Monday After General Conference

Good morning to everyone where ever they are!

This week was great. We got to hear the words of the Lord through His authorized servants. I absolutely loved general conference and the feelings that I felt. This was, obviously, my 4th and last general conference as a missionary, and I had a lot of questions that I wanted answered about my future and about my life and as I sat there listening with a couple other american missionaries, I felt the power of the Spirit of the Lord testify to me that Thomas S. Monson is the prophet of the Lord in these days. The Lord, through the inspired talks that we heard, answered all of my questions, and that is another amazing miracle that I saw this week as a missionary of the Lord.

I loved the talks by Elders David A. Bednar and Dieter F. Uchtdorf. They are my two favorite apostles.

I think that was my main highlight of my week. Listening to General Conference in a tiny room in a chapel here in Bermejo with 2 other American Missionaries and 2 American Sister Missionaries. We got to watch all the sessions in English and I loved it. Honestly, the fact that we are members of the only true church of the Lord Jesus Christ just blows my mind. I know this is true and I know the Lord lives and He speaks with His prophet and I know He is guiding the church and us all.

I loved the 3 talks that talked about the prophet and how we need not to worry whether or not the prophet is going to lead us in the right way, because it´s the Lord´s church and if the prophet tries to lead us away from the truth, he will be removed from the position and someone else will be put as prophet. I know this to be true.

I also really liked the 2 talks on helping the poor and needy, giving and serving them, as well as through the law of the fast. I know the Lord wants us to serve these people, and that we have the obligation to help them. I know this to be true.

I love you all so much. I know that the Lord lives and that He is truly aware of us in every moment and every day.

Talk to you next week!

Love, 

Elder Jensen

Baptism

Another week has passed by. I honestly don’t know where the week went. I was just working and doing everything like normal and now I find myself here in the internet café writing you. Time is passing fast, no? 

This week was great. We were able to witness the baptism of the sister Maria de Chavez. She is the wife of a recent convert- Osman Chavez. He got baptized about 7 months ago and since then, has been progressing and doing a lot in the church. Last week, he received the Melchizedek Priesthood, and Saturday, he baptized his wife. 

When he got baptized, his wife was the one who was most against him getting baptized. So, the Lord has worked a miracle in softening her heart and calling her to the discipleship of Jesus Christ. 

Osman was able to baptize and confirm his wife. it was so great as we saw the Spirit work in this family. 

Tomorrow, President Uceda, the Area President, is coming here and will train all the stakes/wards/missionaries in all of Santa Cruz. It should be good. And since my ward has experienced such a change in things, the Stake President told us that it is super likely that President Uceda calls us up front uses the ward as an example of how to do the Work of Salvation. 

I have grown to love the conference talks and the church magazines, they are the best.  Today I was reading a little bit in the November 2010 Liahona and I really liked this talk by Elder Uchtdorf. He says: First, our relationship with God is most sacred and vital. We are His spirit children. He is our Father. He desires our happiness. As we seek Him, as we learn of His Son, Jesus Christ, as we open our hearts to the influence of the Holy Spirit, our lives become more stable and secure. We experience greater peace, joy, and fulfillment as we give our best to live according to God’s eternal plan and keep His commandments.

We improve our relationship with our Heavenly Father by learning of Him, by communing with Him, by repenting of our sins, and by actively following Jesus Christ, for “no man cometh unto the Father, but by [Christ].” 10 To strengthen our relationship with God, we need some meaningful time alone with Him. Quietly focusing on daily personal prayer and scripture study, always aiming to be worthy of a current temple recommend—these will be some wise investments of our time and efforts to draw closer to our Heavenly Father. Let us heed the invitation in Psalms: “Be still, and know that I am God.” 11

Our second key relationship is with our families. Since “no other success can compensate for failure” here, we must place high priority on our families. We build deep and loving family relationships by doing simple things together, like family dinner and family home evening and by just having fun together. In family relationships love is really spelled t-i-m-e, time. Taking time for each other is the key for harmony at home. We talk with, rather than about, each other. We learn from each other, and we appreciate our differences as well as our commonalities. We establish a divine bond with each other as we approach God together through family prayer, gospel study, and Sunday worship.

