Week 2

Hello

 This week started out really tough..I felt really homesick ..I felt discouraged about the language. So basically every morning for me was a struggle.  Then I remembered a letter that my dad wrote me before I left.  There was a lot of great advice in there and to me the most helpful was to forget myself and go to work..that had been a recurrent theme in the mtc devos too and it all started to come back to me. So I've taken that phrase as my motto in these times. 

Well after that all, it turns out I'm still not great at spanish and really don't understand what is going on when we teach but that will come.. javier was a bust, and gave back the BoM the next day...  so that was pretty weird, but hey we now have 5 new investigators with baptismal dates.. angela perez and her daughter dayhana campoverde and marcia and her daughter jocelyn.. also an old lady named maria.. they're all street venders soooo were double lucky cause we get free food every lesson.. hahaha.. no it's been pretty great, but they still have a lot to learn and overcome before baptism.. please keep them in your prayers.. 

Cayambe is the field area of Ecuador..but where we are is city..  but it turns out we haven't been to like most of our sector cause we do actually go out into the fields of cayambe..  its also pretty cold here, we have one of the few mountains with snow on it which is pretty cool, but I haven't gotten a picture yet cause the clouds are usually covering it since its soo high up..  

Was able to get this picture of the mountain from my companion

 

 

I'll be sure to send it.. we usually walk everywhere but occasionally we take a bus to the other side or when we go to otavalo obviously..  we actually did go to that massive stake conference that you probably saw from pre murphy..  Two stakes gathered there and we are part of the otavalo stake soo that was crazy.. all the missionaries in the three zones that touch otavalo went so I saw elder dougherty and a lot of new elders (english speaking elders too which was nice)  a lot of the people that spoke spoke in quichua which was really interesting..  

 

Stake Conference in Otavolo.  Elder Carlos A. Godoy, Area President and Elder Nelson Ardila, of the Seventys.
Created three stakes of the two. 

 

 

 

our district in this zone is made up of 4 elders.. Elder aliaga and I are Cayambe 1 and elder sejas and molina are cayambe 2..  Sejas and aliaga are both from bolivia and were actually comps for 2 changes before this.. molina is from peru and was here the last transfer so he knows a lot about the area..  then there's me the only gringo in cayambe..  the food has been pretty good but its all rice and chicken..  and usually a soup..  not much to complain about there except that it is repetitive..  we shopped today so hoping for some variety in the nights now.. members only feed lunch here and we have to do dinner for ourselves..  

don't know much about the boating stuff on saturdays.. only that it is a better day for us to have pday so this is only a trial for the first 6 weeks..   if it turns out that we are getting better numbers in these 3 zones, we will keep it, if not we will go to mondays..  

aliaga is 22 and went to 3 years of college.. he wants to be a pediatrician and is the youngest of 6..  his mother passed away like 5 yrs ago i think and now none of his sibs are members except for one sister who went on a mission in bolivia i think but came home later..  our house is actually not that bad but its not great.. its just super dirty from the old elders and 6 weeks of no use..  the shower this week has been like boiling hot and neither of us can stand in it so that kinda sucks but other than that its not that bad..

well thats basically it for this week, just hoping ot make it through the next..

keep me in your prayers as well as our investigators.  I didn't take many pics this week soo I'll try to take a lot next week to send..

Love Elder Jensen

 

More photos of the Stake Conference in Otavolo found on the Ecuador Quito North Mission Facebook Page

 

 

 

 

 

 

Roller Coaster Week

Otavalo Zone

 

This has been a roller coaster of a week.  really long week. started off great with general conference and I learned a lot of great things there, but then we finished the mtc. we flew all night to Bogota Colombia and then flew to Quito, landing at about 10am Tuesday morning.  we were met by President and sister murphy with the 2 APs.  we stayed the night in Quito in a huge room with like 16 beds, because there was 13 new elders to the mission.   the next day, it all began.

We had our classes with the president and his secretaries about a bunch of different things, then they assigned us companions. My comp is Elder Aliaga, he is from Bolivia and is 22. He’s really patient but it’s really tough to understand a lot of the time. and that goes for basically all Ecuadorians  Spanish is pretty tough when your surrounded by it 24/7

We are in the sector cayambe 2 only 4 elders in our district, and our zone is Otavalo, the really cool outdoor stores in Ecuador, who also speak quichua instead of Spanish. but Cayambe is Spanish.  It’s like the field area of Ecuador.  but we’re in a really small city for our sector, it’s about 40 min away by bus to Otavalo.  That’s where the rest of our zone is. 

