July 29, 2013

The contents were very agreeable with my pallet, and all the cute little notes from the kids were great. jordan thank you for the fan! jax i have seen no games of any sports its killing me! and jacob we are going to fight when i get home;) you are all such a good suppor to me and i am so glad i grew up there.

 i love using scriptures in my lessons and the things i learned in seminary have helped me to know enough to have a few in each lesson. My schedule is different everyday, but it usually consists of 6 hours of class in two 3 hour segments. 1 hour of some sort of physical excercise. they have a weightroom with dumbells so I use that about twice a week. i dominate 4 square and horse shoes. basketball is fun and soccer isnt too bad i have only played once. we have all you can eat meals 3 times a day and most of the food is pretty good. like chicken cordon blue and ribs. breakfast is terrible though. i have an hour of personal study every morning at 7. we usually have language study for an hour and 15 minutes and an hour or two of companionship study. and we have this thing called TALL, which is kinda like roseta stone, for an hour. Tuesdays and sundays are usually devotional days and i love the devotionals they are so good.

 i have seen stew, fev,tyler glover, and matt dove from kanab plus a bunch of kids i played sports against in region nine.

ok epic fail of the week... hermano Alworth is out of town on wednesday and hermana Link is his substitute. Elder welch and I had to teach and when i got in the room i completely forgot how to speak spanish it was so bad. any ways it was the worst lesson ever. we got paused half way through which im not sure if that has ever happened in one of these before. ... it was demoralizing... anyways no one in our whole district taught "Clara" (Hermana Link's investigator name) well. it was such a hard night i felt like i had gone backwords and  knew nothing.

Even more daunting was that i had TRC, they bring in voulunteers and you have to talk to them in spnanish. i prayed for a lot of help that night. and i the morning elder welch and i said a prayer before we went in. we hadnt ever done that before. and we taught the best lesson we have taught while being in here. then we taught two more lessons that day we said prayers before both of them and they had equally as impressive results. I know that Heavenly Father helps us when we pray with real intent and it is somthing that i have learned how to do since being out here. something about learning a language and not understanding people really humbles you, but the lord always helps me out when i really need it. love you guys so much and thanks for all the treats again. loved them! have a good week

Te amo

Elder Jenson

 The Kanab boys at the Provo temple

 Missionaries headed to Mexico City East Mission

 That is a pretty good image of how he'll feel for the rest of his life after these two years

 Mini golf is not exactly how we did the MTC back in the day

He named this "Long Day"... probably from the mini golf?

Elder Jenson is working hard and loving the MTC.  

July 22, 2013

Its a beautiful thing that I can read that in spanish just shows how amazing of a place the mtc is. I have learned a lot in the past week and you would have laughed in my attempt to use spanish in our investigator lessons.

 But i have learned the gospel so much better than if i would have served an english mission. Learning spanish I have had to turn to the lord over and over out of frustration. but i have read my scriptures more thoughtfully and studied harder than ever before. this mission is definitely where I am supposed to be. which is amazing seeing as just over a week ago i thought I had made the biggest mistake of my life coming out here. Last night was one of the most spiritual experiences of my life. If you can find "the Character of Christ" by David Bednar WATCH IT!!!! it was the Most spiritual devotional i have ever seen. it is a devotional Elder bednar gave the mtc two or three years ago and I was almost in tears. 

Also I have been singing with the choir I sang tenor the last time i went and it was awful. tell derek to keep practicing because they love the people who are musically talented here. Our zone was gifted with some good players. none as good as derek though. tell him to check his email in a little while.