The third key relationship we have is with our fellowman. We build this relationship one person at a time—by being sensitive to the needs of others, serving them, and giving of our time and talents. I was deeply impressed by one sister who was burdened with the challenges of age and illness but decided that although she couldn’t do much, she could listen. And so each week she watched for people who looked troubled or discouraged, and she spent time with them, listening. What a blessing she was in the lives of so many people.

The fourth key relationship is with ourselves. It may seem odd to think of having a relationship with ourselves, but we do. Some people can’t get along with themselves. They criticize and belittle themselves all day long until they begin to hate themselves. May I suggest that you reduce the rush and take a little extra time to get to know yourself better. Walk in nature, watch a sunrise, enjoy God’s creations, ponder the truths of the restored gospel, and find out what they mean for you personally. Learn to see yourself as Heavenly Father sees you—as His precious daughter or son with divine potential.

I love you all. You are the best family ever and I hope and pray for you all to be happy. Keep safe this week.

-Elder Jensen

Cinco de Mayo

Feliz Cinco de Mayo a todos! I dont know why we think 5 de mayo is some kind of holiday when none of the Latins think it is a special day, but oh well, we are just like that. Or maybe it is just special in a certain country or something like that. 

My week was great. This week, we changed a couple things around, namely we changed our pension to a member of our ward, Yuri Chavez and his wife Silvia. They are great and they make great food. He is from here, and she is from Peru, so they make good food that isnt just the same as always. I am happy about that. 

We are continuing forward trying to work harder and more united with the ward members, we still are not super united like the prophet and President Willard want, but we are trying. We are seeing progress, the most notable in the church assistance, more and more people are coming, which is great. But, still the progress in other areas of the work still isnt where it should be... Like members presenting their friends, or coming with us to teach investigators. But, little by little. 

This week, we had a powerful lesson with a less active. Martha Duran, her son that was recently baptized, Andres and her sister, Paula Duran, a returned missionary, but also less active. We taught them about the atonement of Jesus Christ, combined with our purpose on Earth and we also talked about repentence and faith. The spirit was so strong as we testified and taught about the Lord´s sacrifice and how we can use the power of the Atonement to return to live with God again. I really felt so good and I felt renewed understanding of our purpose on Earth and how we can become closer to Christ, through the power of the atonement. 

I am continually learning about the importance of humility and patience and charity. These are things that I have never been good as but, through daily study and prayer, I have been able to come closer to Christ, and thereby, I have, at some degree been able to become more patient, more humble, more charitable and more dependant on Christ. I am still not perfect, I never will be, but I know that as we come closer to Christ, our character changes. In Mosiah 3:19 it teaches us, that as we learn and strive to follow Christ, our nature changes... it isnt coincidence or anything, we literally become Saints, or disciples of Jesus Christ. he helps us as we strive to be like him. I just want to be like Him and to help others as well come unto Him- whether I be a missionary or a member of the Church, I have the responsibility to share and to bring others to Christ. Through my example, it is possible. 

I love you all so much. I know Christ lives. I love Him and I know He loves me. I will call you, dad, today to make sure Skype works, and then I will call you on Sunday at like 3 your time. If I can'
t get through, dont worry, I will get ahold of you some how. Haha. 

Please be safe. Be happy. Smile. Pray for missionary opportunities. 

I love you so much. 

I cant wait to talk to you!

-Elder Jensen

Growth

Good morning everyone! I hope everyone is good there. This week has been cloudy and cold, especially at night. I really like it when it is Spring here. In the morning, it is perfect. In the day, it warms up a bit and at night, again it is a bit nippy. I like it.

This week... Just like all the others... passed super fast. Good things happened, but it just passed super fast. We are almost in April and General Conference weekend, then comes Mothers Day and the phone call... And then a couple months later I end my time as a missionary for the Lord Jesus Christ. I love my time as a missionary. It is the best thing ever. I have come to know my Lord Jesus Christ more and I have learned even more, the importance of obedience and of the church in general.

So, this week

-The biggest thing that happened this week was on Friday, Elder C. Scott Grow (2nd Counselor in the Area Presidency) came to Santa Cruz and we were with him the entire day. We learned a lot from him about the Lord’s way of working in The Work of Salvation and about the personal revelation. He shared with us that we have to have more faith and more patience, and if we depend on Christ, the Lord will help us know the goals to set, the plans to do, and the words to say in this grand work. It was seriously so great.

