DECEMBER 9TH 2013


                                                         LA SEMANA MEJOR




Well, I might have to say that proselyting wise, this was the best week I´ve had in the mission.  Friday was absolutely incredible!  We decided to spend the majority of the day contacting and finding new people, and we ended up teaching 4 lessons from just teaching.  But even better was seeing how the people we found were totally prepared to hear the message of the Gospel.  The first man we found standing in the middle of the city, as if he was just waiting for something.  We went up and talked to him, and at first he wasn´t to interested.  He kept bringing up his Catholic background and the same things we hear from every Argentine.  5 minutes into it and he still wasn´t too interested, but instead of giving up we felt like we should keep teaching.  We found out that he had a Book of Mormon but had never really read it, and had a brother who was a member and he really admired the faith that our members had and wished he could have that kind of faith.  Well, we pulled out a pamphlet of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and taught him about faith, and then later went on to explain the importance of prayer and the Spirit.  Right before we left we asked if we could leave him with a prayer.  You could tell he felt a little awkward about it, but he said it was alright and we left him a prayer in the middle of the street.  At the end of the prayer he had tears in his eyes and promised us to read the pamphlet and that he would read the Book of Mormon and was going to go to our church on sunday!  Sadly he lives in San Nicholas so we won´t be able to keep in contact with him.  But we´re passing him as a referral to the missionaries up there.  

 

The next person was a teenage boy who had apparently lost his dad about 10 years ago.  We taught him about the Plan of Salvation, and how he could know these things to be true through prayer and the spirit.  Once again we left him with a prayer outside his house and told him to pay attention to his feelings as we prayed.  We asked him how he felt after the prayer and he admitted that he could feel something.  We´re planning on visiting his whole family this coming week.

The last person we taught was by far the coolest.  We were on our way to a less active family and a man caught our eye who was sitting on the curb.  We went and talked to him, and all we could do was introduce ourselves as missionaries when all of a sudden he started asking us if we had a church, and where it was, and what time it started.  Turns out that he had travelled from out of town, to Ramallo, for the sole purpose of finding a church.  He took our appearance as some kind of sign.  We taught him some of our beliefs and ideas and he eagerly promised to go to church the week he didn´t have to work on sunday.  We´ll definitely be keeping our eye out for him and hopefully we can pass him on to the missionaries in his area quickly!  

To say the least it´s been an awesome week!  And to top it all of, Elder Topham and I received our Christmas Packages!!  What better way to top off the week?  

Well I hope all is well with all of you!  Things are going great over here in Ramallo and we should be having another wedding/ baptism this week!  

Les extraño 

Con amor

Elder Jensen

DECEMBER 2ND 2013



                                                            MORE FUN FACTS

1.  WEIRDEST THING I HAVE EATEN:  CHICKEN HEART

2.  EVERYBODY LOVES COLDPLAY HERE

3.  EVERYDAY BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 12-5 THE TOWN SHUTS DOWN AND EVERYONE TAKES A NAP EXCEPT FOR US.

4.  I HAVE EATEN MORE BANANAS THIS WEEK THAN I HAVE EVER EATEN IN MY ENTIRE LIFE.  (WASN'T MUCH OF A BANANA PERSON UNTIL NOW.)

5.  STILL TERRIBLE AT SOCCER

6.  SCREWED UP ON A WORD DURING A LESSON ON THE PLAN OF SALVATION.....I SAID RENO INSTEAD OF REINO.  LONG STORY SHORT,  I TOLD OUR INVESTIGATOR THAT WE WILL GO TO ONE OF THE THREE REINDEER AFTER THIS LIFE.

DECEMBER 2ND 2013



                                            IT'S GOING TO BE A GREEN CHRISTMAS

Well I hope Thanksgiving was awesome for all of you.  We didn´t do too much, I think we bought an alfajor to celebrate but that was about it.  But I honestly don´t feel too bad about not doing anything.  Well this week went better than the last!  We finally received the money to pay the deposit on our new apartment and we should be moving in this next week!  We also met with a less active family who wants to baptize their 9 year old girl, so we´re hoping to get working on that!  And we´ve had quite a few people who seem interested and want us to come back, so we´ll see what happens!  As for some of the fun things here.  The humidity is killer!  It was only 9 o clock this morning and I was already starting to perspire during my studies.  And air conditioning is non existent so it´s impossible to escape it.  But oh well!  It may help me from gaining too much weight down here.  This past week we had our first Carne Asado, which is pretty much an Argentine barbaque and it was by far one of the greatest things I have ever had in my life.  It really is going to be tough going back to American beef.  The pizzas down here remind me a lot of the pizzas from Europe too, so that should make you all a little jealous!  Oh and a few days ago I ate chicken heart...  It was actually pretty good believe it or not!  As for a typical day for us, we wake up shower eat breakfast and start our personal studies by 8, afterwhich we plan for half an hour, and then we head out to do a little work in the morning, then we come back and finish the rest of our studies after lunch until about 5 (we do studies in the afternoon here because everybody else decides to take what we call siestas, in other words, a man made excuse to sleep and be lazy, between the hours of 12 and 5) and then head back out and work until 9:30 or 10.  President has us work in the morning and later in the evening so we can avoid the heat.  And as for the work we do probably an hour or so of contacting and then visit less actives and future investigators with lessons mixed in.  It´s crazy!  In total we have over 200 members in this area alone, but only 30 come on a regular basis.  A lot of work to be done to say the least.  Well I´m gonna try and get some pictures sent today!  I love you all and hope things are going well for you!  It sure sounds like they are.  Just got an email from Caleb, and it kind of made my day to hear that Bama´s no longer first.  Was kind of getting sick of them.  Love you all

Elder Jensen

NOVEMBER 25TH, 2013


                                                             HEY!!!


