Wednesday, December 26, 2012

December 24, 2012




Hey everyone so it`s Christmas Eve so my email probably isn`t gonna be very long since I`m skyping you tomorrow!! Heck Yeah!!!!!! So yeah just a quick email that I had a pretty normal week and not many new investigators. I`m starting to find the problem for our ward and maybe like all the wards here. Missionaries have been baptizing for just numbers for a long long time so now there are a lot of members but nobody is really converted so we are also working on that and making sure our future converts really are converts and not just baptismal dates. But I`m doing great down here, this week we found the owner of Biggest, a restaurant chain down here that`s like BK. So yeah actually they weren`t there but his wife is an inactive member so we`re gonna go see if we can`t reactivate her and baptize one of the most powerful families in El Salvador ha so that should be fun. But other than that I`ll talk to you tomorrow! Love you all and have a Merry Merry Christmas!! And remember who we are remembering this Christmas Season and why He is so important to every single one of us. We owe Him all that we have. You`re all in my prayers and have fun!!

 

Love,

Elder Jorgensen

Monday, December 17, 2012

December 17, 2012

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first and last pictures are a vacation house, it has four pools, two of those are the other pics, they are on the beach! the tide was high in these pics but when its low it`s a sand beach so pretty nice stuff here!
 
What`s up family and friends?! Hope everyone is doing great and as excited for Christmas as I am. Next Tuesday we will be skyping so Monday I might be emailing you a little more information like exact time or whatever but I`m not exactly positive because we get to go to the temple on Christmas Eve! Didn`t know it was open on Christmas Eve but whatever we`re going haha. But I`m pretty sure it will be sometime around ten, that`s what I`m shooting for anyways. But anyways I`ll give you the low down on this week.
 
First off me and Elder Scurr are becoming great friends and I don`t remember if I told ya but he is from Arizona and lives pretty close to Elder LeSueur so there is a good chance of me visting all these guys here in about 17 months or so haha. But this week me and him worked really hard to try to find people because this is kinda a tough area. We are in a branch and I guess the attendance at church is usually in the sixties but these two Sundays I`ve been here we have had low attendance, 42 yesterday so not good. From everything I`ve found out, it just sounds like the people are pretty proud and they can`t seem to figure out how to become a ward family. So our goals are to help the leaders of this branch take responsibility for things.
 
We had a good week though trying to find less actives and getting them to church but everyone just seems to make excuses or they are kinda hipocritical so that makes it kinda tough and annoying. Everyone just says primero Dios and Si Dios permite I really don't like those phrases haha
This week we found a few new investigators and I have some pics of one family, just wait til you see this place, it is awesome haha. but we will see how they do. We have one family and they have been reading and everything and they believe it and stuff which is great, but they don`t know it to be true. So we are working hard for them to gain their own testimonies so they can be true converts to this Gospel.
 
This week we also had our zone conference, and wow! If Nate is like our zone leaders it would be awesome to work with him. These two missionaries are so powerful and I actually am going on divisions with one tomorrow so I`m excited for that. The zone leaders receive instructions basically from the Mission President every month and then they teach us and tell us what the plans are to change this mission. I`m starting to find out more and more that this mission did not used to be good... I`ll go more into that on Christmas.
 
But anyways I`m doing great down here in the new hoootttttt area. But it`s awesome I`m excited to be here. And the videos and pictures were sweet ha. Just a little reminder you guys can send pictures in emails and letters too ha I love seeing pictures of everyone at home so...yep haha. The Christmas party sounded fun for you guys, my bowling skills I obtained in college are probably gone by now, but I am getting better at soccer so that`s cool. But hope everyone at home enjoys their last week of school and work before Christmas Break! Everyone who has finals this week...I feel bad for ya haha but good luck! And family I will be SEEING you on Christmas!!!
 
Love,
Elder Jorgensen

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

New Area December 10, 2012




Hello from El Salvador!

 
So this last week we had transfers, I was pretty sad to leave my first area but I knew it was time to move on and keep learning. So Wednesday we got to changes meeting and I have been moved to El Puerto de la Libertad, port of liberty. Remember how I said El Salvador had one of the top beaches in the world? Yeah no big deal, but that is my area now haha freakin legit! It`s so sweet here, reminds me exactly of our cruise so at the same time that is kinda hard cause I just want to hang out but there is a lot of work to do here. The area is HUGE I can ride a bus for an hour and a half and still be in my area. All we have is a branch here and not a whole lot of members. We only had 56 people at church on Sunday at that was just because two gringo families came to church (we're doing FHE with them tonight haha) but yeah plenty of work here to do.

 
There are a lot of less actives we can work with and right now we are teaching three investigator families so we`re trying to increase that number. This is a really hard area to baptize in, well that`s what I`ve heard dono if I believe it so we`re gonna work hard to change that rumor. I think there have been 3 baptisms this year and 2 are now inactive so that`s a problem we got too. Oh my new companion is Elder Scurr from Mesa Arizona. He`s got 17 months in the mission so just a little bit of time ha. But he really wants to get the work going here too, he hasn`t had a baptism in awhile, about a year today actually, so he`s ready to find em and dunk em. He`s a good teacher though and actually shares the times in the lesson with me. So I`m actually teaching now, with Elder Hammond and Monares they pretty much taught everything and left me with nothing to say. But he was way impressed with my Spanish so he said to me I hope you`re ready to teach a lot cause I want you to talk more than me. We`ll see how that goes.
 

Also my first week here was like the annual festival for El Puerto so there was fireworks everynight and people going nuts. We were walkin home from dinner one night and a huge group of people started running towards us, it turns out they were running because they were getting chased by a guy with fireworks strapped to his back. And not just like bottle rockets and roman candles, he had those but he also had the freakin big ones and was shooting those at people. We almost got hit a couple times but we made it so thanks for your prayers that day haha. But no it was fun, then there was a big firework show at night, nothing like IF fireworks though.

 
And at the changes meeting I received two packages...And I`ve already opened all my Christmas presents haha thank you so much for them though. And the scriptures were cool, that was a good idea. And the stuff inside was good too, I`ll be enjoying all that for a while. And on Friday we had our Christmas party at the President`s house. They had our zone and one other zone come up and we played games and read a Christmas story and ate imported American steak for lunch!!!!! Holy crap I thought I died when I ate the food.ha it was freakin delicious. We played a bunch of minute to win it games so that was way cool. And it was nice that they tried to help us have a good Christmas.

Other than all that, I don`t got much to say..Keep reading your scriptures everyday and keep praying for me haha. I love you all so much and thank you for your prayers and support always.