 

We’ve been contacting most nights since no one has been in our area for 6 weeks.  We have a couple new investigators.  The most prominent are javier and jefferson.  Jefferson is 17 and is really interested. Javier is kinda sketchy some times, but he’s accepted to prepare to be baptized the 29th of October.  

other than that, I’ve just been trying to get used to life here.  It’s tough but there’s not much to do but work.  well that’s about all the time I have this week!

Love,

Elder Jensen

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Elder Jensen and Elder Burgi v2.0.  Their dads were missionary companions in Las Vegas 26 years ago. These two will be serving in Ecuador and Oregon (both speaking Spanish). We are excited for this next generation of missionaries! 

 

Hello from Ecuador

hello!!!!
 I made it to the mission field!! flight was flippin long and we left late last night.. arrived to colombia early this morning and then flew to ecuador.. long day and im super tired.. we’ve arrived to quito and its super huge!! We’ve had a lot of meetings with the aps and the pres.. and now we get to go contacting. flippin nervous but whateves.. we all stay the night together and tmrw we meet our trainers and go to our sectors. really excited. I love you all and I’ll talk to you monday..  pray for me.

love Elder Jensen

MTC District in the Airport

With President and Sister Murphy

New Companion - Elder Aliaga

Welcome Dinner with District and President and Sister Murphy

Training

Group Photo with our Trainers

Heading out!

ULTIMO SEMANA

Time has flown by here in the CCM!! and I’m super excited  to get to Ecuador!! we leave on Tuesday at 1:30 am and fly to Bogota Colombia, then on to Quito! really excited and ready to get outta here.. 

We had our last few lessons with aldair and aurora this week.  We’ve a lot better at teaching and I feel a lot more confident in my Spanish now, but still far away from fluent.. 

Sad news though, one of the hermanas in our district decided to go home last week on Thursday so that was pretty tough on us as a district, and really tough on her compañera hermana larsen.. she ended up having to move to a different zone and district..  

Not much else has happened though..  just prepping to leave.. we had to pack everything to day to weigh it and stuff before we head out.. that was fun..    ish..  

just a lot of goofing around and learning all day..  I hope were well prepared for the field.. We’ve put in a lot of effort and I hope it all pays off.. hoping the language comes to me well out there..

Excited for general conference in a few days.. if you guys don’t already, I challenge you to take notes on each talk you watch.. I’ve found that in each devotional I’ve heard down here, I’ve gained so much more when I take notes and it’s been a huge help for me... soo ya really excited for that!

not much else.. just getting ready to leave..

well, that’s about it.. I’m sure next week will have a lot more stuff to talk about.. but as of now I’m just stoked to be out here and I’m ready to go!  

con amor

Elder Jensen

New Haircut

i'm good with it.. at the hair place, the lady sais  dos, tres, o cuatro.. I said cuatro, but basically got a dos.. there were two ladies cutting hair.. the one I had I think cuts to her preference.. the other lady left it really long on top for everyone else, but I'm fine with it.. its currently too short to spike up in the front but oh well, I think it still looks pretty ok

 

 we totally rigged up a sweet bench press on night! haha

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our district con Pres De Oyos

SO READY TO LEAVE THE MTC

It officially feels like I’ve been here my whole life!!! It’s been a pretty slow week here and super ready just to leave already.. the routine is like the same everyday so that kinda stinks but it’s been a fun week.. 

I just want to go to Ecuador soooo bad..  It gets to a point here where it just gets too repetitive, and I’m bored with class allllll day.. sure it helps.. but im still bored with it. Lessons are good and stressful.. We’ve had consistent lessons this week with aurora.. all really good, and aldair lessons have progressed.  We taught aldair yesterday and it may have been the best lesson we’ve ever had.. we just threw out all the lessons for a one lesson and really just talked about faith and repentance.  We taught out of the first 8 verses in Enos.  He said it was a really good lesson and that we’ve come a long way from our last lesson.   so that was a really awesome experience.  It feels awesome when you can get your point across and they can actually understand... only can get better from here though! 