How´s it going family?  Things are going well down here in Argentina!  The heat decided to cool down a little which was nice.  And it sounds like Thanksgiving is right around the corner  for all of you.  It sounds like Evie is going crazy with Catching Fire being out now, and Caleb got the MVP?  that´s awesome!  Nothing terribly exciting has happened this past week.  The mission office still hasn´t sent us the money to pay for our new apartment, so we end up spending close to 3 hours a day just driving to and from our proselyting area.  We do have another marriage and a baptism coming up soon which will be exciting though!  And for a special zone activity we´re watching Planes so that should be cool!  I finished my entire triple in spanish this past week as well!  And I´ve already started the Old Testament so we´ll see what exciting things I´ll learn from that.  I love you all!  I hope things are going great for all of you and hope things continue to go well if they are! Happy Thanksgiving

Love, Elder Jensen

November 18th


                                                          FUN FACTS

1.  GATORADE COMES IN GLASS BOTTLES AND THEY HAVE AN APPLE FLAVOR.  (IT WASN'T TOO BAD).

2.  WE REALLY DO HAVE TO CLAP TO GET INTO HOUSES

3.  SOME STORES WON'T HAVE CHANGE, SO THEY WILL REIMBURSE YOU WITH CANDY.

4.  MILK COMES IN PLASTIC BAGS

5.  THEY EAT A LOT OF HORSE MEAT, IT LOOKS AND TASTE LIKE HAM SO I DON'T COMPLAIN.

6.  THE MEAT HERE REALLY IS INCREDIBLE

7.  THEY USE PIECES OF BREAD TO SCOOP THEIR FOOD OFF OF THEIR PLATE.

8.  EVERYBODY DRIVES MOTORCYCLES HERE.

November 18th
                                          Holy Heat

Well it sounds like the snow finally started falling back home.  As for me, Wednesday it was 98 degrees Farenheit and humid.  And according to the branch president, it´ll hit around 112 by January!  Haha exciting stuff coming up!  This week it seems like our patience was being tested a bit.  We did a lot of contacting this week with little to no success, until the end of the week.  We found a father and his two boys who we contacted and accepted a Book of Mormon.  A few days later we decided we should drop by them again and see if we couldn´t get into the house.  Only one of the sons was home but he invited us in and we were able to start up a conversation.  He started off by saying the same thing as a lot of people here say, that he respects all religions, and we all have the same God etc.  We got talking to him a little more about what we believe, and he began to take an interest in what we were talking about and started asking us some questions.  He wanted to know why we thought there were so many churches on the earth, and why not just one church.  He wanted to know if we believed in a life after death, and what we knew about that. And many other questions that had been troubling him, that his own church couldn´t seem to answer.  Needless to say, we were jumping from one pamphlet to another, giving him a good overview of our beliefs and briefly answering his questions.  We´ll be heading back to his place in the following day, and hopefully things just take off!  Another cool thing, is I finished the Book of Mormon in spanish last night!  And I can see a huge difference in my language skills after finishing the book!  I´ve jumped into the spanish Doctrine and Covenants hoping that both my language skills will increase even more and my understanding of the Gospel will continue to increase!  Every day continues to be an adventure here, from teaching outside with bats flying over our heads, to accidentally flooding our apartment!  I love it!  I´m growing everyday with each new experience, and I continue to see the hand of the Lord more and more in every aspect of my life.  I hope things are going well for all of you!  I love getting all of your letters and I apologize for not writing everybody back individually!  This truly is the work of the Lord

Elder Jensen

November 5th 2013

When it rains, it rains for days and floods the streets.

Trying to stay dry!

                                                   
                                                                 Filtering our water

                                                             Just having some fun

                                                                 My comp Elder Topham

                                                                Parrots are everywhere

                                                 A baptism that I participated in my first week

                                       A giant centipede that we fished out of the church drain

                                                 Some of great treats that I have discovered

                                                     November 5th 2013

Well, I´m finally here!  And I´ve already fallen in love with this place!  The members here are incredible and every day seems to be an adventure.  My parents may have a tough time getting me to come home at this rate!  Of 

course it´s completely different than the states and some things will take some time to adjust to but I honestly love this place!  My new companion is Elder Topham and he´s from around the Spanish Fork area, so I´m not completely lost down here.  We are in a little area in the Buenos Aires province called Ramallo and cover two pueblos (small towns) with a branch of about 30 active members so there´s quite a bit of work to be done here.  I got here just in time to attend the baptism of 5 children, 2 of which were convert baptisms, and we have a couple who are going to be married this Friday and baptized on Saturday, so a lot of exciting stuff ahead.  A few fun cultural things about Argentina:

-In argentina they refer to Americans as Yankees (the pronounce it Shunkees) and that´s all we´re ever called. And because their accent uses a lot of the sh sound my name down here is elder Shensen.