 
Love,

Elder Derrick Jorgensen

Monday, December 3, 2012

December 3, 2012







Well what a week I had here in El Salvador. It was a pretty crazy week full of some pretty good stuff. First of all on Tuesday we did service up at a members house. We went up there and he had a huge tree for us to cut down, luckily he had two machetes though so it only took us about three hours haha my hands hurt so bad afterwards. I have some pictures and a video of the tree falling so I`ll send some of those home. This week was also the start of December which means I am now officially over six months done with my mish, craziness. I didn`t do a whole lot for the six months but I did burn the tie, and ate dinner with Douglas` family, we made some pretty bomb pupusas so that was good.


 

There family is still doing way good by the way. In fact we are baptizing Helen, the older sister, this Saturday or Friday. She is a powerful investigator, she always reads and is willing to do anything for this Gospel, such a good example. ..But I am probably not going to be here for her baptism because my comp is going to be training. I don`t know for sure yet but I`m probably gonna be getting changed out which kinda sucks now, I wanted to stay in this ward until after Christmas. But I dono we`ll see what happens. But some other good news is we found William and baptized him this last Saturday!! So that was a really good day too except we did the baptism at like 8 in the morning so not many members were there, kinda felt bad about that. And then after the baptism we did more service at Familia Palacios house, our cocinera. We painted their house and then got a ton of pizza so that was a good time too. Then Saturday night there was some party for a restaurant here and they set off fireworks so we got on top of a roof and watched em...Nothing like Idaho Falls fireworks, they were freakin tiny and no noise.


 

Sorry my email is short again, everyone wants to go play soccer. But sounds like things at home are going good! Maybe a little bit boring but hey that`s ok haha. I`m definitely gonna miss Christmas this year, here all they do is set off fireworks and drink quite a bit so I`m not sure if we`ll be allowed outside yet for Christmas and because I`m getting transfered I`ll have to find out what`s up with the skype thing and all that. I know I need to do better on my emails but I love you all and hope you have a great week and always remember this Gospel and how fortunate we are to have everything we have.

 

Love,

Elder Jorgensen

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

November 26, 2012


Happy Thanksgiving! Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving day and a great break from work and school! For me Thanksgiving was definitely not the same haha that day kinda sucked. My dinner was a piece of chicken, actually wasn`t too bad, and then some type of soup. I can`t really tell ya what type of soup it was, I know there was carrots in it and some weird very nasty leaves too, so not the greatest but I did get to eat a PB and J at the house so that was nice haha. Also this week I saw some weird stuff, I saw a couple way nice fourwheelers, Polaris Sportsmans and a couple dirt bikes yamahas and suzukis definitely did not think I would see those in this country...ever. Then I saw something that was so very messed up. We were walking back from our Thanksgiving Feast and passed a homeless guy, very old and on crutches, he was nice though just said hi to us and have a safe trip and kept on walking. Then some little kids came sprinting by us and I turned around just in time to see them run right into the homeless guy and then one of the girls picked up a rock the size of a softball and threw it at the homeless guy. He couldn`t do anything about it though cause he was on crutches. I just ran over there and kinda scared all the little brats away.  I`m not sure why some people feel like they can treat others that way, but anyways it just really made me mad. Not sure why I wrote that story but anyways now the rest of my letter.

 We didn`t end up having our baptism this week, we couldn`t find William at all. Everyday he ended up having to work and then he didn`t come to church yesterday either so I`m not sure what has happened but hopefully we can figure it out this week. Also last Wednesday I started the BOM again, I`m still reading in Spanish and in English but I started it again and I`m just marking the blessings that we have. I`m about midway through Second Nephi and holy cow do we have a lot to be thankful for, it`s almost ridiculous how much we owe our Heavenly Father, He has given us everything.

 Just looking through my planner there wasn`t a whole lot of stuff to talk about...Oh we had a multizone meeting with the President and his wife. So that meeting was on Tuesday and was about a six hour meeting so I did learn a lot from that but all my notes are back at the house so I can`t put a cool quote in here ha dangit. Oh yeah and in our District Meeting Thursday, my comp is the district leader, and he had us do some practices of teaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ using the Book of Mormon, I`m not exactly sure why but he decided to just have one person teach it and the rest of the district act like investigators, well of course I got picked to teach. But it was good. Elder LeSueur told me that I teach really well and that he can feel the Spirit as soon as I start talking. Huge confidence booster that was haha. But yeah other than that not much has happened.

 Last Monday I got one package, the one that had Raul`s tie in it, he loved it by the way. And thank you so much for the other stuff too! And I also got a letter from Elder Judy and Elder Kaulin Johnson so that was pretty sweet too. Sounds like Thanksgiving at home wasn`t too fantastic with the festivities and what not but I hope everyone was still able to appreciate the time together and give thanks for everything that we have been blessed with in our lives, especially this Gospel. I was very grateful that day for all of my friends and family, for all of your support and love and words of encouragement, thank you all so much. Have an excellent week and as always. Que Dios les bendiga!

 
Love,

Elder Derrick Jorgensen

Monday, November 19, 2012

November 19, 2012


 
 
Douglas' Baptism Day!

 
Just messing around



 
Daily Studies!

 
Me and Elder LeSueur

 
Douglas showing us his happy face!



This was a way fast week, full of ups and downs, good things and bad things. Little bit hectic but I learned a lot. First off, we had another baptism!! Douglas, he is a friend of Raul and a way sweet kid! I got to baptize him so that was pretty sweet too. He was very accepting to the gospel and has a very powerful testimony of the Gospel at such a young age, pretty incredible. And it gets better his mom and sister came to his baptism and we have been teaching them as well, last night we taught them the Word of Wisdom and then took their coffee and threw it away so hopefully they can continue in the Gospel. The sister is 25 and is very interested she started reading the Book of Mormon on her own and marks it all up and has great questions so she is fun to teach. We also have another baptism this Saturday with a man named William, he is about 27 so finally a solid Priesthood! He is a great guy and very active, lately we have had a bit of a hard time finding him but hopefully work will be a little bit easier on him this week and we can get him ready and sure for his baptism! Good stuff happening here in Jardín!

The ward has kind of been going through a little bit of a rough time with gossiping...I can`t believe how bad it has gotten. There are some amazing nice people down here but sometimes they let pride get the better of them, we are working on that too though, trying to help calm everyone down. It`s a little bit frustrating though, I just wish that some people would keep their mouths shut sometimes ha. Also another thing that made this week stressful was my talk I gave in Sacrament yesterday. That was freakin scary! I think I was more nervous for that than for my farewell. But I think it ended up being good, I talked for about 12 minutes so that also suprised me ha. I talked about the Atonement so I had a great topic and was able to have some great personal studies preparing for it. Probably the best I`ve had so far in the mish so that was pretty neat.