Mexican independence was last week and that was really fun.. We had real Mexican food and watched a big presentation of like Mexican dance through the ages.. that was cool, but also they all looked kinda the same soo it felt like the same dance for like 1 1/2 hours..  There were a lot of fireworks that night, but not as much as I was expecting.. 

 Pretty routine week so far, so not much out of the ordinary has happened..  but I do have a cool experience.. kinda weird though.. sooo in the dorms we have random times where the water turns off in the whole building so we can’t shower use the bathroom brush our teeth, etc..  It’s pretty annoying sometimes.. Well I got caught up doing stuff, and kinda forgot, and let’s just say.. we couldn’t flush.. 😑.  sooo that was both funny and kinda weird but we had ppl who needed to shower and we had to flush that toilet.. haha.. soo we remembered the specific prayer devotional from like week one and decided we should try it.. So we got everyone in our house together (me, haslam, ericksen, dougherty, emmelkamp,and gehring) and we said a specific prayer.. I said it first, but we decided it wasn’t specific enough cause we just asked for it to turn on at 10:15..  So when that didn’t work, ericksen said it saying everything we needed to do, that it would turn on by 10:21 by his watch that the water would work.. We all believed it would work, so when 10:21 hit, we all ran in and tried to turn on the sink, but it didn’t work..  but we kept trying and by like the last few seconds of 10:21 on his watch, it started to drip out the faucets.. we tried the shower and it started dripping too.. Over the next like 3 minutes, all the water came back in the building.. I know it was kinda silly, but our prayer was totally answered.. real awesome experience.. 

 Well that’s about all that happened to me this week..

Not much else to report on..so I’ll try to send out a  bigger email next week.. and I’ll take more pics next week

 

Love,

Elder Jensen

 

 

Having fun with my the district!

 

 

this is me and hermano celiz, who was both cesar and aldair.

 

 

Half Way Done!!!

Feels like forever here already!! haha.

Well not much happened this week.. still working on the language and getting better at teaching.

Went to the temple again today and this was a lot better experience.. a lot easier doing stuff in Spanish this time.. Honestly one of the coolest temples I’ve seen

 

Long week but its been pretty awesome!  not much crazy has happened cause basically each day is the same.. 

our two investigators couldn’t be more opposite! Aurora is soo receptive of our message and she does her hw and more.. she always has ?´s prepared about stuff we taught last time and is really engaged.. all our lessons with her are really good.  Aldair is a much different story.. He’s not interested but keeps inviting us back.. (not like he has a choice tho haha) but ya he never reads and give like 2 word answers.. after our lessons with him we basically get wrecked by feedback... idk, I’d probably be a lot more discouraged if our lessons with aurora weren’t going so well. 

 

Not much happened this week, but we did have service this Monday..  basically a ton of missionaries met outside the tienda, and I’m talking like almost 40.. it was like 70 % Latino and the rest like just our district.. This guy on a bike told us to follow him and he took off.. we started out walking until Elder Baumgartner ran back yelling to us to run or we won’t do service.. so our district ran and the Latinos walked... we get to the place and waited for the rest to arrive.. when we got there, he separated us from the Latinos.. we thought it was so there would be a Spanish group and an English group for better understanding of what task we would do,  but it turns out the whole time the man was saying first district to get there would be exempt from service  because they obeyed him.. 

Pretty sure the Latinos hate us cause after we learned that we all started to cheer!  haha, I guess those who obey are blessed haha..

We had some cool devos this week from Provo, Sunday was M Russell Ballard, and Tuesday was Quentin L Cook.. Both really awesome and made me super excited to go to Ecuador. I’ll share some things from both real quick.. In elder Ballards he talked about a lot of things, but one thing that stood out a lot was that if we have faith and trust in the Lord, then there will be nothing that will stop the progress of the Lords work.   One other thing that I really liked was that while we are on our mission, not only will we come to know God and Jesus Christ, but our savior will come to know us as well! really cool promise.  Elder Cook´s was really awesome, and probably my favorite of the three we had.  he talked a lot about D&C 31.. really good short chapter about missionary work.. he told us that he was part of the missionary committee that put together PMG (Preach My Gospel) and he told us that Pres Hinckley wanted the lessons to be non-memorizable so we had to learn and understand the doctrine.. that’s why PMG works so well.  He told us about the 4 Loves of a mission: 1. Love your companion- you can always learn something from them; 2. Love the people- respect them and their traditions and culture, they´re God´s children too and were there to serve them and bring them to Him; 3. Love your mission president- Elder Cook said that often times missionaries are chosen for specific missions b/c they want them to be with a specific missionary pres.. really cool thing to hear and I’m excited to meet pres Murphy!; & 4. Love the Lord- he’s done everything for us, and we’re here for a short time to help him!

really great message and he ended with his testimony that on our missions we’ll have very sacred, personal spiritual experiences that shouldn’t be shared at every opportunity.. He told us that he’s had many of these experiences that he wouldn’t share with us, but testified to us that he has heard the Lord´s voice and seen his face!! that was such an amazing testimony, and made me super excited to get to Ecuador!

