Bueno Bueno!

Bueno bueno!

Everyone how are you??

Everything is just going swimmingly here. Not literally though cause we don´t swim. But this week was a good one, once again. I don´t know if I´m being too positive or not, cause Elder Reed would´ve said it was a bad week, but I enjoyed it!

Last Tuesday we had interviews with Presidente Maravilla. Those were pretty good, took a lot of the morning. He was going to give us a little fireside too but all of Reu was out of power... all day. So we had the interviews in the dark. He then brought us all in the room and told us we need to focus on the asistencia of our wards. We baptize but we don´t retain. So we are working with the ward more, which is super good! Our only problem is we don´t have much of a ward to work with, 535 members, 75 active... kinda sad CAUSE THEY ARE MISSING OUT!!!!!!!!! But that´s why I´m here. Anywho, then Presidente opened it up to questions and just let us ask any question we wanted. Holy cow that man knows a lot! 3 months after he was baptized he was a branch president. Then a stake president. Now the best mission president in the world!! He is probably one of the 3 Nephites! who knows??

During the interviews we also had our district meeting, it was my turn for the message. I talked about diligence. While I was talking about it, I realized that I love teaching stuff, cause I learn more. I love learning!! (something is wrong with me)

Then we did divisions. Divisions are always good!

Wednesday was... good. I don´t really remember it.

Thursday, good too....

Friday we had the fireside by president en la mañanita. It was awesome. I´m sure y´all have seen the Bruce R McConky thingy where he talks about the Atonement, WOW!! I love that stuff! President said something that I loved, "We all want to become like Christ, but we follow Satan." Something like that... But it´s true, we are here on this earth to become like our Salvador, and we don´t even follow the commandments sometimes. But good thing we have the atonement in our lives. We can be forgiven of our sins!

This week something clicked inside of me, I don´t really know what, but I feel the Spirit more strongly, everything makes me cry, and I just starve to read the scriptures and the Liahona and Jesus the Christ, (almost done!! well.... im on page 500 ish and there is like 750 pagesish). I wanna read the bible and the Book of Mormon and DandC and everything all at the same time. I´ve never felt like this before! I LOVE IT!

My Spanish is getting better and better. I keep surprising myself at how much I know and can communicate. I don´t get nervous to speak anymore. It´s still no where near perfect, but poco a poco!! I CAN CONJUGATE! sometimes hahaha

We have this one investigator named Gaby! She is awesome. She came to church with us and everything. She is an example of being prepared by other missionaries. (I think I already told you about her..)

We visited a lady a few weeks ago and she just kept talking about her church her church her church, so we were like, alrighty bye, but before we leave, can we help you with anything? she said no... then we went to visit her again this week just cause, and she told us after we left, she was reading the Bible, and we just kept coming into her mind, and the words we said, Le podemos ayudar en algo? or somthing like that. But she just kept thinking about us. So when we came back she told us that she was pridefull and called us angels. That we have something that other missionaries dont have, and she likes us now.. haha. But she still wont come to church cause she has her church. So we are working with her too.

We still need to find that family of gold. I know they are there somewhere. In the Guatemala Retalhuleu Mission, we baptize families. FAMILIES FAMILIES FAMILIES. I love families, cause I have a really cool one!

I love you all so much! Read the Book of Mormon, it is such a powerful book. I always just hold it in my hands, or turn the pages, and I can feel the power of the words it has! It´s an amazing book!

I love you I love you I love you!!!

Elder Jensen!!!

Motivational Monday

What's happenin family!?!?

Things are great in San Luis.... well..... kinda. Haha still dont have many people to teach, que duro es la obra. Haha but I still love being a missionary. Not much happened this week. I got a whole stack of Dear Elders from Charise, and Brooke Call, Sharylin Green, Joni... oh no there were others too... I just cannot remember. THANK YOU FOR THE LETTERS! I am definitely the most popular Elder in the zone, maybe mission. Who knows, but keep 'em comin!!! Letters are my favorite thing in the whole wide world!!!

