Week 69: Doing What I'm Supposed to Do

 Hola todos! I hope you all are well and things are going great for you!


On Wednesday we had a multizone conference with Este and Central. I was asked to play the piano. I don't remember what it's called in English, but I played hymn number 88 in the Spanish hymnbook and Reedemer of Israel. They both went well. President gave a great presentation about faith and finding people that really impacted me. We had what seemed like Café Río Perú for lunch with the gummy shark drink again, as well as cake for birthdays and a brownie and ice cream for dessert. Afterwards we visited Fabricio and Maria and had a lesson with the reviewing the Sabbath day after listening to Maria talk for an hour. They also gave us some Fanta and bizcocho. We also were given directions by our friend Lesli to another friends house, Alex. She didn't give us a direction exactly, so we contacted with a guy named Jhonathan first. We didn't think we could find the house, but Elder Lopez felt to talk to some people on the street. They were actually Alex' family! We were able to wait for him and shared a lesson about faith and the Book of Mormon.

On Thursday I went on exchanges with Elder Cordova in Tahuantinsuyo. We had a great comp study where we presented ourselves to each other very seriously and had chaufa for lunch. Afterwards we went to all of the people who have fechas in their area, including Keymi, the granddaughter of Elizabet, two people I "taught" while in Tahuantinsuyo exactly one year ago. I was able to give her baptismal interview! (I never really taught her, so that was ok) That was fun, and Elizabet actually recognized me! We knocked on inspired doors and watched a part of the movie "Witnesses" during dinner. After we had anoche hogar with the family of Rodrigo and Nicolas, 2 other kids that I "taught" while there. They weren't baptized when I was there because their father wanted to baptize them but he wasn't an active member. But he's active now and they've both been baptized so it's all good!

On Friday after the exchange we got to work. We (finally) had a lesson with Nayeli and Maria again. We tried to get a member to come with us but everyone was busy, so we went the whole day solo. There we talked about baptism again because apparently Nayeli had been telling everyone whe was going to get baptized on the 6th of May, which is the day before her bday, but she still lacks some of the missionary lessons. It's just so weird to me that she'll tell everyone but us about that. But it's fine and we put both her and Maria on date for the 20th! Maria's only been to church once because of her work, but she has Sundays free this month and so we hope she'll come. But then of course she won't be able to come again, but she seems to have the desire. And Nayeli is already more active than the majority of youth in the ward so she's fine. We don't need the approval of her father for her to be baptized because he doesn't live with them, but we've heard that he's a little skeptical about it all so we're going to see if we can talk to him on Thursday. After that we had a lesson on the restoration with our friend Abi. She's a pf wr found while knocking doors of members. She seems like she can progress, but she's studying in the university and doesn't have much time on Sundays but we'll see what we can do. Later we took the bus and then walked the 12 minutes to San Francisco to teach Elis. We've been teaching since February when I found her while knocking doors close to someone who'd been taught before. She's accepted everything, but still hadn't come to church because there's always something that gets in the way. But she really does want to come. We testified of sacrifice and what we're willing to do to follow God. We also put her on date for the 27th, and we're confident she'll come every week so she can be baptized on that day. We're also going to start teaching her 9 year old son, Favio, because he's interested too. We hope to put him on date for baptism too.

On Saturday we had Bryan come with us to a few lessons for the first time in a while. We visited Marta and Maria but ended up going to San Francisco again to teach Raquel, a woman who we found as a gray dot who in the past had a dream about a book. So we'll see where we can go with her. We started fasting after lunch that day, but for lunch hna Ángela made for us a dish from the jungle, which is where she's from. It's called Juanas, I think. It has chicken inside rice cooked in a leaf? I don't know just look at the photos below. It was pretty good and is also served with the meat of venado (deer). Huh, I didn't think deer lived in the jungle. So that was my first time trying deer meat! But we started our fast so we had to turn down the tamales that were served at Gabriel's mission farewell. He's Ángela's grandson and Bryan's older brother. He's going to serve in the Argentina Buenos Aires South mission. We were able to give him some advice. He's going to be such a great missionary. 

Sunday was great. We had ward council (I think my 2nd one here in Huanchaco.) We invited a bunch of people who didn't end up coming. Hermana Nina wasn't able to come because she's gone for a few days visiting a friend who's in the hospital. We had to send her message asking if she wanted us to announce her baptism in church or not, but she said she wants to postpone it. She also said she wants to clear some things up and made it clear she's already been baptized before. Looks like we're going to have to teach the restoration for the 5th time. Hermano Cirilo had to go to work so he couldn't come either. But then I felt prompted to pass by the house of an old member to invite her to church. She answered and said she was thinking about us and wanted to go to church that day and was hoping we would come. So we walked with her. Hna Elis FINALLY CAME!!! Along with her 2 kids! And hermnao Jimmy, (a recent convert who lives close to them) was able to help them come. Thank you Jimmy! All of our recent converts came, and Fabricio passed the sacrament for the first time! It was so beautiful. Also our friend Marta who's kind of inactive also came. It was a good meeting. After breaking our fast Elder Lopez took a quick sick nap and I did district leader stuff. After we got out I felt prompted to talk to a lady we had already passed, so we backtracked and had a good lesson with a woman named Lourdes. That night we went over to Marta's house in Huanchaquito Alto to talk with her, Carol, and her sister Kitty, who's an investigator. We had a great lesson about Jesus Christ and the Book of Mormon. After we left Marta introduced us to her co-worker Merly and her family, who seem like great references!

For pday today we played some soccer at the field close to our house before going to our pensionista and she cooked fried chicken for us! It was pretty fun, but we'll have to start doing things that we can do with the hermanas. Afterwards Elder Lopez wanted to get a replacement string for his guitar, again. So we went and one guy in the store started talking to me. He asked me a lot of questions and I answered them. I then asked him why he wanted to talk to me and said, "because I love you, and I worry about your salvation." Hehe. He wasn't a full on basher, but he tried saying some things to prove the church wrong like the scripture in Revelation, but all the things he said were easy to refute. But I didn't want to fight so we ended on a good note.

We may hear different ways of doing missionary work and people say being a successful missionary comes in the form of baptism or leadership or something other superficial. I don't have a whole lot of time to share all my thoughts, but I'll just say that having charity will help us do the right things in the mission for the right reasons too! I do what I'm supposed do, which is doing what the Lord asks. The spirit converts, I don't. If I work in the way the Lord wants me to, even if the outward results don't show it, I will have success, complete joy, and 2 years full of experiences, memories, and spiritual moments.

That was my week! I hope you all are safe and have a absolutely fantastic week!

Elder Jensen

1. Juanas?
2. He stole my back pack!
3. Goodbye to Gabriel! He's going to do so great
4. In front of the temple
5. Pday in the pension!
6. Exchange with Elder Cordova









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