A time to laugh...

Working with a young member named A. in our area.

Dear Family,

I like how our Heavenly Father never stops throwing new challenges in our path. We didn't quite get the results that we were hoping this past month but I like challenges like this because I am learning to try new things and think of new ideas to help more people receive the blessings of the gospel.

We have a really cool young man in our ward (A.) that loves to come out and visit with us. He is super funny and played a pretty funny joke on me. We were in the middle of contacting a few people at their home when I felt a major burning sensation on my elbow. I looked back and A. had rubbed a weird looking leaf on my elbow. It seriously felt like my elbow was on fire! We had big laugh about it after but I never imagined that so much pain could be invoked with a tiny little leaf. It would have been nice for him to tell me that by putting water on it the pain disappears but he let me `experience` the pain for 10 or 15 minutes first. 

I`ve also really enjoyed my time so far with Elder Lagos as my companion. He was on divisions one day in another area when I called him to figure out some details on things and out of nowhere he started coughing a ton and yelling `I swallowed a fly!`. It took a few more seconds to get the fly out of his throat and to get the nasty taste out of his mouth but we both enjoyed that little moment. Later as he was giving another Elder a haircut he decided to do the authentic Guatemalan haircut routine where the barber puts a ton of white powder on a brush to get all the loose hair out. Well unfortunately he forgot the fan was on full blast and, let`s just say his pants that were black were suddenly white, and his face, and the other elder`s face. Yeah, that was fun to clean up after.

My companion and I decided this past week to start trying a lot of different techniques to find new people to teach. We had found a lot of the records of people that had been taught in the past by the Elders. We were able to have some cool experiences seeing people faces light up as they saw Elders again and many of them have been taught by the angel missionaries (like it teaches in Alma 13:24). Also, we have searched and found many members of the church that for whatever reason have stopped attending. One Family, the R. Family, was so happy to see Elders in their home again and have even given us several dinners. They are so excited to come back to church that they are starting to talk to many of their friends and neighbors to listen to the lessons and come to church with them. I am glad that the Lord is helping us learn new ways to find people to teach. I will continue to pray a lot this week to find even more of these people that are praying for us to come to their homes.

This week we are going to work hard to continue teaching J. (who was brought to church by the member who lives almost 3 hours away) and also with Santiago (an older man who has listened to missionaries for almost the past 6 or 7 months). I know big miracles will happen with them soon!

Love,

Elder Jensen

Entering into a part of our area.

There are so so so many houses with their Christmas stuff still.