylor

Hello my friends.

a little low on animo... sorry if its boring or random...

It has been an eventful p-day… we went fishing! The problem is is that rio
negro is about 12 km away, so we borrowed some bikes and biked for a half
hour, then walked an hour. We went with 2 members of our ward- oñate and
hector matus, who was baptized this past Saturday. It was real fun, but we
didn't catch a thing. Oh well.

This week was a bit of a tough one. We had a really good district meeting on
Tuesday and left really excited to go out and work. But I think literally
every cita that we had planned no-showed us. It was a very disheartening
week. But—we had a baptism. Hector Matus was baptized this past Saturday. It
was a very tender moment. He has overcome a lot to receive this ordenanza.
His family are members but are menos activos and he got kicked out of the
house 4 or 5 months ago for the way he was acting. He realized he needed to
change, and that's when he met the missionaries again. They started teaching
him, and he gradually made the changes in his life to put the things in
order and receive a baptism. It was a great moment. We had elder Argueta
baptize him—it was his first! Afterwards, they hugged in the font and
hector, through his tears, said that the church is his family now. We are
working hard with him to keep himself worthy and take the next step to
receive the priesthood. The church is a continuous process!

At one point this week, elder argueta and I took ourselves to a bridge that
overlooks the big canal here in ashen and took a quick break to watch the
sunset. We had had a really tough day. We were sitting there looking at the
sunset and the canal and were joking around about whether we should just
throw ourselves over the railing. Then all of a sudden, some lady rides by
on her bike and says ´hola elderés!´ We turned and had no idea who it was,
so we decided it was an angel and we went back to work. Still to this day we
have no idea who it was, but the kind voice and greeting was just what we
needed to finish out the night. Afterwards we went and taught 3 lessons, so
it was a good ending to the day!

The district is going so-so right now. We baptized this past weekend, and
now we have 0 fechas in our 4 companionships. Elder argueta and I are
determined to go and work really hard this week because we didn't accomplish
what we wanted to this past week. I think we´re going to have a good week.
I´m going on divisions tomorrow in Roca…this will be my first time as
district leader doing so. I always like doing divisions because you can
learn a lot from other missionaries, and hopefully they learn good things
from you.

Sounds like things are pretty busy back there—eagle courts of honor, prom,
earnings report, babies! Something good is always going on back there!

This week I have a lot of hope. We have some really good contacts and
references that we have citas with. We are really hoping to get some people
going and progressing… this is a difficult part of missionary work. We found
a ton of new people the first few weeks and now we are struggling to see
them again and get them progressing.

I´m glad last week is over and that we started a new week today… I´m going
to study a lot harder in the morning and really use that to prepare me for
the day. For a few reasons, we haven't been able to do personal study a
couple of mornings this week and I really think that affected us. This week,
if our citas don't show we are also going to cut of a finger, so hopefully
that´ll get the message through that we´re here to work and teach

Love,
Taylor Jensen

It's getting colder in Argentina!

Week 2 from Allen: a bit tougher than week 1.

We had an incredible week. Incredible in a few senses of the word. To start, incredibly good Monday and Tuesday. We found 6 new people, and each of them were really good. We taught some really good lessons and felt the spirit. And I am starting to recognize it when i teach! I think the key is humility—we have to accept and recognize that our thoughts really are coming from God when we are teaching, and that we must do all that we can beforehand to be prepared to have the guidance of the Holy Ghost when we teach. It was exciting because we have carried on the success we had week 1 together.

Wednesday we had a Zone conference. It was good. President was proud of the work we had already done and told me that already there was a huge difference in the performance of my district. He noted our 14 new investigators from last week and said that the rest of the District is following suit. He then talked about some specific issues in the district and gave me a few ideas of what I can do to help them. I love my interviews with president! He is always so positive and uplifting. I also have to give interviews as district leader, so I'm going to have to follow that example.

The next part of the week we'll label as incredibly hard. At zone conference, we talked about obedience and I feel like every time we talk about obedience we become so stressed about doing everything exact that we forget what our focus is and where our heart should be. If we are more focused on starting studies at 8 instead of 8:00:01 than feeling the spirit and learning, we struggle. And that happened with us on Thursday Friday and Saturday. We fought through a tough weekend of disanimo, as they call it here. It was capped off by our zone leaders showing up an hour and 15 minutes late for our baptismal interview and everyone in the ward no showing us for our weekly noche de hogar in the chapel. It was a tough Saturday for sure. But the only thing we can do is keep pushing through. Somehow, despite our disanimo, we ended the week with 17 new investigators. That's an real high number! This week we have a lot of return citas and I hope it'll be a good week. We have one new that is named Javier. He has already been to church 3 times 7 months ago. We have taught him 3 times and he is reading and feeling the spirit. It is really a joy to teach him because he gets it and wants to learn. He is also 16 years old. Adding on to my youth movement. He is a really mature kid, and we had a very good chat about how to feel the spirit and he recognized that he had had those feelings when he read.