I realized a lot of the time, I need to have more faith and more trust in the Lord that He will help ME... I know He will help all of us, but I need more faith and more trust that the Lord will bless ME specifically with what He wants me to do. It was really helpful and I learned a lot.

Another thing, we had the opportunity to have a question and answer with Elder Grow. One elder asked him what the difference, or what does it mean to be a special witness. Elder Grow explain that he had been set apart to testify that 1- Joseph Smith is a prophet of God 2- The Prophets and Apostles of today are truly prophets, seers and revelators and 3- of the Lord Jesus Christ. He then went on to bear his testimony of the Lord Jesus Christ. The most powerful testimony I have ever heard in my life. I wish I might be able to have a stronger testimony like him.

It was one of my favorite conferences in my mission. I loved the entire thing. The spirit was so strong and we just sat there for hours, listening and learning from the servant of the Lord.

Another thing that has happened this week... The mission is changing. It is a different mission from when I started. New rules, new way of working, and now... Even the leaders are changing. The transfer is this Wednesday, but when we were all together, President Willard announced who would be the new assistant... The new assistant is a newbie in the mission, with just 6 months in the mission. Never been a District Leader nor a Zone Leader. That is the huge news in the mission right now... President says that a lot of changes are coming... That this is the transfer when everything changes. It is exciting to see the changes.

We are working with a Less Active family... Angelo and Tamara Gutierrez. They have been less active for 5 years, but now we are teaching them and they want to come back. When we taught them the first time, I felt like it was super important to talk about the temple and the eternal family. They loved it and the spirit was there, testifying of our words. They have put the goal to go to the temple and to put their lives in order. It will be a struggle, since he smokes and has other bad habits, but through Jesus Christ, anyone can change.

I hope you liked all the photos. I will send a couple more.

Pictures:

My jersey that we had made in my last zone. Just thought you would all like to see me… Haha.

A drink they make here in Bolivia. It is called Mocochinchi.

it is just a dried peach with cinnamon and other stuff, and water. It has a weird flavor, I didn’t like it when i got here, but I love it now. It is always just super cold.

I love you all so much!

Until next week!

I'm Back!

Howdy there!

I hope you all didnt have a hard time last week not hearing from me.
We just sat in our house for those three days... Just talking and
hanging out and throwing water balloons off of our roof. That was fun.
But, I missed you all.

So, just an update, since dad asked me to catch him up. Still here in
Guaracal, with my guatemalteco companion Elder Revolorio. He is good.
He only has 5 months in the mission, but is a good guy. He wants to
help the people and he wants to work. I am happy that I am with him.
We live with 4 other missionaries, which is always super fun.
My area is the first one that I have had with the majority of the
streets paved, so it is a bit more of a challenge to find people to
teach, since the people have more money and just think they know
everything. But, it is just fine, since I feel like that is how
everyone is, no matter where they live in the city.

This weekend was Stake Conference. And basically every talk we heard
was about the Work of Salvation. The church is pushing big time for
the missionaries and members to work together to go to the rescue. In
my ward and basically in every area, the members here have a lot of
desires to help, but they havent really mastered the whole, turning
desires into actions part. So, it is a bit hard, but with patience, I
know they will begin to change.
We live right next to the Stake President, and he was saying, since
the change in the way we work, the stake has seen a big increase in
assistance... More people are coming back and more people, who are
baptized, are staying in the church. It is so great.

My Mission President is still great. We have seen a change in him...
He is a bit more harder on us than he was before. But still, I love
him and I think this week, I will be having an interview with him.

I love studying the words of the prophets. Lately, I have just been
studying the Liahonas and the general conference talks. I always love
them and I really do feel so thankful that God loves us enough to give
us more direction and help in our lives. We have a living prophet
today that recieves the word of God to help us along in this life. I
know that Thomas Spencer Monson is the prophet of God and I know that
the apostles are also special witnesses of the Lord Jesus Christ. I
know the Church is true. I can feel it in my heart and I can feel it
when I read the words of the prophets. Their counsel and wisdom is
exactly what we need to follow.

I will be sending pictures about what we did during carnival... (pics wouldn't send ugh)

I love you all so much. I am sorry that I dont have much to say... I
am boring. Bye!