Elder Sam Jensen

  Hola! I hope you had an amazing week. This was my first week as a compo and it got a little boring. I think my emails until I leave the MTC might be a little shorter because I don't have as much to write about. My p days are now on Mondays, so look forward to an email from me each Monday! This week Elder Sorensen rolled his ankle pretty badly while playing basketball. It was quite swollen and he walked around in a compression sock and sandal for a few days. The cripple jokes increased and everyone will continue to ask him how his ankle is even when it's healed, as a running joke. That night I gave my first ever priesthood blessing to him! I don't really know how to describe it, but giving a blessing is a special feeling. I felt that the words were coming to my mind and was overwhelmed with the spirit. I hope that I'll be able to give many more blessings on my mission! I attended the temple for the third time this week, and the Lima temple is still as beautiful as ever...

Hola! I hope you had a great week! My week was very fun and I had a lot of great experiences, both spiritual and totally ridiculous, not all of which I think I'll be able to write about because somethings that happen in the dorm room, stay in the dorm room. I was able to go to the temple again this week. It was just as great as the first, although the temple workers speak really fast and quietly that it sounds like they're barely mumbling. I'm going to try to listen to the audio of the session in Spanish next time to see how much I can pick up on, because at least that isn't speaking at lightning speed. I heard the people in Trujillo speak really fast, so we'll see how that goes. This Sunday was really busy for me. I agreed to sing "Gethsemane" during sacrament meeting with Elder Sorensen, three hermanas from the new districts, and Elder Haymond on piano. It went really well and I liked coming up with my own line to sing since Haymond was playing the prima...

  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 ...

This week was a little tougher than the last few, mainly because my stomach hurt the entire week, and still does a little bit today. I don't know whether my body was just adjusting to the food or I caught a bug, but it was kind of hard to focus because of the pain. It didn't hurt the entire time, but it acted up a lot after meals and in the morning and night. I think it's starting to go away, so hopefully I'll feel better soon. There was also a sickness that went around this week that wasn't Covid, but I don't think it's what I got because I had mine before all of them as well as after, and I didn't throw up like the rest of them. A new batch of missionaries arrived this week, a group of Latinos and about 26 Americans. I thought I was a somewhat tall guy, (I'm 6' and a half inch), but these new elders are huge! Almost all of them have a good 1-2 inches on me at least. It doesn't help that most of them, including the new Hermanas, already seem...

First week out of quarantine! A lot of things improved, although it wasn't until my companions and I were out of quarantine that we realized we had a few blessings being down there anyway. I get to enjoy warm food, which is something I think everyone would miss. I'm pretty sure I've had almost all meals at least twice, but it's pretty hard to tell since half of them have been a different style of chicken or steak with rice. Being able to drink milk again has also been a real blessing since I felt like a part of me was missing, and because I need my protein . Attending classes physically is so much better than learning through a zoom call that cut out every 3 minutes because of the spotty internet. I actually felt like I learned something this week and my Spanish is improving, although slowly. I also liked being able to attend the devotionals on Sunday since we learned a lot about doctrine, being a missionary, and a lot about the church. It was also fun to look down my r...

Well this was a crazy week. Last monday I tested positive for Covid along with 3 other Elders and 26 Latinos. I didn't experience any symptoms throughout the whole week, though. I was in quarantine with Elder Lopez, (who's from Colorado and isn't a native), Elder Brough, and Elder Figueroa, who's from Pocatello, which is really cool. He finally got his visa this week after being stuck in the MTC for almost 18 weeks.  All our meals were served via paper bags. We would usually get our meals at least 45 minutes before our scheduled meal time because the Latinos have a different schedule than us and we all got them at the same time. We weren't allowed to eat during classes, so our meals were usually cold. Besides that, the food is really good. We are served quite a lot of eggs, chicken, beef, and potatoes. Every meal has at least one of those. One of our meals was just a pile of french fries with a fried egg on top! I need to remember to save my extra ketchup. But above...

  Week one is done! Well, I've only been in the MTC since Friday morning, but I was set apart last Sunday. I woke up at 3:45 on Thursday morning to make my 6 am flight to Dallas. Saying goodbye to my family felt very brief and sudden, but I knew what I was doing was right. I saw two sister missionaries at the airport and we stayed together for our six hour layover. I had my last American meal in the Dallas airport Applebees and we finally met another sister and another Elder who were also going to the Lima MTC. The flight was pretty miserable, since I had a sore throat and stuffy nose. My COVID test had come back negative, though. I just sat there for most of it but did fall asleep twice, for only an hour at a time whenever the baby next to me wasn't crying. We arrivex in Lima at about 2 am, and it was amazing seeing the miles of endless orange lights from the window. We were all at the very back of the plane, so we were the last to go through customs. Luckily, a nice man who s...