March 25, 2013

Yummy mangos!!!

 

 



Woah... I´m going to be 20 years old tomorrow, I don´t know how this last year has gone by so fast. A lot of things have happened to me in this past year and I´m so thankful for the changes that I can see in myslef. First off thank you everyone for the happy birthday emails, those made me pretty dag gum happy and even though I didn´t get my package I got a present of seeing you guys on a beach in California. So basically we are in the same place! Ha I hope the beach there is a little more tranquilo than it is here, we are starting semana santa, holy week, and everyone and there dog heads to the beach so this week will be crazy. Hopefully even though it is gonna be crazy we will see more success than we saw this week. It was another low week, for numbers anyways. But I think I learned a lot. 

 

We had some bad luck this week though. Our two most positive families dropped us. One family decided Jehovah Witness is the way to go and the other family just doesn´t want us to come back for a couple weeks...So needless to say, once again we don´t have many investigators to visit so that means a lot of walking every day. Usually we can find people to talk to in the street but these last few weeks no one will give us the time of day so that´s a little disappointing. But we did have some success with some less actives. Our church attendance was 63 this last Sunday, the highest I´ve seen here in El Puerto. One less active family lives about 45 minutes from the church and they walk the whole way because they live very humbly. It was awesome to see them there though. It brightened my week quite a bit. 

 

Friday was a little bit of a tough day for us. Every Friday we have a weekly planning session where we plan our goals and everything for the upcoming week. To finish the planning session we do what is called a companionship inventory where we talk about the strengths of our companionship and set goals on how we can improve and be more unified. Every time we do it I ask my comp if there is anything I can do that will help improve our relationship or anything that I do that bugs him, stuff like that. Well this week he tried to tell me I needed to be more kind to him and show more charity, and well then lets say I gave him a piece of my mind as well .... so we had a pretty rough start on Friday morning.    Pretty much Friday in the morning was pretty bad.  On Friday everything fell threw except for our Family Night we had in the church. We´re trying to get the branch more unified so we played a bunch of games and gave a small message and then had refreshments, there was about 35 people there so that was awesome. 

 

 

This week we also did a fast on Saturday as a district, it´s pretty hard to fast here cause it´s about 105 degrees or so plus humidity during the day and a cool 84 to 90 degrees at night, but anyways like five minutes after starting the fast we walked by a water stand with what I thought were two models giving out free water. Freakin temptations haha!!!   It was hard but we made ´er through and were able to complete our fast. Well that´s pretty much all I got this week, hopefully my birthday brings us some luck or blessings cause we need em. I hope all you guys at home have an awesome Spring Break and enjoy Sea World, Universal Studios, and Disneyland. I´ll be thinking about ya and praying like always. Love you all so much!!

 

Elder Jorgensen

1 Nephi 18:16 March 18, 2013

Hammock Time!!

 

 

Bananas that don't taste the same.



What`s Up everybody! I had a way better week this week than last week so hopefully I`ll have some more stuff to put on this email ha. Let`s see first off me and my comp are doing lots better now. I had to convince him that the mission is supposed to be fun. This work is the Lord`s work, and we are bringing eternal happiness to these people so it only makes sense that we are able to have fun in the mission. I told that to him on Tuesday and every day has been getting better and better. Saturday was probably our best day just cause we were able to keep a positive attitude all day with jokes and stuff like that. I definitely need to be able to be me as a missionary and not some robot but things are going much better.

A little info about our investigators and the branch real quick. We are teaching complete families right now, first time in my mission that I`ve been able to say that and it feels good haha. The only problem with all of our investigators is attending church. Because my area is on the beach it is a tourist area meaning guess who has to work every Sunday in restaurants, hotels, cleaning and police and all those jobs. So that part is going to be kind of difficult for us with all of our investigators but we`re not losing faith in them. Our most positive family this week we just found out that the wife is a Jehova Witness but less active but they are occasionally listening to JH missionaries so that  sucks ha. They are really solid, but they are having a hard time praying about the Book of Mormon. Our other families are pretty new and hard to find so that is another obstacle but just read the scripture reference and it explains how I`m feeling.

