Happy New Year! December 31, 2012

Buenas Tardes from El Salvador! Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas! My week here was great. Probably the best week of the mish cause I got to talk to you guys! That was awesome to see your faces and hear your voices, now just five more months until next time, we can make it haha. That day really was the highlight of my week though. Monday night we went and had four Christmas Eve dinners so that was rough, then Christmas day we were at the member´s house just chattin it up. After that we went out and tried to find stuff to do but everyone was inside with their families not really wanting a whole lot from us. But the rest of the week was really good too. We went to the temple on Thursday! That was a great trip. I´m so lucky to have a temple in my mission. We get to go around Mother´s Day and Christmas and when we go home, so I´ll get to go a couple more times and experience it in Spanish ha.

So really our only full days of work were Friday and Saturday and Saturday we had a branch "activity", I don´t quite call it an activity because almost no one showed up and there wasn´t really much to do. We just played basketball with the kids in the ward for like an hour or so. I was so freakin sweaty, like I jumped in a pool, nasty. Anyways so that took up our afternoon kinda and then just had a few lessons at night on Saturday. So this week was kinda a rough week for us numbers wise, but it was a crazy week for us. I kinda feel like we have been doggin it though a little bit, we need to pick it up this next week and find those golden investigators that I keep hearing exist but haven´t seen.

Sounds like Christmas was nice though, besides the freezing cold part. But hey no complaining alright? You all get to go snowboarding and skiing! Sorry I got another lame letter but that´s because I just told you guys everything. Still getting the language down ha. How did I sound on the computer, Mexican? haha getting there right. Still reading the Book of Mormon in Spanish and I´m still in Alma haha, I wanna finish it before I´m twenty, I should be able to do it easily, just gotta do it ha. Hey some chapters if you guys wanna read that I really like are Alma 35 through like 42 haha so that should keep you pretty busy if you have any freetime. My New Years is gonna be kinda like Christmas it sounds like, just a ton of fireworks and people going nuts so we´ll see how that goes. Other than that...don´t got much, so hopefully next week I will have more to say. I love you all friends and family!!!

Love,

Elder Jorgensen

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

December 17, 2012

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

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

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

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