Not a whole lot of fun crazy stuff happened to us this week though, we talked to a few bolos (drunks) and they were pretty funny, mostly cause they couldn`t function but it made me laugh so that was good. But I`m still doing great. yes I bought a camera last week so I`ll be sending some pictures with this email. Still haven`t gotten the packages yet but we might go to the office today that`s about an hour away, we have to take a couple buses but its fun. And hopefully worth it! Me and Elder LeSueur got to do exchanges again cause we had to do the interview with Douglas so that was great. Me and him are like brothers it`s great, love that kid. The language part of the mish is still coming along just trying to learn new words everyday, Elder LeSueur says my Spanish is better than his was at six months so that`s cool, he has 16 months himself so he`s gettin to be old in the mish. Me and my comp are still getting along, there are times when he is not my favorite but I`m learning from him, especially spanish ha.

Glad you had a good birthday though dad, definitely missed ya on Friday. Probably will miss everyone a lot this Thursday, I don`t think we`ll be doing much different than a normal Thursday so not an exciting Thanksgiving ha. Red Lobster sounds pretty good right now and so does Smitty`s actually so do some twinkies. Make sure you leave those puppies in the freezer until I get back in 18 months, I plan on enjoying those haha. Not kidding. And your new gun sounds pretty sweet hopefully you get to go out and use it. Alrighty that`s about all for this week, remember I love you and I`m thankful for all of your help, support, and prayers family and friends. love ya. And so does our Heavenly Father, remember to be grateful for everything you have been blessed with especially at this time of year. We are truly blessed and loved by our Heavenly Father, I testify of that and that he knows each one of us. until next monday. Nos vemos.

Love,
Elder Derrick Jorgensen

Monday, November 12, 2012

November 12, 2012



Happy Veterans Day!

Hope all is well at home and everyone is doing good! We had another really good week here. About the earthquake real fast, it was probably the longest one I have felt here it lasted a good 20 seconds but wasn`t too big. I think it did more stuff in ¨Guatemala, but my companions family is all good and safe. We had a good week here and it was way fun too. Last Tuesday we were up in the top of our area with the guy in our ward who is a mute, can`t talk, read, or write but he was showing us around cause I had never been up that far with Elder Hammond but anyways he showed us around and showed us a couple natural fresh water holes. I didn`t drink out of em but he did, and he is still alive so that`s how I know they were clean haha. But that was kinda cool to see that, definitely didn`t think I would see clean water in this country ha.

 

This week was good though. We made a lot of progress with all of our investigators and if all goes well these next three Saturday`s will have a baptism scheduled. So I`m very excited for that! Last month was my first month without a baptism kinda weird..But everything is going great. I am loving my comp he is a great guy and really helps me learn Spanish, I definitely speak it better now, like more fluidly, just still limited on vocabulary but I `m working on that ha. But he helps me and we have been working hard though, different from Elder Hammond and some things are good about that and others not so much. This week I also got to go on changes with Elder LeSueur so that was awesome. Probably the funniest day of my mission, we had a great time. A lot of the appointments we had fell through though, actually everything besides dinner fell through so that was kinda discouraging but we found a couple less actives to visit. He gave me some great advice and motivation though, great friend definitely want to keep in touch with him after the mish.

 

I`m still learning a ton everyday. From the scriptures and from the people. It`s amazing how the scriptures come to life down here in El Salvador, every story you can find down here. All the bad people, all the good people, all the strong members, and all the members who have become too proud to realize how much the Lord has given them. Every day I`m excited to read from the scriptures and I hope it can be like that for me after the mish too. If a person really studies the scriptures the Spirit of Heavenly Father will always be with them.

 

Still have yet to receive those packages, we might go to the office today though, so hopefully they are there! Also I`m gonna look today for a camera and a voice recorder cause that would be sweet. And a lot easier than typing emails. Well that`s about all for this week I love you all so much and pray for you always. Thank you friends and family for your examples to me and your thoughts and prayers. And I`m glad to know everyone is doing good at home.

 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD on Friday.

 

Love,Elder Derrick Jorgensen

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

November 5, 2012

 
Saying good bye to Elder Hammond

 
Painting the fence



 
Didn't get an explanation with this one

I can`t believe how fast time goes by, no complaints though! We had a great week here in El Salvador! We were able to set a few more dates so hopefully these next three or four weeks in a row I`ll be sending some pictures home of some people dressed in white!! All of our lessons were good though, the ones that we did have. I think we taught about 15 lessons or so to investigators, probably my lowest yet but we just couldn`t find people so that was kinda hard for me little discouraging at times. But my companion is still really good, still learning words everyday, not as many as I want, but it`s coming ha. But he helps me out a lot and is patient with me even when I`m not patient with myself so that really helps me. The mission is definitely tough, but I wouldn`t want it to be easy.

 
Not a whole lot of way fun stuff happened though this week, I forgot it was Halloween this week until we got a phone call from President saying we need to be in the house two hours earlier than usual so that was kinda weird. I didn`t think it got too crazy but I guess I don`t really know ha. We wanted to do somethin fun that night but didn`t have much to do ha. We found some uno cards and Elder LeSueur`s companion had the fake snow stuff, so things got pretty crazy in the house. We had a small snowball fight outside on our patio, until I got hit with a big one in the face, so I got ticked they ran inside and I followed em in throwing some big handfulls ha. Surprisingly it wasn`t too big of a mess, and better news I didn`t have to clean it up haha. But it was a good time. On Tuesday we had 6 teachers and deacons leave with us, and I will never ever ever do that again ha one is fine but you get em all together and they aren`t focussed at all and just start playing and even during our lessons they weren`t being reverent, kinda ticked me off. And we walked like 9 or so miles that day in the part of our area called Cerro, hill. So they were complaining about that too, ha big mess. Anyways back to important mission stuff....uhmm. Yep ha.


I`m still doing great though. My back still hurts a little bit but I`m kinda sleeping better sometimes so thats good. Haven`t been getting sick though so that`s probably the thing I`m most grateful for cause that would suck to be sick. And I`m eating a lot better now too ha. I set up dinner appointments for us every night, very excited about that haha. But everything here is about the same, weather all that, it`s weird to me it`s already November, cause I haven`t felt the change at all like back home? Have you guys had your first snow yet? Really gonna miss snowboarding! But that`s alright I`m blessed for being here and I wouldn`t change it for anything. I love you all and thank you for your thoughts and prayers always.

