Lift!

J. from Santo Domingo (B.´s dad) and
Elder Peterson who was my replacement there.

Dear Family,

With all the rain coming in I have started to get creative. My boots aren´t as strong as they were last rain season so there has been a little leak. Well, I found a solution, plastic grocery bags! I just put them right over my socks and bam! dry feet! It looks kind of silly but it has worked pretty well. Luckily I don´t have to do it often.

Last Monday after all the preparation day activities had finished we went to visit one of the recent converts (O.). To our surprise she had a friend over and as we got to know her friend we realized that this was an investigator of one of the other areas in the zone and that she was preparing to be baptized this Saturday. She had a lot of doubts and we were able to help her with some scriptures and she ended up being baptized this Saturday. What are the chances of that? The Lord really knows His work. It was funny because at the end she jokingly asked us if she needed to show up to the baptism in a bikini, silly old Guatemalan ladies.

We also had an almost near death experience this week (ok that is an exaggeration but it was intense). Our ward mission leader asked us to help him move his new fridge up the stairs. We imagined it being a piece of cake but then we realized that he needed it on the 3rd floor and that his staircase had some tight corners. It took us almost an hour to get that thing up there and a good amount of sweat and we took out some good chunks of the walls and ceilings. It was exciting and scary at the same time but we got it up to the top! Let´s just say I should have worn service clothes to that because my shirt was brown by the end of that.

We also had some spiritual highs this week. I. was baptized on Saturday and she really was so happy to finally take this step in her life despite the opposition she faced with her family. Her testimony of the church and of the Book of Mormon are amazing and she will be someone who will endure to the end. 

Also we had an awesome moment with another recent convert named Z. She told us that she had been talking a lot to her niece about the church and that she was super interested. Right in that moment without hesitating Z. took us right to the house of her niece and we were able to teach the whole family about the church and they attended Sunday and now have a date to be baptized! I am so grateful for people like Z. that are so willing and excited to bring souls to Christ!

I have heard such silly comments this week from little kids. First we were visiting with I. and her daughter (M.) was behaving good and we asked her if she had been good all day and she said ´of course I have' but later added ´but, tomorrow I am going to behave so so bad.´ She is so silly. One other kid we saw noticed the difference of height between me and my companion and asked ´you are a lot taller because they stretched you out, huh?´ I have no idea where he got the idea that I had been stretched out but I guess they never stretched out my companion.

I am so glad to be able to work my hardest! It´s tiring work (so tiring that I fell asleep on the bus and found that I had drooled all over my tie, embarrassing) but I love it all the same! VIVA MAZATE!

Love,

Elder Jensen

Zone Pancake Party

Our area!

On our way to the zip line.

Waiting For Us

Is anyone home?

Dear Family,

This past week was loaded with spiritual experiences! Where do I begin?

Earlier in the week my companion and I were a little unsure where we could go to find new people to teach because we started to feel like there weren´t any more houses to visit. But then I vividly remembered a little street I had seen weeks before that had a good amount of houses. We went and one of the first doors we knocked a middle aged lady came out with some tears in her eyes. We began to talk with her and could quickly discern that she has been searching for more meaning in her life. She shared with us the loss of a daughter.  We felt the strongest impression to talk about God´s plan for us and explain exactly where her daughter´s spirit was. The most powerful moment was when I. read these words from the Book of Mormon - 

“And then shall it come to pass, that the spirits of those who are righteous are received into a state of happiness,which is called paradise, a state of rest, a state of peace,where they shall rest from all their troubles and from all care, and sorrow. - Alma 40:12

Tears flooded to her eyes when she realized that her daughter was not lost and that she was indeed in a safe and wonderful place.

Ingrid later explained that her husband was angry with God for taking away his daughter and that for that reason he hadn´t accepted anyone from any church. Well, when we came back the next day we met him and he openly received and listened to us and even told us that he had felt the Spirit as we taught. I. and their 2 children came to church with us on Sunday and B. would have come but he had to go to Guate (he will come next Sunday he told us). I. even told us that she had been waiting years for us to show up. It was an incredible experience to teach this family and I am so excited to continue visiting them and teaching them the gospel. 

We had a funny moment with one of the members here that has just starting coming back to church. We sat down to visit with him and then we realized that a bird had just pooped all over my companions backpack. The member then made a super witty comment, ´you should be so grateful that elephants don´t fly´. We had super good laugh about that.

It is amazing how much Guatemalans love the soccer teams that are all the way on the other side of the world. There is a huge division between the Real Madrid fans and the Barcelona fans and to observe people as they watch the games is a show in itself. We watched one man scream and jump around each time the other team even got close to the goal and just yell ´it smells like a goal it smells like a goal´. These people are fanatics!

 

Suchi in a big game in the soccer stadium.