 

This week I had two awesome meetings. Wednesday we had our trainers meeting with President and Thursday we had our Zone Meeting. In the trainers meeting..wow it was awesome, I left there with a completely different outlook on my mission. Just erasing fear with faith. Thursday as always zone meetings get me pumped too. It was pretty much an extension of the trainers meeting erasing fear with faith and enjoying my time being a missionary having fun! Then on Thursday I had divisions with another missionary Elder De Leon from the Dominican Republic, it was a pretty fun day with him too. His Spanish is so much clearer than my comp`s so I loved that part ha I didn`t have to ask him to repeat everything he said. On Friday we had a cool experience too. We were just walkin from Angela`s house to another lesson and a silver van drove by and layed on the horn. I thought it was maybe some white members visiting one of the beaches but about three minutes later we hear someone yell ELDERS!! we turned around and it was President Glazier and his family! His son and family are visiting him for spring break. So we took a quick picture with them and they gave us a juice and some m&ms. I chugged the juice but gave the m&ms to some kids, made their day haha.

 

Oh we also had our house inspection this week. So our District Leader came over on Saturday and somehow we passed ha. He was like wow I`m really suprised at how clean this house is way to go guys. I know it`s not clean at all and I didn`t believe him at all when he said it...so I gave him some candy to help us out there too haha I think it worked. This week was better with lessons too but just a little bit. We didn`t break 20. I feel pretty good if we get 20-25 lessons especially in this area cause it`s freakin huge haha. But anyways. Sounds like everything else is going kinda slow at home. And windy. Still no wind and no change in temperature here. Just freakin hot and humid all day all night. I can`t remember what a cloud looks like anymore haha jk. I still miss the snow though...long time till i see it again dang it. But thank you all for your prayers last week and all your help. I am doing much better now. I love you all so much and hope everyone is doing great and is taking time to read their scriptures everyday. Scriptures are the key to true happiness, just take the time to let them change you. I know this church is true and I love you all so much!!!

Elder Jorgensen

March 11, 2013

Hope everyone is doing good and loving life! We had kinda a rough week down here with only 13 lessons in total this week. I think that this week was my lowest number wise of my mission so far. I know that numbers don´t matter though. The Lord knows how much effort I´m putting into this work and it is up to other people to use their agency to listen to the message of the Restoration. I´m still keeping positive though. Trying to get to be better friends with my companion because it gets a little rough at times, really we are just not into the same things and then add the difference in culture and language and it makes for some silent boring times. But we´re changing that, well I´m trying to anyways haha.

Probably one of the neatest things that happened to me this week was in a lesson with an investigator who we had to drop.. But in the lesson he said to me that I listen with my heart and humbly teach and listen. That was a big boost of confidence and motivation that I definitely needed this week. With everything falling through, that little sentence let me know how I´m doing as a missionary and a person. On Wednesday we had a Priesthood meeting in the chapel to try to make some plans to get this branch going and to get people more excited about the work. I would call the meeting semi successful because we had about four other people there. This is definitely a tough area, all the more reason to work extra hard though. I really don´t know what to put in this email though ha. I didn´t think I´d have troubles sending long emails home every week to you guys but today I honestly can´t think of many good things to put in this email. I´m so sorry I´ll try to be better next week. But I love you so much and I know this Gospel is true, live this Gospel and let the Lord change you!

 

To answer your questions quickly, district meetings are every Thursday but this Thursday will be a zone meeting. zone meetings are with more missionaries and are way better than district meetings, they only happen once a month though. the mission will be split the end of June.  We don't know who will go where yet but our president will be the president of the El Salvador West Mission.  It's exciting but not at the same time, because I really like President Glazier he is a great leader and example to me. I will definitely buy souvenirs before I leave too. Sorry I don't  have much else to say.