-Down here they have stray animals everywhere, especially dogs.  That took a little getting used to, and they love to run along side bikers so they follow us around quite a bit.

-The food here is incredible, they have a cookie down here called an Alfojor and it´s by far one of the greatest things I think I´ve ever eaten

-The insects down here are huge!  I ended up fishing a giant centipede-like thing out of our Church´s draining system the other day.

-Argentine´s have a great sense of humor.  And so does my companion....  My second day in Ramallo we visited a family, and when we arrived the father started shouting at us telling us to go away and that he was tired.  My companion just kept on talking to him, and he ran inside the house and came out with a shotgun and started my direction.  Thought I was gonna die to say the least, but turns out it was all set up and planned.  I´ll have to get my companion back later.  Well I don´t have a whole lot of time to write much so that´s all I´ll say for now.  Hope everything is going well for you all, and everything has been going great down South. 

Elder Jensen

Tuesday October 29th 2013

Jake finally arrived in Argentina!!!!!

Jake with his mission president, his mission presidents wife, and his companion Elder Topham

                                Jake with all of the new missionaries that arrived in Rosario

                                               Jake with President and Sister Giuliani
                                               Either the are very short or he is very tall!

Photo at the Hoth's

This is Jamison Hoth and his little brother, we have gotten close with their family the last little while.  Jamison just got back from Baya Blanca Argentina, so he has been filling me in on life in Argentina.

Two Weeks Left!!!!!!!!

October 8th 2013


Surprise!!!!  Guess who's going to see the consulate IN Argentina?!?!?  I am!!!!  I'm leaving Oct. 22nd and I should be able to call you all during my lay over!  I haven't gotten my flight plans yet though, I'll probably get those this week!  I'm so excited!  But I'm gonna miss everyone that I've made friends with here in Smithfield!  And by the way, I've known about my visa since last Thursday so it's been kind of killer not to sneak on to Facebook and send a quick message to Evie about it!  But I stayed strong haha!  As for General Conference!  Elder Trujillo and I were able to go to all 3 sessions on Saturday!  So it was an entire day in Salt Lake City, and it was a miracle that I didn't see anybody I knew!!  Conference was awesome!  My favorite talks were probably President Uchtdorf's during Priesthood or Holland's!  I really enjoyed Bednar's as well!!!  I guess it's just too difficult to pick a favorite!  And being at the conference center to see all three of those talks in person was incredible!!  If possible you should all try and go down next year to see it live!  It was definitely an experience that I'll never forget!  Other than the visa and Conference it's been somewhat of a slow week though!  One of our best investigators just moved down to Henderson for the winter and the one that we were going to drop a baptismal date on couldn't meet with us this week!  So a lot of this week was spent in service or teaching less active families.  My Spanish continues to get better and although I may not be able to speak fluently I can understand quite a bit of what I hear!  Which is good because I'm off to an all-spanish country soon haha.  It's funny that Brigham said he saw me in Priesthood, I was there, you'll have to take a look and see if you can find me!  And I've heard a lot about this government shut down thing!  Bummer that all the parks are closed down for now!  But you'll still have a fun time down in Park City!  And Caleb's getting acne!!  Congratulations!!!  You've officially begun the worst part of being a young adult! hahaha!  As for a typical P-Day....  We usually wake up do our normal morning routine and then head out for the Family History Center in Logan to do e-mails...  Afterwards we go somewhere to eat lunch, and then usually there's some sort of sporting activity going on that we go to (Soccer and volleyball seem to be the most popular) afterwards we run to Walmart to go shopping, and then typically back to the house to unload our groceries, write letters if we have time, and eat dinner.  Pretty exciting day! haha...  And as for the work here....  Door to door contacting is non-existent, we've tried....  It doesn't get us anywhere.  Everything we do comes from ward council meetings and referrals we receive from members!  Our stake president is on fire about missionary work so he's constantly making sure that we're taken care of and have enough appointments for the week.  Last week we taught a total of 9 lessons to people including one on skype to someone Elder Trujillo knows.  I'm glad that it sounds like things are going well for everyone at home!  It sounds like Evie's enjoying High School with all of the dances coming up, and I'm sure that Caleb is having fun at Jr. High....   I've loved serving in Smithfield and I can't wait to get back home and take you to meet some of the families and investigators that I've become close with.   And I can't wait to get out to Argentina and get to know the people down there!  I love you all and I love hearing from all of you! 

Sincerely, 

Your son/brother Elder Jacob Jensen

                   

                                          Don't know why Smithfield needs this type of artillery

                                               From our apple picking adventures

            Our last district, notice Elder Trujillo trying to steal some brownies                

                                          Sometimes I feel like this tombstone

Fun Facts

October 1st 2013


-I've officially had someone try to convert my to Catholicism 

-I still can't bowl very well, scored a 102 this afternoon

-Still stink a soccer (no surprise)

-Have a pet spider in our garage who we feed all the flies that come into our house to

-Have decided to read as many General Conference talks as possible before going to Argentina (almost done with 1971)

-Was the only one in our house to guess that I'd be staying in Smithfield for another transfer

-Panicked a little bit when I saw snow on the mountains (that coat works well by the way)

-I'm fed hamburgers almost every night by members

-Taught a lesson with Elder Trujillo to someone Elder Trujillo knows, using skype on our new iPads