Ir. who has been preparing for her baptism this Saturday had an amazing moment this week. My companion had told her to run her finger through the pages of the Book of Mormon and just stop on a random page and then apply the first scripture she found to her day. Well, I guess she was having some doubts about baptism but she decided to flip to a random page and she read a passage about the importance and blessings of baptism! It is a miracle and she is as sure as ever. She even told us in the last visit that the Spirit she has felt in the church and as we meet has really changed her life and she has such a strong testimony. Her daughter is so silly though.  She kept asking us why we didn´t have girl hair, the only answer I had for her was that we are boys! She still didn´t understand though.

I am just in love with Guatemala. God has prepared so many hearts here to receive the gospel and what an amazing experience to find those prepared souls!

Love,

Elder Jensen

Part of our area.

A mariachi band walking in the street.

I got a hole in my pants from a sneaky spring in a sofa.

Green. Gum.

Skyping on Mother's Day

Dear Family,

It is always a little tough to write about the week after a skype call. Mostly because I will be repeating things but it´s still fun to remember all the fun events of the week!

I think the most memorable moment in these past few days was in my visit to the Maquina. I had done divisions there in the past but this time would turn out different. The heat was a new level this week. Also, I had totally forgotten to bring my toothbrush and toothpaste and stuff so I had bought some gum earlier in the day and put it in my shirt pocket. Well, somehow I forgot and after sweating a few gallons (ok maybe not that much but it was a lot) someone pointed out that my shirt had a huge green stain! The gum had totally melted in my pocket and my sweat just made it 10 times worse. Then to top that off I got woken up at 2 in the morning just covered in sweat (even though I had the fan on full blast but it was just shooting out hot air). I was trying to brainstorm some idea to be able to go back to sleep and not be so hot so I went and searched the fridge. I found a huge bottle of juice so I had the brilliant idea to sleep hugging this cold juice bottle and it worked. Of course the other Elder was so confused when he saw me sleeping with his bottle of juice but it did the trick! Fun times with the Guatemalan heat!

My stained shirt from the gum I forgot in my pocket.

On Saturday L.C. was baptized and it was a super spiritual moment (despite the power going out right before the actual baptism but we still managed to see him more or less). One part I loved is that before the service we watched the Bible Video whenJesus Christ teaches Nicodemus how it is that a man being old can be born again and it was cool to think that even though L. is older and has probably made some mistakes in his life he was able to start from 0 and be born again!

Baptism of L.C.

During one of our lessons this past week I was super inspired to share a few verses I had just studied in the Bible. We were teaching a family that was having problems accepting the invitation to come to church because of some other things they were going to do on Sunday when the Spirit told me to share 1 John 2:15,17:

"Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 

And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever."

Right after reading that the father of the family told us that he felt that he has put way to much of his time and love into his soccer team and that he needed to shift his love from the world towards the Lord and they all committed to come to church this Sunday! 

A few days ago we were walking and heard the usual ´give me a quetzal´ from one of the drunks on the street. My companion told him no because we both knew that it was so he could buy more alcohol but we got an unusual response. He yelled back ´But Jesus said in the scriptures that we should eat drink and be merry´. I am not sure how this guy got the scriptures so backwards but it was kind of silly.

A glimpse at our area, which is mostly businesses.

I keep feeling each day that the Lord has prepared a lot more people for me to go and find and teach and that is what keeps me going and working me hardest each day! It is so amazing when we get to meet these prepared people and it makes it all worth it!

Love,

Elder Jensen

A cat with a black mustache!

Churros

A group of missionaries walking through
my old area near the mission office.

Dear Family,

It is so fun to see the excitement of the new members of the church!

Yesterday in our church meeting we really got to see the new members work miracles. O., who was baptized a few weeks ago, has just loved learning all about the restored gospel. We stopped by to visit her this week and she had a friend visiting her and right when we showed up she started telling her friend how much the church meant to her and how much she has loved attending and learning more about it. She was pretty persistent in inviting her friend and on Sunday she not only brought her friend but more family members and she just radiated happiness during all of the meetings. It was so cool!

Also a family that we have helped return to the church invited their cousin, I., to start visiting with us. Since the first visit we have felt that the Lord has prepared her to receive the gospel because she has been so faithful in reading her Book of Mormon and she set her baptism date for the 23rd of this month and on Sunday she was commenting in the class for new members and visitors and I know that she can feel the Spirit each time she visits with us. This just shows that the Lord really is the one who does it all!

The amazing family that I talked about last week (L. and F.) both attended church on Sunday as well as many other surprise people that attended as well. I felt so grateful for the sacrifices of this family because L. left his work to be able to attend and F. had to walk a good distance which is really hard for her. L. and F. were married today and this Saturday L. will be baptized! (it turned out that F. is already a member of the church).

Marriage of L. and F.

