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!
Thursday, July 25, 2013
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
Wednesday, July 10, 2013
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
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
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
Wednesday, July 3, 2013
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!
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