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