Happy Independence Day Guatemala!

Dear Family,

Another week has just disappeared out of nowhere! It is like the Japanese candy I got to eat this week that just dissolves instantly!

I enjoyed my last Guatemalan Independence day with a fun activity in the ward with a ton of fun cultural presentations (dances, songs, food) and we the missionaries got to act out some good jokes for all the members that they all enjoyed. One of them involved 3 crazy people that find a car in the desert. After being days lost in the desert they wonder how the car could help them. One crazy person takes a seat to sit when he’s tired, the other takes the radiator to drink when he’s thirsty, and the last takes the door. ¨Why the door?” they ask him, “To roll down the windows when I´m hot!” We got some good laughs for that one.

A guy helping us get the flag to the pole on the 15th.

Another big highlight of the week was that W. and A. (2 cousins that we had been teaching) were baptized this weekend. It was super fun because their mom came and also brought some more family members who we hope to start teaching. Also we got to do the baptism with 2 other areas in the zone that had baptisms so that was cool as well. It is amazing what can happen when the members of the church speak up to the missionaries and ask them to visit their friends and neighbors! 

We also go the chance to visit Xetulul as a mission (the amusement park). Something new we did was go see a super cool presentation they did in the park of 2 spacemen that get lost in space. Part of the show was a group or 5 or 6 dancers that danced in the pitch black dark with LED lights on them and they did some awesome stuff that made it look like they were flying through the air or walking up the walls. These Guatemalans are talented!

The San Felipe Zone

Check out the flag on my sleeve.

Classic Guatemalan Expression

Another great highlight of the week was on Monday. A few hours after I had finished writing on Monday we went out to work in the afternoon (since Friday we were going to go to xetulul). Well, I was on divisions with a brand new Elder from Arizona who is working hard to learn the language and has a lot of faith and works hard. We both left the house with a super positive attitude that we were going to find an awesome family to teach. Well, the Lord blessed us for our great attitude that day and we met a new family named the P. Family. The dad is L. and the mom A. They have 7 kids. We had a wonderful lesson with them and learned that the dad (who works in the amusement park) is about to have his work schedule changed to rest on Sundays! (after years of having to work Sundays). This is no coincidence! I continue to be amazed that the Lord trusts us to find such special families to teach. They even invited us to eat lunch with them during the week and we are going to go again this week! They will be attending church this next week and I am so excited to continue seeing their progress in the gospel.

I am so grateful that the Lord can trust in my companion and I to teach these chosen people the gospel. I strive to always be worthy of that trust and find more and more prepared people each day!

Love,

Elder Jensen

We went back to the same lake place that we went on one of my fist p days and it rained in the morning!

Licha

Eating a fun fruit called ´Rambutan´ or ´Licha´

Dear Family,

Once you really start to put your heart into an area and work to find prepared people you just want to stay there for a good while. My companion and I have really been blessed lately with some great people to teach and I hope to see as much of their conversion as I can.

One of the coolest experiences of the week was with L. (the mom of a sister missionary in the field whose husband is also a member). She has really softened her heart after seeing her daughter go on a mission. We had the chance to kneel down with her this week and listen to her ask Heavenly Father if she needed to be baptized in the church. As we prayed I felt something so special and after she finished her prayer she remained kneeling for a few minutes in silence just pondering and after we finished she explained the peace that had come into her mind. She hasn't yet accepted a date to be baptized but she is feeling the spirit and we know it won´t be long before she makes the decision.

We've also been helping a less active family in our area to get excited to go back to church and part of that is that they've given us a lot of people that we can teach. Some of the friends of the sons of this family have been coming to church. Their names are A. and W. They are super awesome and even wore their white shirts to church this past Sunday. We are helping them get ready for baptism and hope that it all goes well for them to be baptized this Saturday!

The famous old ward mission leader who says funny quotes.

 One of the things that I have always noticed that when we eat in the homes of the members they never get tired of saying things like this- ¨Eat elders! Eat! ¨ ¨Elders there is plenty of tortilla, eat tortilla! ¨ ¨Elders, eat slow, eat calmly! ¨ ¨Do you want more elders! ¨ It just makes me laugh every time.

Sometimes on the bus rides it gets tricky to get the money out of your pockets to pay the bus fee. Well my companion took advantage of a short stop to hop off the bus and get his money out but when he looked back the bus had started leaving him behind and I was still on it! He tried grabbing on the back but slipped right off! It took some yelling “Stop the bus!” rom me to finally get it to stop so that my companion could hop back on! We had a good laugh about it after. 