-Facial hair is growing faster and faster

-I might also be at the priesthood session of conference as well

Third Transfer

October 1st 2013

Well believe it or not I'm already starting my third transfer!  We met this morning as a zone to discuss who would be going where and who would be staying.  I'm staying in Smithfield with Elder Trujillo luckily!  I'd hate to have had to leave the area after the work that we've done!  It's been quite a week, involving a lot of service.  Last Saturday we ended up helping someone remove all the shingles from the roof, which took a good 4 hours!  And after that a member asked us to help him pick some apples from and elderly couples apple tree.  We ended up sending Elder Morales and Elder Delong up the tree to pick the apples, and Elder Trujillo and I were playing catch the apples.  I felt like was back out in left field again with how high they were throwing the apples.  After awhile though it became dodge the apples when all of a sudden there were 4 or 5 apples in the air at any given time.  Yesterday all of the trainers had to go down to Ogden for a special meeting which left Elder Delong, Elder White, and me to cover our areas for the day!  3 greenies together for a whole day!  Of course it was interesting! haha...  We ended up talking to quite a few hispanics and every time we'd find some one Elder Delong would tell them we needed service!  The only problem was, he was using the word Serveza instead of Servicio.  Which actually means beer...  Somebody finally corrected him on it, but now I'm wondering how many people think that the missionaries need beer in the area!  Hahaha....  This past week Elder Trujillo and I finally were able to meet with a lady with the name of Sister Barham.  She was a referral that we received from a less active family that we were teaching.  She and her husband are Episcopalian and at first didn't seem to interested in listening to us but was fine with sitting down chatting for a second.  We talked to her about the Book of Mormon quite a bit and then talked to her of prayer and the spirit.  I felt once again impressed to invite her to ask if her Heavenly Father did indeed know her and did care about her and promised her that she would feel the spirit that we had talked about.  She was hesitant at first, but she agreed to if she could pray silently.  We all closed our eyes and said our own silent prayers, myself pleading and hoping that she would feel and recognize the spirit.  Elder Trujillo and I finished our own personal prayers and waited for what seemed to be quite some time for her to finish her own.  She finally raised her head and opened her eyes, and tears began to stream down her cheeks.  She'd been touched so much that she was unable to speak for some time.  I couldn't help but tear up myself as I testified of God's love for her and that what she was feeling was the Holy Ghost.  She'd admitted that she always knew that God loved her, but had never asked Him personally.  We talked a little more about the Book of Mormon and gave her some chapters to read and have a returning appointment for tomorrow, hopefully things go well from here on out!  It stinks to hear that Bountiful lost to WX again!  Although I must admit, it takes a little bit of the shame off from last years loss!  Haha...  And I'm glad to hear that homecoming went for Evie!  It's also good to finally hear from Caleb!  And I hope your game went well against Stansbury!  I received a letter from Church Headquarters saying that they are in constant contact with the Argentina Consulate and are constantly receiving updates about my visa, so with luck it'll be here soon!  It also sounds like Ryan's farewell went well, and I'm excited for him to enter the MTC.  Last week I ended up having to buy a blanket cuz it was getting too cold at night time and I also ended up getting some music to add some more variety to my iPod.  I bought two cd's, Lead Thou Me On by Vocal Point, and a Piano Guys CD, which I'm pretty happy with.  I think the Vocal Point CD is my favorite and my favorite songs are probably Danny Boy, Come Thou Fount, and Savior Redeemer of my Soul, from that CD.  We also received iPad mini's in the mission and we're the third mission to get those, so that's pretty exciting!  Especially because I now have every General Conference talk since 1971 at my fingertips so I have a lot more study material to use.  I love you all and hope everything continues to go well for all of you.  It's crazy to think that I'm already going in to my 4th month of my mission!  I'll be home before you know it!!  I love you all!

Love,

Elder Jensen

The Up's and Down's

September 24th 2013

Sep 24

Well this week has been all over the place.  We've had a few less active members that we've been teaching and we were happy to see a good portion of them at church that next week.  (Probably helped that their kids were in the primary program.)  Haha, but either way we were glad to see them their.  It's been somewhat of a tough week though.  Elder Delong and Elder Morales were dropped by the Estrada family, which was terrible because the 17 year old son was making great progress, but the dad just doesn't want them being taught anymore.  And Sister Webber said she needed a little break from all of the religious stuff but thanked us for helping her regain her faith in God and with helping her get into the habit of praying daily.  That was tough, just because we've seen her progress so much!  She's gone from not believing in God at all to turning to Him daily in prayer!  But, I guess that's just part of the mission, and she has grown closer to the Savior through our lessons so I still count that as success in itself.  I also was asked to speak in sacrament meeting last week, so I gave a 15 minute talk on the Atonement to the 7th ward on Sunday.  If I have time I'll try to type that up and send it to all of you.  I got the package a few days ago!  And I love the tie and the pin, and I haven't had a real candy bar since the MTC so all of those snacks were much appreciated!  I'm excited to hear about Kirsten's baby!  You'll have to tell her congratulations for me!  And it's funny to think that MorMor and Grandpa became Great Grandparents on their 50th anniversary!  Tell them late Happy Anniversary from me as well!  So, awesome news!  Elder Trujillo and I were able to get Conference Tickets for the Saturday Afternoon session, and with luck we'll be taking Sean with us to watch it!  So we're pretty excited about that.  And I'll find out next week whether I stay in Smithfield or get transferred to a new area.  It sounds like things are going well at home, and it sounds like Caleb is off the walls from the Ute's win this last week!  It also sounds like a lot of exciting things are coming this week for homecoming too!  Hope you have a fun time with that!  Skyview just had their homecoming week, and it made me remember how much fun and exciting all of that stuff was!  And it's crazy that Ryan's getting ready to pack out of here!!!  Poor Jordan won't know what to do with himself after that.  I love hearing from all of you!  And I'm glad to hear that things are going well for all of you!  I love you all and miss you, but I'll be home before you know it!  I've almost been out 3 months already!!!  That's crazy!  Love you all,

