Nov. 4

Dear Mom,

First off I want to say that i was not scared of the rat. Everyone else was.

That is ok. I wont mind paying a little bit more to have Christmas. I am glad that Grandpa had that opportunity to work still and not be in a financial retirement crisis.

I didn't have a chance to email on Saturday. I fasted for something else. But Colby is in my prayers and i am not worried about him getting his visa.  Colby will have to get used to eating strange things. People get upset if you don't eat the food. 

I was just trying to see the act score. That is all that i wanted to see. It is ok dont worry about it. I couldn't even get on anyway.

Andrea got engaged? Wow that is cool. I guess that is Utah for you. Mandi got married? That was fast. Is she living in Alaska? 

For the past five weeks we have had zero baptisms. It has been rather disappointing. OH President did something that he said he would never do. He put Sisters in Salvador. I am their district leader. Salvador is pretty dangerous so President said that he would never put sisters here. However the stake presidents have requested them and our ward is rather...less alive so he decided to put them with us. It will be very good for the ward since we dont have time to take care of them.

Yeah sorry i dont have time to email this week. I will email you more extensively on Saturday. 

Love you mom :)

Oct. 26

Dear Mom,

I promise that i wont open the box until Christmas. Don't worry  about the glasses just keep them until i get home. It is not worth having them get lost or damaged or paying a fine. It is too much hassle. That is good that they were able to remove it without any complications. I am very grateful that we live in a day and age that all this technology is available to us. I am glad that you have extended your merciful hand towards aunt Lisa and tried to talk to her. I hope that she sees your effort and takes comfort in it.

That is way cool that Dad is getting to travel to so many places.  It would be cool to travel so much. Taxes seem like they are a big pain in the butt. I remember the one time that Dad showed me how and it was confusing. 

So far the young lady is all ready to be baptized. It looks like she and her sister will go tomorrow to watch the meeting. There are quite a few bugs down here but i hardly ever use the bug spray. It is just not something that i have thought about using.

I have been thinking a lot about coming home these days. I have a general idea of what is going to happen but there are so many variables and things that i don't have a lot of control over that it is hard to say what will happen. I know that i want to go to college to major in English. However i do not know where i will go to college. Do you have my information about the time that i took the ACT? I would like to be able to look at my score from here and try to "shop" for colleges.

I am trying not to worry about home but with me officially having a year and six months on the mission as of yesterday it is a little hard. It is ok though it will pass. My time in the office is halfway over. I only have three more months here and then i am off to my last area.

I have not heard a whole lot on the whole visa thing. We are getting i think seven Americans who's visas came through so that is a good sign. Whatever the purpose was of him going to the Provo MTC as a Portuguese speaker he was supposed to go there. Do not worry about that. It all fits into the Master's plan.

I love you mom. Have a good week :)

Oct. 19

Dear Mom,

That´s ok about the letter last week. It happens. I am glad that you two had a good time on your anniversary.

We decided to not wear our nametags in case something happened. You know how crazy people are about these soccer games. It was better to go like that than to risk some incident.

Why was dad in Nome?

He sent the same letter to me i think. I was very suprised to hear that he did that. I was so proud of him.

Unfortunately my life is boring now too. My companion and i are having difficulties. He is one of those types that is 150% with everything and never shuts up. While i am trying to get my stuff done he doesnt leave me alone. Everybody asks me how things are going with my companion. He annoyes everybody. I have done my best to ignore things that normally get me mad and i have done well so far.

We were looking for a less active and when we knocked on his door a woman answered. We asked if he was home and she said that he had moved fifteen days ago. We asked her some questions and she said that she already went to church and was almost baptized. We asked her what the problem was and she said that she didnt feel like she had a response from God. So we went in and taught her a lesson. We explained the importance of baptism and how God responds to our prayers. At the end she asked Heavenly Father in prayer to show her the way and to touch her heart by Saturday so that she could be baptized on Sunday. We followed up with her on the next day ,Thursday, and she read and prayed. She said she felt good when she read but was still unsure about being baptized. Yesterday when we went to talk to her she was not home. As we asked her neighbors we found her sister who was also not baptized and agreed to listen to the lesson today. We are very pleased that we found these two people. We have high hopes that they will be baptized soon. If all goes well we will baptize the first tomorrow.

I got thinking the other day. I only have six months left. I got a really wierd feeling and imagined myself getting home. It was super strange. I cant imagine the mission ending. It has so much finality to it. It is hard to imagine the continuation of my life.