 

Love,

Elder Derrick Jorgensen

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

October 29, 2012


Well what a week I had! First off I got my new companion, and his name is Elder Monares. He is from Guatemala and has been out on the mish for almost eleven months, and is a convert to the church. I`m in the same area so it`s been fun to show him around the area and introduce him to the investigators and the members of the ward. We had a good week together, had a little bit of a tough time finding all the lessons we had planned but we did pretty good I think for my first time like kinda bein in charge I guess so that was cool. It was a little weird saying goodbye to Elder Hammond and getting a Latino companion was really different but I know I`m going to start learning so much more now so I`m excited for that!

 Alrighty so I guess I`ll tell ya a little more about our week now then. Last Tuesday their was like a big party thing for Elder Hammond cause he was leaving, pretty sad but attendance was better for that than for Sacrament meeting... But anyways that was really cool to see and see the difference he made in the ward, hopefully I can keep pushing the work along like him. He was here for almost 10 months, and I think if I`m here for that long I might go crazy but I`ll do what the Lord wants me to do. Wednesday was changes and thats when I got Elder Monares, he really is a good kid and pretty funny too, and it was sweet to see all my friends from the MTC, all the kids I came with. Elder LeSueur is still in the house with me so that is way awesome cause he is probably my best friend here on the mish, he hits 15 months here in a couple weeks so he is a good example to me to. Thursday was our big meeting, and it wasn`t what we thought it would be. President and his wife talked about the Atonement and so did the Assistants to the Pres. it was an amazing conference, I can`t wait for the next one haha so spiritual. Friday wasn`t too special it was actually kind of a hard day to find people and wasn`t very successful but Saturday we did divisions with the bishop and visited a lot of less actives and challenged them to read the Book of Mormon, and invited them to church. We had an awesome attendance on Sunday too, 110 people! The second best attendance since I`ve been here!

Our investigators right now are progressing....verryyyy.........slowlyyyyyyyyyy...........so that is a little hard but I`m trying to stay positive we are still working hard so I`m sure it will start going better. I think people think that central america missions are way easy to find people and baptize like crazy, well not quite ha. But it`s alright we arent gonna give up on the people we have right now until they kick us out of their doors, hopefully that doesn`t happen and no one gets kicked but yep. Don`t really have any good stories from this week nothing really funny or really sweet happened just normal missionary experiences. Not gonna lie though, kinda got mad when I got an email from Ian and said he has a truck now! So Nate and Ian have cars, Taylor might get one Braxton might get one. But they don`t get to learn Spanish like me, well I`m not exactly what you would call fluent but I know a heck of a lot more than the first day in Provo five months ago so that`s progress haha. But I love it here and I can`t imagine being anywhere else right now or doing anything else. I love you all family and friends and thanks for your thoughts and prayers....and letters those are probably my favorite but yep have a great week!

My back still hurts but im workin on it and its not from service, it has been hurting for a while. Elder Hammond took the voice recorder so yeah it would have to be a christmas present from you guys or somethin ha and other bad news there was an accident and long story short my camera is broken. I can still access my photos but the lens or somethin is broken cause it takes blurry pictures. but I'm takin it today to see if they can do anything for me and I have some personal money to fix it. Oh speaking of personal money i dont have time to email grandma and grandpa this week but tell them thank you so very much and maybe i can write them a letter instead of an email., more personal that way ha. but whooo 5 months came fast huh? sorry i dont have tons of time today but i love you so much!
 

Mucho amor,

Elder Derrick Jorgensen

Monday, October 22, 2012

October 22, 2012


Wow what a difference this week was from last week! Let me try to remember everything that has happened. Big news first, our fast this month was to find new investigators this last week and that we did! Three families and then completing another family, so you could say we are pretty happy with what we did this week haha. They are all very positive and hopefully after our second lesson with all of them we can really see where they are at and how much we think they will progress. One thing that really helped us or motivated us to work our butts off this week was Thursday. We were supposed to have a big meeting with the whole mission, which never happens by the way so it must be pretty important, anyways it got moved to this coming Thursday so the new missionaries can go to it so thats good. But that left the mission president with nothing to do on Thursday, so he called us up and asked if he could come out and work with us that day...Holy Cow. I´ve never been so nervous about every lesson, every street contact, every second of the day. Our mission president is the most spiritual man I´ve ever met and speaks with so much power and love it´s incredible. Needless to say that day was amazing. He taught four lessons with us, I led out in all the lessons and me and Elder Hammond switched off perfectly during the lessons and he just kind of finished it off every time. At the end of every lesson everyone was crying investigators, me, him incredible. I learned so much that day and it changed the kind of missionary I want to be. Everyday I need to be teaching like the mission president is right there and planning each day as if the mission president was going to be with us.  

Another fun thing we got to do this week was some service projects. We did two and it was awesome. So the first one was just some yard work, well actually there was no yard but I´m counting the tree growing out of a crack in the concrete and the 15 flower pots and five gallon buckets as a yard. We cleaned up all the trash that was back there and hacked about half the tree down with a machete so that was cool ha. We ended up with six wheelbarrows full of trash and branches, but of course this house was on a huge hill so takin the wheel barrow up and down was just loads of fun ha. But it was good and at the end she gave us a glass of water cause it took about two and a half hours, well it was tap water so I got kinda sick from it but I´m all better now. The other project was painting some cinderblock fence of a member who lives in a different area. That also took us about two hours or so and it started pouring rain so I hope all the paint is still on the wall and not on the patio but anyways, the guy we did it for took us all out to WENDY´S!!!! I had a triple cheeseburger with bacon of course but I didn´t get a frosty cause I knew it would be way expensive. It was so good!

We also had a couple earthquakes yesterday that were pretty fun, probably the biggest ones I´ve felt but don´t worry mom they would have to be a lot bigger to cause any damage so we´re all safe. We think that´s what our meeting will be about this Thursday, what happens if an earthquake hits. I dono why but I haven´t been sleeping that good, I wake up at about 4 every morning with way bad pains in my back, I´m not sure why but I can barely move. It hurts so bad that I can´t lay down so I end up just getting up. I think it´s the bed but last night I changed mattresses cause there was an extra in the house and it still happened this morning so I´m not quite sure what to do. But I´ve got some nice bags under my eyes cause I´m not sleeping so I look like a drug addict kinda with purple bags under my eyes ha.