 I have had the wierdest dreams here. most of them are in spanglish and it is really weird because i remember all of them so vividly like in one i had a get to know you conversation in my slow spanish it started out De donde es? then the lady responde Yo soy de ciudad de mexico. y tu? i said yo soy de kanab utah. stuff like that happens all the time in my dreams because my head is always spinning with spanish here. also warning to Future derek in like two years stay away from the refried beans your room will smell terrible that night and that is a promise. I have had trouble spelling in my notes also. like i never put the ph in prophet its always profet. and is is usually es in my notes its pretty funny. So how about that game of golf muy impresante! you are going to be shooting par when i get back. Just so you know letters during the week are pretty sweet to get although this one elder, elder speth gets like 5 letters every day. its loco. so whats every one up to back at home i miss you guys but im glad to be here. you are such a good family to have at home. i bet there is a lot more food there now. derek needs to pick up the slack. and my prayers are with you in spanish... which i'm pretty sure is twice as spiritual as ingles.
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ok that was a little harder to read but I also have the primera vision memorized y el proposito. and i would love to have have another t shirt and a pair of basketball shorts. we are stacked on candy in our room. the 4th missionary would be nice to have. and have you seen the talk by bednar?
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cactus cooler has become my nuevo favorito drink. and oh yeah i got written up to my branch president today for leaving my back back in the main building during a meal. i though we couldnt have them in the cafetirea only.. oh well wont do it again. but normal food like chips and soda are loved in our room but what ever you send will be graciously received love you guys

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did you cry cause i teared up pretty bad !its so amazing and that thing in either is pretty interesting too. you and mom are such a great examples of character of christ. we are lucky kids to get raised in this family.

te amo

Love you

Elder jenson

July 15, 2013... 1st letters

Hey family i miss you guys so bad that story with the lizard is hilarious sorry jordan. also i loved the snacks and am still lovin em cause i havent eaten very much. I dont have a card reader so i cant send pics right now. and I tried to send you a letter but forgot to put a stamp on it. it was an epic fail. but its really busy here and i have learned a lot most of all that like the city of Rome my spanish vocabulary will not be built in a day. my day consists of a ton of studying and a lot of prayers that i will somehow learn spanish. the first three days were really hard for me the teacher talked in spanish the whole time and i didnt understand a word he said so i was really discouraged i have like 8 hours of class a day! but sunday was amazing and today is just a good break from spanish except i have to have a disscusion tonight in spanish! its my third one and i feel like i understand the spanish really well but i dont Know how to respond. but seriously the third day i was here i had to teach a lesson in spanish it was no bueno the one we taught saturday was ok but we still have a lot i want to say but cant. mi companero elder rojo grande aka elder welch es muy bien! el jugar futbol americano por Bountiful. he is a really cool kid i have learned how to say a prayer in spanish already and i know how to say my testimony en spanish my district is all from utah except the one that is from idaho but thats pretty much north utah he is our district leader and he reminds me a lot of dad. the spanglish in our zone is ridiculous and like three kids are from cali so they talk like gangsters its so funny the spirit is so strong here and I cant wait for more experiences. also dad if you have any tips on what helped you to learn spanish they would be greatly appreciated. If you want to know anything else be kinda specific and i will tell you about it.

amo mi familia

Elder Jenson. and mondays are my p day sorry im not as cool as craig:P

After a brief training email about being more specific, he responded a while later with this:

sunday was amazing because we had an awesome devotional on how the spirit guides us to people the lord has worked on to find his gospel. the food here is really good like sunday dinner was cordon blue it was so good. and i can eat all the food i want and not get fat cause my dorms are on the top floor of a 4 story building and my class is on the top floor of a 5 story building its really awful but i will have amazing calfs in about 6 weeks. played basketball on saturday and shot pretty well. here is a little on the kids in my district. mi companero is like 5-9 230 and is a ginger but he is a funny kid his name is elder welch. from bountiful. the other companionship is elder murphy 6-5 215 and played basket ball for logan. graduated in 2012 he is a nice kid. elder crowther is the other one he is about 6-0 and 145 with kinda red hair like dads. he is an awesome kid from idaho. really have enjoyed getting to know him. the other room is elder parduhn from highland area. he is pretty cool played football for lone peak. his companion is elder speth he is a musical guy soft spoken he is like 19. then elder berry. he played basket ball for lone peak graduated in 2012 and spent the last year in byu-hawaii playing basketball. his companion is elder creavan his nickname is elder creamer cause he is like 6-5 . he was ashlyn t's best friend growing up and he said that i stole her heart from him. we have no girls in our district. i would love to get letters and will try and responde as fast as i can to them thanks you guys are awesome love you.