Elder Jensen  

Week 4 in Smithfield

September 17th 2013

This week has been all over the place!  Elder Trujillo pulled something in his calf a week ago and then had a flat tire so we had been on foot for quite some time.  Luckily his leg and the tire are good now and we're finally back on our bikes!  Wednesday the district leader went on exchanges with us and I was kept in Smithfield with Elder Hennessee while Elder Trujillo went into Logan with Elder Knittle.  So I was pretty much the one in charge since Elder Hennessee was unfamiliar with the area!  I was a little nervous to take charge of everything but it went fantastically.  I managed to get us four returning appointments from families that we'd been trying to contact for weeks now, and Elder Hennessee and I had an amazing lesson with a woman by the name of Christina Webber.  Christina lives in an assisted living home up here in Smithfield and was involved in a serious accident that left her in a coma for 3 whole years.  She can't walk very much at all and is originally from Argentina.  She was a member of the church at one time, but doesn't agree with some of the doctrines, so a lot of the time our lessons with her are simply answering her questions and clearing up a little bit of confusion.  While I was there with Elder Hennessee though, we had quite a touching experience!  She'd been going through a little bit of a rough time, and for whatever reason we decided to talk a lot about prayer and the importance of prayer.  After we taught her I promised her that Heavenly Father loves her very much and knows what she's going through and then promised her that if she were to pray right then to know if God loved her, that she would feel of that love.  She agreed and gave a very simple but sincere prayer, asking to know if God did love her.  She ended and we looked at her to see a smile on her face and tears in her eyes.  I asked her how she felt and she said that she felt a peace inside that she hadn't felt in quite awhile.  She's told just about everybody at the assisted living home about that experience and continues to bring it up with us when we visit her! haha.  We've had similar experiences with her since that day in asking her to pray for forgiveness or reading 3rd Nephi 11 to her. She's quite the character and we love going over to visit her.  Elder Trujillo and I think it's time to extend the baptismal commitment to her so hopefully things go well in the next few days.  Our other investigator that we're excited about is Sean Orem.  He's made tremendous progress in our lessons and we're planning on committing him this coming week as well!  So hopefully we have some exciting things coming up!  It sounds like everything's going alright at home!  I'm glad to hear that the dog is doing better now!  And Evie's getting ready for Homecoming?!?  That's really weird!  My baby sister can't be going on dates!  I heard a funny story from Melissa Anding about Caleb in the grocery store.  She said she was walking around and all of a sudden she heard "Hey Anding!" and turned around and saw Caleb in his officer jacket!  Haha I love hearing stories about Caleb!  But I wonder why in the world he doesn't email me!??  And I'm not surprised that Bountiful beat Clearfield haha, it's sad that they killed them on their homecoming!  But everyone here goes to Skyview, so whenever anybody hears that I'm from Bountiful, they immediately ask if I was at the basketball game where we lost to them with the buzzer beater half court shot!  And of course all anyone ever talks about is Utah State football so whether I want to or not, I keep up to date on their wins or losses!  I love hearing from all of you and hope things continue to go well at home.  I love you all and miss you.

