Monday, March 26, 2018

La Costa ... Diga

Bueno mis compadres..  ¿Cómo les va? 

Welp, this week has been a really good one.  We had some milagritos like always.  Not much out of the ordinary.. The missionary life is a trekking a long.  

We had some cool referral experiences this week. We have been trying to get the members more involved and hey, I think we had a little bit of success. I think I said this, but this ward is really a branch basically. We have 60 people attend church.  There are like 4-6 active Elders in the Elders Quorum and about 4-6 High Priests..   The Bishopric  is the Bishop and 1 counselor.  Sooo ya. We have a lottttt of women.. Well basically every ward in South America is women..  A lot of Relief Society here. The men are hard to get to.  They like to party..   And you all know what goes on at the parties...  It's basically the same here in South America, just with less supervision from the Police.  But ya, we are doing out best out here. We want to baptize men, to build up the church here. Well see what happens this week.

Really stoked for Gen Conference number 4 for the mish. Always enjoy the conference. Excited to see who the new apostles will be and to hear from the new Prophet.    

This week we have been studying a lot about the Sacrifice of Jesus Christ.  Really grateful for Him and for the scriptures that teach us about Him. I started over Jesus the Christ this week. After a year of reading and only reaching the halfway point, I decided to start all over again, reading 6 pages each day to finish it before the end of my mission.. I have ended up reading like 10 pages a day... sooo I'll finish it sooner. But it's way good. Really testifies of the importance of a Christ. Thanks to Him, we can be forgiven of our sins. This Sunday we taught the Gospel Principles class about the Atonement. There is a parable by Pres Packer who talks about  the law of Mercy and Justice. Really like that parable.> Without Christ, both laws could not be satisfied. There must be justice, but there must be mercy.  Thanks to Him we have the divine mediator, who suffered for all of our wrongdoings.   

Welp, thanks to everyone for the emails, pilas no mas esta semana. 
today for Pday, we made corviche with a family.. All the elders in the district. We made a tonnnnn!!!!  sooo good.  It's this thing made out of verde, which is ripe plantain.. We grated it to make a dough, threw in some peanut paste, and then a bunch of seasoning.. Then the we threw in some really good fresh tuna in the middle, and fried it.  Sooo    ya.. super stuffed right now!

Welp,  have a good week, 
Elder Jensen



 


Monday, March 19, 2018

Hey

Hey Everyone


Well this week was another fast one.  Lots of little Milagritos..  We found  new investigators and really saw the hand of the Lord in his work.    We've been working a lot with the Members del barrio here to get references from them. We've gotten a few, and not all of them have worked out, but were getting there. We are a excited to see them working.    

Yesterday I gave a talk in sacrament meeting about the importance of the relief society..   Sooo ya, Saturday night the bishop called me and asked me to give that talk.  My companion was asked to talk on obedience.  soo with minimal preparation, we get to church the next morning, and my companion gives his talk..  like a 6 min talk.. sooo I had like most of the meeting to talk about the relief society..     bueno it went better than I thought. Thanks to the sisters of the church who are helping to progress in the work. I read in true to the faith the purpose of the RS.. One of the parts is to save souls.    It's amazing to see how the church works together in this purpose! We are here to save souls and bring them unto Christ.  I hope everyone can be thinking of ways to bring someone unto Christ this week.   

  Welp, today we just ate some encebollado, super good soup..  and went to the beach...   fun pday..  ya pues.. I'll talk to you guys next week
 
Elder Jensen



 
 






 

Monday, March 12, 2018

Hey Everyone...

Hey Everyone...

Sorry, don't have much time this week,  but just wanted to say that this week has been good. We had some miracles this week in finding and had one person come to church.. kind of a bummer, we were expecting more, but I have a feeling that this week is going to be  different..

We have high goals and plans to achieve them..  Relying on the Lord to help us and bless us with the spirit to accomplish what he has sent us forth to accomplish.. Don't have pics but, this week I'll take some.. haven't been carrying my camera much cause don't wanna get robbed.... haha no it's  all good here.. 

Welp, next week I'll write a bit more..   Have a good week,
Elder Jensen

Monday, March 5, 2018

Bees and a Lighthouse

Hello Everyone, sorry for last week, I was short on time, but this week was actually super awesome..

Loving the coast here, but not  a fan of  the water situation here..  I would complain about having to take bucket showers, but then I take time to remember that a good friend of mine is living in a hut...  Love ya JR..  haha

But ya, this week has been super awesome. We've been finding, not a ton but were finding everyday. The people here are super receptive, but they don't like to progress a lot. But we had a really positive week in working with less actives who are part member families as well. We actually put a date on a little girl in one family and are hoping to activate them at the same time. We got them to church this week and had the parents meet with the bishop. He gave the dad a calling and we are hoping that gets him to do more of his part. We are actually planning on putting some more dates down this week.
 
We had 4 attending this week and we think we can get that number up a lot more as well. Excited for the potential we have right now. 

Almost got robbed this week so that was sick, got to be careful here, its kind of sketchy in some parts, but hey I'm alright, nothing happened, just some super dumb drug addict who wants drug money, so he tried to rob a missionary..   Didn't have anything on me so he was disappointed and let me go, but that was a first, and hoping that was a last as well. God really does protect His missionaries.

Welp for pday today, we had an adventure.. we went to this light house.   We had to basically bush wack our way there through the rain..   We traveled through razor sharp leaves and got cut..   a lot.. but we got there and it was all good in the end, or so we thought. My whole district went a change ago and decided to go again with me. They said inside this little light house we could scratch our names into the cement, so I started to do it as they stood outside and were talking. As I scratched the E in for elder, I heard something buzzing. I looked up and saw a huge bee hive, so I was like, ok, I'm out. Walked back out and the bees started to chase me. At first the other elders were like why the heck is Elder Jensen like smacking himself and jumping, but then they all got attacked too...  sooo we got stung.. a lot.. hahaha. We were probably there at the lighthouse for like 5 min until we had to run back through the razor sharp leaves again..

Fun day. Bought ice cream afterwards so that made up for it.  
Have a great week
 
Elder Jensen




 
 
 
Photos from Ecuador Quito North Facebook Page
 
Esmeraldas Zone Conference
March 1, 2018