Anyway Love you :)

Oct. 14

Dear Pops,

My week was good. Tuesday night i was falling to sleep ever so slowly and about midnight one of the assistants came into my room and started yelling about a rat in the house. Groggily i went down the stairs to the kitchen to see the other assistant ,E Clark an elder from my district in the MTC, in garment bottoms wielding a broom stick. Elder Amormino ,the brazilian assistant, said that Elder Clark jumped about a foot in the air when he saw the rat. He said it was hilarious. I believe it. Elder Clark is six foot four and a strong guy. He looked ashamed that he had jumped at the sight of a rat. But was trying to laugh it off. So we seal off the kitchen and surround the stove where the rat has ran off to. We ignite the oven and wait. All of a sudden we look under and see a tail. Armed with broomsticks we commence our attack. Out comes a six inch rat running all over the place. He tries to run up my pj pants and i start stamping frantically all the while keeping my calm so as to not bring ridicule upon my head. The rat is very fast and makes a leap of about a foot in the air aiming for the glass pane of the closed door. Smacking against the glass he scurries again but the was kicked by Amormino. He sails through the air and smacks against my hand that is resting on my thigh. Startled he falls on the ground and scurries under the fridge. With no way out we assault him with broom sticks until his death comes. 

It was a big rat. I dont know how he got into our house. He had gotten into a big bag of protein. That explains his size hahaha. I am always hot here. I will still freeze when i get home. It is ok though i bought a sweater here. It is actually a nice sweater. I got it for 20 bucks.

Good luck on your hunt
Love

Oct. 14

Dear Ma,

I heard about the reassignment. He seems to be taking a good attitude about things. He seems like he really has gotten the missionary spirit. What i meant is that i have never been robbed. 

That is too bad about Grandma. I will pray for her.

I am glad that Aunt Leisa is being released. That is a good sign of recovery.

I really hope that Trevor can continue to grow and have success in his football career. It will be good for him to have achievements in that area of his life. 

This week i had a snake try to bite me. My companion contacted a college student on the bus and she came to general conference with us. She found out that her college is close to where we go to lunch. So she brought two of her friends to eat with us. We thought awesome we get to eat and teach a lesson at the same time. This one friend she brought though is from the baptist church and was apparently fascinated by the tall quiet american. She asked lots of questions and we actually did not get to teach anything. The next day they also ate lunch with us ,just Iris the girl on the bus and Nivea the girl with lots of questions, and all the questions are about what we can do as missionaries. Nivea is totally focused on me and where i live etc. She told me firmly that she will visit me in Alaska and she also told me that i am gorgeous (which is true ;) )

We will talk to them and tell them that they have no chance and we are here to do our job. I did find it rather funny though.

Anyway hope you got a laugh :)

Love

Oct. 8

my week was pretty good, Monday night i got sick and couldn't get to sleep till 3:30 am so im tired but a nap on p-day helped. conference was great we watched all of it and got alot out of it. ya mom said he got some good tackles in. that's to bad, did you get any pictures of the tracks? if so i would love to have them. well i hope you know which trip to choose if you have to, praying helps. ya there's been light snow on the mountains here its really cool looking. well they do love to snowmobile so i hope you guys get alot of snow so you can go alot. not yet, and i think we can call from the airport when i leave for my re-assignment so if its not really early i will. i get my re-assignment this weds or thurs so i can send a email home when i do so i'll let you know. love you too and i keep you in my prayers. ya its easy to tell who is valiant and who isnt. i will

love you to pa

Love Elder Jensen

Oct. 7

Dear Mom,

That is a very neat concept that Jake could be at Colby´s side right now. I think that it is true. I have absoloutley no idea who is at my side. Whoever they are they are doing a good job. I have not had anybody try to rob me to this day. :)

When you want to suprise him with a gift just go to the bank and make a withdrawl and then use the cash to buy the gift.

This week was good. I worked stuff out with my companion. He is still annoying but at least we set some groudn rules and are more understanding of one another. General Conference was awesome. We had quite a few people that we are teaching go. Rebecca is a quiet girl who is about 23 years old. She is not sure about being baptized yet. She believes it is true but does not have the response she needs yet.  

Life around here is pretty much the same thing everyday. All i have to tell you is nitty gritty stuff. I wake up and i am super tired. Study a little bit. Go to the office and spend all day doing boring things. yay. That is my life in a nutshell.

Sorry for the late response. Conference robbed our pday

Sept 30