 

Well that’s about it this week! Love to hear from you all and I’ll talk to yall next week!

Love

Elder Jensen

left something out... soo this week is Mexican Independance day.. soo usually everynight its pretty loud here in Mexico, with fireworks and sirens and this weird talking street sweeper at like 3 am, but the nights of the 15/16/17 apparently are crazy.. we’ve been told that we won’t get any sleep those nights.. especially since we got jipped and stay in dorms when there’s a ton of casas on the property.  the dorms are right next to the wall of the ccm sooo there really is no chance of sleep... also on the 15th they do some fiesta thing with real Mexican food so that should be really cool! well that’s about it.. looking forward to that.

 

 

 here’s what my room looks like.. we're in a little apartment with two other companionships, this is just our room in the whole thing.

the Mexican candy bars in the tienda as well as the juice there is flippin amazing!! I get one like everyday with our card allowance of 100 pesos a week!

 

Week 2

Time is flying here in the CCM.. Crazy I’ve been here 2 weeks.. While in the moment, it seems like it is taking forever, but looking back on each day, it actually is moving so fast.  I really love my district and were all getting along real well.  It’s fun just hanging around together and helping each other out with Spanish.

 Ohhh Spanish.. still really tough.  School has been a big help with that in general, but I’m still a long way from fluent.  We finished with Cesar last week and now we have two investigators. One is Aldair, and he’s played by the same guy as Cesar, our afternoon teacher Hermano Celiz.  He’s really tough to teach because he has no basis of religion really at all.. you’d think it would be easier to teach someone like that, but he really has no idea about anything.. its like teaching a kid.. So that’s pretty tough but I’m hoping it will get better soon.  Our other investigator is Aurora.  She’s played by our morning teacher Hermana Arnau.  She also really tough.  She has a strong catholic background and likes to compare stuff to her religion.. and she likes to talk.. We ask a simple question and she goes on for like 3 minutes.. Soo with our level of Spanish, were lucky to grasp half of what she says.   of well, both very opposite types of investigators but real good prep for actual field work in Ecuador.  

 Already getting tired of the ccm.  It’s the same thing everyday and were non stop in classrooms.  minus the 30 min of meals and hour of gym its basically all day in the classroom learning español.. let’s hope it pays off!!

 Got to go to the Mexico City temple today and that was super awesome!! doing a session en español was really cool, and tough at the same.. Definitley will never forget that experience..  It’s a really cool looking temple too! I think we get to go back one more time and its next pday i believe, so I’m excited for that!

 We had a great live devotional from Provo yesterday.  Elder Chistofferson spoke along with his wife.  Sister Christofferson spoke about how we are called by the Lord to serve him, and at the same time Satan is trying so hard to make us want to go home.  "Who do you want to win?"  What makes that decision easy for me is that we know who is going to win this fight everytime... The Lord.  Of course it’s hard to leave behind friends and family, but I want to be on the winning side and do what I was called to do.. Christofferson spoke about Teaching Repentance and Baptizing Converts.. He said that repentance is our message, and that it is Christs testimony.  We need to tailor each lesson to the individual were teaching and help them to repent and overcome their individual probs.  He also said Repentance is turning to God and a change of heart to the will of God.  My favorite thing he said was a quote by President David O Mckay "it is greater to be trusted, than to be loved"   God loves us, but can he trust us?  He told us to be the kind of missionary that God, our mission president, local members, our companions and or families can trust.  Be a rule-keeping, hard-working missionary.  It was a really amazing devotional, and we have the opportunity to hear from another apostle on Sunday and next Tuesday live both times as well I believe.. Idk well find out soon.  

 Super excited for what’s to come and I miss you all!

 Con Amor,

Elder Jensen

Mexico City Temple with Elder Haslam