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