Feb 24, 2014 happy bday!

well dad sorry but this letter will be a little short. and i want to answer questions. first off i sent coach thompson a letter and he never responded. second the package hasnt got here so dont worry but im sure it will get here sometime before christmas.. and other than that i have only a few things to say this week. first off i did service all week taking down a room of one of the members in our Ward the family that i called you on Skype from their house. it was an absolute blast we worked our tails off all week and now we are just about done with everything. it was quite a Project. second. i had an interesting experience today.

well we were in the metro its the subway here and we were on our way home from bowling i won again... ( well i got better at something in vegas.) and so we were in way to the house and this lady got on the train and started talking on the microphone and had her cd player. and started playing music because. i thought to try and sell some cds which is pretty common here.  i quit paying attention and started talking to Elder frica. the lady went the other direction and an old man called me over. he asked me if i spoke english and i said yes and so he asked me if i believe in the bible i said yes i do why. and he responded why didnt you give that lady money? i looked at him a Little confused and he asked me again why didnt you give her money she was begging for money why didnt you give  her some if you believe in the bible. i looked at him and said because i didnt know she was asking for money. and he started planchándome. about how i only talked the Word of god but i dont live it and a lot of other things like that and went on yelling like a crazy person for about how he lived the Word of god and i didnt. it was quite the experience. but it also gave me something new to think about i learned two things from this experience. first is if we judge others it leaves us looking pretty dumb. and second that i quit paying attention for about 5 minutes and let someone go that needed asistence and also made a bad impression on some one as a representative of christ i have to be paying attention always for those that need my help this was an important lesson to learn this week.

dad your letter was just the plancha que tenia la necesidad para escuchar. en esta semana ha sido difícil para poner atención a mi llamamiento y yo siento un poco como estoy en una rutina. Se que no debo sentir asi pero es difícil cuando yo he tenido el mismo compañero por los últimos 4 meses. no se que pasa pero tenia mucha flojera esta fin de semana sentí como todo va a pasar y que realmente no era tan importante para ser tan obediente. no se preocupe no estoy mal solo me ayudo para enfocar otra vez les amo mucho y les extraño un buen gracias por sus palabras y su amor

tengan una semana buena y papa gracias por su ejemplo y palabras  son de mucho valor ahorita en este semana!

oh y también fuimos a boliche hoy yo gane jaja tiene que practicar mucho o voy a patear su basura cuando ya regrese!

Feb 17, 2014

this week was just one of those weeks that we got to work! and i was happy happy happy...

this last tuesday was fine we knocked doors and nobody let us in im starting to understand the value of members. oh and dad any tips for knocking doors? but we had a decent day.

wednesday was just good we had divisiones and i was in tola with elder frica it was an interesting day we did work the highlight lesson of the day was we tried to get into a menos acitvos house and she gave us every excuse in the book for why we couldnt come in and then elder frica was like hermana can i have a lime and she just said sure come on in and wait on the patio... success. we were in and there was  no stopping a lesson at this point.. we finished of the night i was tired he was tired and we went to bed fast.

thursday. we finally had lessons with all of our investigators. and it was a great day. we are teaching mainly little kids of less active family but its working and we are starting to have a little more success.

friday. i learned alot from friday. first off we had some good lessons including one in jacob chapter two. este capitulo es un capitulo construido para planchar la gente...but yeah it was a fun day and i had a good experience in the night. we were walking past a group of little kids and what looked like there mom and this little girl looks at us and starts saying" losers losers". so i turned to here and said" why are you saying losers" and this little kid turns to me and says" she is calling you guys losers" he actually spoke decent english so i turned to him and complemented him on his english and we were on our way.

saturday. we had a decent day and taught a few lessons. but the coolest is we were walking by a street and someone started whistling at us from behind like all of the drugged people do.. the wouldnt stop so i turned and said que paso, and what do you know it was the kid from the day before and he ran up and started talking to me and about how he lived in the united states. he told us we could visit him tuesday and just like that a new person to teach. so what i learned from this is that people are always looking to how we respond to different situations and if we do the right thing we have an impact on the people that see us.