Mision Retalhuleu got some new missionaries this week. I'm officially not the baby anymore!! Our zone is all kinds of different now! Change is good right?

So remember the guy I told you about that is a Testigo de Jehovah?? His name is Samuel. Well we met with him on Tuesday, in the dark, cause he doesn't have any light, and we basically taught him everything we know. He just asked us question after question after question for almost 2 hours. He would ask us questions like what we thought about the doctrine of the Testigos and we would tell him what we thought and then he would be like, "yeah that makes sense." and start doubting the beliefs of his church. We left him with a Libro de Mormon and he said, "give me some time to study the chapter you left me." He is the only person in all of San Luis that does what he says he will do. He rules. The only problem is he works on Sunday at a cake shop, and his boss is a toughy. (does that story even make sense?) haha my brain is all mushy right now, this week was a long one.

All I remember from this week is walking a ton. We have an area about 2 miles away from our house that we went to the other day, then yesterday we did a huge loop around our area and one person let us in. The good news is we got a dinner last night!! We were in a member's house, she is this lady that ALWAYS says the prayer. She is single and just lives right next door to her drunk son. pretty sad, but she is awesome. We were there and her son came in to talk to us (the drunks love us), but he asked us where we were from about 75 times. us - "we are from Utah, in USA." him - "yeah! but what is Utah? it's a city right? Where are you from?" That is the conversation! But we ate some beans and some platonos. Which I LOVE! My top two favorite things.

Did I mention I love Guatemala yet? Did I mention that I am a Guatemalteco????? CAUSE I AM! Here are some examples - I love beans, I love platonos, I eat with my fingers and have horrible table manners, and I love tortillas. I mean... I LOVE TORTILLAS!!! I can't even eat without a dang tortilla these days. They are so good and make me so fat!!

I can't really think of much else to write this week. Kinda a tough week. At least it is over, and done, and in the past. This week is going to be the best week of my life! Attitude is everything. I figured it out a long time ago, if you wake up and tell yourself that it is going to be a good day, it will be a good day. I have to give the message in District Meeting this week and that is what I am going to talk about. I'm going to tell my district to try it for one week, to not complain, to tell themselves how great the day is going to be. You should try it too!! Just know that I love you so so much! I love being a missionary, yeah it's tough, yeah I can't speak good spanish, but I don't care. (I care a little) But I just love being a missionary. I love this church so much. I'm assuming everyone learned about Joseph Smith yesterday. How great is Joseph Smith?? The First Vision is my most favoritest thing in the whole wide world. Without Joseph Smith, with out his courage and without ONE SIMPLE PRAYER we wouldn't have all this knowlege, we wouldn't have the only way to be happy on this earth and after this life. Through small and simple things, great things are brought to pass. I always walk around San Luis and try to smile. We never know the effect we have on people. I love you so so much!!! I LOVE YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Elder Jensen

I have pictures for you!! As promised. Last week we played some pool. I am terrible. The others are of Guatemala. The one with me and the other Elder in the alleyway is awesome. There are those little alley ways everywhere and people just live at the end of them, or the middle of them. THEY ARE EVERYWHERE. That Elder is Elder Navas. He is the one I did divisions with last week and we did another area attack this week and I was with him. He told me that he can feel the Spirit with me more than his other companion and I agreed. We found a whole bunch of people. He is quite possibly one of my favorite person here!!

I just remembered the highlight of my week! I don't even know how I forgot it! The other day we were visiting a member and she asked for a blessing, and so Elder Reed asked her who she wanted to give it, and she picked me!! I gave my first blessing in Spanish, and it was the best thing in the whole wide world. I didn't even think about the language or what to say, it just came out, and it was near perfect! We give lots of blessings here in San Luis. The power of the Priesthood is real! I love it!!!!

ok bye for now. Until next week!

Elder Jensen!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Don't You Wish You Were in Guatemala?

Aloha!!!!!!!!!!! (wrong idioma)

But hi!! How are you!?