 

Love,

Elder Jorgensen

March 4, 2013

I can´t believe how fast this week went by for us down here, it feels like just yesterday I was emailing you guys. But we had a good week full of work and not so full of great numbers. The mission isn´t about numbers though, the Lord knows how hard we are working and if we are doing our best. Last week started out super fast for us. Our P days...kinda not much fun. ha ha we send our email from the stake center every P day and our stake center is about an hour and fifteen minutes or so from our area. So about two and a half hours every P day I´m stuck on a stupid bus. Then we had to do a bunch of new stuff for my comp cause he is new so he doesn´t have much to eat in the house so that basically took up the rest of our p day. Then Tuesday we had our stud member help us out, Hermano Lopez, we visited a ton of less actives and walked for forever but it was a great morning. Then after that we had to study for like four hours so only taught a couple lessons after that nothing too spectacular. Then Wednesday we had to go to the capital for immigration stuff for my comp cause he is new. So that took about four hours of the day as well, but there I did get to see a bunch of missionaries I haven´t seen in awhile. I saw Elder Reynolds, friend from the MTC in Guatemala, and Elder Scurr again! It was sweet to see those guys there.

 

The rest of Wednesday was spent at Angela´s house preparing a few more things for her baptism and then going to members´ houses trying to invite them to come to the baptism. Inviting members to the baptism of Angela was basically our back up plan if anything fell through, a lot fell through this week so we ended up visiting mostly members. On Thursday though we did find a new investigator family, they are married and have two kids a one year old and a three year old so that was awesome. And they are super positive, but they weren´t home when we passed by their house to pick them up for church yesterday. Friday just ended up being a lot of walking for us though, didn´t have much luck finding people or getting into houses.

 

But finally Saturday saved my week haha. We got to the church at 7:30 and filled up the font and then waited for a bit to go pick up Angela. Once we got back to the church we waited...and waited....and waited some more, finally at about ten we got started with the service. There weren´t too many members there, so I felt kind of bad for Angela, she needs the support of the members. I got to baptize her though and I´m pretty sure she was smiling while she was underwater. It was a way neat experience to help her realize the blessings of the Gospel. I am sure she will stay active, she does have a lot of friends her age in the branch down here and on Sunday she got her Temple Recommend to go do baptisms. So she is way excited to go later this month and visit the Temple! That made my week a lot better and helped me feel like I accomplished even more than I actually did haha.

 

Other than that though, Sunday was a slow day in church. I thought it was gonna be the second Sunday in a row of not having all three classes because there was no water, but we were blessed with a miracle because we got water halfway through testimony meeting. We only had 39 people in church on Sunday, it was a little frustrating for me because I worked harder this week than I have in my mission so far I´m pretty sure, and I didn´t see many fantastic results. There was the baptism though!

 

 

 

 

 

Sunday night we got to eat dinner with the family that gave us turtle eggs, and this time they gave us some other weird thing to eat. Basically it´s sushi of El Salvador...I don´t see it ever getting outside of El Salvador because well it wasn't good. haha. I don´t know how to describe it, but it definitely has the texture of rubber and tastes like I dono just imagine fish guts haha. That was basically my week though and now i gotta go I love you all so much. And thank you for your prayers and your letters I´m still getting. KEEP SENDING LETTERS!! I love hearing from everyone. You are all in my prayers and I hope you have a great week!

 

Love,

Elder Jorgensen

Week one as a trainer..here we go! February 25, 2013

Well how is everyone doing?! I`m doing pretty good down here in El Salvador, trying to take it one day at a time as a trainer. Definitely praying even harder now. My new comp is Elder De La Cruz, from the cross haha, he is from Argentina so he has a little bit of an accent so that makes it a little tough at times with the Spanish and all but it will just make me better right? Well this last week was really good for us, I feel like I`ve grown a lot already and I`m excited to see what`s in store these next eleven weeks. This week we had a few lessons fall, so we spent a lot of time looking for those new chosen investigators. We had some good experiences and definitely walked a lot, I think our biggest day was thirteen miles. Not too many new ones but we are confident the Lord is preparing to put those people in our path this week.

