Umbrellas and Cracked Heels

Family!

First off, thanks for answering all my questions and sending me the conversion charts for Celsius vs. Fahrenheit and kilos vs. pounds.

No I have not gotten the package... you´d know if I had! I´d be thanking you left and right. I´ll let you know when it arrives.

Go BYU, but for heaven´s sake, make me proud--winning isn´t so grand if it wasn´t a victory that we earned by playing hard.

Nata - remember all those clapping contests we had? Well, it´s finally paying off because I can clap so loud! It´s great because that´s how you "knock doors" here. Everything is gated and fenced and locked and so the way you get people to come to the door is to stand outside it and clap. I think I already explained all of this , but yeah, it´s great that my big sis motivated me to learn to clap well!

Also, thanks for the dearelder letter you sent me about my birthday and being in a different country. You´re right... I´m beginning to feel so proud to be bi-cultural, but I haven´t got it down just right yet. I almost had a panic attack buying food today because I didn´t understand that "para llevar" meant "to go" ... luckily my companion helped me out. LOL!

I would like to let you all know that my heels are becoming what seems to be permanently black. They started out kind of bloody and red, but now they are definitely black. The skin is hard and almost calloused and cracked and not that pretty, but it proves that I walk a lot! Also the soles of my feet are so hard... they don´t crack, but I feel like I´m wearing shoes when I´m walking around our pension barefoot. It´s trippy.

Sadly, Lorenzo is struggling. His current church told him that there couldn´t be any more scripture, so he threw his Book of Mormon away! I was so sad. When he told us about it during a lesson my companion was well prepared. First she had him read 6 different scriptures in the Bible that talk about scriptures and books and other things the Bible doesn't have to help him see that there have been many scriptures lost and that more was written. Then we went to 2 Nephi 29 and read the entire chapter out loud and explained the point about, "a bible, we´ve already got a bible and we need no more Bible", and how it isn't true because we are still His children and He remembers all of the nations of the earth. Because of this we will receive more of His word, and that just because He has spoken one word doesn't mean He cannot speak another, that His work with us isn't done. I was so grateful that she was so quick and ready. Then we told him about "other sheep" just like in John and I found the same reference that clarifies that the other sheep are the people in the Book of Mormon, and we read 3 Nephi 15:17,21. It felt good that we were able to help him understand. It ended with him being quite open to the idea that the Book of Mormon could also be the word of God and he told us that he wanted another one and that he wouldn´t throw it away.

And, we do have hope of finding a family to teach! One day we did a street contact with an 18 year old girl while we were waiting for the colective in the rain. We talked to her on the colective and we all got off at the same station and her umbrella wouldn´t open. So we all huddled under my giant umbrella (which I LOVE), and finally got hers opened. We stopped by her house a few days later and taught her, her mom, and her 2 little sisters. We set up a return appointment for 2 days later and taught her, her mom, and her older sister (her 2 younger sisters were at school), we set up another appointment for tomorrow and we hope to set up a Noche de Hogar (Family Home Evening) in which we can meet the dad and teach the entire family! They had already been contacted by the sister missionaries here about 9 months ago. They already had a Book of Mormon, but hadn´t ever progressed. Hopefully now is their time. Family Sandes... I´d love to tell the story of the family that we found because we were doing contacts in the rain and her umbrella wouldn't open!

I carry one of the BYU family pictures, and the one you sent me that you took on the grass the day Davy was blessed and show them to members whenever they ask about my family. They are all way impressed with the thick and beautiful grass in the latter picture... the grass here is not like that at all. You can´t even sit on it because you´d get dirt all over your clothes because the grass it is so thin!

Okay, gotta run...I love you all so much!

Chao,

Hermana Jensen