Sunday, October 13, 2013

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

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