 One thing we are really trying to do now is find where all the less actives live here and start reactivating them! We did find one awesome family last week, and we are setting up a family home evening with them this week so that`s exciting for us too. I love being able to find some type of activity to do, because we need to be able to have some fun. We have the help of the Second Counselor from the branch though, he is probably the strongest member in the branch and wants to start working with us a lot more often so that`s awesome.

Also good news this week, we will have another baptism on Saturday! This last Thursday we went to Angela`s house and talked to the Grandma for about an hour and a half and... got nowhere. I was starting to get a little frustrated with her because she kept saying conflicting stuff and we were just making no progress, finally I was able to talk to Angela a little bit in front of the grandma and just asked questions about how she feels about the church. She answered all the questions perfectly, and then I asked if she wanted to be part of the church, and she said yes. The grandma finally said she would support her in whatever decision she makes and will help her be able to always go to church, that`s perfect! Ha so after that lesson I was super happy. Then I got nervous all over again about how to find new investigators but I know the Lord will help me.

 A little more about my comp, well not much to report on yet but I can tell you we don`t have much in common, at all. But I will keep a good attitude. He likes to draw, plays a little bit of soccer. But yeah so we`ll see how it all goes. Also I finished the Book of Mormon in Spanish this morning and had an awesome experience. Just really realizing how much the Book of Mormon will help me in EVERY aspect of my life. Sorry I gotta go now, but I love you all and I pray for you always, and remember the Savior is always there for you to help you with every challenge you face.

Love,

Elder Jorgensen

 P.S. This mission is going to be split at the end of June, I`ll tell ya more about that next week.

Baptism!!! February 18, 2013

 

 

 

 



Well how is everyone doing! We had a pretty crazy busy week down here in Beach City. I´ll just take you through it day by day cause that will help me think more clearly. On Tuesday we had a multi zone which is what that one other email was, just a picture. But that was awesome, it was all about obedience and loving the work down here. That conference lasted about five hours or so, then we had to take the bus ride back to our area so that was the majority of the day. Then on Wednesday we had to pull out a birth certificate for somebody, so we rode a bus for like an hour and a half, still in our area by the way, and when we got off the bus this old guy fell down and broke his pinky and hit his face. It was all in slow motion but we couldn´t do anything to help him I felt bad, his pinky was messed up, like twisted bent sideways and yeah weird looking. But anyways after that just tried to regain our energy for the day to go out and teach. Then Thursday we had the interview for Rene with the counselor of President Glazier so we got on the bus again for another two hours and finally arrived. Rene scared the crap out of us when he didn´t show up for like an hour, we were starting to have some doubts but he finally showed up and got his interview done. So then we came back to our area and tried to get everything ready to head out for that day. Nothing too spectacular happened besides that stuff, then on Friday we were supposed to have the interview of Angela but the zone leaders showed up too late to do it and her grandma didn´t give her permission anyways so we have to wait on her. But she is so ready! She doesn´t know how ready she is, but she is probably stronger than half the members in this branch already and she hasn´t even been baptized.

 

So then Saturday finally came! Friday we spent most of the day trying to visit members and investigators, less actives and everyone else to come to Rene´s baptism and it sounded like we were gonna have a ton of people. Then Saturday morning, we showed up to the church at like 8 ish and the baptism was at 9. By 9:15 we were starting to worry when no one had shown up, not even Rene. Then at 9:30 one family from the branch finally showed up. And then at about five minutes to ten Rene and his wife showed up. So we ended up not having many people at the baptism. Anyways we started the service and during the opening hymn him and his wife were kind of crying, and this guy is not emotional at all...ever. We had a few short talks and then my comp walked down into the water with him and baptized him. I was so happy for both of them, Rene for being able to make this decision and Elder Scurr for ending his 14 month drought. This week was probably one of the happiest of my mission.