This week looks like it'll be good. One thing that we (I) changed from last week is that when we planned, we basically made a list of the people that we knew and went around seeing if any were home. That's not good because chances are very low. This weekend in church, we set a few citas and from today through Thursday night, we are booked from 6-9. Hallelujah. We are going to do a lot of good work this week.

Its also a bit tricky now because i think i have 2 hermanas mad at me because we aren't going to stay in there house for hours eating, and the other lives far out in the country and wants us to eat with her on Sundays, but i tried to rearrange it to eat on a weekday with her because we cant afford to lose that time traveling, especially on a Sunday. We'll see how . We may not be perfectly obedient, but we can try and do ourJthat plays out best!

I haven't taken a picture of me and my new companion yet, but I'll be sure to send that out soon!

I love you all, sorry its short today—my fingers are freezing and I can't type fast! Winter is finally coming! I haven't had one for a year now...

Until week 3!
(oh and we might have a baptism this Saturday. Hopefully we have warm water!)

ELDER JENSEN

A new city in Argentina!

Greetings from Allen!!

(its said ash-en. Darn accent.)

I don't like transfers, so I am going to start praying I just stay here for
at least 6 months! I just don't like changing and leaving the people I knew
and the area I knew to come here and learn a new area and start loving these
people. We´ll get it done, though. But let it be known I do not like being
transferred.

In Allen, the ward is pretty bleak. For now. The bishop went inactive 3
months ago, so we have a ´ward leader´ from Roca (a bigger city just a bit
away). Our elders quorum president went inactive 2 months ago and has no
desires to return. We have 600 people on the ward list and 40-50 attend each
Sunday. There are 4 active men, none of which are endowed. One of the 4
leaves after the 2nd hour because he was never taught to stay the three and
doesn't feel like changing. Its bleak right now. But there are 4
missionaries in the ward, so I have a feeling like we are what is holding
this ward together a bit. We have 2 hermanas—one has 8ish months, and the
other just got to Argentina last week. They seem like pretty good hermanas.
We also have 4 other elders in our district that live in Roca. One is from
Santiago, has 1.3 years and is in transfer 2 of training his companion, who
is from Colombia, and in the other companionship, one has 4.5 months and the
other is being trained. My companion just finished being trained by a very
poor trainer. Needless to say, we are a very young district.

Our area is a lot poorer than Centenario, and we have to be a bit more
careful because there are a good number of drunks that give us a hard time.
There are also dogs that give us a hard time. I got bit twice yesterday.
Luckily neither got skin—one I blocked with my scripture bag and the other
got the cuff of my long sleeve shirt. What an adventure!

This area is very fertile. They grow TONS of pears and apples and grapes
here. Basically everyone works out in the Chacra—where they grow the fruit.
Its kinda fun because everyone gives us fruit to eat. I don't have a problem
with that

My companion is named Elder Argueta (ar-get-uh) and is from El Salvador. No,
he doesn't know uncle rick. He is a great guy. He is a short, stocky, round
face, hair slicked back kinda guy. His mom passed away when he was 13 (1
year after he joined the church), and his dad passed away from cancer 2
years ago. He is a pretty incredible kid. I love him! We are working to well
together. Already we have had VERY enlightening conversations during
companionship study (something I really haven't liked before now) and we
have a lot of faith walking around these streets. Its showing, too—on Friday
we entered 5 houses and got 7 new investigators, and Sunday we entered 4 and
had 5 new investigators. Something is clicking with us, and we are going to
achieve some great things together. Its also fun to speak Spanish all day.
We just started speaking English in the house, so that's been fun too. He
knows all the basics—hommie, we are men of faith, lets go work, yeah
baby—and is eager to learn more and more. I have learned so much from him
already in terms of the Spirit and Faith and it is really exciting to put
these things in practice.