One cool thing we did this week with the zone was teach them a little bit about how important it is for us to personally repent of our mistakes as missionaries and feel the healing power of the Atonement first, so that we can give more and work harder and teach better as missionaries. What we did is invite all the companionships to go do a prayer ´Joseph Smith style´ in their areas (in a forest). It ended up helping a lot and I enjoyed praying in a pretty spot we found with a small river and some trees and after I had prayed for a few minutes and committed to work harder to the Lord I felt a lot better and a lot of the missionaries as well!

This is where we did our Joseph Smith prayer, it was an awesome experience?

I am so grateful for the chance I have to be here in this part of the Lord´s vineyard. I am learning so so much and hope to apply the things I am learning throughout my whole life in the Lord´s service!

Love,

Elder Jensen

On divisions in a place called Nuevo Palmar.

An elder in the office had his feet go numb.

My comp being silly with some pliers.

Keep moving forward.

Dear Family,

To my disappointment I got to the internet today and realized that I haven´t taken any pictures this week! I guess when there is so much stuff going on taking pictures just kind of slips the mind. Oh well, hopefully this awesome email makes up for it.

We had a super enjoyable week since the excitement of the ward has gone up to do missionary work. We had a cool meeting with the bishop and some of the hard working members of the ward to get the work rolling in our ward and the members have really responded well. That makes our lives so much easier and so many more people getting interested in the gospel.

One of my favorite things about this is that we have a new mission leader named S. He is about 70 years old and he is a hoot! He is so funny! He took us out in his truck one morning to go and meet all of the investigators that we are teaching.

Despite him being a bit crazy he really loves the people that we visit (giving them hugs and everything) and after his visits many people were now willing to come to church with us on Sunday and learn more. It was too fun!

One cool thing that we implemented in the zone this week was that on Tuesday we mixed up all the companionships, so that the missionaries could get to know their companions of the zone and also get to give some new ideas and excitement to other areas. It was super successful and many of the areas that weren´t able to get people to come to church on Sunday had lots of new people present in church. Also we are getting a lot of people ready for baptism the 19th of September so that we can have a big baptismal service as a zone that day. We just have to keep praying and working hard and making miracles happen!

This week as we were trying to figure out how to find more interested people we saw a paper that talked about a family where the husband was a member of the church and some of the kids but the wife hadn´t decided to join the church yet. Well, we found ourselves in their house and the wife (L.) was super excited to see missionaries again. I guess the missionaries hadn’t visited for over 5 or 6 months and we immediately saw something special in her. She had stopped going to her other church and was excited since her daughter had just left on her mission to El Salvador several months back. Well, after some really awesome visits this week she came to church with her husband despite the fact that the Guatemalan elections took place Sunday. We are so excited to keep teaching her!

I am excited for the next week and hope that our plans can go well and we continue seeing miracles!

Love,

Elder Jensen

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.

Acts

A carved monkey face.

Dear Family,

Some weeks I remember to note down a ton of fun stuff that happened in the week and that is usually when I have good emails but sadly this week I didn`t get on that. But, I guess we`ll see how much I remember from this last week.

On Wednesday we had the changes and luckily I get to stay a little while longer here in San Felipe. It was hard to see some good friends finish their missions (former companions E. Walton and E. Merrill) but it`s good to learn to make new friends as well. Also since it is the end of summer there have been a ton of new gringos coming into the mission. Wow, brings back some fun memories to see those scared but excited faces. We have 4 new missionaries (from the CCM I mean) in our zone and I love the excitement they bring from the CCM. Actually, because of some interviews that we had to do, I got to be 3 days with one of the new missionaries from Honduras, Elder Sanchez, so I really enjoyed being with him (considering that all the new missionaries I trained went home and I never really got to experience training). 

In our zone meeting that we had this week, Elder Lagos and I decided to get a little more creative so we split up into 2 groups and 1 group acted out Acts 9, the story of Saul being converted and the other group acted Acts 16, about the jailer who gets baptized. It was really fun and we were able to apply the principles of these stories and learn about great missionaries from old times. Of course it didn`t hurt to throw in a few laughs in our acts.

One thing that I have decided is that I really like the old people here in Guatemala. Even though many of them don`t have much interest in our message they can be quite the hoot. For example, we got to meet an older man that goes all over the place on his bike. He always has these huge sun glasses on and after talking to him for a moment we learned several new things. Apparently if you eat enough vegetables in one day you can gain the ability to fly. That was new for me. Later in the week, on older lady that heard me making the sound I do when I scratch my throat, helpfully suggested that I should find some medicine because I had a bladder infection. I guess somehow the bladder and the throat got pretty mixed up in her mind.

This week we enjoyed helping B. (the daughter of the recent convert that I talked about last week) prepare for her baptism. One of the best parts was that since the baptismal font in the San Felipe building is brand brand new, the water comes out crystal clear. It was nice not to have to dump a ton of blue powder into the water to change it from green to blue. The service was very nice and B. was able to get prepared on Sunday to be able to visit the temple this week in Xela.