sunday. well we had a baptism. it was freaking awesome. preciado got to do the ordinance i was so happy for him. but other than that it was a tough day i was sick all day with the curse of moctezuma... it started at 3 in the morning and just kinda continued throughout the day. ha ha oh well happens right.

monday today was freaking bomb. we went to centro today, my companion, i and 2 other companionships. we had a blast we ate chinese buffet for 5 bucks. and it was awesome. hopefully it doesnt make me sick again. i feel better after using my little friend pepto bismo... and we taught a lesson in the street i was with the two other american missionaries and we walked past two white  people and i mean blonde hair blue eyes white people and we just stopped and were like they speak english , they^re white they have to speak english so we talked to them and they were from london. they were great and had lots of questions about mormons and we pretty much taught them the first lesson. it was a good deal. and that was pretty much my day so far

well that was my week i hope you are having a good time back home i love you all so much have a great week and take care. love you all

elder jenson

Feb 10, 2014

ok here it goes.

well tuesday was an interesting day. i really feel like i have been with my companion for a long time. i dont know how i will make it married. we have only been together for 3 months and i have to be married forever.. no im just kiddin things are going well for us right now. other than my companion is sick. he has been sick since superbowl sunday and its put a little strain on our work this week but here is what has happened.

we had divisions wednesday. this week and they were fun i was with elder ioane in my area. and we worked to gether well his spanish is really coming along. and then when we finished the day we played cards but not just any game of cards we played go fish. and if you thought i was an irresponsible reader go fish is way way worse. haha ok maybe not that bad but still time flew while we were playing.

we finished up divisiones thursday and this whole day just gave me a headache. which i give credit to my lack of sleep the night before. but all in all it was a good day we taught a few lessons and ate lasagna for lunch it was so awesome!

friday. well lets just say elder preciado was a little sick from about midnight until the end of the day. he definately clamed the throne this week.... but any ways oh happier notes we had good lessons and planned a lesson it the visitors center for saturday!

saturday.. well it all started in the hospital elder preciado had to go for a visit and got banned from basically all of the food in mexico it was hilarious he was a little mad when we finished. but then i saw some friends from the mtc in the mexico city south mission. then we went back to our area. taught a little and then went to the visitors center with family gonzalez they are the ones with my long lost brother. so we told the hermanas that we wanted them to talk about temples and families can live forever. so we went through the different ordinances in the temple and then we went to see the video about families forever. it was a touching video and i almost cried i will be honest. it reminded me so much about our family and had alot of parts that  showed the problems that we face as children and parents. it has little clips of a family growing up and in the end the daughter of the family gets married and when the young man that she was going to marry came in my brother turned to me and said hey look its elder jenson.. my companion one other son in the family and i couldnt stop laughing. it was so funny but we finished the video and talked to them about preparing to go to the temple as a family they accepted and it was a very special night. glad i was able to be a part of it.

sunday. well today i had to give a talk. and i will admit for the first time in my whole life i actually prepared. and i talked about home teaching and how if we want to be the lords people we needed to make sure that there were no poor among us.(moses 7:18) it went well.  it was a pretty good day too.

today i had to paint my apartment! and i did it like a boss with the help of my companion.

 its been a pretty good day and im getting ready for a hair cut. well have a great week and i love you all tons dont worry mom pics on the way!