This week was another good one! Cause I´m on a mission, in Guatemala, and I sure love this place!

We will start out with the funny story of the week =

There is this one drunk in our neighborhood that always calls us siervos. This guy is just super funny and always ends up near us somehow. But this week we were walking and he was walking towards us in a group of people with no shirt on, not unusual cause no one wears clothes here, but then we got closer and we see that he is being pulled by some lady on a chain that is locked around his wrist!! hahahahaa crazy funny! I love Guatemala!

This week we did some working, some teaching and some divisions. All I even remember about this week is the divisions and Saturday...

The other days were good, but I learned a lot on Thursday, divisions. I went to another area with my District leaders companion, Elder Navas. The area is called Los Brillantes. How brilliant right? but Elder Navas is from El Salvador, knows a lot of english, but we spoke in spanish. He´s just this super high energy guy so we worked super hard together. It was awesome!!! We found this family that will probably get baptized... they were gold!! but not in my area... bummer, but still good cause they are coming closer to Christ! I helped him teach a lot in that lesson and I´m loving it! 

Saturday was a good day too. In the morning we did an area attack and our whole district came to our area and we just contacted. We got about 16 citas and now we are working through those. We are also working with our new Ward Mission Leader!! He is also in the Young Men´s presidency and teacher! And he is preparing to go on his mission in the next few months. He is 24, and pretty awesome. 

Yesterday was good too. We had a missionary from our ward come home. He bore his testimony to us yesterday and I loved every second of it. The Spirit just punched me in the face and said THE CHURCH IS TRUE! I already knew it was, but I learned that this missionary taught with power. A power that I want to teach with! I feel more and more confident every time I talk to someone. Spanish is getting a LOT better. I love this language. I love the people here!! Also yesterday we were searching for a guy that we contacted a little while ago and we found his son in law, he is a Testigo de Jehovah, and he asked us one of our biggest questions, "why are there so many churches??!!?!?!?!" we explained to him a little bit about it, left him a pamphlet and set up another time with him, cause he didn´t have time to talk to us then. He seemed pretty interested. There are people in our area to teach and to baptize, we just have to be 100% obedient and work hard. Both of which I´m trying to be an example in for my companion.... easy for me, hard for him... dont understand that part but.....

All I know is the church is true, I´m a missionary, and I love it. This morning I was sitting in the chapel of one of the buildings here playing the piano, and the piano has hymns and primary songs that it just plays so I was listening. I was listening to the rainbow/baptism one and I was thinking about my baptism and how great it was. I was thinking about primary and listened to other songs and I realized how special missionaries are in the church. Primary is like the training ground for missions, and missions are the training ground for the rest of our lives, and this life is the training ground for eternity. We only live this life once, why make regrets am I right?!?!?! I am so lucky to be a missionary!!!!!! I get butterflies in my stomach when I look at my plaque or think about missions in general. Or when I look at my shoes, where the tread is already starting to be flat and almost nothing. I´m so lucky to be here. I´m here to work so hard my guts fall out from all the parasites. (that was gross, the good news is, I still haven´t gotten even a little sick. Just a tiny cold, literally tiny cause it lasted a half a day...)

I love you all so much. I´m here with the name of our Savior Jesus Christ on my plaque and the name of all of us on my chest. JENSEN. This is our mission. Thank you for the prayers and the emails and letters. I love you all and im so happy we have the truth and we are an eternal family.

Elder JENSEN!! (I love that name)!!!!!!!

ps if you ever need to send me a package, will you send me all the ties in my closet. Don´t make a special package for them and I don´t need them anytime soon. I´m here for another 20 months!!! Thanks!! I LOVE YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Guatemala Is Purely Calidad

Ummmm Hi!

How on earth is the world? I don´t know, don´t care, cause Guatemala is purely calidad. Oh my I love it here.

Anywho, not much happened this week. Worked pretty hard, contacted a million and a half people, taught some lessons, my spanish is improving a whole heap, and sweated a lot. 

