Week 27: The Carrot Dream

¡Hola amigos! I hope you had a great week. My brother Will was set apart yesterday as a full time missionary for his mission in the Chile Santiago South mission. How crazy is that? Both of us are in South América at the same time!

I said my first word in Spanish in a dream! The word was "zanahoria," which is "carrot." I don't now why it was a word I hadn't said since I memorized it, but it's progress I guess. I remember trying to think of the word in the dream and it finally came to me. We also bought some cake slices from a different bakery, (still one of the 5 we've pinpointed on our way to the chapel). I got one of a fruit that I can't remember the name of and we shared a slice of lemon cake that's probably the best lemon cake I've had.

On Thursday we went to go paint the wall of a member's home. I had to climb up the sketchiest ladder I've ever used that would sometimes extend a little bit farther once you got to the top, so I had a mini heart attack everytime. I only got a little paint on my pants, so that part went better than I thought.

We have one investigator we're working with now named Juan who works as a security guard at the Boulevard, a mini shopping mall complex that makes me feel like I'm in that one place in Seattle I can't quite remember the name of. It's kind of a maze and makes me wonder how many different toe doctors and pedicure and manicure places you need within 20 feet of each other. He's friends with a ward member, Claudio, who referred him to us. We're teaching him about the Book of Mormon and he seems to be interested, even though our lessons with him are really short because we have them during his break time and he works almost the entire day. We also have another new investigator named Moisés who's progressing fast. He'd already been making changes in his life before he found us, like quitting drinking and regretging the tattoos he's gotten. He makes women's sandals for a living and he shows us how he does it. It's actually a cool process with the leather and how everything attaches. During our second lesson with him I could hear Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade playing. I knew immediately just from the music. It wasn't even the main theme. My years of listening to movie scores has given me the ability to name the song and pinpoint the exact moment it takes place. The movie was at the part where he's on the train at the beginning and the rhino is trying to stab him with it's horn. We left at the end of the motorcycle chase scene. Don't worry, I was paying attention to the lesson and speaking as much as I could. I'm hoping they can become strong progressing investigators!

We had interviews with Presidente Hiatt this week! I got to talk with Hermana Hiatt outside while I waited for my turn. She doesn't know much Spanish so I got to help translate for her and the other latinos. She told me I did really well on my piano piece the week before, the one that had an unexpected guest come in. Presidente Hiatt is still warming up on his Spanish too so I spoke with him in English too. They are both really cool and spiritual people and I can't wait to see them more and see what they do out here in the mission.

We met with both Hermana Nayarah and Hermano Paullo again this week to teach them more lessons to get them ready for baptism. We went over the Plan of Salvation again with Paullo and he's been watching too much youtube because all he did was ask us questions about what it says in "Apocolypsis," or the book of Revelations. He was worried about the big earthquake. We assured him he was fine and that focusing on the beautiful plan of salvation we were teaching him would make it so he wouldn't have to worry about those things. He also kept asking us about many insignificant details like where heaven is. We told him that we don't knlw everything right now but that if we have faith and follow Christ, we will eventually be able to know. Whenever he started saying "pero..." I wanted to roll my eyes because I knew the only answer we could give him was the one we'd already told him 5 times. But we got through the lesson and think he's on his way. During one of our lessons with Nayarah her little sister, Mya, who's only 4, starting shouting the f word. She probably learned it from scrolling through social media. Her dad didn't know what it meant because they all speak Spanish and not English. He started saying to tell her to stop once I told him that it was a really bad word.

On Saturday we had the baptism for Mateo, a young man in our ward but was in the area of the Hermanas. He progressed really fast and was baptized within 2 weeks of me meeing him. It was an awesome experience and was happy to see him become a member of our church. Right after the baptism Elder Vilca and I had to go back to our apartment which is about a 12 minute walk to grab the dishes from lunch to give to our pensionista brcause she was going to meet us at the church. She and her husband have said they'll get us our dinner around 7:30, except for when they don't. They usually get it to us by 10, but they're doing better now. By the time we got back the baptism was over and I was able to practice the hymns for sacrament meeting a little bit before our food came.

On Sunday along with the Hermanas we escorted Nayarah and her sister Angelly to church. Now she has two sacrament meetings so she can be baptized! Just need to get through everything else, which means we'll have a really busy week with her and Paullo. If you could keep them in your prayers I know it will help! I played the piano again in sacrament meeting and everyone loves that they have an actual player now. Bishop actually asked me if it would be possible for me to teach some of the youth to play so they can still have players when I leave. I don't even know how to teach piano in English, so you can probably see where that would have gone. I tried teaching some of the hermana missionaries a month ago and that felt like it was impossible because I have no idea how to teach piano I'm still the best option to do it, but I don't think it would work out. Who knows, maybe I'll give it a shot.

Sunday I went with Elder Vilca to the chapel in Florencia for him to receive his patriarchal blessing. He's been out for nine months so I was a little shocked when he said he didn't have his. It went a bit longer than we thought, so we postponed our noche de hogar with the hermanas and the famila Quispe by 45 minutes. Of course with latinos the first thing they all ask when someone receives their blessing is, "que tribu?" (What tribe). We can share it if we want to in the US, but it's more of a personal thing. Down here though, it's like your pride and glory and they actually have events where they assign you to groups with your tribe.

With the Quispe family we talked about how the gospel has blessed our lives. It was a nice meeting and I felt pretty comfortable with Spanish. Understanding is still a little hard at times but I'm getting better. Reading is easy for me now except for new vocabulary and speaking is getting easier, I just need to work on understanding the spoken word. We were given each a popsicle of a fruit I had never heard of called an aguile? I can't exactly remember the name. They also gave us some hot chocolate and some deep fried scones filled with cheese in the shape of an empanada, and they were delicious. We had a long talk about American accents before heading home.

That was my week! It was pretty fun and I'm really excited for Nayarah's and Paullo's baptisms on Saturday! I hope you can keep them in your prayers! Have a great week!

Elder Jensen

1. Painting

2. Hermano Juan (different Juan, this is the one we painted for)

3. Mateo's baptism!

4. A photo from my exchange 2 weeks ago

5. La familia Quispe

6. I couldn't figure out how to stop the timer on the camera

7. I wonder what drug Dory and Nemo are on