Feb 2, 2014

well family im glad you enjoyed the super bowl and i too am very happy that the broncos lost i just felt a little bad that it wasnt even game. so anyways my dear family this was a good week but it wasreally normal. we worked hard had good lessons and i felt happy with everything. this week is also changes. im not changing and neither is my companion so at least i have 6 more weeks here. which is good i think!

but here is the story of the week. my whole district ran out ofmoney like 5 days before we got new money for the next month so we walked a ton this week. ha ha then we also had a very interesting weekend. saturday we had a really frustrating day. it was really hard because we had two lessons and usually saturday is one of the best days for lessons. it didnt help that iwas stressed about changes all weekend either. so this weekend was super stressful. we talked with our district leader in the night and they told us it was an aweful day too. but sometimes those days just happen. then came sunday

well first of i woke up at 1 in the morning because i looked at my watch wrong. i thought it was 5 to 6 and it was really one i had the shower going and everything then i look at the cell phone and i just sighed and turned off the shower and tried to sleep again. things got at quarter to 6 and we got ready to go to church. we got there and when the first prayer was offered iyari wasnt there. i was a little stressed. but she showed up right before the sacrament prayer. we had her confirmation and life was good. we got home in the back of a truck i have some pictures that will make dad feel claustraphobic. haha  i felt like it was a good sunday other than in the night my comp got sick and he was puking it was a bad deal.

and today it was a blast. we went to centro and it was sweet i found the coolest place to get breakfast in all of mexico city and im sure that it looked a little wierd to have the 4 missionaries and carlitos drinking hot chocolate at 12 but we had a blast. we also  had the first good pizza i have had in mexico so i cant complain too much. I hope you guys are having a good week love you all tons!

cuidense mucho
Elder jenson

this is Mexico's version of the next Brandon

this side of Elder Jenson needs to stay in Mexico.  I'm sorry
they had to see it.

How missionaries travel when they run out of money.

Museum ... Pday sights

Pday sights.. Mario and Luigi aren't Italian after all.

They called him the rey de los cielos, so I hope that is a
good thing.  they love talking to him

Kinda cool on the head gear.  Hope Brandon doesn't pick
up the rest of the costume tho.

Jan 27, 2014

hey family hows it going. I got your envelope!!!!! and before anything else there is something i feel compelled that i need to say... derek please get a haircut....  ok i feel much better now;) no really thanks a ton for the letters i cant wait to read about how my friends area doing in their adventures. and i have the card!  well this was quite a week let me tell you.

tuesday. we had divisions and it was a blast. i was with elder ioane in his area. we worked hard and found a new family to teach. then we talked with a señora that had some health problems about the plan of salvation. it was a great experience. then we went home in the end of the night and it was an all around good day.

wednesday. finished up divisions. and the first thing we did was teach Iyari one of our investigators who also had her baptism date set for yesterday we went over the interview questions and everything went bien. so the only thing that we needed was permission from her dad to be baptized. the problem was she didnt ask in the night... then we went for a tour in a taxi searching for a house of a less active member. it was ridiculously expensive. for a taxi here anyways.. and so frustrated and stressed that we couldnt find the house we went home defeated.

thursday. well we had some great lessons today. first off we went  to talk with margarita and adolfo. adolfo recently had a surgery so we went by his house to talk a little and he is doing great. then we went on another wild goose chase with a member. we didnt find them but we did find a family of menos activos. so we will teach them this week. then we had one of the most challenging lessons of my mission. so new investigator and he has more questions than jeopardy. which is great other than my companion started right of with the jehova is jesus and the brother asked where is the evidence of this in the bible. unfortunately this is one of the things i havent studied a ton and so it was a little hard to answer and i half answered the question with corinthians 10 1-4 but dont worry i studied more that night so i know how to explain these things now thank goodness for james talmage and the book of mormon.

friday. we walked zig-zags all day and it was brutal from san isidro to lomas like 3 times. but im still alive. we talked with iyari again and she still hasnt talked with her dad stressin a little because the interview is tomorrow.

saturday. in the morning iyari tells me she talked to her dad and that she is good to go! oh by the way she is 13 and absolutely tiny. but anyways we had the interview and she passed! all is well !

sunday i woke up at 5:30 in the morning. i had to be in the church at 7:20 to start the font and every  thing and so we get to the church and it starts iyari is  no where to be found. so we get about half way through the meeting im stressed and so my companion and i leave so we can check the font and when we come back, there she is i was so happy we finished church and had the baptism at 11 it was so cool like 30 people where there!

well that was my week it was pretty fun i had some great moments and these were just some im lovin it out here and everything is going great!

