Tuesday, April 23, 2013

April 22, 2013


Whew I can`t believe how fast the weeks go by. I`m coming up on eleven months already. This week was a pretty good week for us, I feel good about it anyways. Just a little side note, we just had interviews with President so now I`m all sorts of rambled but I`ll do my best. Let`s see this week we were able to find some pretty good new investigators which is awesome because we are always cycling through new investigators because most people here are kind enough to let us in and give us hope that they will progress. Then when we go back and try to find them, they happen to not be home or they have too many people visiting or other excuses. Sometimes I wish the people were just more upfront with us so that we wouldn`t lose time looking for more who are willing to accept the Gospel. 

 
This week though was super fast because I had divisions one day with one of our Zone Leaders, Elder Gillespie from Washington and we also had Zone Conference. The day with my zone leader was interesting. He is a different kid, really good missionary, just oblivious to some things that might bother other people. I learned a lot from him though, he is a really good teacher. Our Zone Conference was awesome though, soooo powerful. We talked a ton about humility and the Atonement. I hope to be able to use the cleansing power of the Atonement to its fullest, it is amazing. We also made a lot of goals and stuff like that baptisms in these upcoming months and how we can better help our wards and branches. Really good stuff, I`m not so sure some things will be as helpful to us just cause some of the challenges we face in our branch are to the extreme at times. But we have a lot of good ideas about how to keep working and improving the family within the branch. Our family home evening nights in the church might not be working out to great anymore though, we only had two show up last week, our convert Angela and one member who is preparing for a mission. So we`ll see if we can continue to do those or not. 

 
Transfers aren`t for three more weeks so I won`t know for a while so about that, it is the Wednesday after Mother`s Day! Super excited for that day! I really am not sure what to put in this email ha my mind is all scrambled. Things with my comp are still improving everyday, we still have our moments when things are frustrating but every day gets easier. I don`t really have any cool stories this week either. On Saturday we left with Sister Tuli, our cook, to look for less actives. We had to rent a pickup (only 5 bucks driver included) to go visit them. They live clear up in the mountains, about an hour away, ridiculous haha I dono how the missionaries found them. But they weren`t too positive we will see what happens though. Other short story, Tuesday was a little slow so when we were walking by the river I found a little piglet, there are pigs everywhere here! But I chased him for about fifty feet, those things are freakin fast and I am way out of shape ha but it was fun and something a little different. 

 
Sounds like things at home might be start picking up weather wise anyways. Getting a little warmer hopefully. Brandi is dommin up in track, in your pic you looked pretty professional and I could tell you were in first haha. I`ll be praying for you to be able to get better so you can run faster, how did you get more sick than me?! And Mom, you are still running too? Ten miles a day,  I dono how you do that, how long does it take you to do ten miles? Well that`s about all I got this week I love you all so much and thank you for all the support you always have given me and are still giving me! Good luck everyone who is coming up on finals and all the crappy tests in school haha take luck! Have a great week!
 

Love,

Elder Jorgensen

Monday, April 15, 2013

April 15, 2013


Well I´m not exactly sure where to begin this email. First of all I guess I´m very happy to say that we found a lot more lessons this week than last week, more than double actually so that was cool for us. I´m still not big on numbers, I hate being compared to other people and other areas because not a single one of us are the same. But oh well we have to turn in our numbers every week. 
 
The new role of District Leader is...different haha. I have to prepare a district meeting every week, which is just kinda like a motivational lesson to help the district and also helps us exercise and increase our faith in the Lord. At first I was pretty nervous because I was the youngest in the district besides my kid, so I thought someone else should be the leader but I guess the Lord really wants me to learn and grow this change so I´m trying that out haha. I had divisions with one of the Elders in my district this week, Elder Chaclan from Guatemala. He was in the area about a year ago so he showed me all his old investigators so that day with him was awesome. I learned more from him than he learned from me. But all those new investigators I´m sorry to say now want nothing to do with us so that was a tid bit depressing but what more can we do. The progress with our other investigators is slow. We still have a solid date for Guadelupe on the 27th, but the other families we are teaching, I´m trying not to lose hope that they will realize how important these things are for them. And we´re not just talking about the word of God, like all the preachers and pastors down here. 

