The Time Is Flying TOO Fast!

Feb 3, 2009

Nata and Jason – those pics of Davy standing up are SO DANG CUTE I just want to eat him and give him raspberries all day long. Does he talk yet? Nata - I do remember man-food (chili), bag soup, the limo incident and those dot candies. Do you remember my mac ´n´cheese? I also remember switching rooms on Sunday afternoons and meeting you for lunch on campus for the Tuesday Devotionals. I miss you tons and hope that when I get home your family will have moved back because I want to raise my family being close to yours. Here in Argentina people usually live in the same ward as their parents and their siblings and all, so they stay super close-knit. I´m not saying we need to live in the same ward, but the same state would sure be super! Yes, my hair is growing… I´m not going to cut it the whole mission and then just trim off the split ends (but I have practically none here!) right before I come home… I expect it will reach halfway of my shirt sleeve or thereabouts.

Guess what my word of today is “endulzar” – to sugar coat. I am not here to sugar coat the truth. My comp said I was maybe to bold with an inactive woman yesterday, but I feel quite comfortable with what I told her. I am not here to say “if you wanna come back to church someday, it´d be cool” I´m here to say “I challenge you to set a goal with a specific date for yourself and come back to church” which is what I said. One day she will thank me. My other favorite thing to say is “entretanto” which means in the interim! It´s a phrase I learned as a transcriptionist in the hospital and I just love using it in Castellano!

Mommy, sorry to report that I haven´t gotten my envelope yet, but that means that I´ll surely get it next Monday. Don’t stress… I´m sure that it is safely arriving. I received a letter from Cody Marsh and Shauna! I was so excited. I also received one through the pouch from my old companion Hermana Tavares who is from Argentina and she finally confirmed that the young girl we taught in Los Angeles was baptized! I was so happy. She promised to send me pictures, but I think I´m going to tell her to send them to you. If she does, will you scan them and send them to me in an email? This is all like months away for sure, but one day I´d like to see the pics of my first convert! (and third at the same time because Azucena and Rolando where baptized a week before her)

Daddy – who won the Superbowl ? I don´t even remember who was playing? Elder Gneiting got transferred out of my zone, so we won´t be able to talk basketball much… basically not ever again, because I doubt we´ll be in the same zone again before I go home. I know what you mean about counting and not counting the time out. I say there is no shame in knowing your time as long as you are using it… which brings me to my “wow” story for the week:
One morning the cell phone made the croaking frog sound which wakes us up at 6:28 to pray and as I heard it I thought “NO… I´m so tired, I can´t do this much more” but as I thought that to myself that very instant I remembered that I only have just over 9 months left to do this, in this way, in this mission, for the rest of my life. Sure I plan to serve a couples mission when I´m older, but it´s not the say as this mission, in this minute. I only have this day to walk these streets and when it is gone, it is gone. I jumped out of bed and fell to my knees faster than you can imagine even if you had soaked me with freezing cold water because I realized in that minute that I only have x number of days left… they are slipping through my fingers and I couldn´t wait to get on my feet and make the most of that day. It is now the feeling that I have as I commence every day… with urgency… I only have so many days left, and I´m not going to waste a single one! Talk about wow!

Confession… there are ice cream stores like every 12 blocks and it´s super hot here. We stop to buy 1-4 kilos of ice cream about twice a week. The ice cream here is great! Normally it costs 8 pesos, but last week we found one that is 5 pesos! It´s my one way of treating myself… ice cream. You´d really like it!

Questions… is anything particular going on in Israel? When we pray with people lots of them pray for the people in Israel and I´m like “what?” is the second coming here and nobody is telling us?

You all had a bunch of questions about my comp. Allow me to answer them: She is 23, her name is Karla Roy from Nicaragua. She´s tiny (I´m pretty sure I already told you that). She is a spit fire and a quiet one that has nothing to say and everything to say at the same time. We get along really well, but have had a few minutes where we had to stop and get back on the same page, but that is to be expected with the language and culture gap. Really nothing too out of the norm. She is really not much of a talker. But we have tons of hilarious memories and jokes between us. I was THRILLED to be able to serve with her another transfer here in Haedo 1 … oh yeah… FYI – in the transfer meeting yesterday we were relieved to learn that she stays here with me for 6 more weeks! Literally…I prayed for her to stay because I recognized there were more things I needed to learn from her before she goes. We teach really well together and work quite unitedly-- if I do say so myself. She has great ideas and one of her very best characteristics is that she is a good little lunch getter. When one member bails on us, she is quick to call another and another and get us lunch! I´m learning a lot from her about getting what you need (notice I didn´t say “want”) from people. She is super caring and a great example. We are learning a lot from one another. She is stubborn though… it is my job to teach her English and she doesn´t put forth much initiative because she feels embarrassed that she knows so little. So that is where a few of our moments came from. Me-- trying to tell her she´s got to step up and take advantage of the opportunity to learn. I´d just back off and say “your choice” but in every interview the President evaluates how we are helping our Latin companions with their English, so you can imagine that I feel a bit of pressure to have her progressing. But rest assured, she and I are way tight and super close. We have a bunch of shared likes and dislikes. We get along really well!