                                         The only thing that stands between us and the front door

las estradas

September 10th

Well this week has been quite an adventure!  Elder Trujillo and I finally have an idea of where everyone is in our area so we're not wandering around like deer in the headlights anymore.  It's crazy though how many snakes we've seen here!  Granted most of them have been dead in the road, but we've seen 9 in the last 3 weeks!  And two of them have been rattlers!!  We almost stepped on a big snake a few nights ago while we were heading back to our house.  It was dark and Elder Trujillo was using the cellphone for a flashlight.  He spotted it just to the right of his foot, which is lucky cuz if he hadn't I would've stepped right on top of it!  We've managed to talk with a few investigators this week.  We had a lot of lessons scheduled but a lot of them fell through for one reason or another.  One day we had 3 out of our 4 lessons fall through!  But the times we have gotten inside to teach have been great!  We met with a sister who is now living in an assisted living home who hasn't been to church in just under 50 years!  She got offended by a bishop when she was 16 and has disagreed with some of the churches teachings for awhile, but we were able to help her understand a few things and resolve a few of her concerns.  She really enjoyed our visit with her and wants us to come back soon so hopefully we can continue to help her along.  If I haven't already mentioned Elder Trujillo and I live in the basement of a members house with two other Elders.  (Elder Delong and Elder Morales)  Yesterday the other Elders had a few appointments scheduled at the same time and so they asked us to come on exchanges with them.  Elder Delong and I met with the Estradas while Elder Trujillo and Elder Morales went to a few other places.  Elder Delong came into the mission the same as me so we're both greenies, but we were pretty comfortable about going into this lesson because we would be teaching the son who prefers to talk in English.  Well, about five minutes after arriving and talking with Eric (the 17 year old son) the entire family was outside with us listening to our lesson.  The catch was that the parents spoke little to no English, so now Elder Delong and I both had to use what Spanish we could to communicate our thoughts and feelings to them.  Sounds like a train wreck doesn't it....  It actually went fantastic!  We were able to understand and communicate with little to no problem, and we managed to commit them all to baptism (without a date.)  Talking with Eric was the best though.  Before the family had come out we'd taught him what the spirit was and what feelings come when we felt the spirit.  At one point in the lesson we taught how God was our loving Heavenly Father and put big emphasis on the fact that He knows each one of us by name and truly loves us.  The spirit was incredible at that point and I felt prompted to turn to Eric and ask him how he was feeling.  He sat for a few seconds trying to describe it, and then gave up and said "I can't really describe it, but it's just like you said, how it feels good.  When you said that God loves me personally I just felt amazing..."   I could tell that the entire family was feeling that way and Sister Estrada was almost in tears as she heard her son explain to us how he felt.  I testified to him that, that was the spirit communicating to him that God truly does love him, and then told him to remember those feelings.  The lesson with the Estradas was by far the highlight of the week for me, just being able to see someone recognize God's love for them for the first time was almost enough to bring me to tears in that moment......  I'm glad to hear that everyone seems to be doing fine at home!  Bummer loss for Bountiful, but it sounds like regular season hasn't started yet so don't worry too much.  I'm glad to hear that Caleb's doing so great in football!!  Keep up the good work and keep practicing!  Before you know it, you could be where Trevor and Jordan are.  I'm so excited to hear that Jordan's going to Atlanta Georgia!!!  And that he's speaking the coolest language in the world too!  We'll be able to speak to each other after we get back!  Glad to hear that you're enjoying seminary Evie, that's always a fun class!  And junior year is tough but as long as you try to have fun with it then it's not too bad.  The name Maxfield sound really familiar and I'm going to have to keep my ears peeled to see if I can't find mom's cousin!  And I've heard that the leaves are starting to fall of the trees....  Have fun raking!!  haha I love getting all of your letters and hearing about everything that's going on back at home!  I love you all and miss you all too.    Love Elder Jensen



                A Good Breakfast, tell Gerret thanks for the one eyed jack recipe

                                                 Biking through Smithfield

Month 2

September 3rd 2013


Well, believe it or not, the second month of my mission is already done!!  That's crazy!  This week has been all over the place, from awesome to strange to tiring and everything!  As I mentioned in my letter home, we ate a Spanish family's house whose names were the Guaderrama's.  They apparently love the missionaries, they just don't want us to teach them anything...  But while we were there they sat us down and started giving us some food.  One of which was the corn on the cob smothered in mayo and we were told to put chili powder and graded cheese on it as well...  It almost grew on me towards the end of eating it, but I think I'll stick with butter and salt!  Elder Trujillo said that all of the hispanics in the Ogden Mission eat it though, so I'll have more opportunities to let it grow on me.  Also, while we were on our way to an appointment we were stopped by a lady and she asked which one of us were going to Argentina.  I told her I was and she got really excited and told us to stop by her house sometime.  We managed to stop by yesterday, and I found out that she has an uncle in Santa Fe, which is in my mission, who is apparently interested in the church, but for whatever reason hasn't had missionaries stop by his house yet.  She's giving me the address and phone number for him today, to go find him later in Argentina, or to pass the referral along once I got there.  I've already received two referrals for my mission in Argentina and I don't even know when I'll leave!  Also, apparently this week there is an Elder coming home from Rosario and Elder Trujillo and I are supposed to have dinner at this family's house the day after he gets back!  So hopefully I'll learn even more about my mission!  We do have bikes, and we also live at the top of the mountain... It's pretty easy to get out of the house and down to an appointment, not so easy to get back up though....  We also have a baptismal date set with an 11 year old who comes from a part member family.  We taught him the Restoration last Thursday, and because Elder Trujillo still isn't as comfortable with English as he'd like to be, I took a good portion of that lesson.  It went really well though and he understood everything we taught him.  We have another appointment with him this Thursday so we'll see how that goes!  It's great to hear that things are going well at home!  It sounds like Caleb is doing great in football, and I hope that ankle gets better soon!  Evie, it sounds like your enjoying your junior year so far, and that's awesome!  It's a busy year but as long as you try to have fun, it's not too bad!  Grandma sent me an email saying that Hannah Nelson dropped by their house!  That's awesome!  And a small world!  She was a grade above me in school but I know who she is!  Using Facebook for missionary work is absolutely amazing as well!  We use it for an hour a day, and I already have 5 people that I'm working with that I found myself.  Well, I hope that everything continues to go well at home!  I love you all and miss you, and I'm having a great time out in the field!

Love,

Elder Jensen

Jake has a temporary reassignment

August 15 2013

Elder Jensen:

We have not received your visa to travel to Argentina.  You will be serving a temporary assignment in the Utah Ogden Mission until your visa arrives!  Haha awesome right! :) one other elder in my district has the exact same reassignment so we're excited to get out and serve only a short distance from home. I know that this is where the Lord wants me and that this is where I can best serve Him and His purposes.  I can't wait to get out and serve my Master in the capacity that I am able to and to take this message to all those around me!  I love you all!