Me and my comp are still doing good together, I think everyday gets a little better and easier for us, he is just a little bit of a different character. But I am learning a lot from him, a lot of patience and humility. He is definitely helping with the Spanish part, still trying to learn new words everyday and work on the fluidity of my speech and proper grammar. I wouldn´t say that I am fluent in Spanish but I am confident in Spanish so there ya go, for me I´m happy to be able to say that! 

This last week was a little rough for the branch. I´m trying to stay positive with everything that is going on.  We´re doing our best to help everyone we can. It is kinda sad at times. It´s hard for me to sit back and watch. 

 Other than that stuff, it was a normal week for us. I don´t have any fantastic stories or anything. We did help a guy out from Honduras well I dono how much we helped but he showed up on a Thursday night in El Puerto with one suitcase no money and looking for a job. We shared with him a short message and I offered a prayer and gave him enough money for breakfast the next day. I haven´t seen him since but it was kinda the same experience we had a few weeks ago with me and Elder Scurr talking to a guy on a bench so that was cool. Other than that same ol same ol. Sounds like home is goin alright haha. Brandi is loving the ACT and SAT so that´s cool haha.  Hopefully she can relax a little and enjoy her dance. So have fun there Brandi! And hopefully mom can stay in top shape for her half marathon, we´ll probably both be sweating pretty profusely at the same time so I´ll be thinking about ya then haha. And hopefully Dad can find some nice patio furniture so you can sit outside and freeze in your 40 degree weather HA. Forty degrees to me sounds miserable now, I´ll probably die my first winter back in Idaho haha. But that´s all I got this week. Keep me in your prayers and keep moving forward with faith. 


Love you all!!!!

Elder Jorgensen

Monday, April 8, 2013

April 8, 2013


Well how is everyone doing? I´m doing good down here in El Salvador just trying to not screw up as being district leader. It was a pretty surprising phone call from the zone leaders, they just called me Wednesday night and said I better start planning my District Meeting for Thursday so I started panicking instantly because I´ve never had to worry about that before. Being a District Leader I get to go on divisions with all the elders in my district and tomorrow I get to do divisions with Elder Chaclan from Guatemala. He served in El Puerto (my area) about a year ago so hopefully he´ll be able to show me some of his old investigators because we desperately need people to teach. This last week was tough for us with one lesson with a member present and only four others, with a whopping three less actives to top it off. I´m glad to start a new week. We did have Guadelupe and her family come to conference, right now she is pretty much our only solid progressing investigator, but she said she loved conference. She is a single mother of six or seven, I think. We´ve had to drop our other investigators or it is just super hard to find them so that's depressing but we´re not losing hope on em yet. We only had an attendance of about 30 from our branch and they only came to one session on Sunday. Our branch president only came to that session as well so that really angered me, we can´t make progress if the most influential leader in the branch and the head of the branch doesn´t want to do anything. But what can I do?
 

I also got my birthday package! I was super excited for that! The two ties are probably my favorite and the jerky is all of the latinos´ favorite haha. I wore both ties on conference weekend, they´re too nice to wear to work every day so I gotta keep em nice. But the other stuff was awesome too, the cd´s, shirts and just all the good food haha. Thank you so much and the Birthday cards I got from everyone was awesome. Thank you so much Grandma Evie and Grandma and Grandpa Bowman, and Grandpa and Grandma Jorgensen my mom said yours is in the mail so I will thank you right now as well. Still can´t believe I´m twenty, I don´t feel it. 

 
So how did everyone enjoy conference?! It was my favorite so far, but I´m pretty sure I´ll say that about every conference for the rest of my life haha. My favorite talks were the fourth one from Saturday Morning Session, Bishop Cardon, and others on obedience by Thomas S. Monson, and faith by Jeffrey R. Holland was freakin awesome too. The worst part about conference and the only bad thing about conference is there is a closing prayer that means it´s six more months until conference again. I hope all you guys had questions answered and felt the Spirit from this conference. 