In the transfer meeting we were happy to learn that the mission had 129 converts! This transfer we have a mission goal that each and every area has at least one convert. I feel quite confident that at least one of our 4 investigators with a baptismal date will go through, so I don´t feel like we will be the weak link… luckily!

The biggest shock of the transfer meeting was seeing “Haedo 1 “ and hearing our area announced as the winners of the mission scarf – again. We were blown away because it was a really tough transfer according to our numbers. We worked super hard, but didn´t reach our new investigator goal – which up till now I had always reached. But hey, we won the scarf and that was a kind of rewarding experience because I had felt that in many ways the transfer was a bit of a flop.

New adventures and stories to keep you on your toes:

I don’t know all the details about this, but there is a weird thing that happens here. There is a company that comes around to the homes of old women who have already been through menopause and they come around collecting giant jugs that are filled with the urine of these old ladies. I have been told that they use the liquid to make anti-contraconceptives (I tried to translate it) and yeah… in return they reward the women with random household things like a few spatulas or a new Tupperware bowl. Random. But, there is nothing quite like stopping to talk to someone in their front yard and see that there is a jug of yellow liquid in their hand and they are waiting for the collector men… it´s interesting. You can trade your urine for spoons! I´m so gonna do that… NOT!

Another thing about this country… there is a huge gap in the level of aging in the elderly people here. There are 85 year olds that ride around with perfect posture on their bikes (that aren´t 10 speed… without gears or anything) like there´s nothing to it and then there are 58 year olds that can´t even come to church if you offer to pick them up in a taxi (and pay for it from your own mission fund!) It´s trippy. Another thing… so many people have like massively swollen legs and ankles… I don´t know why, but old people often have very disturbing legs and feet.
Could it have anything to do with the water?

Speaking of water, my comp and I finally were able to track down and buy a water dropper and begin purifying our tap water with Clorox… but I don´t like it because you can taste it and I´m still secretly afraid that we are somehow going to poison ourselves and die. What is worse a parasite or dying from Clorox? I´m taking a poll. Let´s have it…

As far as when it will begin to cool down—probably as March comes to a close. We have about 50 days more of this heat. It´s crazy!

My left shoe is drastically wearing down, but I don´t have any pain. Faustino said that I will have pain down the road and wants me to see an orthopedic doctor to get customize insoles. Yeah…with all my free time and extra cash. Hehe!

This may be my best adventure story of the week: we came home the other night and our awesome good Samaritan neighbor Fernando was inside the gate and as we went to open the gate he said that it wasn´t working. In fact he was trapped inside and we were trapped outside. But it was 9 o´clock and we had to get into the apartment to plan. So I gave my comp a boost and helped her scale the fence and he caught her on the other side! Talk about breaking the rules… she was in the arms of an Argentine man! I was able to jump, hoist myself and just needed to have him hold my hands as I jumped down to the other side… instead of being caught in his arms like the giant catches Buttercup at the end of the Princess Bride. It was like “the ox in the mire” we had to let ourselves be touched… heaven forbid! It was funny and we laughed about it. He was super helpful and of course a perfect gentleman. Later that night someone was able to open the door so we were able to leave the next morning in the normal way and when we returned the lock had been repaired. But yeah… imagine 2 sister missionaries in skirts scaling the fence to their own building and jumping into the arms of some man. Pretty funny!

INVESTIGATORS!
Faustino Arce accepted the date of Feb. 21st and is progressing swimmingly!
Miguel Benites also accepted this date, but it will be an uphill battle and he will get baptized per the approval of his family and in case you are wondering… they do NOT approve. So that is where we stand, but we are fighting to win. We are also trying to help some other really great people get to church and have a baptismal date. I hope and pray that this transfer will be the ‘transfer of miracles’ because the last transfer was the test of our faith… it was so hard – I just can´t convey it in words, but we survived! We are even teaching a family… we haven´t met the Dad yet, or some of the kids, but I pray with all my heart that we can bring this family to the gospel… I pray that they listen to us… we have only taught them once, but it was a great first discussion! We go back today… wish us luck!

We have another older couple who had the date to be baptized on the 28th of December, but are having more difficulties with them… if it be the will of the Lord to work miracles, it will happen, but there are a million things getting in the way… like work and a 3 month vacation to Peru. But they are super great.

My hour is gone!

I love you tons, never worry about me… we are so protected!
Have an amazing week!

Your strong and loving sister missionary!
Hermana Jensen