Chapin

Dear Family,

Wow, in just a few weeks I will be hitting the exact 2 year mark of my mission! I will definitely have to burn a shirt or something because most US missionaries don´t get to make it to the same date they left (because of how the changes work). It has gone way too fast!!

Well, this week started kind of weird because I didn't get to be in my own area until Thursday. On Monday we had a leaders’ council in Reu where we made some plans for how our mission can bring the most new families to the General Conference. Sadly the room where my companion and I stayed in the hotel had not fans or anything but I think my body is now in super hot coast mode because I had no problems. On Tuesday I went to work in another area of the zone since I had return to Reu in the night to be able to go with my CCM group to the temple the next day. The temple trip on Wednesday was super awesome and I was able to commit to the Lord that I am going to give him all I’ve got in these next few weeks! I felt really good after and I am ready to give it my all. 

This is my CCM group 2 years ago.

I think one of the coolest things this week had been to see the progression of the P. Family (L. and A. and their 5 kids). There really is a light in their faces every time we come and as they learn more and more about the gospel. One thing I have also enjoyed is to see the value the family has for the Book of Mormon. They always handle it with care and love reading new things between each visit. They also started inviting us to visit and teach their family members that live close by and we have gotten to meet some other really cool families as well! I think that really is the best way to share the gospel.

There was also another unforgettable experience this week. My companion and I have been teaching a family where the husband was baptized about a year and a half ago (I actually happened to be in that baptismal service never imagining that I would be teaching him and his wife someday) and his wife never chose to be baptized.  One of the members of the church who lives close by, took it upon himself to go give them a visit without us knowing about it. Well, to our surprise, about halfway through the sacrament meeting, who walked in? H. and E. with their family! It was a miracle and a huge testimony to me that the members of the church can almost always help people feel comfortable coming to church than the missionaries can. It was an awesome experience and a good lesson for the future.

Well, next week we will know if I will continue in San Felipe or have a new assignment but all I know is that these will be the hardest working weeks of my mission!

Love you all,

Elder Jensen

Playing a game called ´signs´with the zone.

 What our house looked like this after we finally found and killed the rat.

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i would eventually fall in this river.

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