Con amor,

Elder Jensen

One Month Later

Hola mi Familia! I can´t believe it´s been a month already since i arrived at the MTC!  We've already recieved our check out check lists which tell us what we do when we check out of the MTC!  Apparently my departure date is supposed to be next saturday! But our teacher said thats really uncommon so it may not be until next Monday or Tuesday, either way, we still don't have any word on visas or reassignments yet so I guess it doesn't really matter!  A lot of us have already fasted for our visas and have prayed about them, so we've done what we've could and now we're just waiting to see what the Lord wants us to do.  It's been an amazing week and I've learned amazing things this week.  During personal study I read a talk by John K. Carmack, titled "Faith Yields Priesthood Power" (or something like that) it's an awesome talk and really made me realize how powerful faith truly can be and how much we, as members, tend to rely on other things and not as much on faith as we should.  We've had some fun experiences, as always.  We were able to commit 2 new people to baptism, one of which we committed them on their first lesson, and Elder Thiriot and I are pretty excited about that!  Fun story though, Elder Thiriot and I taught this new "investigator" and taught her about baptism and had a wonderful lesson.  We committed her to baptism, and then discussed some other things and were about to close our lesson for the day.  I asked Elder Thiriot if he'd be willing to say the closing prayer.  And just as he was about to start the thought came to me...... "wait a minute.... we never even asked what her name is!"  We forgot to do something that was so obvious that even preach my gospel doesn't talk about it!  Elder Thiriot started the prayer and half way through, obviously in spanish, he said "please bless (long pause) this sister...."  It was a little awkward. But hey! Better to learn that now instead of later.  And now it makes for fun story!  I've been having an amazing time here!  I saw RJ yesterday and he seems thrilled to be here!  I've recieved both packages from you and the Andings!  Thanks for all these packages!  I'm going to need all the ties I can get!  Especially if I want to give some to investigators that I will have!  Being the district leader has been an amazing experience and a humbling one...  Yesterday one of our sisters learned that one of her close uncles past away unexpectedly...  It was heartbreaking and I felt the weight of her sorrow pass over to me as well others in the district.  We each wrote her a note, and in mine I felt inspired to share my experiences with losing Kristy.  I let her know that I understood what she was going through and that I knew how difficult it is to lose a loved one.  I shared a few scriptures with her, and reassured her that all of us loved her and would help her the best we could.  I felt prompted to also remind her that she was surround by Melchezidek priesthood holders and that if she should desire a blessing of comfort, I was positive that any Elder in our zone would be more than ready to oblige...  Later she asked me if I would be willing to give her the blessing.  I felt humbled, and although I'd previously given Caleb a blessing was slightly nervous to give my first blessing as a Melchezidek Priesthood holder.  All those feelings melted away however, as we, as a district, laid our hands on her head, and through the spirit, I was priveleged to pass along one of the sweetest blessings that the Lord could have given her.  It was a beautiful experience, one of which I hope to never forget.  Things are going great here!  I love you all and miss you, but I've seen myself grow so much in this past month that I know this is where I'm supposed to be.  After the blessing I couldn't help but recollect the blessing which I gave to Caleb..  And I found the thing that is almost as sweet as giving blessing to any person is watching that blessing be fulfilled.  I remembered distinctly the words I'd uttered at Caleb's ordination that he would be an example to his peers and all those around him.  I'm not sure why this hadn't connected yet, but I was immediatley reminded that Caleb is now President over the 7th grade, and that he would now stand as an example to all of his peers around him.  I love and miss you all!  I'll do my best to send you personalized letters today when I get the chance!  I love you and miss you all and you're in my prayers constantly, I've seen myself grow so much in this short month of my stay at the MTC and I can't wait to see how I progress in the following 23 months.  I love you all.

Elder Jacob Jensen

Week 3

Well this week has flown by!  I can't believe it's already P-day again.  I wanna send a quick shoutout to Elder Van Wagoner who is now in Ghana, and am excited to recieve Elder Larsen in the next week.  It's honestly like a high school reunion here.  This past week I saw Elders, Bill Richards, Jesse Saltsgiver, Jonathon Knudson, Marshall Hawkes, Jeremy Rock, Austin Millis, Josh Vance, Colton Parker, etc.  It's crazy! Things are never boring here either, someone is always making some funny language mistake or some strange activity is going on back at our Residence Hall.  For instance one Elder in our zone said to an "investigator" that through the spirit he would feel pez in his heart.  He meant to say paz which means peace, pez means dead fish.  My companion told one investigator that God wants to know the true gospel, that was pretty funny, and another Elder tried to say it's very pretty here, but mixed up his German with his spanish and called his female "investigator" very attractive.  One of the Elders also came into our room last night and said that the ground would turn into lava in 5 seconds.  For 30 minutes a dozen 18-19 year old men were scooting around on chairs from one place to another, I lost my chair and had to empty out a giant trash can and use that to travel from place to place.  Spanish is still coming strong and I can't wait to see where I'll be at by week 6. I was also assigned as District Leader this past week and feel humbled to serve such an awesome district.  I've also decided to study the book of Isaiah, and for those who haven't read it yet I highly recommend it!  It's very symbolic so it's not gonna be a quick read, I've spent a good 5-10 minutes on a verse alone!  But if you do study it with the right spirit then you can find some pretty amazing stuff in there.  I've found some pretty cool references to the book of mormon and etc during my studies of this book.  Other fun facts, during additional study, one day, I went through and read almost every account of Christ appearing unto a person (Lehi, Joseph Smith, Paul, Moses, The Nephites, and the Brother of Jared) and was able to find 6 things that were either similar in some of these accounts or in all accounts.  (Losing Strength, seeing some form of light before seeing Christ etc) And then went through and found how many of these items each account had.  Amazingly The first vision was one of only two accounts that represented all 6 of these traits, the other being Lehi's Dream.  My companion and I also went through and tried to dissect the elements of good prayer, according to the scriptures.  The thing we found to be mentioned most was the "pray always principal" along with finding a reverant environment to pray in, when possible, and pondering about your prayer before you begin your prayer, and of course waiting and listening for an answer in return.  We made a commitment to try and do those things, and I can testify that when we did we had some awesome experiences with prayer.  I love you all and hope to hear back from you soon.  I'm having an amazing time here and can't wait to get out into the field!

