Sept 29, 2014 Jacob's birthday. great dog story

almost forgot my favorite story of the week but its a little gross. so i went in intercambios with elder Gomez and that kid is crazy he is from the dominican republic but even for their standards he is crazy! anyways we were walking in the street and there was this giant german shepherd in the street dropping a giant doggie treat in the street. i pointed it out to him and he started trying to hold my hand... obviously i responded by pulling my hand away and asking what his problem was. he just said trust me, and so i did and we grabbed pinkies, wierdest moment of my life. before we grabbed pinkies he explained that if we squoze tightly then the dog wouldnt be able to get the poop out anymore. i didnt believe him but it worked the dog walked around squating trying to get the poop out and it couldnt! i couldnt stop laughing. sooooo funny!  then he went on to explain that doing that was illegal in the domincan republic cause it hurts the dogs. definately the wierdest moment of my mission.jaja


haha thats who i thought the bishop would be he is such a great guy. sounds like you are all doing pretty great! and are helping the work of salvation move along just great! i really feel like this was a good week for everyone!

this week was great as have been other weeks. haha a little more stressful but all the same i just loved it! i had the chance go to the visitors center with an investigator this week! our zone leaders told us that our mission president invited our whole mission to bring an investigator to the V.C. with two days of preparation. and we had nobody of our main investigators that accepted our invitation. so we prayed that someone would accept. and we talked with our last hope the day before. She has some dificulties with drugs and is 24 and also told us she thought that missionaries are satanic. so when she said yes we were a little shocked. but i might also add really happy! so we went thursday and when we showed up( after getting lost...) no one was there. all of the sisters were in capacitation so apparently the zls misunderstood the invitation because it was just us. so the missionary couple that helps with the vc told us we could do a tour if we wanted to! it was such a bad tour.... we tried our hardest to give her a lesson about the profets and she kinda stayed with it. then we talked about the book of mormon and living day profets and she kinda lost interest. it was really really bad. then at the end we talked about temples and families forever! it was awesome! and in the end she was kinda excited to learn more. and accepted that if she came to know that the things we taught were true she would be baptized. jaja i know that god touches people´s hearts. the funniest part of the whole trip was when she told us that she was carrying pepperspray just in case we tried to kidnap her....

hmmm what else was good oh yeah we we had our ward confrence this week and it was just great! we had 130 people in church and a couple investigators. one of which was our great neighbor Lupita, since Hna clarita(our dueña) had other classes to go to elder Ferrin and I went to relif society. it was honestly the best class i have been in in mexico. half of the women in the room were crying including lupita. and she was so happy she came. including when we got home she told the sister we live with that she felt the spirit really strong and that she loved it! so we were pretty excited about this week as far as work went!

today i hiked the hill in my area with my district and took like 80 pics. i will send you lots tonight! but really it was so great to get above the city and walk in the mountains. the views were amazing and so was the wild life. i walked right into a spider web.. remember the garden spiders that are huge back home? well these are like twice as big and i almost kissed one of them.. i may have let out a girly shreek and ran away but im still  alive dont worry;) i thought so much of utah up in the mountains hiking. cant wait to do that when i get home!



so i guess i cant complain much i loved this week and am having a great time!
hope you all have a great week! love you all so  much!
elder jenson

Sept 22, 2014

(Brandon was called to be DL again last transfer)

hahaha well sounds like the lake powell trip was a little rough but im glad you had a good time. you guys are so awesome! im glad to hear you made such a great trip out of a tough situation. and dont give up on here. the other missionaries contacted 23 people last week and three said they would listen in another occacion. i love the scripture that says that our joy will be so great if we can bring but one soul unto christ. it is important to remember that god prepares people for us to share with if we are prepared. and if we dont have much success then we might as well keep preparing;) 

so this week was fantastic. but also a little unorthadox first off the 15th of september. it was so much fun. had so much fun as a district. first off we ate with our mission leader and ate enchiladas verdes. so bomb! probably one of my favorite mexican foods! then came back to the house at like 8 and ate posoli with the sister. and with presidents permission the other elders stayed the night with us because the streets got dangerous after about 9 so we watched the testaments in the sisters house it was a fun night!

so the next day was the 16 de septiembre... also known as national hangover day... it was slim pickins in my divisions with the zls. but its ok that happens every now and then. on the bright side we worked our cans off all day jaja i cant complain.

when we finished the divisiones i worked with my comp and we had a pretty good day. and we found some new people to teach just the normal.

