Happiness and Health

Dear Family,

Sadly I couldn´t send you very many pictures this week but we had so many things going on I completely didn´t have time!

We started a new tradition to play basketball with the close by Elders every morning at 6 to get in some excercise and try to get some more unity between us all. Well my companion and I have somehow managed to win every single game we´ve played! We were going good on tuesday morning and had a huge lead when I went to strip the ball from another Elder. As I smacked the ball something strange happened. The ball didn´t budge, but my shoulder sure did. Somehow my sholder socket got dislocated and all I felt was a ton of pain and that my arm was defititely out of it´s socket! I kind of panicked because how was I going to get this thing back in place?! Well about 20 seconds later I just felt it pop right back it. It sounded pretty bad but I was sure happy to feel that I could move my arm again, despite the pain I still had. Well I took a seat for a while and watched as my companion managed to still win against 2 huge american elders just playing with another tiny latino Elder. That made my morning at least.

Later in the day I saw the doctor and got the great news that for the next 2 weeks I would get to use ... ... drumroll ... an arm sling! It looks kind of goofy but I am getting used to it. The fun part is that my left arm is getting a lot more coordinated. The hardest things for me to do are the following: put in my contacts only with my left hand (now a pro at that), brushing my teeth (still have some work to do with that), bathing myself, tieing a tie (I just completely gave up on that and my companion does it), doing the ordinance of baptism (out of the question right now), eating tortillas with the food (definitely need 2 hands for that), and writing things (amazingly I am doing a great job typing this email right now).

I also had some other health problems the other days of the week acclimating to Friday where I got had some pretty bad stomach pains and ended up spending the night in the hospital as they got me all fixed up and back to 100%. The miracle was that supposedly I wouldn´t be able to make it out until maybe Sunday but with a lot of prayers and faith of my companion I was able to be completely cured and back to normal before the baptisms we had on Saturday evening! Wow!

This Saturday E., his wife S., and his 2 kids D. and C. were all baptized! The C. family is really a prepared family! It has been amazing, really amazing, to see all the changes they have made in their family since we first taught them and saw them come to church for the first few times! The member from San Pablo, San Marcos (where my companion was serving) that gave us the reference of the family came down to be in the baptism and it was such a happy ocassion! There were smiles on everyones faces! We had planned that I was maybe going to do E.´s baptism since he is a bigger guy but I was totally out of the count because of my shoulder so we had a big strong member avaiable to do the ordinance. It was super special and we didn´t all fit in the baptism room because there was so much support! Also A., a 21 year old school teacher that we ran into a few weeks ago (since his door said ´don´t knock´) was also baptized and he was happy to see that a few of his students are members and they were there supporting him as well! It was a very special evening and a miracle that I was able to be there and not be in the hospital!

There was one very, very amazing experience we had on Sunday with an investigator we have been teaching named M. We found M. a few weeks back after we had no idea where to go and just found him in a random set of apartments in the middle of nowhere. Well, he has progressed a lot in the past few weeks but when we called him Sunday morning before the church meeting he said that he would no longer be coming to church because they had called him to pay a certain amount of money to not have to go to jail and he needed to work instead of go to church. We made him a promise. We promised that if he stayed in his house and didn´t go to church it would be very likely that he would end up without the money and end up going to jail. But, if he went to all 3 hours of church, the Lord would do his part and provide the money that M. needed. Well, M. showed his faith and came and stayed the 3 hours in church (with a white shirt and tie I might add). Well, when we went to visit him in the evening, within 5 minutes of our vist he recieved a phone call. It was one of his good friends calling to let him know that he was going to help him pay this amount and that he no longer would need to go to jail! Tears filled his eyes as he ended the call and he thanked the Lord for sending this blessing and for sending us into his life to help him get these blessings. It was incredible! Something I will never forget! He will be baptized this Saturday with A. (the son of a church member that we found who just moved to Mazate).

One cultural thing here is that tortillas are eating with EVERYTHING, doesn´t matter if it is soup, you have to eat tortilla. Well, the other day the members sent us to go buy the tortillas and we thought it would be cool to bring them in a 2 big leafs instead of the normal plastic bag. She put them in the leafs but as we walked back my companion hit the tortillas on his leg and we watched as the tortillas fell almost in slow motion to the dirty ground. Miracuoasly the tortillas hit the ground and as the first leaf fell off the whole stack of tortillas flipped onto the other leaf and not one tortilla touched the ground! Incredible! We could not stop laughing! It was totally a slow motion moment that I will never forget! I think the member thought we were crazy because we had so many laughs as everyone ate those tortillas.

These really have been the most edifying weeks and months of my life! Also the funnest time of my life! There is nothing better a person can do with their time than help the Lord bring happiness into the lives of his children!

Love,

Elder Jensen