Another huge miracle of the week was the amazing effort of a member of the church that lives 2 hours from San Felipe. He lives in a place called El Tumbador. Well, he has a really good friend of his that lives in our area. We had tried to find her in her house to be able to teach her more about the church, since a few months ago her husband was killed in an accident. Well, this member (named J.) was very determined to help his friend feel the peace and joy of the gospel so he traveled all the way from El Tumbador to bring Je. (the name of his friend) to our church meeting that starts at 8 in the morning! It was something that amazed me and made me hope that I can be that type of member missionary my whole life! We have started the lessons with Je. and she is now excited to learn more and possibly prepare for baptism!

Another awesome week in San Felipe!

Love,

Elder Jensen

Elder Duncan and Elder Nelson gave a special broadcast for the central american missions. Elder Nelson pulled up a companionship to do an example. 

Pictures from scripture stories we acted out in front of 200 people last week.

I got to use a giant version of Jenga.

In the news!

The famous photo of us that showed up in the news.

Dear Family,

It`s been an action packed week! We spent most of the week preparing for our big mission activity on Friday, a play we acted out about the first missionary lesson, the Restoration of the church. It was a really well planned act and we adopted the idea of the Jenga block example I have always used. We were able to act out how God has always called prophets and later I got the chance to explain in front of the 200+ people that showed up the example of the Jenga blocks. Something amazing is that I absolutely have no fear to speak in front of tons of people now, and in Spanish. Maybe when I have to do it in English I will be afraid again but in Spanish it comes on almost naturally. But getting back on topic, it was a really cool presentation, and Elder Merrill, my last comp, got to be Joseph Smith and after everyone wanted pictures with him. Poor guy, he told me his eyes hurt pretty bad from all the camera flash. A little over 50 investigators showed up from all parts of the zone and it was a big success.

I think the biggest miracle for us was that a recent convert named M. brought her teenage daughter to this presentation we did. She had pretty much lost interest in the church and wasn´t going with her mom anymore (because in the past she went a lot to church). She had never come to the decision to be baptized either. But, after watching the act we did on Friday she came on her own to church with her mom and as we visited her in the evening and watched the video of John Tanner´s baptism, she picked her own baptism date for this Saturday! It was a super awesome moment and we are excited to help her this week to be ready for baptism on Saturday!

I have really enjoyed seeing all of my good friends from the Central ward here in San Felipe (where I served about a year ago). The best has been seeing that K. and her family (the first person I baptized) come to church each week. Her older brother M. started coming to church for the first time about a month ago. I was able to talk a little bit with him after the event Friday to help him with a lot of his doubts that kept him from being baptized. After a long conversation I was able to see that he had never gone through a process of repentance in all his life. He was carrying a large load of guilt and didn`t even know how to be free from it. As we met again on Sunday I had the biggest impression that we both just needed to kneel down and he needed to offer a true, heartfelt prayer. As we did he offered a wonderful prayer and after described a warm feeling he felt in his heart and that that heavy burden was gone! It was a super cool moment and M. is now preparing to be baptized this Saturday. The sister missionaries that are in the Central ward will be helping him to be ready.

People seemed to look at my companion and I a little differently this week. Later we found out why when one of the members told us we were famous. We were a little confused as to why we were famous when he explained that a picture that showed up on the internet and in the newspapers had us 2 right in it. The article attached didn`t talk anything about us but it was fun to see our picture there. We had stopped earlier that week to talk to one of the members of the ward as he stood on the street campaigning for one of the political parties and some random newspaper photographer had taken a picture of us with them and that is why we got to be famous this week! (I will send you the picture that showed up all over the internet news websites of Guatemala)

In our zone meeting we got a little bit creative. We had seen a small problem that many areas weren`t teaching a very large amount of lessons. The only thing I could think of is the parable of the sower that plants a ton of seeds in a ton of places, next to the path, in the rocks, with the weeds, and in good ground. Well, we bought these giant beans that looked like seeds and we gave each missionary a little paper telling them which ground they were (stony ground or weeds, etc.,). Well we showed them that when we randomly planted only 6 seeds, we almost got none in good ground, but later when we worked harder and planted 16 or 17 seeds a lot more of them fell in good ground and gave us fruit. It was fun throwing all those seeds around at the end and we`ve seen a good affect in the zone after. Although it wasn`t fun cleaning them all up after.

There are more things that happened, like the power going out for several days, a day that my companion took the keys of our house with him on divisions and we had to break in, and other little crazy stuff but I ran out of time and space! I am just so grateful for the chance to be working hard here in San Felipe and see more miracles this week!

Love,

Elder Jensen

Starting the hike to get to the start of the zipline.
 (this place is right next to Calahuaché and I never knew about it!)

The San Felipe Zone

I made a heart tortilla.