This area is a bit tough because it went through a long stretch of
missionaries that didn't follow the rules. One rule we have is eating lunch
for only 1 hour. Yesterday was a bit tough—we had to explain to a family
that we could only stay one hour and they said are you serious? Normally you
stay and watch a movie and are here for 3-5 hours. I couldn't believe it.
We have a recent convert who also is used to the missionaries being in her
house for 2-2.5 hours. This kinda stuff is not good. It holds back the work,
and is flat out disobedient. Needless to say, we´ve made a few changes and
elder argueta is really excited to start being obedient. Unfortunately, he
had a siesta sleeper companion. But that's alright because now there are
even more people for us to find and baptize!

I feel kinda like I did in High school at times defending what I believed
in. Its kinda funny. I actually really feel like I did in high school in
standing up for what I am supposed to do and explaining why. It's a bit
ironic that I have to do it with members, but that's alright. And it makes
it tough because they say well so and so did it! The elders always did that!
I never want to leave the members used to ´my´ way of missionary work. This
work is the Lord´s and we´re going to do it His way.

We have one solid investigator who is working on getting baptized the 25th
of April. Other than that, we don't really have anyone who is solid. We have
done a lot of finding and entering, and so we have a nice little pool of
people now. Hopefully some of them will progress!

One thing we´ve changed is our vocabulary—the word encontrar means ´to
find.´ Weve taken that word out of our vocab and replaced it with entrar—to
enter. We don't go finding. We go entering. And this change in mentality has
helped us a lot.

I learned something really neat this week. We were talking about the spirit
a lot the first few days together. We were then planning a Lesson 1 and I
said I usually like to start off explaining how the spirit works (kinda
funny because this is the part I struggle with the most!) but Elder Argueta
told me Elder Jensen—that was personal revelation to you to start off by
explaining the spirit. No one else does that. He then pointed out some of
the scriptures we had read that morning and it flowed exactly in line with
it. We talked about it and analyzed it a bit and it just opened my eyes a
bit that I am having spiritual experiences, I just am not good at
recognizing them. The thing I learned is that I need to humble myself and
recognize that my thoughts and ideas and things I do are not my own—they are
from the spirit to help the people whom I am serving.

Dad—I take comfort in your words that there are great people and friends
here waiting for me—I just have to find them. That is true. And I know i´ll
develop similar friendships like I had back in Trelew. I just have to work
for it. I keep flashing back to my first few weeks in Trelew and remembering
it took a bit for me to be friends with everyone in the ward and everything.
It´ll be easier this time through, so that's good. And my welcome was pretty
good. I (and the new hermana) was asked to give our testimonies first on
Sunday. One recent convert/menos activo/ guy who leaves after the second
hour/ family who expected us to stay 4 hours yesterday kept saying to elder
argueta ´im glad they sent a capo (stud)! Just what I asked for!´ so far so
good with them. And its cool because Elder Argueta has changed a lot already
too. He now has desires to go and work. He had a really bad experience with
his trainer, but now he is loving it. And the members can tell. They say
´what happened, Elder? You are excited to leave and work?` and he just looks
at me and smiles and says `they sent me a capo.` It´ll take some time to get
this area up and producing like it should be, but we´ve made GREAT strides
from where it was a week ago. I´m excited to keep going!

This is going to be a fun transfer. Elder Argueta and I are really gelling
and helping each other. I´ve put some life into him, he´s taught me how to
recognize the spirit. I am teaching English, he is helping with Spanish.
This is how a companionship is supposed to be. There is hardly a difference
between me as comp mayor and him as comp menor. We both carry equal weights.
That's what its supposed to be like. And its refreshing to be with someone
who can speak Spanish already

We have zone conference this Wednesday. President has challenged each
companionship to baptize 2 this transfer. We`re going to do it. Our mission
underachieves and I don't know why. We just have to work and good things
happen. There are a lot of missionaries who don't get that. Or don't like
that whole working to have results. We have to remember that it is us that
thrusts in the sickle. We don't just receive baptisms.

Mom—you bailed on opening day? Youre getting soft! That sounds so fun being
with those little kids—I have their pictures on my desk because its april
now in my calendar. I love seeing their fun little smiles!

Hope all is going well up there. We still are waiting for winter here… its
been about a year since i´ve been cold. Sometimes its chilly at night or in
the morning, but never cold. A couple more weeks and i´ll get to
re-introduce myself to winter!

I love you all. Thanks for all of your prayers--they were needed this week.
(what am i saying...they are always needed!) It was a tough transition going
from a great ward to a struggling one. But its time to start baptising in
this area again.

Onward Ho!
(yep. im still weird.)

Elder Jensen