I think that if I could have one super power it would be the power to be able to eat any food off the street here in Guatemala and not get sick. There are some amazing foods that are sold on the street but I just can´t take the risk of eating them even though I want to so bad. Although I did kind of give into temptation and I ate some delicious churros this week which were covered in chocolate, and I didn´t get sick! 

Trying to decide if I should risk my health to eat some delicious churros.

My companion and I discovered that a lot of the time here in our area we aren´t just looking for people to teach, but we are looking for houses where people live, because there are so many businesses! We actually get super excited when we find some hidden part of our area with apartments our houses! I actually feel strange when I go to other areas where it is just houses because I feel kind of empty without all of the businesses and traffic noise. But somehow we continue to be lead to prepared people!

Some views of Mazate

I just feel so happy to be working as a missionary and getting to be with a lot of awesome missionaries here in Mazate and learn from them and have fun together as well! This work is amazing!

Love,

Elder Jensen

Guatemalan Boy Scouts (first time ever seeing this!)

Ellos dijeron que sí!

Baptism of A.

Dear Family,

Elder Gavarrete and I have just had a great time together. We have also had some very spiritual experiences that have just grown our testimonies so, so much! During this past week we were working hard during the morning to find new people to teach. It was super hot and we both had wet shirts from our sweat. It was almost time to go to lunch but we both decided to work a little bit more until the last moment. My companion suggested we try to contact at the very edge of our area limit. We went and came across an older lady who we just invited to church at her door. She said her name was F. and she accepted right away the invitation to come and visit church on Sunday. She said it is hard for her to walk but she was going to make it Sunday.

On Sunday we were both so surprised when we saw F. making her way slowly up the stairs of the church! It turns out that she actually had some good friends there in the ward and she had a wonderful experience. We felt impressed to go and visit her later on Sunday and invite her to prepare for baptism for the 9th of May. Well, we went and taught powerfully with the Spirit and right in that moment she even set the time of day she wanted to be baptized! It was so incredible! But even more incredible, she told us that she wasn´t married yet with her current husband. We explained that we could help and that there was a member of the ward that is a lawyer that would do the marriage. Well right as we were talking about that her husband entered the house from work. His name is L. C. We got to meet him a little bit and then boldly invited him to be married and baptized with his wife and he accepted! He even is going to change his work schedule to not work on Sundays so he and his wife can be faithful members together!

This family is so special to me and as we left their home I remembered a scripture from Alma:

“Therefore, blessed are they who humble themselves without being compelled to be humble; or rather, in other words, blessed is he that believeth in the word of God, and is baptized without stubbornness of heart, yea, without being brought to know the word, or even compelled to know, before they will believe.” - Alma 32:16

Well, that was definitely my spiritual high moment of the week. We are also excited for E. and P. which is another family that I have gotten to teach since I got to Mazate and right now they are finishing their puzzle that we made for them so that they can me baptized the 2nd of May (this Saturday)! We will pray hard for them and continue to visit them with more families in the ward!

I have become a fanatic of this amazing blue dust that we have found in the book stores. The baptismal font in our chapel always spits out green water and it looks really bad. Well, we discovered this blue dust that you can throw in the water and it changes to blue! We had always used a light blue colored but I wanted to get creative this week and use a really really blue shade. It sure worked and the water was so blue but so were my arms and my shirt! Oops! I think next time we will stick with the light blue because I looked a little bit like a smurf that day as we filled up the font.

Baptism of A.

I had a fun time giving an inspirational message to the zone this week. I had a DVD made of the scene from “Facing the Giants” (a football movie). It is the ´Death Crawl´ scene from that movie and it is super inspirational. I showed it to the missionaries and applied it to the work, that we need to give everything to the Lord in these short 2 years and that even though we think we might not be able to achieve a lot we really can work miracles if we give our all! Some Elders even did some push-ups which was fun.

I am so glad to be on the Lord´s errand and helping him touch the hearts of his children! There are thousands of people waiting for us, F. and L. C. are just a small example of that. I am excited to go and find more of these prepared souls!

Love,

Elder Jensen

Apartments we discovered in our area.

Suchi stadium

Blessings pouring down in Mazate

Baptism of O., she was a miracle and she has such a cool testimony!

Baptism of J.

Dear Family,

Well, nothing quite as exciting as last week with the big climb up Tajumulco but there were still a ton of miracles!

The only body part still suffering from that climb is my lower lip which is still pretty burnt (it has some blisters early in the week) but I think with these mysterious Guatemalan remedies that I am using it should go away soon. In Guatemala it is better not to tell someone that you are sick because they start to offer you a ton of questionable pills and then start suggesting 10 types of medicine to buy. Just a funny culture thing here.