District at Indios Verdes

Iyari's Baptism

Iyari's Baptism

Jan 20, 2014

well this was quite a week. and it all started monday. i felt a little sick all night. we taught one lesson but i wasnt super focused. we went to the house a little early. i went to bed and ended up sleeping two hours.

i woke up at about 2 and didn't sleep more than ten minutes at a time the rest of the morning but at 6 30 i said a prayer and told my Heavenly Father that i was going to need a little bit more help this week and then i went and did exercise.  i prayed i little while later that he would help me to focus on my work here. and you know what that is what we did this week. we worked.

 tuesday i was in divisiones with my district leader and we did work and taught a young less active the importancia of the church for two hours going back and forth between scriptures and comments it was really a great talk. then we had to go home because it was late.

wednesday was equally chido elder preciado and i had like 5 lessons that day and i feel like he is starting to really grasp the importance of our work.

thursday one of the recent converts in the ward had to get a surgery this day so we went over to his house and talked to him about the ways the lord could help him heal fast and well it was a spiritual lesson and i felt really good about it. we also taught a new investigator who when he showed up to church sunday asked the president what he had to do to become a missionary. he is really excited about the church and has been a blessing of the week.

friday we had a fun day too, we tore down a house it was awesome that old wood house i was telling you about isnt there any more we took care of it with hammers crowbars and sheer man power... mostly on the part of elder ioane ha ha but we worked on it friday and saturday.

saturday we played soccer in our church clothes and it was a blast i tore my pants in the crotch. ooops it was a small tear so i can fix it. but we are teaching a family of less actives and one of the kids looks like my long lost brother. i need a picture with him so i can show you he is a little version of me big ears and all ;)

sunday. the blessings and happiness continue. we showed up at the church and 12 of the less actives we visited in the week showed up the attendance was around 70 and its amazing to see the blessings that we have recieved as missionaries in this rama. also i saw the last 4 minutes of the 3rd quarter of the seahawks game. i miss football so bad. but i know i need to focus right now.

today we had a zone activity and it went great. we had an obstacle course that was way sweet and then we played soccer my team lost once because we got worked by the hermanas but we had and amazing time and ate tacos. oh and our zone leaders bought us dp i was in heaven.

this was a huge growing week for me i still am not an amazing spanish speaker nor can i persuade people with the way i talk but i know that when i need help from my heavenly father he can make me a great tool in his hands. i was in a state of weakness to start the week but when i said a prayer and asked for understanding i understood the phrase be patient in tribulation and if you are and dont lose faith you will receive a reward. i saw a little bit of my reward this week in our work. but i know that the blessings i will receive after the mission i cannot see right now but i know they will be there.

im loving my mission wouldnt change my decision for anything right now love you guys so much and have a great week i mean might as well it is starting with MLK day and a day off from school !

con mucho amor elder Jenson

Jan 13, 2014

DyC 58:2-4

this week was an amazing week i had more lessons and i feel like a missionary again. im not going to go in to alot of detail but it was a great week i worked hard and sunday we had 12 inactive people in the church talk about a blessing. i also hit 6 months this week and it felt great it feels like 6 weeks but its been the fastest 6 months of my life. im loving my mission and everything about it. hope you guys have a great week and keep working to grow closer to the lord. love you all tons ttfn ta ta for now
elder jeson-

6 month tie burning ritual that appears too
much like Old Testament practices for our day.
Looks a bit pagan to me. but the mission  was
25% over for Elder Jenson on Jan 10