the rest off the week was a little rough with rain filled days but we worked hard and had decent success. i am loving work right now. the highlight of the week was when we taught the restauration to a new investigator named victor. i was in divisions with Elder Ferrin. and we taught pretty sinchronozised for never haveing taught together before. coolest part was when we taught the great apostacy with the lights off. then turned them on in the first vision. the spirit was so strong and the guy knew exactly what he needed to do if he was going to recieve and answer. 

today i saw Elder Lefevere and he is doing great it was fun to get to see the big guy again. its so great to see the changes that go on with a missionary in this time. 

other fun note we have had rubik cube races in my district. and right now i am the champ. derek i bet you cant beat my best time of 1´41" ;) haha everything is going great down in mexico and looking forward to another great week!

I love you all so much. its fun to see all that you are doing. i hope you have a great week! 

Elder Jenson

Sept. 15, 2014

haha well im glad that that you guys are doing great and im happy to hear about the football teams hopefully byu doesnt mess things up! haha i couldnt help but think about football today because we played as a zone. it was really fun adn we even had 2 or three really good other players one of them was a saftey for alta great kid guess i cant judge him for living where he lived... jaja.by the way thanks for talking to bucky and worrying about me. ive thought about football a little lately and i really am excited to play when i get back. but im guessing i will have to wait until after christmas to know what the plans are so i try not to let it consume my mind so much.


alright now to the good stuff. the stuff you really wanna hear about the great and fantastic week i had!

so this week went just fabulous again. we have been contacting a ton and not just us in caracoles, but the other elders in xalostoc also. we have had a ton of success lately and im so greatful for it. this week we had a few fun stories.

well first off we had the chance to have our zone confrence and it went just great. we learned about contacting new people, and applying teaching meathods from the scriptures. which i think will be huge this next week.

oh yeah tomorrow im going to go and talk for two hours in a rehabilitation center. im really excited and all because my comp told me to go and contact a girl in the street.

we had had a decent week but nothing outstanding until yesterday. so we were walkin down the street yesterday. and my comp told me to go and contact two girls, all of our lessons had fallen and so i walked over and started talking to them about the church a little, and answered the basic questions, what church is it what do you believe in and where i was from. after the basic chat she gave me her direction and told us we could pass by any time but we put an appointment for martes. so after a little while our other appointments fell through and we got to her street so we decided to look for the house. adn as we passed by she called out elder!!! so we went over and she was talking to a neighbor who we started talking to, turns out he runs a drug rehabilitation clinic and he asks if we would like to come and talk about the gospel for a little while on tuesday. so he gave us a two hour slot for tomorrow. im stoked! and after that we contacted like 3 other people that he gave us the reference to contact in the same street. it was awesome!!!

right now i feel so good about the work. its so fun to talk to people about the book of mormon or prophets in these times. especially because i have a really encouraging comp. of course he has down days too, but he never takes away energy i have to contact people. the only down side is that we have to wait over a month to baptize people so it could be a while till we have baptisms but once we get them going im sure we will do just great.

i love you guys so much and i hope you have a great week wish me a happy independence day, i will send pics when i get some new ones love you all tons!!!!

love elder J

Sept. 8, 2014

Wow sounds like a pretty great week! haha you know whats been on my mind from 10 30 to 6 30 everynight.... i cant wait to get back and play but i still have 10 months dont worry i understand everything in its proper time. i can honestly say that this week was just a week i needed to have first off i got a new comp. his name is Elder Guachalla. the same one that was in my district in Indios verdes. haha we may have been a little excited in the changes meeting. but all that aside. im so happy to have him as my companion and it was just a good call by president.

So tuesday of this week was just great got my new comp and got back to the area. i looked at him and said we dont have a fixed appointment until 8 so were going to go and contact some new investigators. instead of moaning he rose up to the challenge. we headed out the doors of my house with a bunch of pamphlets and smiles joking the whole time. we contacted like 6 people in 2 hours and left with 4 new investigators. i was really excited about the prospects of the rest off the week.

one of the greatest challenges our mission president has given us is to pray "specifically" with faith. so everyday this week we got up and started with a prayer that we would be able to contact 5 people and come out of it with 3 new investigators at the least. and let me tell you i have never contacted so many people in my whole mission in one week. haha one day we contacted 6 people and no one wanted to listen to us. and just as any wonderful day in the mission it poured on us walking from appointment to appointment. haha my comp looked at me and comented " why do we have days like this." so that question lingered with me. we worked hard and prayed with faith so why didnt we have succes? so i just smiled and said" well i think so that we have good stories to tell" asi es. the next day we repeated the prayer and just got to work. we found two new families to teach a total of 8 new people. i know for a fact that it was a blessing for not getting discoureged. ha this week we found 20 new people which was a huge improvement!