Today we find out what is gonna happen this next change with companions and areas and everything well actually we won´t know who our companions actually are until Wednesday so that´s exciting and scary. If I stay here that means I´ll be senior companion and I´m nervous, cause Elder Hammond doesn´t give me much time to do anything in lessons, he gives me time after he says basically everything there is to be said so I just bear my testimony. So I´m really nervous about what to do. I have learned a lot though from him, a lot of good things and a lot of things that I need to do different from him. So I´m excited to see what happens.

Our old investigators are still progressing nicely. Jocelin´s baptism should be this Saturday. Julio is still a ways away. I think our lesson with him and the president there this last week though really helped and now he knows what our plans are for him. We have a dad and a son, both named Mario, they have been doing good. But this last week Elder Hammond dropped some pretty deep doctrine on em and they kinda got scared or didn´t believe it so now we gotta clean up that little thing with them and hopefully they will keep progressing.

That´s all for this week though. A lot more happened this week than last haha. The language is still going work in progress, I kinda want a latino companion just so it makes me speak spanish more than just during lessons cause that is about the only time i speak it. But it´s all good! I love you all and thank you so much for your prayers for our investigators, our ward, and me as well thank you. I love you all so much and as always you are in my prayers too!

 

Until next Monday. I love you!

Elder Jorgensen

Monday, October 15, 2012

October 15, 2012


Well hello once again from El Salvador! I´m glad Mondays come fast so I can read all your emails and see how life is back in the states haha. This week I am happy to report has been a very solid successful week. We have made a lot of progress with our investigators. So much so that we could have three baptisms before October is over. That is great news but also a little hard because that is our whole teaching pool, and because of that we are devoting this week to finding new investigators, 16 to be exact. That is a huge number but we need it so if you would like to think of that in your prayers I would very much appreciate it. Alrighty...I´m trying to think about what I wanna put in this email haha. I can´t ever think good when I get here just get too excited to talk to yall ha.

 Oh this week we did have one bad lesson with Julio. He had been progressing really well and loved conference and really liked everything. So we felt it was finally time to do the Law of Chastity lesson with him. His ¨wife¨ is a member of the church so she knows that they are not living the commandments. But during the lesson he got very offended because they have been living together for seven years and have two kids together so in his eyes they are married. Well he also has two kids in the states, and is still married to his wife in the states, but he´s only lived here for about 8 years so obviously just not enough time to get a divorce! But he was pretty riled and decided him and his wife would pray about it and tell us on Sunday when they came to church if they wanted to continue with us and continue coming to church. Well yesterday they were not at church, and we did splits yesterday so me and Edwin, an RM in our ward, went to their house and scheduled an appointment for Tuesday so hopefully they really have prayed and we can keep going because he is doing so good.

Ok enough sad stuff about that. I´m sorry i don´t have some cool stuff to talk about ha. Actually we got a car now! JK the owners brought one of their cars over and parked it in our garage which is fine but because we live with the zone leaders we have all the boxes of BOMs and pamphlets and baptismal clothes for people and all that kind of stuff so our storage room got turned into a real garage and all that stuff is now lining the walls of our house. It´s great. But it sounds like you guys had a pretty boring week there too. Ha not trying to be mean or anything though, sorry. But the drive to Palisades looked fun. Except Palisades is missin just a couple gallons of water haha...I really dont got much goin on though. But I love you guys and I pray for ya always. Sorry boring email but hopefully better one next week!

 Love,

Elder Jorgensen

Monday, October 8, 2012

October 8, 2012


What a week we had here! This last week was super busy for us but we didn´t have much to show for it. Our numbers weren´t too high because a lot of our lessons that are always there fell so that was a little disappointing, but now we have just that much more drive to improve this week. Alrighty general conference!! I´ve never loved conference so much in my life, it is amazing to watch conference on the mission I just was able to get so much more out of it I thought. And of course the huge news was the change of age for missionaries! This is very exciting news for the church, I hope the young men and young women are now learning the importance of preparation to serve a mission. I can promise that preparation before the mission will benefit you in every possible way. I wish I would have studied more from the scriptures and was more receptive to promptings from the Spirit before the mission because that would have made it so much easier now to be teaching this Gospel. But I hope everyone was able to learn from this conference and feel the power of the Holy Ghost. Dad, thank you so much for watching the sessions of conference. That was probably the best news I´ve heard on my mission so far haha. Words cannot describe how happy I am to hear that. The message I got from conference was definitely repentance but also to be a true convert to the church.
 
I can´t remember who said it or how exactly he said it but it was something like: We are to give up sin for eternal life... Just think about that for a minute, this life is the time we have to prepare to have eternal happiness. Why would we sin in this life and cause ourselves grief and pain if our ultimate goal is happiness? I dono why but that statement was very powerful to me. But conference overall was awesome. And even better news. Julio came to watch conference with us (we watched it in the stake center IN ENGLISH!!!! so that made me happy haha) but anyways he felt like that session was for him and said he has never felt the spirit that strong for him! So that was pretty exciting news too. Other than that we didn´t have many other investigators come, I think two others came. I´m not sure why but the members down here don´t see the importance of watching general conference, especially Saturday, I think there was maybe fifty people in the Stake Center. And just so you know they don´t get it in their houses so we would have liked to see a bigger turnout. Hopefully they will read the talks though.
 
This last week we really wanted to find a lot of new investigators and we did find a new family, the Sanchez family. All we have had with them was a small discussion because our main purpose was to bless their house. But they invited us back, and they are some of the friendliest people I have met here so far, and I´ve met some pretty dang nice people haha. But that was awesome. This next week though we want to still find more. And we switch roles, now I am the Senior Companion so that´s a little scary for me cause now I lead out in every lesson and planning and stuff. So we will really see everything I´ve learned.
 
Oh I´m now up to 110 pupusas, if I can keep this pace up I will eat 1100 here on the mish so thats exciting..I still don´t know how to make them though dang it. But everyone's week at home sounds like it was pretty decent. Busy but good. I can´t believe it´s already October! The weather hasn´t changed here at all, still ridiculously hot and humid in the day and pours at night. The thunderstorms are pretty sweet here and all the low roads in our area fill up pretty fast with water. But anyways it´s already October which means before you know it, it will be Christmas and I´ll be skypin ya up! Yeeeahhhh buddyyyy. HA pretty excited for that. And thank you for the package that has been sent, I´ll tell ya when I get it. Maybe for Christmas you could send some more CTR socks, they´re not ruined or anything just sometimes our cocinera/ lavanda ropa is a bit slow and well I just don´t wanna wear the same socks for three days ha. But I was wondering if you could maybe send a nice paisley tie not like way fancy but a good one that will last. I wanna give it to Raul our convert who is 14. His family is very poor and I want him to look like a stud passing the sacrament.

