Nov 25, 2013

well family it sounds like you are all doing great which is great to hear. well just so you know dad im not getting fat any more these hills are ridiculous in my area. and its worse because all of the people we visit are at the tippy top of the mountain. i dont think i have ever been as tired as i was this week. between training and trying to find people to teach it was a tiring week. but im having a blast my companion is from monterrey and he is a little chubby. he was a cop before his mission and also worked as a chef but hasnt cooked anything yet... there is deffinately something wrong with our companionship... haha but really i have loved my new area. and this week i streghthened my testimony just about as much as my legs... really you dont even understand these hills are crazy...

during this week i strengthened my testimony in alot of diferent ways. one was by reading. our mission president gave me the goal to finish the book of mormon before diciembre in spanish. this week every night before i went to bed i read for about 40 minutes right now im in alma chapter 24 or close to that. its been a real strength to me to read the stories of alma and the sons of mosiah. they had so many aflicciones. and they dealt with all of them with patience. which helped me a ton as i went through this week. i also learned the lord can bless me when i give just a little more than i think i can. on tuesday night we came back home at about 7 15 because all of our appointments and people we were looking for were not home and we had an appointment with the lady that owns our house.. so we were sitting at home and all of the sudden i had the impression to search our area book one more time and our list of members close to our house.i searched diligently and marked all of the members that are in our area of the rama. i found three houses in our street of old investigators that we had searched before and they werent home and had the feeling we should go and look for these people. so we left to look for these people and found two new people to teach. it felt so good to finally catch a break in this week.

ok quick up date of the week

tuesday.. climb hills
wednesday.. climb hills
thursday.. climb hills
friday.. climb hills
saturday... climb the other hills in san isidro its a little bit mor sketchy there and also the golf course is over there... but i cant golf there because its a private club... oh sad sad day.. but we also had a fast this day and we climbed hills all day fasting. it was crazy but i felt great the whole time i fasted i was only a little thirsty after walking all after noon.
sunday. was just a nother normal day. we met with our first counselor after church it was good.
and today we went bowling it was awesome. i went with elder bowler ( yes thats his name but very ironic) and with his companion and with elder frica and elder ioane. he is a huge samoan. its great.

its been a good week i hope you guys have a good one! cuidense mucho les amo
elder jenson

finishers wanted! 10th frame...ouch

Nov 18, 2013

ha ha im starting to think like you  i woke up this morning stressing about my new (assignment?) and all the challenges of training. i love my mission i love spanish and i love my old ward and new area. i had some awesome experiences in the last week.

This week we had a lesson with felipe on monday. and talked about his baptism. i gave some words of encouragement and explained how it would bless his family  in the future. he seemed to feel the spirit and under stand a little better he got baptized last friday.

tuesday was a difficult day for me because i found out  i really had changes and not just to the other side of my area. i didnt really get to say good bye to jonathan and the family of amelia before we had changes. so we got our new companions  and elder chacon told me that jonathan was out side and wanted to say good bye. it was a little emotional for me. after a short goodbye i went to my new house. we didnt get there till 8 in the night and didnt have a cell phone so president told us to stay home. we shortly found out that we didnt have a map either. so that has been a little bit of a trial. and we have a huge area. we are in the indios verdes rama. }

Wednesday was a little slow. we had a zone meeting and after that we looked for members. thursday was the same. slow and we walked a ton. i was so tired.

Friday was awesome. we had a training for all of the trainers and their children. and i was by the temple. and i saw logan lefevre he is doing great other than he just got his back pack stolen. but other than that. great. we talked for a while and had a good time. that night felipe had his baptism and for some reason he told the people who interviewed him that he wouldnt get baptized unless i did it so that night i baptized him it was good but he was a little confused because it was so fast. so after i explained the symbolism and the covenant he made and he seemed alot more content. it finished late so i stayed the night in vergel. i talked with elder chacon a lot about training everything is good between us we left on good terms and i had a great night.

saturday was slow and sunday i gave my testimony en our branch about missionary work and how we can work together. they seemed excited to have new missionaries.

today i played soccer and got blisters but i scored a ton of goals and we beat the locals. my new zone is really cool and next week we are going bowling. i cant wait to get to work this week and i have learned that when i speak with confidence i can speak with the spirit. hope you guys have a great week love you a ton
 elder jenson

ps. i excercise every day. i think i will lose some weight in this area because we have a ton of hills.  sorry no photos i just dont use my camera because i live in areas where it might get taken but i will bring it to bowling next week.

November 11, 2013

Well this was one of those learning weeks. it started off with our investigator postponing the baptism until this week. Then i had an aweful week of searching houses for the new missionaries that are going to come to our area.  My companion and I struggled a bit that day. and so i got mad after a long day of searching the houses without success. It was a really hard day with only one lesson and a ton of walking. the next day was the same.  then our lider de zona left for home. so our other one elder Villalobos came and stayed with us for the last few days. he has been a good friend for me the last few days because I learned a lot from him we laughed a lot and i feel a lot more confident about everything. and i learned that i could speak spanish with an italian accent and it was so much fun.

Which is really good because i have been called to train and open an area. Im going to receive a new companion tomorrow how crazy is that! im super excited for  this opportunity and also a little scared but not like scared como tengo miedo mas como no siento preperado en mi español y tambien en mi enseñanzas(Not frightened, but inadequate because of my language progress and ability to teach). but im not that worried because i know that whatever i lack, if im diligent and try my hardest have the spirit in our companionship then he will learn what he is supposed to.

ok thats all the cool news i have for right now. but i want to share one more experience that i had this week. this thursday that passed i learned about prayer. first my companion lost all of his money for the month... yeah it was bad and we couldnt find it so i said a prayer and what do you know 15 minutes later i found the money in the book of mormon he was going to give away to an investigator. second. was the house... i hated looking for the house... and tuesday and wednesday we had no luck and we searched hard. and the same thursday we went to search again and i said wait we need to say a prayer ( this was after the money experience) my companion said ok what ever you want. and so i prayed that we could find a house. we found a new house to rent in thiry minutes. i know that these two experiences i had were to remind me that even when we have little problems if we ask with faith we with recieve help no problem is too small to ask for help with.

I love you guys so much and look forward to writing you guys every week. Its so great to hear about all of the blessings our family has and it was funny to hear about a dryer because no one down here has one. alot of the families dont have washing machines too. its wierd that washing clothes by hand isn't a strange concept for me anymore. this week our water heater for our water bucket broke so i had cold showers all week. cold showers in november my favorite ha ha but i cant complain too much because i never was tired this week. oh and Jonathans birthday was yesterday! thats all the fun stories i have for this week
cuidense mucho, les amo
Elder Jenson

Nov 4, 2013

wow things sound like they are going pretty great at home! so glad to hear that! derek its so great to hear about your piano keep being a great example. savy keep playing hard and listen to dad! jacob dont get discouraged if you dont score offense wins games but defense wins championships. jaxon good job on the hat trick! and jordan just keep pushing on i feel the same way you do when i play soccer here! ja ja

well family everything was pretty good this week i learned a ton about the mexican culture this week which in some ways is good and in others not so much. this week was the week of the dead  in mexico which means that the 31, the 1st and the 2nd are all holidays. and there was a fiesta every night! it was insane! and here is my recount of the week.

Tuesday. we taught 8 lessons how crazy is that and i got to teach one in english wich was awesome! The lady i taught it to was a single mother of about 23 and we watched the movie about the scorpion that stung the guy from the seventy it started as a lesson of forgive ness but turned into a lesson of encouragement for here to raise her kid the spirit was so strong in the room.

wednesday. we did so many service projects this day and it was a great day too. we had a fhe with Jonathan and his mom it went great and  it was the first one they had done as a family its so great to watch Jonathan grow in the church!.

halloween... well this was one of those days that i learned somthing. we went to this new investigators house and he invited us to eat cake. so being polite we ate the cake. it was really good. and we talked to him about the traditions in mexico for the days of the dead because neither of us are from mexico. he explained all about it and we had a good time talking with him. after we got done talking we went to mutual with jonathan and some of our investigators and my companion felt really wierd.. so we asked jonathan what this type of cake had in it. it turns out that this cake... "derompope" the cake has alcohol. my companion was so wierd the whole night he was laughing about the dumbest things and then in the night he had a huge headache. it didnt really affect me but it was one of those ooops! moments. we didnt eat any more cake for the rest of the week.

friday. we had an awesome capacitation about how we can work with members better our mision president taught it. he falls  me well ha ha things in spanish are so wierd to say in english. but anyways yeah it was a good day. we were late to everything and my companion had some small after affects from the day before.

saturday. well we had a pretty good day nothing really cool happened saturday. other than it was the last day of parties. we went back to our house early and all was good.

sunday. we had a good fast sunday. and it was my first time ever bearing my testimony completely in spanish. i couldn´t talk very well for some reason but i felt the spirit so strong. so i got up and bore my testimony. and after we had two lessons before comida it was terrible. but for some reason when i teach i'm never hungry in the night we had a fhe with the familia fuentes and the familia de jonathan. it was awesome. we watched john tanner and talked about the law of consecration. it was good!

today.. well we had an activity of our zone and we got together and played some games it was a blast. ilove being with all of our zone they are bien padre... mexican for really cool... sothat was my week

hope you guys have a good week your always inmy prayers. i love you guys so much.
cuidense mucho :P te amo
elder jenson