Yesterday was a beautiful fast sunday in mexico. and i had the opportunity to bear my testimony about  the plan of salvation. i know that joseph smith was a profet. and the church is true. and the best part is living with our families forever. It amazes me the tranquility that misionaries have being so far from their familes. but the reason for the which i believe is the understanding of this plan that whe gain out here. also this week i had a Capacitacion about sharing the different points of the gospel. somtimes when i contact it is just we teach about jesus and what he taught. and that his church is here in these times. but i tried to focus more on joseph smith, priesthood,and eternal families when i contacted at the end of the week. it was so much fun. 

so im happy with my week i am glad im here. i finally feel why i need to be here and i have the companion i need to do it im grateful for your prayers cause i know that you guys were a little worried after the last little while. but im happy and im ready to go. also in my district i got this new elder named elder farrin. Colby Ferrin, look him up on youtube or in google he has some awesome material.!

love you all so much have a great week work hard and know you are always in my prayers!

elder jenson

Last day con aquino.

 e guachalla.

 con mi corte parezco smart;)
This picture is evidence of why companionships are needed! Missionaries
should never be alone, especially for a selfie!

Sept 1, 2014

wow thats great! you guys are doing great things back home and im so glad to hear that. by the way savy what championship did you win. because thats the only logical reason i can think of to let someone dump ice cold water over your head....

well honestly this week went fine. i went in divisions with elder Gomez from the dominican republic to start of the week. and things went great. we contacted some new investigators in his area, and had a lot of lessons. it was really great because one of the people we contacted was an older man. who taught boxing. we started off the contact speaking about Jesus and the importance of his atonement in our lives. and we pased the fall of adam and why we are here. we had a really good spirit in the lesson even though it was outside and there was alot of noise. we finished divisions thursday.

then it was back to snail town. like i have written its been a little slow with investigators but this week we got a reference to teach a woman that lives in the same house as the gospel principles teacher´s house. she treated us great and we had a beautiful lesson about the plan of salvation. she had many questions about what happens when we die and we answered all of them! this week we should have a lesson with her tomorrow.  this week we will have changes im guessing in the two areas in our ward.

hmmm what else. oh tuesday i went to polanco to renew my visa. as much as i love you all i should be staying another year in México sin problemas. also was a good day but wasnt super perductive because we were busy all day doing visa stuff. this weekend i worked with our ward mission leader, and visited a family that i had never met. it was awesome. we talked with the family for a little while about coming back to church and found like 4 new people we can teach when we go over there.

well im excited for this week and i will let you know if i have changes. i highly doubt it though. love you guys so much have a good one!

August 25, 2014

wow you guys are doing awesome things back there im so glad to hear that! also super impressed that you made it through a three hour party i know that the lord blesses the families of the missionaries.;) so this week was kinda a fun week. 

i have to say the best day of missionary work was definately when i went in divisions with the zone leaders. so i was with good ole elder fike. in his area. and to start off no one was home. so we started knocking games. and we played the word game. it was so funny. the words we were using were just plain silly for the most part. but the strange thing is it was really efective. like 5 of the doors we knocked gave us appointments the next day. and it helped me realize that people are alot more accepting when we are warm friendly and creative about how we share the gospel. 

oh and also that day i ate demasiado. for lack of the word in english. first good sized sandwiches. second sandwiches again at 6 then at 7 all the waffles you could ever eat. it was brutal. i almost threw up after the waffles. and not cause the were bad;) 

so as for my area. we visited some less actives and it was good. its been kinda rough with ivestigators lately if only they were as atracted to me as the mosquitos... and i think the grand total for that day was 46 bites. it was brutal. but you know i just gotta find the groove and we will get some more people to teach. 

ok other highlights of the week well church was awesome! and i have learned that sometimes its just best to make the best of a situation. but we really did have a good sunday.

we had an fhe last monday that was aweosme. other than half of the people didnt show. but the spirit was really strong we talked about how christ is our foundation. and how we need to pray to not be tempted more than we can handle. 

well that was my week. it was really good. im happy and glad you guys are too. i love you all so much and wish you a good week. 

ps. i can honestly say i left some blood and skin in mexico haha! 

elder jenson