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!