Everyone´s face peeling from our sunburns from Tajumulco(my lip is still pretty burnt)

We also had a fun experience with the rain here in our area. I was on divisions the day it rained super, super hard and me and Elder Weltmer (from California) found ourselves clinging onto houses and pretty much making our way along mission impossible style that way the current of water wouldn´t sweep us away. It was pretty fun and probably entertaining for the people watching as we clinged and climbed on the sides of houses like Spiderman.

As we got closer to Saturday many missionaries in the zone were seeing some challenges with their investigators who were preparing for baptism this Saturday.  We all fasted and right after there were miracles right and left. My companion and I spent several days in other areas trying to do all we could so that the Lord could work some miracles in all the areas and it really worked. Afterwards, 2 of the Elders told us that the fast was so powerful for them as they were blessed with a couple of baptisms in their area when it seemed that nobody would get baptized. It was a huge testimony builder!

This week O., an older women that we had found a few months ago doing some surveys, decided to be baptized. She really got a strong testimony of the need to be baptized in water but also by the Spirit. The story of the people who were baptized again in Acts 19 to receive the baptism of the Spirit really helped her. When she came up out of the water in her baptism she began to cry because she was so happy and she even expressed thanks to the Lord for the chance to be baptized. It was a really cool moment!

We were also blessed to help J. get married and baptized this week as well. He really did his part to be able to do all this because he went all the way to Samayac (on the other side of Mazate) to ask permission from his in-laws to be able to get married and helped them come to Mazate to see the marriage. After his baptism he got up with his wife in front of everyone to thank us and thank the Lord for all he had achieved in these past weeks and that was also a really special moment. 

I don´t think there´s ever been a time in my life when I get to take a front seat to see the Lord work wonders among his children each day. Us, the missionaries, really we are just his hands, he does all the work! This week as well he has helped us find A. (15 years old) that has come to church with his cousin several times and absolutely loves it! He is preparing to be baptized this coming Saturday!

I am excited to see what other things are to come this next week!

Love,

Elder Jensen

On our way to play minigolf (we passed our weekly goal for baptisms
so we got permission to go over near San Felipe to play minigolf.

Volcano Tajumulco-the HIGHEST point in Central America

Elder Gavarette and me on the hike.

Dear Family,

Yesterday we climbed to the highest point in all of Central America! It was incredible!

Our zone got the chance yesterday to climb the Volcano Tajumulco, the highest volcano or mountain in all of Central America! We had to wake up at 3 a.m. to head out to the volcano and we started our ascent at about 5 a.m. 

There was a pickup truck that took the sister missionaries up a good ways and we went up a little part in the bus we came in. 

Luckily, we had been able to find some super cheap clothes for the cold (because in Mazate nobody buys that stuff because it is stinking hot) because it was pretty cold in the morning.

 As we went up we realized it was going to be a lot harder than we thought. The views we saw were just so incredible, I don´t think my camera really could capture how incredible it was.

One of the funnier parts of this whole experience was that this little black dog that we found at the start of the climb started to guide us up the volcano and pretty much stuck with us the whole way. We kind of fed it and gave it water as we went up so it wouldn´t die and it was super faithful. I gave it the name of Encarnación (from Nacho Libre), just because it sounds kind of silly, but the name stuck.

Luckily I had thought to bring sunscreen because we were a lot closer to the sun and there was no clouds to protect us from the sun. We eventually made it to the very last ascent where we kind of rested for a while. About an hour later everyone was together and we started the final climb. It was super fun! At about 12 p.m. we made it to the top (and of course Encarnación made it as well)!  It took us a few minutes to find the actual crater of the volcano but we found it and it was amazing! It isn´t active and you can actually climb down into the crater (which we didn´t do because of time limits). 

The clouds had come in by then and we were above the clouds. It was unforgettable!

By the time we were back in San Marcos everyone had burnt and exhausted faces but it was so, so worth it!

We also had some other awesome moments this past week. M.´s older sister was baptized on Saturday. M. was very happy to see her sister also enter the waters of baptism and take those first important steps in the gospel.

 I also got to go to La Máquina during the week to help out the Elders there with an interview and boy, did we walk a lot there. La Máquina is just a ton of dirt roads and it is super spread out (and hot). It would be a good area for bikes, maybe someday.

I have also really enjoyed being creative with our zone meetings. This past week I talked to them about giving our investigators hamburgers instead of tamales. Tamales just have a little piece of meat in the middle surrounded by a ton of dough that you have to eat. In turn, hamburgers have meat in every single bite. The meat of our message to the world is that we can all be clean from our sins through Christ if we repent, are baptized, and keep the commandments. I explained that we need to always be mentioning the meat of our message in every single lesson and always giving hamburgers to our investigators and not tamales which just have a tiny bit of meat at the very end.

We hope to see more miracles in our area this week and to see some more baptisms as well. I have just seen the Lord´s hand in this work so much here and I can´t wait to see more in the coming months!

Love,

Elder Jensen

More pictures from our hike: