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

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

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

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