Elder Sam Jensen

  Hola! Este semana fue muy similar a las ultimos semanas en ese no mucho occurido. Yo esperanzo su semana fue muy divertido y usted vio el mano de Dios en su vida! This week we had two live devotionals. On Monday we had Bishop L. Todd Budge, the second counselor in the presiding bishopric come down in person to the CCM. He actually gave a talk just last general conference called, "Giving Holiness to the Lord." He spoke about our purpose as a missionary and the importance of repentance. Repentance is like a "spiritual rep." Each time it tears your muscles but they get bigger and stronger each time. On Tuesday we also had Dale G. Renlund and his wife speak to us from Provo. His wife's name is Ruth, and he told us that in Portuguese, his wife's name is pronounced, "Hoochi!"  He spoke to us about how missionaries are perfect messengers and that we can share our message both quickly and effectively. I practiced the piano for most of my free time this w...

 Hola mi familia y amigos! Espero que lo estás haciendo bien! As is normal now, my weeks are pretty slow and boring. However, there was still some fun and interesting things that happened this week! This week my trio was paired with a trio of elders and two sets of hermanas from the new group to go to the temple. We spent quite a bit of time talking and taking photos outside the temple we spent a little too much time in the distribution center that we actually missed our bus. But then again, the bus driver was probably there for 5 minutes before he decided to leave. We had to catch a ride with the next group, so the bus was a little crowded on the way back. With not much to do during the day, my trio has resorted to doing simple games to pass the time. One of them this week was having one person randomly draw for a few seconds that then we flipped a coin to see who would have to finish the drawing. Most of them ended up involving stick figures being destroyed by giant's feet, spide...

  Hola! ¿Cómo le va? I hope you had a fantastic week and were able to see the hand of God in your life. My weeks are getting very long and boring. I'm doing my best to stay motivated, but it's really hard to sometimes. I have a strong hope that I'll get out in the field in about a month, maybe a week or two after conference. The older group of compos are most likely going to leave sometime within the next 20 days, so we should be right on track to leave a little while after them. We actually attended a live devotional this week! It was through technology, but it was awesome to see a member of the Quorum of the Twelve speak to us live. Elder Anderson and his wife spoke to us about the teachings and atonement of Jesus Christ. We were given a sheet of paper with many of the parables and teachings of Christ from the New Testament, as well as the testimonies of the atonement from the Book of Mormon. He exhorted us to memorize them so we can use them at a moment's notice when...

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 p...

  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 ...