Week 2

We finally made it to my 2nd p-day haha.  This week has honestly gone by so much faster than last week though!  Elder Thiriot and I were able to commit our 2nd "Investigator" this week, which is apparently unheard of as everyone else in our district has yet to commit one!  We both feel tremendously blessed and know that the spirit is the one guiding us through those lessons.  As for the investigators, these people are our teachers takiing on the role of an investigator that they dealt with in the field.  They act as an investigator with their own set of concerns and problems and its our job to find out those problems and teach accordingly.  Our 2nd investigator's main concern was finding out how he could find Christ in his own life.  He was catholic and in the first few lessons showed very little interest to what we had to say.  Things seemed bleak going into our last lesson with him but I suddenly felt urged to share the story of Christ raising Lazarus from the dead and emphasizing the part where Christ wept with those grieving over Lazarus's death, all in broken spanish mind you.  The spirit was incredibly strong and I was able to convey that Christ mourns with us when we mourn, he suffers when we suffer, etc.  I bore testimoney and my companion Elder Thiriot followed with his own testimony, after which i extended the baptismal invitation and he excepted.  Our lesson must've had some impact, because later that day our teacher invited us to share to our district what we taught and how we were able to commit our "investigator" to baptism.  The spirit is absolutely amazing here and there is no better teacher than the spirit.  The spanish is coming along amazingly and I'm able to hold a decent conversation in spanish and Elder Thiriot and I often speak to each other in Spanish.  I love and miss you all and love to hear from all of you!

Elder, Jensen

                                                          Our Room

                                                                 Studying

                                                            Our District

                                             Our district with our teacher Sister Eyring

                                                                At the Temple

                                   

Elder Jensen's email

If anyone wanted to write Jake an email his address is jakebjensen@myldsmail.net!

2nd Letter!

Well we taught our "investigator" again this morning. I told Elder Thirot that we were going to commit Sister Concha to baptism and that's what we did. I don't know how I did it but I did. All in spanish, I somehow taught her all about baptism and Elder Thiriot and I bore our testimonies. We then asked her what she thought about our words and she said she thought they were good and true. I then committed her to baptism and we have a date set for Saturday at 8:00 am. We're the only companionship to have committed her to baptism so far so Elder Thiriot and I are feeling pretty excited. Guess what?! President Eyring's granddaughter, who went to Argentina, is our substitute teacher while our teacher is gone to a reunion. It's safe to say that things are going well here at the MTC and I can't wait to see what the future holds.

                                                                                  Love you all,
                                                                                              Elder Jensen

1st letter!

Hola mi familia! Como esta?
                                     Well today has been my 3rd day here and I have to say that the MTC is absolutely incredible! The spirit is constantly apparent and everyone is always so optimistic. It isn't easy, but the work down here is absolutely worth it! All three Elders in my room are awesome. They're all fun and outgoing and easy to get along with. Elder Thiriot (Theory-ut) is my companion and he's awesome, he's a funny guy with a lot of the same likes as me so it works out pretty well. We've already had to teach our first "investigation" in pure spanish! It was tough, and I had to do most of the talking since I'd taken spanish before. We did better than most of the companionships in our district, however. One Elder read a verse from John in spanish and his companion testified that those were the words of Joseph Smith. We weren't that bad. We were able to go over a very simple version of the first vision and were able to commit her on reading the Book of Mormon and praying. We visit with her tomorrow and have to follow up. It's a rigorous schedule and we're always doing something. Gym, studying, eating, studying, sleeping, studying. We're always up to something. My first P-Day isn't until next Thursday so don't panic when I don't email for a while. Good News! There's a website called Dear Elder.com where you can email me and they'll print out the email that day for me and I can get it. Needless to say I'm having a great time here and hope to send pictures soon.

                                                                      Love you all,
                                                                                   Elder Jensen

Day 1: Reporting to the MTC

Jake reported to the Provo MTC at 1:15 today to serve the Lord in Rosario, Argentina for the next two years. Emotions were running high between the happy and the sad tears. We will miss him as much as anyone can miss a son/brother, but we know he will be amazing and that he is doing the Lord's work! Two years away from his own family so that he can help other families have theirs for eternity is worth it!