 I´m glad everyone is doing great at home! I loved the picture of the dogs! You could send some more pictures in a package if you would like or make me a calendar for next year of good pictures, that would be cool. But I´m doing great and just trying to be patient in everything, language is still comin slowly but coming. It´s just hard to see progress in your self. But I love you all! Until next monday... haha love you all! Que Dios le bendiga!

 

Elder Jorgensen

Monday, October 1, 2012

October 1, 2012


Hello Everyone!

                                                      Volcan San Vicente
 

Wow...already four months in the mission! How the crap did that happen? Time goes by so fast here it´s insane. But we had a great week. And we finished off September with another baptism! I also got the opportunity to baptize her, first baptism in my life so it was pretty special to me too. Everyday is still an adventure and every minute is exciting. We had great success with all of our investigators this week too so that was another awesome thing. And this next weekend is conference so everything is going just about perfect right now, I couldn´t be happier. I hope all of you are as excited for conference as I am. I can´t believe it´s already here though I remember last conference we drove down to Salt Lake cause we were super bored of being in Davis Hall haha. But get your notepads ready and watch conference with a purpose, the Lord will bless you with everything you need if you have real desires to find it. I can´t even count how many times I´ve been reading the scriptures and read somethin like just blows my mind, it´s great.


 

 This is Fautima on her baptism day!

This week with our investigators was awesome though. Julio I am proud to say has made it 16 days now I think. But he brought good news and bad news to us this week. His boss is changing schedules so that is a lot of stress off of his shoulders. But the bad news is he is moving in either December or January to Santa Tecla I think. So that is way out of our area. So now it is very important for him to stay strong because we have a relationship built and we know how to help him. I hope by early November he will be ready to get baptized so he will have that strength. But our other way good kid, Mario, and his dad are still great and Saturday they said they know this is the true church and they want to get baptized, so now we need to turn our focus to the family and baptize a family!! How great would that be! I am really excited for them to keep progressing.

 

Other than that I think this week we will have a big focus on finding new investigators in a different part of our area. It is a part that Elder Hammond has never been to and I dono why cause it´s very nice!! There are actual houses, real fences, I dono how to explain it, it´s not even close to American but it´s way nicer than everything else in our area haha. But I´m excited to go there, I just feel like we will have some good success because there will be more full, established families there. Me and Elder LeSeur did changes this week to do our interview for our baptism and he is a freakin funny kid from Arizona. It felt almost like I was just hanging out with one of my best friends for the afternoon so that was cool too.

 

I´m still good and healthy though, P90X is still freakin ridiculous. I thought it sucked when I did it at home, it´s way worse with heat and humidity haha but hopefully I won´t get fat...I refuse to get fat haha I´m just gonna grow a couple inches taller instead ha. Oh good news I have eaten 101 pupusas so I´m doin good there! But it sounds like everything is goin great there at home. Everyone had a normal week except for Brandi, holy crap busy busy busy. But that´s awesome that you got to play a little in the game and have fun, and run your best time ever in your cross country meet, and have a good time at homecoming. Hopefully your next dance you´ll have time to do a day date though ha. But your pictures looked great! It was cool to see you! And yes we do get to skype on Christmas it´s not just a phone call so that´s awesome. I´m way excited for that, to see and talk to you guys!

 

I got some emails from friends this week! Finally haha you guys have been slackin to say the least but I will forgive you so don´t worry but it was good to hear from you all!

 

I only have 3 more weeks as being a junior companion and then I´ll probably be a senior companion or a trainer so I´m still freakin out, I still have to rely on Elder Hammond for some stuff in the language but I´m just trying to learn and be patient. I know I was sent to this mission for a reason and I´m excited to serve and learn what my Heavenly Father wants me to learn, and grow in the things that I need in order to be a better man. I know this church is true and thank you all for your prayers, examples, support, letters, and prayers. Que Dios le bendiga.

 

Love,

Elder Jorgensen

Monday, September 24, 2012

September 24, 2012


Hello from El Salvador!

 How is everyone doing? We had a great week here and I can`t believe it`s already p day again. The weeks fly by so fast it seems like, not complaining at all about that haha. But this week was our temple trip, I`m not sure if I told you about that last week. But we had a mission wide trip to the temple with our investigators. Many saw it for the first time and it couldn`t have been a better day. Everything was so organized. We left our church at 9 and got to the temple at about 10 and then President and Sister Glazier spoke to everyone and welcomed them and gave short talks about the temple and what we do there. Then they split up into small groups and learned a little bit more specifically about the church. We had lessons about the Plan of Salvation, how families can be eternal, mock baptisms, and everything else you can think of. It was awesome, and right when we were walkin by the front door of the temple, a bride and groom walked out and started taking wedding pictures!! I couldn`t believe the timing, everything just seemed to work perfectly that day. And I think in total we had 650 investigators come to the temple, we only brought about six of our investigators, the other six or so had to work...I was pretty mad about that.

 But our investigators our progressing really awesome! Julio made it all last week without drinking! So he is goin on his tenth day today! Words can`t describe how happy I am for him and the things he is doing. He is noticing how everything is going better in his life and is really getting desires to change. The other good news for him is we rescheduled our lunch that we were supposed to have for next Tuesday! I`m pretty dang excited for a barbeque haha. Mario and his dad are doing great too. We actually set a date for both of them for the 13 of October so we will see how that goes and hope and pray they don`t have any challenges that keep them from the waters of baptism. And this Saturday coming up we have a baptism too. It seems like we don`t have a lot going on until I sit down and write about it and I`m like holy crap we are doin work! haha its great. But yeah I think in total we have 5 investigators with dates in October so hopefully that all works out before changes on the 24 of October. That`s when I think Elder Hammond will be leaving and I`ll be staying, I`m freakin out about that day. Pretty much because I still can`t speak that great, pretty limited to just the Gospel and then I still don`t always understand what they are saying to me. But progress from the first day here is definitely significantly higher ha. Elder Hammond isn`t really big on language study cause he already knows it, and he doesn`t take a lot of extra time to explain stuff to me anymore. So that is a little frustrating but I will learn. Actually one of the zone leaders in our house, Elder LeSeur, helps me out a ton. He is a sweet kid. Reminds me almost exactly of Ian so that is pretty sweet to have an awesome friend like that already.