Sounds like things at home are still going, I wanna go do yardwork. This week we raked leaves for about 30 minutes and I probably sweated enough to fill up our pool at home, it was ridiculously hot.  Apparently April is the hottest month down here. We´ll see if I make it to next April haha. But Brandi sounds like your track meet was awesome.  And I´m not sure who asked you to the dance but hopefully you have a good day! Mom how is your training going for your half marathon? And thanks for the update on mission calls, that´s sweet! Dad feel free to get going on the hot tub cause i could sure go for one right now haha. But that´s it for me for the week. I hope you all have a great week and I´ll chat you up again
Monday!

 

Love,

Elder Jorgensen

Monday, April 1, 2013

4/1/2013 I'm coming home!!!


Well like the subject of the email says I´m coming home! Apparently in order to change or split the mission they have to send some missionaries home so I´m gonna have like two months of down time! HA HA  April Fools! But wouldn´t that be sweet!!! Anyways so I logged on today and had 31 emails!!! Thank you everyone for emailing me and Brandi thanks for the pics of California, those were sweet. For my birthday though it was a pretty good day. At lunch we went to Hermama Tuli´s house cause she made me a double cheeseburger with bacon and homemade french fries and FRY SAUCE! Then to finish it off she brought out a 3 milk cake. It was different but really good. Then she also got a yellow lab puppy this last week, and I got her to name it Kate. So now I have a yellow lab puppy here in El Salvador! Makes me miss our dogs a lot but it´s alright. Also on my birthday we did divisions with some members from the branch, that was alright we weren´t able to get much done. But to finish off the day some investigators invited me over and they made us some dish of Shrimp and vegetables, it was super good. Don´t worry I took pictures of all the food haha. It feels super weird being 20, actually I don´t feel any different but whatever. 

3 milk Birthday Cake!

 
Kate thinks its hot here too!  She likes to cool off in the fridge.

 
Birthday Meal!

 
Hermama Tuli's new puppy!  I convinced her to name her Kate.
 

 
Yumm... Shrimp and Veggies!
 
Overall this week was a lot better than last week. Our number of lessons went up a little bit even though on Saturday and Sunday we only taught one less active. Semana Santa is huge down here. EVERYONE goes to the beach for the week so my area was freakin packed with people that didn´t care to hear from us at all, just yell Mormon stuff at us. I did receive a few friendly waves from some people but it´s against the rules to talk to them haha. Saturday though was insane, down here it´s really not Holy Week at all, just free time party week, and Saturday night they had parties everywhere, it was more wild than New Year´s and Christmas. We made it through though. 

 
This last Sunday we didn´t have any investigators in church but our attendance is going up. We´ve been in the sixties and upper fifties for about three weeks so that´s been cool. Our one investigator with a baptismal date hasn´t come to church yet and I don´t know what her deal is. Hopefully we can find her this week and she will be coming to conference. This last week I´d have to say my favorite time of the day was personal study every day, I don´t have my study journal with me right now but this whole last week was awesome. One thing that I´m trying to focus on is making every good thing a habit. I read from the teachings of President Lorenzo Snow that living the Gospel is like learning to play an instrument, at first it´s hard and we have to think about every note, every sequence, and how to act all the time. After practice we can play the song from memory and from habit, we have adjusted to be able to do it. And to play something wrong is almost difficult but it is more easy to correct when we do. The same with the Gospel, if we are trying to live the Gospel at all times things outside the Gospel or things we do that make us lose the Spirit seem difficult and are hard to do. When I read that I really liked it. I only read it this morning before I left the house but I´m gonna try to put those things in practice haha. I know that would be a blessing. 

 Well I´m glad everyone had an awesome fun Spring Break and was able to enjoy being together. The pictures looked fun and the emails I received made it sound like everyone had a good time. Even though it was Spring Break I hope everyone was able to remember the importance of this Sunday and the hope and happiness the Atonement of Jesus Christ brings to our lives. The power of the Atonement is amazing, it cleans us and it is a blessing to repent. I love my Savior and I love my family and I love my friends. Thank you all so much! One more quick note, make some questions for this conference! It will be a more powerful conference if you do! Que Dios Les Bendiga Mucho! Que les vayan muy bien!

 

Love,

Elder Jorgensen