MTC Overtime: Week 8 - Try Not to Fall Asleep

Buenos dias! I hope you had a good week. My weeks are definitely going to start meddling together in repetitiveness. No one has gotten their visa for about 6 weeks, and no one from the group above me has left yet, so I think I'll be here for a while. I think my group is going to customs later this month to bug them for our visas.


We discovered there was a hole in the closet of our bathroom that led straight down to the hermanas bathroom closet. One night the other compos decided to put Elder Sorensen's speaker into a tied bed sheet and lower it down to their bathroom closet. They started blasting the religious man song from Nacho Libre and the Follow the Prophet and Book of Mormon Stories trap remixes. We heard a scream when they opened the door and saw the white sheet quickly get pulled up. "We opened the door and something moved, so we screamed," they said. I was asked to say a district prayer one night and Hermana Cox asked me to pray for her cousin Riley and her parents. I couldn't remember what to say, so I said to bless Riley and her husband. That caused them to burst out laughing. My district and a few people from another had a birthday party for Elder Fluckiger. We had a dance party in our room to the Follow the Prophet and Book of Mormon Stories trap remixes as well as the Wii sports theme and some mario kart music. My companionship has single-handedly put the snail population of the CCM on the endangered species list. I myself never killed one, but Elder Sorensen has been killing them all. He'll grab them off of the walls and chuck them onto the ground, toss them in the air to count the seconds, or just drop them off the wall. I like buying these little straw-like candy things called Killos from the vending machine. I seem to be the only one who buys them, though. I took a few to breakfast with me one day and used them as straws for my milk. It took an unnecessary amount of suction to actually drink the milk, and it all came up bubbly. It wasn't a complete waste because they are pretty good dipped in milk.

My days as a compo are growing long so I've reverted to some methods of calming down, since it's very draining studying the gospel and spanish from sun up to sun down. I can now name all 196 countries in the world and place them on the map, as well as identify all of the flags. It turns out my brother, Andy, can name and place all the countries too, so we're going to have to have a competition sometime. Someone also found a link to all the Living Scripture cartoons, so now I can relive my youth of watching King Noah eating bananas and Mormon kicking Lamanite butt.

As compos we are assigned to "be taught" be the younger missionaries. We got to create personas that were going to be taught by them. I'm being taught by a trio of latinos and a duo of gringo elders. I realized the persona I created was pretty lame when I saw everyone else was dressing in their pday clothes as druggees, complete with some white powder they sprinkled on the floor. I just quickly said my name was Pedro and I was a history student. That's why I hoped that the American elders wouldn't have seen my profile so I could create a brand new persona. While we were waiting to be taught in the casitas I decided I would be an Evangelical pastor by flipping up my collar. I gotta say I look pretty good like that. I answered the door but they called me Pedro so I just said I was playing dress up or something dumb like that while I flipped it down to be the boring history student again. Elder Brough was being taught by insanely good missionaries who were leading him towards baptism on the second lesson, so he asked Elder Sorenesen to pretend to be his drunk older brother with Elder Haymond and I as his drunk friends. We got to crash in the middle of their lesson as drunk people, which was pretty fun. I untucked my shirt and flipped my glasses upside down. That's probably what I'd do if I was actually drunk, in addition to singing Laban's drunk song from the Living Scriptures. It didn't throw off their lesson that much though because the elders teaching him are too good.

I gave my testimony in fast and testimony meeting. We are now doing it with the latinos, so it's all in Spanish. I shared my testimony of the Book of Mormon and prophets. Their words speak peace to my heart and I know prophets were called by God, and that President Nelson was called to lead us in these latter days. I think I did pretty well with my Spanish, although I'm sure I slipped up quite a bit. I'm going to keep practicing and praying for the gift of tongues as well as the gift of interpretation of tongues, because I'm having trouble understanding the Latinos as well. I also got to go to the temple again on Wednesday. It's always an amazing experience, especially now that I'm doing it in Spanish, and I'm glad we're getting to go every week now.

We've started to call Elder Zaitzeff Professor Zaitzeff since he's definitely going to be one in the future. He's a great teacher and knows so much about the gospel and all of the sacred works. Elder Haymond and I have had many great and deep conversations with him since we also know quite a bit about the gospel. I shared my notes and findings from researching the sealing power and had a great discussion. I mentioned the similarity in the language of when the sealing power was given to three different people; Elijah in the Old Testament, Peter in the New, and Nephi, the son of Helaman, in the Book of Mormon. The sealing power is perhaps the greatest gift we've been given by God, seeing how it can both bind things on earth and in heaven. In addition to sealing families for eternity, both Elijah and Nephi used the sealing power to close the skies and cause a famine to bring the people unto repentance. God trusted both of them enough and gave them,  in the presence of angelic witnesses, the sealing power, saying that whatever they said would be done. Both were given this power because God knew they would never misuse it. The sealing power is so great that it was removed after the death of the apostles and restored on April 3, 1836 to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowderey in the Kirtland temple by the prophet Elijah. Elijah returned on the passover just like the prophet Malachi said he would, which began the process of "turn[ing] the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the children to the fathers..." (D&C 110:15). That is why so many family history centers and DNA test places and websites have opened up, not all of which are church affiliated, since that day in 1836. People are naturally becoming attached to their ancestors and want to know more about them. Everyone is feeling the influence of the Spirit of Elijah. We, as members of the Church, do it so we can seal ourselves to our ancestors and perform their saving ordinances so we can live together forever, through the sealing power. Elder Zaitzeff had some great comments throughout and I hope we can start a little gospel doctrine class here.

That was my slightly less eventful week! A lot still happened, but with everyday being so tedious I'm starting to forget things. I hope your days are exciting and you have a great week!

Elder Jensen

1. The Lima temple
2. Wyatt, Pedro's neighbor
3. My pastor outfit I sadly didn't get to use
4. The drunks
5. Me falling into a fit of accidental 5 minute naps. Kinda looks like I'm praying
6. Princesa bar. 1.8 soles, not really worth it considering what you can get for cheaper
7. Hermana Wardell thought we looked like twins when she put on glasses









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