 

Now for some other fairly big news. I will be training this next change. President Glazier called last night and told me and Elder Scurr we would both be training, so Elder Scurr will probably open a new area or reopen a closed area and I am for sure staying here in El Puerto. I´m pretty much freaking out right now. I hope that I will be able to be a good trainer and first companion to my ¨son¨, I hope I´ve learned enough from everyone else that I can teach him everything he needs to know to be a successful missionary. I know this will allow me to grow more as a missionary as well. I will have to control every situation and always keep us busy. I´m super nervous and excited, I´m also pretty sure I will have a latino companion but that´s ok my spanish will improve a lot more. So this next week I should have some exciting stuff to report on. Thank you for everything and this week I would greatly appreciate any extra prayers you might be able to throw my way. Hope all is well at home with everybody you are all in my prayers.

 

Love,

Elder Jorgensen

February 11, 2013

What´s up everybody!

 

So this week was much better for us! Started out last Tuesday when we had some of our most powerful members from the branch leave with us for the afternoon and they took us to some of their family and some less actives. It was awesome to see how excited they were to go out and work with us and teach. They are amazing teachers, I was pretty impressed with them. So that was good to get some new investigators with them, we ended up with twelve new ones this week which is really good for us especially in this area! Also I have some good news about baptisms that are coming up. The familia we were teaching got whittled down to just the oldest daughter, but she should get baptized this next Saturday. She is super powerful too, she started going to seminary in the church, and they changed the schedule so she could continue to come every day. We are excited for her and then there is also Rene, and he can posibly get baptized this next Saturday as well! We have a multi zone meeting with President tomorrow so we are gonna bring him so President can interview him and hopefully pass him. So we could break my companions 14 month cold streak on the baptisms. Also we have a couple others that are super powerful that have a date for the first weekend in March. Their names are Vanesa and David. Vanesa is the wife, we hope, of a less active member who is 28, and she is pregnant right now (18 years old). Then David is a friend of both of them. I love going to teach them because they actually do what we ask them to do! We give them a chapter to read and they read it and then have questions but then they answer their own questions, it´s awesome!!!!

 

So we are starting our last week in this change. This change was only five weeks because of the age change we are getting a ton of new missionaries, about 40 when normally it´s like 15 to 20 max. But my comp is starting to pick it up again, just took forever it kinda feels like and it makes me feel super baggy and feel like I´ll never finish my mission haha. But it is getting better. I don´t think we will be together for another change but we both might stay in the area and it will get split, so we´re still waiting for that news. Um what else happened this week..I finished 3 Nephi in the Book of Mormon in Spanish so only a little bit more and I´ll have ´er done! I really haven´t studied language at all, just reading the BOM so my comp is pretty suprised about that, but I definitely need to study more just to be able to talk more smoothly without thinking so much about sentence structure and all that haha. I love studying the scriptures though, really studying. It´s awesome to feel the spirit when you read but when you actually study the scriptures and search for answers or things to help you out, the spirit is so much more powerful and I actually feel enlightened and inspired it´s awesome!! So I challenge you not to only read your scriptures but study with a purpose, with a question, with something in mind you want to understand better, and you will be so much more edified by your studying.

 

So pretty much besides that, not much else to report on. I have started stretching though! I figure there is no way I can really work out on my mish and see improvement or anything but there is a posibility I could touch my toes! So we´ll see how that goes. Oh i thought about another thing for a package, FIG NEWTONS i dono why but I have a huge craving for those right now haha. Other than that though...I dono.   But hey if you could tell Bro Cornelison and Bro Neuerberg thank you for me for everything they did for me when I was there that would be awesome. I´ve been thinking about that a lot lately, I never let them know how much I appreciated them and everything they did. That´s too bad about Taylor, I hope he can stay motivated to go back out. Tell him to write me though if you see him! It´d be awesome to get a letter from him. Other than that I love you all so much. Now have a great week, and be an example that someone else can look up to!!!

 

Love,

Elder Jorgensen