MTC Week 5: The Smuggler and The Businessmen Inbox

 Apologies about the title last week, I accidentally sent the email before I added the title story. It was called "The Lumberjack" because there was a tree that had fallen on the pullup bar in the exercise area. I pushed it off and got yelled at by the grounds worker because he thought I had pushed the tree down all by myself out of spite. I would like to have that kind of strength, but I didn't have anything against the tree. Of course he was joking but it was a little startling at first.


Happy Valentine's Day! I hope you had a great holiday. I actually did get a Valentine's gift this year, which surprised me. I got a small package of 4 oreos from one of my teachers! First Valentine's gift ever!

The Area Seventy came down this week and we had a devotional. He and his wife spoke in Spanish, so us gringos had to use headphones to have it translated to us. They spoke about being children of God and how to adjust to missionary life. It was translated for us by Hermano Basilio, one of the supervisors. I don't know why, but everyone, including me, loves the guy. He was actually my district's teacher for a little bit this week because Hermana Aranda had to quarantine. He's such a good teacher and we all felt like Spanish was making more sense. This week I memorized James 1:5 in Spanish and am actually feeling a little more confident in speaking since we learned how to say -ing and -ed words, although I don't have a lot of the grammar down yet. I'm working on it though, and with other devotionals I've had about how people will still understand me if I teach by the Spirit, I'm feeling more confident.

The schedule my batch of missionaries is in has us eating dinner at 5:30, which doesn't sound too bad until you realize there's pretty much no snacking and we're a bunch of 18-19 year olds. I have reverted to smuggling bags of bread out of the cafeteria to eat as a snack in my room later on. If I don't eat them that night though they turn to stones, which many times have been used as balls in games of catch by my district members. I haven't started dealing the bread yet because I'm taking it for myself, but I'm sure I will because the missionaries here are crazy about bread.

The food is still the same here, just lots of chicken and rice, and occasionally beef. Sometimes we have a side dish of hard-boiled eggs covered in a pink sauce. I'm not sure what the sauce is, but it's delicious. Sometimes they also try to feed us a whole half a chicken. My favorite breakfast days are when they give us 2 eggs or an omelette, since I can use them to make breakfast sandwiches. I've also tried some Peruvian candy from the vending machine. Unfortunately, the best one, Bon-bons, always sell out so quickly.

Everyday we teach a fake investigator, who's just our teacher. One time this week we taught the law of chastity. I didn't do anything wrong, but our teacher had to push pause on the lesson because one of my companions basically said to not wear pants and did a motion that outlined short shorts (on accident of course). It was so funny my teacher said she was going to write it in her journal. Hermana Wardell, a sister in my district, is so funny. She says she's impressed when I speak because I speak "profoundly" and am "very wise." She also says I'm "very blunt," which, I guess may be true sometimes because I don't always know how to respond to people and the general way I speak. But then when I showed my fun/crazy side, tested out some new "vocabulary" I learned, and apparently "roasted" everyone in my district, I'm "in a mood." She's so funny to have around. I used quotation marks a lot because she is so quotable and the other Elders in my district are compiling her quotes into a book. (Don't worry, she thinks it's funny too).

Recently I realized that it'd probably be a good idea if I read the New Testament and at least understood the stories of the Old Testament. I know most of the stories contained in both the Old and New Testaments, but I want to be able to discuss them instead of just relay the to people. In addition to reading the New Testament, I found many of the "Animated Stories from the Bible" on Facebook that I'm going to watch to understand the Old Testament better. My Institute teacher during my semester at ISU, Brother Whitney, who taught my "Writings of John the Beloved" class, had told my class about something in Gospel Library that discussed the last days and the Battle of Armageddon in detail when we were covering the book of Revelation. I was interested in reading it, but couldn't remember what it was called. It turns out, it was just the student handbook! I learned a few things from it that I didn't learn about in class. If anyone's interested, it's called "The Battle of Armageddon: A Prophetic View" under the Old Testament Student Manual, which can be found in the Institute  section of Books and Lessons.

Elders Frasure and Tobler, the others in my district, have become obsessed with the song "On My Way" from Brother Bear. They play it nonstop every morning. It's a fine song, but it's starting to get annoying. Tie trading is also a serious business down here. We have travelling salesmen going from room to room looking for ties to trade. Some people care about quality over quantity, while others like the opposite. Some people make investments by giving someone a tie they want but are required to let them choose a tie they get later from trading. 2 for 1 deals are common, and I've used it to increase the number of ties I have. I was a little scared of doing it at first since I was attached to my ties, but seeing how 80% of my ties were blue, I entered into the business. Just trading one tie has given me more ties that I'm willing to trade so I can keep going. I even got a sweet red Peruvian tie that says "Ilumina el Mundo" on it, which will be perfect for Christmas time. The whole business sounds ridiculous, which it is, but it's actually kind of fun.

That was my week! Although a lot of the things I wrote about have actually been happening for weeks, I never got involved in them or got around to writing about them until now. I hope you had a lovely Valentine's day and have a fantastic week!

Elder Jensen

1. Elder Sorensen's flower photoshoot
2. Yellow birds in motion
3. Peruvian candy
4. Light the World tie
5. My companionship at a workshop
6. Distrito Amulek
7. Peru sunset









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