That´s all fun stuff though right??.... I don´t even remember this week. All I know is it went by SO FAST! Holy wow so so fast. ummm.....

Mom... I don´t have rabies. The chucho didn´t even break the skin, and he´s still alive. But the people always keep him tied up... except the other day when Elder Reed and I had four dogs on us, AT ONCE! but not one bit us cause this old deaf lady came and saved our lives.

Last Sunday this guy came to church that hadn´t been for a year, he just had a desire to go, so he did. Then he came again this week. We are working super hard trying to reactivate people and find families to teach!! Families families families. Still hard to find people to teach.

Yesterday was a good day, here´s the story -

We were contacting in some small dirt alleyway and by some river, like two houses every hundred feet or so. We are looking for people who went to the temple open house in Quetztaltenango (Xela, aka Sheila) anywho, we stopped by this lady's house and she said her prima (cousin) went to the temple, her name was Brenda Leticia Gomez, or something like that. So she told us where she lived and it´s not too far, so we walk and ask everyone where this Brenda lives. We kept passing by her house like four times, didn´t know it. Then finally we found her. We found out her name really isn´t Brenda Leticia Gomez, It´s Brenda something something something, and she doesn´t have a prima that lives close by. BUT, (here´s the good part), she wasn´t at the temple open house (still not the good part.. here it is), her aunt? maybe.. she´s related to our laundry lady, who is a member. Brenda used to go to church with our laundry lady about 15 years ago, never got baptized cause she isn´t married. She wants to get baptized though, we just need to talk to the husband. She also has three kids. Two of which are above 8 years old. This is good stuff right here. We were directed to this Brenda while looking for a different Brenda. This is the Brenda we needed to find!!

Another cool story, (less cool, but cool nonetheless)

We came in the house one day right after lunch to study, (we study spanish right after lunch) but we had a missed call by some random number, so we called them back... nothing. So we didn´t think anything of it, maybe wrong number. But the next day the same number called and Elder Reed answered it. It was a member in Reu that had a reference for us!! And it was a reference for a sacerdocio. It´s what we need!!!!!!! We went and found him, and he lives by Brenda, small world right?? He was busy, so we have an appointment with him. Calidad right?

We are being blessed with a little bit of success, and hopefully it will lead to more. Fe y diligencia. fe y diligencia!!!!!

I don´t really remember much else about this week, except holy cow I was hungry yesterday!! Hahaha, I'm always hungry! We went shopping today though, so I will be good for a few... hours... Maybe. 

I have the best family in the world, and that´s for dang sure! I love you all so much! So so much!!

No pictures this week. I will take some of Guatemala this next week so you can see what my area is like! It´s fun.

Funny story time - Elder Reed and I are white. Everyone loves that fact about us. The kids run to go tell their friends, "Hay dos gringos en la calle!" HAHAHA I love it. or they will be talking to us, and out of the blue they will just say, gringo. We´ll just be like, yeah we know, and keep talking. They think we can do magic. I can´t wait for yall to come here and see this and let me tell you about everything. I don´t want it to come that soon though. The time is going so fast and it will only go faster. 

New story - last night we were sitting on the curb trying to decide what to do. It was like 7:50ish, and it´s hard to find things to do at that time. San Luis shuts down with the sun, which goes down at like 6:45-7. Anywho we were sitting on the curb, and the other type of person that loves us more than kids.... drunks. Two drunk guys came up and just started talking to us and laughing and laughing. So funny. There is this drunk in the town that always calls us "siervos." and another one that thinks he can speak English and Qiche... he can´t. It´s mumbles. 

I think that´s a lot for today...not very much time left. The church is so true. Joseph Smith was a prophet, our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ appeared to him. Through Jose Smith, we have this big wide wonderful church. Because of him, I´m here in Guatemala, trying to help people know God´s plan. I love this work so much!! I´m so happy to be here. I love you all so much....like a lot....more than you even know!

Elder Jensen!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!