This week I read 2 Nephi 4. And it talks about pleading with the Lord for deliverance and strength to withstand from sin. And it really just made me think that maybe we don`t or I don`t pray hard enough to our Heavenly Father. If you think about prayer and the power it has, it`s amazing. We pray to our Heavenly Father and He hears us and answers our prayers. If I really understood that I think I would make sure I was a lot more prepared to pray every time to Him. To ask Him for things and to thank Him for all of the blessings that I have in my life. I realized this week how extremely lucky I have been to grow up in the Gospel, even though I don`t feel like I know very much, I do. People hear don`t understand or don`t have the knowledge of the basic things that we do. And I really take that comfort for granted. We are so blessed to have this Gospel in our lives and to know what our purpose is and to have deeper and more meaningful goals than the average person, like being with our families forever. I know this church is true and our Heavenly Father is always there to help us in this life so that we can return to Him and be like Him.
 
Glad to see you guys are still gettin out and around with the camper. I missed that so much these last almost 4 months (next Sunday but who`s really keepin track). And you got to go golfing too, I`m sure it was a lot better than our little course we had set up on our table haha. And Brandi is still kickin butt on the cross country team, but is getting a little burnt out ha. I know how that is just remember it`s always harder in the moment, things will be better tomorrow. Remember that. And she`s got her big first dance coming up that`ll be fun too! Hopefully you guys still have a little bit of time every day to enjoy being together. And Grandma is doing better! That is good to know and a relief. I can`t believe Ciera is engaged!!! Holy Crap! haha that was a shock. He is probably a pretty cool good guy though so I`m sure she is doing fine. Anything else at home changing? Fires are still going, and Grandma Beverly said Palisades is way low so hopefully you have a good winter with lots of snow, and skiing. Ha I`m really gonna miss snowboarding this year.

But I`m still doing good, not too many bugs in the house to answer your question. Only a couple cockroaches, the bad thing is ants...freaking everywhere!!!!!!!! But we are doing good. We got up at six today and did P 90X so that was good. I dommed every body but no big deal haha. It was good to actually get up at six and do something, usually my comp sets his alarm for about 5:30 and hits snooze every five minutes until 6:30 so I REALLY enjoy that everyday ha. I dono what else I would want in a package besides food haha that`s really all I need and I know food doesn`t send that good...maybe a couple more ties I guess? But thank you for everything, thoughts and prayers, I love you all!

 
Que Dios le bendiga!

Elder Jorgensen

Monday, September 17, 2012




September 17, 2012


Hello from El Salvador!

 
How is everyone doing? We had another hot, great, hot, fast, and hot week down here in El Salvador. I honestly walk down our road to go out for the day and my shirt is just soaked, and then we get into people's houses and it's mostly just tin roofs so it gets even hotter in the houses. But I wouldn't have it any other way, I love this work. I will never be able to repay my Heavenly Father for the blessings I receive and the knowledge that I learn from the scriptures and other experiences I have every day.

 This week we had a huge week planned. Our goals were 42 lessons total planned so that includes investigators with and without members present and less actives. Friday and Saturday were our biggest days, and our hardest and most discouraging. Saturday was Independence Day for Salvador and everyone forgot to mention to us that is the worst days to proselyte and find people. And all of the celebrations brought the worst in one of our investigators again. We had a two o'clock lunch planned with Julio on Saturday, it was gonna be a huge barbeque with burgers, hot dogs, chicken and whatever else he had. But we showed up and he wouldn´t answer so we waited a while and went back, still nothing but we found his wife and she told us he was drunk and probably just didn't wanna talk to us. He is one of the nicest people I have ever met but he just can't seem to get over this. He needs to have as much faith in himself as we do. But those two days we had 19 lessons planned and only taught 8 lessons, and we never miss lessons...never. So that was pretty discouraging, somehow we were still able to meet the numbers of excellence for the week though. Our other investigators are doing great though. By the end of this week we should have 5 investigators with a baptismal date within the next month so hopefully that all works out too. But Mario and his dad (the kid we found bus preaching) they are both way receptive and turns out the dad is a member of the RLDS church or something but not active at all, and he just said that he "likes everything here better and it feels more right" so that was awesome news!   But they love learning about the church and hopefully they're gaining a testimony of these things as well. So overall our investigators are doing really good!

This week we had stake conference too, and it was sweet! We got to hear from the Stake President and some of his counselors and then our Mission President and his wife! So the talks were great and I understood almost everything so that was also a plus haha. A lot of the talks were about persevering to the end, I can't remember how to spell that, and being a true convert to the church. Those are probably my two favorite topics besides missionary work ha. But they were great and just made me realize the importance of always progressing in the church. And actually our zone conference which was two weeks ago was about those same topics so I'm kinda thinkin there was somethin in there that I need to learn so I'm trying my best to do that.

 I don't really have any good stories from this week, we found a huge frog yesterday, like huge twice the size of my fist ha. Some cockroaches in the house..Oh this week we had great water pressure for like four days. The water was just gushing out at a blistering 10 drops a minute so that was nice. And last night we had a golf tournament (El Salvador Open with sponsors from Missionary Mall, CTR clothing, Paper mate, Agua Cristal, Pop tarts, and Kodak haha. We played with a paper football and on a par five course. I shot a 91 so one over par ha I'll send some pictures of that. But other than that not a whole lot happening.


I love you all and pray for you always, remember to be thankful for everything you have in your lives. Learn to love the scriptures if you haven't already.

 
¡Que Dios le bendiga!

 Love,

 Elder Jorgensen

Monday, September 10, 2012

September 10, 2012


¡Que Onda!

 I can`t believe my first six weeks in El Salvador are already over. Looking back I`ve changed so much already and I`m so excited to see what the Lord has planned for me for the rest of the mish! Most likely after the next six weeks I will be training..so I`m already nervous about that haha. This week was a great week though! It started off way good on Tuesday when I got TWO PACKAGES from you guys! Everything in them was awesome and nothing had been opened or touched or anything so that was awesome! And I`ve eaten everything except the potatoes I gotta save those bad boys for a special occasion haha. But then I also got letters from Grandma and another letter so this week was great to hear from people! Thank you all so much!

We had another good week though. I had a couple of tough moments with the language I just need to stop getting mad at myself and remember to have patience and trust in the Lord always but it is definitely getting better than when I first got here. This week we had some good lessons though very powerful lessons with all of our investigators except Julio. He had a very tough week and has drank I think four nights last week so not very successful and he didn`t come to church either. So hopefully this new week we will be able to start fresh and ready to re commit him to live the way he needs to in order to get baptized. But our other two investigators are progressing very good! Fautima and Jocelin, I gave about half of those crystal light things or whatever to her because she likes coffee so I made her promise with me to stop if I gave her some of those things. So far so good. Both of their baptismal dates are for the 29th of this month! So keep them in your prayers. And we also found one more kid while we were bus preaching, a nineteen year old kid. He seems very receptive and asked if he could come to church with us during our first lesson! We were like well heck yeah you can! And he brought his dad to church too! We dono about his dad but he is very interested and receptive. And after our first lesson we asked him to say the closing prayer and usually people pray kinda weird here or not at all, well not him! His prayer was so heartfelt. And he asked Heavenly Father to make these things known to him if they are true. I know he will get baptized as long as he makes and keeps commitments, which will just depend on if he reads from the Book of Mormon. Which reminds me I finished Primero Nefí just yesterday! So that was pretty cool too.

