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