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

 

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

 

 

 

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

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

 



Take Me Down to the Paradise City

WELLLLL. Hey everyone

  Turns out I got changes, and I'm finally going to the COASTTTTT!!!! Yup, I'm in the city of Esmeraldas. I'm in a sector called paraiso, but that's just the name of the ward..  I'm like in the mountains and it's cool. There are a lot of people here, tons! really big city. Should be fun.

Sad to leave mi hijito elder chiroque in Otavalo, but I left the sector better than I found it. We have a pretty decent investigator pool right now. Hoping he can take advantage of it, we actually extended 2 baptismal dates there. But ya, yesterday I traveled all day from Quito to the coast, soo I'm here now, partying it up in the heat. It's like the orient, super humid here. Excited for my next adventure here, I'll send pics next week,

have a good one

Elder Jensen

 

One week til changes

Wow, time has actually flown here in carabuela! Can't believe that we're almost out of the training! Not sure what exactly is going to happen, but I do know that if I have changes, I'll be writing from a different place next week! Getting psyched for that!

Well this week has been a pretty normal for the campo. Not finding too many people.  Really I do not want to get comfortable with these results here.. if this really is my last week, I want to finish here with a bang. hoping to see some success in the finding aspect and I want to put some dates down on some people. 

Well right now is carnaval.. soooo we're in the house for 3 days..  Yesterday, today and tomorrow.  Really kinda a bummer. Puts a damper on the week, but we're hoping to come out strong on wednesday and work hard.  Yesterday I was able to read a lot of Jesus the Chrsist. Something I've learned a lot in my mission is that Jesus, although he was a perfect person, really was exposed to the same feeling that we feel. I'm sure he felt pain or sadness sometimes. I feel like that sometimes, we don't realize exactly what he went through for us. Something I learned is that in these times of difficulty, Heavenly Father sent him angels of ancient prophets to speak with him and comfort him, to help prepare him for the great task he was about to undertake. I feel like that has increased my love in Him and His sacrifice. I've realized it wasn't something easy at all, and he did it 100% out of love for his fellow brethren. Christ leads this church and how lucky are we to be apart of His church.  His promises will never fail. When we feel down, Look unto Him in every thought, doubt not fear not. We are his sheep and we need not fear. We have soo many blessing, we just got to find the positive and build off of that. I was also reading about Alma this week. I really like how he left everything to magnify His calling and to bring to remembrance the duties of the prideful members of the chruch by bearing to them pure testimony..  I feel like that wa a call to strengthen my testimony and to bear it more often to the people here in my sector. welp one lil lesson I learned in my time being a missionary this week.

probably the only good thing that happened yesterday being locked in the house all day was getting a time of 54 seconds on the rubik cube 😎 haha ya pues

que se cuiden

Elder Jensen

Hello my Friends

Que mas ve?!

Welp another week has come and gone.

Nothing too special this week. We did find a pair of New Inv who were references. actually super stoked to work with them because they are excited to listen and learn and the member is super excited that they have accepted us and wants to do visits with us. always cool to get the members involved. 

Que mas

We went to Quito this week for 2nd verifications for my companion. that was cool. he got to teach lessons 1-3 to other trainers and get other feedback and I was able to listen to 3 other trainees teach the first 3 lessons. Cool experience. We left super excited to work and get things moving in our sector. President Murphy said something that really inspired me and I wanted to share it with you, I hope it can inspire you.  He shared a quote that Pres. Monson shared a while back he said in essence,

  "And I always want the Lord to know that if He needs an errand run, Tom Monson will run that errand for Him"

that really called my attention. I want the  lord to be able to trust in me and to know that I'll be willing to run His errands. I hope that we can all have this goal in mind.


I know the Lord loves us and that this is His church. have a great week and enjoy some really dumb fotos of me, sorry,  haha

Elder Jensen