Other than those couple little things I really don`t have much to tell ya this week. Oh one day me and Elder Leseur made pancakes, he is one of the zone leaders that lives with us, very funny kid. Anyways we made about ten pancakes in just under an hour and fifteen minutes so that was fantastic! haha Our little portable stove doesnt get very hot but they were dang good. Oh we added up our numbers from the first six weeks and we did 1001 LPE`s or street contacts! So that was pretty cool. Elder Hammond said him and one of his companions made a goal to do 1000 in twelve weeks and they only got like 700 and somethin which isn`t bad but we just did really good. So we have set the bar high for ourselves. Hopefully we can keep the work up!  Sorry I dont have a whole lot to write about but thank you for everything all your prayers and support.

 
I love you all! Que Dios le bendiga!

 
Elder Jorgensen

Monday, September 3, 2012

September 3, 2012


¡¿Que yonda mi familia?!

 

I can´t believe its already been three months. It seems like it´s been a long time since I was home but at the same time it really doesn´t. But holy crap we did so much stuff this week, like always haha. I have a hard time believing there are missionaries that work harder than us... but I know there are some and that is the kind of missionary I want to be! Well, I think the biggest question you guys have is the language and food ha so I´ll try to answer both. The members of the ward said they can see a difference and that I have improved a lot, I don´t know if they are being nice or really mean it. If I had a latino companion I know my Spanish would be a lot better but I love Elder Hammond he is a stud and a hard worker. President has used examples of things Elder Hammond has done in meetings with other missionaries and stake presidents and crazy stuff like that, so I don´t mind kinda sittin back and just learning from him. But my understanding of the language is pickin up slowly so there ya go. Alrighty food, first off I hate goin grocery shopping when Im starving cause I feel like I could eat everything in the store haha. But the food is...alright haha our cocinera makes a lot of the same stuff and it´s cooked in just pure fatty grease so it actually might be possible for me to gain weight finally but it´s at the wrong time cause I dont work out hard ha. But anyways last Saturday so like two days ago we got chicken wings bought from a store!! So freakin good! I had 26 and three bananas and then we had some fanta orange soda it was awesome. But other than that the members feed us debéis en cuando, every once in a while, and usually it is pretty decent. Rice is always common and beans but its really good.

 
Anyways on to this week. We had a baptism!!! I´m sorry I left my camera at the house this morning cause it was kinda crazy but I'll get the pictures to ya next week. It was Raul though, and this kid is a stud. He already went out tracting with us once before he was baptized I think I told ya that already though. But it was awesome to see him get there and I bet within a couple weeks he will be passing the sacrament he is so good. This week we had changes again and I ended up bein the senior companion for the day, and my companion was the district leader so I was like crap I hope everything goes good today, don´t wanna screw up in front of him haha. So of course every lesson but one fell through...so rough. But it was alright we ended up doin a ton of LPE´s and I did my first bus preaching, and it really wasn´t scary or anything but bus preaching isn´t very successful. Still I got to learn a ton that day, being a senior companion in charge of planning and leading the lessons, knowing the area and how to get everywhere was kinda hard, and just trying to be in control of everything is a lot of pressure haha. I have even more respect for trainers now and every senior companion actually. Other than that crazy day we didn´t have much...we had a multi zone meeting on Tuesday so that was sweet got to learn a ton and see Elder Puaka again the Tongan from the MTC that I sent you a picture of ha he has lost a ton of weight. But anyways other than that not a whole lot of excitement.

 

We didn´t find any new investigators this week so that was a little disappointing, but even more was Hermano Julio. It wasn´t his best week. He drank twice. But yesterday we set a baptism date for him on October 20, he has a lot to do before then but if he is serious about this he will be able to get everything done and worked out so he can make it. It was so hard though we were over one night and he was upstairs in bed, they are one of the most well to do people in our ward, and so we were talking with his wife and daughter who is 7 I think and we asked her to say the prayer. It was one of the most innocent prayers I have ever heard, I started crying in the middle of it because she prayed for her "dad to have less money so he couldn´t buy bad things anymore," holy cow...If only he could realize how much influence and how much this could mean to his family to be able to live together forever as an Eternal Family. He is a great guy and very nice he just needs to get over this addiction. Other than that not a whole lot of much to report on with other investigators cause we don´t have many, just two one is the sister of Raul and the other is an 18 girl named Jocelin and was a reference from a member and they both look pretty promising so that´s awesome. I just really want to find a family! I didn´t think it would be this hard to find a family with our message ha. Missions down here are just as hard as everywhere else I think cause people are not very willing to change their beliefs. If they could just see more of the big picture..But this week we had another church attendance of over a hundred, if all the menos activos we visited woulda showed up we coulda had over 120 but we had 104. And this week we contacted 237 people in the streets, standard of excellence for our mission is 140 so yeah we're workin hard haha.
 

But sounds like stuff is goin good at home. Brandi is lovin cross country so thats awesome. And Hillcrest is doin good work in football, I miss playin football so much haha it´s crazy I wish I coulda done better in my season. And work is just normal work so that's too bad haha. Hopefully that rain did help with all the fires cause there are a ton of them! You guys need rain like we get here every night, usually it pours for about an hour or so and then just kinda rains the rest of the night but usually we get an inch or two i would say almost every night, a lot of nights we are sprinting home just absolutely soaked..I´m way faster than my comp and he still brags about how fast he was haha anyways...But yeah hot in the day pouring at night. Oh I got a letter from Nate today and obviously he never got my letter that I sent a month ago cause it said I haven't heard from you in a while I hope you're doin great. So I'm gonna write him again soon so if you wanna write him and explain what happened cause i feel bad haha. Still havent gotten any packages yet but my comp says i should get them sometime soon so I'm hopin by next week maybe? Anyways that's all I got for now ha I love you all and hope you're all doing great actually I know you're all doing great! Just remember when we are doing the things the Lord wants us to do he is bound to bless us. So keep up all the good stuff you´re doin and keep sending the prayers and I'll just keep receiving them hahaha I love you all and remember you always!

  

Love,

Elder Jorgensen