Week 31 in Farmers Branch, TX

This week was full of more exciting door knocking. We were able to find two really great families. The first one was English. She was really receptive and really wanted to learn more. We had to hand her off to the English Elders. The next we found yesterday. She believes that God answers prayers and she told us a story about her 14 year old son got an answer to his prayer and she knows that God can answer prayers. It was pretty amazing. We are going back tomorrow.

Oh I forgot to tell you a funny story, this last week we came back to our bikes to go home and as we got there I noticed that my companions seat was missing. They stole the seat and the bar. It was funny. They didn't touch my bike at all.
Our President says he hasn't heard anything about us getting I pads but we don't know if our new president knows anything about the I-Pads. I am hoping that we are able to get them.

We went to a training meeting this last week and president D.  dunked a basketball!!!!!!!! on film. He showed us highlights of his BYU career. This was the first time he has mentioned basketball his whole three years. He has tried to avoid the basketball questions. The only reason he said that he showed us this was because in one of his many slam dunks our new mission president did a behind the back pass to President D and D dunked. It was an awesome film. He also showed us part of his talk that he gave in priesthood secession in the 80's. He showed us President Hinckley telling the crowd that he was a fantastic basketball player. After there was a song, and in the song one of the verses ended with amen, but it wasn't the last verse. President got up and started up the stairs and stopped half way, not knowing what to do. Then I think it was Ted R Callister told him to sit on his lap until the song ended and he got to shake hands with others from the 12. 

I am glad that you had fun at the youth conference. McKay sent me an email telling me all about the call. It is so awesome. I will be able to talk Spanish to all of my friends. I heard that there are just mostly Cubans over there in Florida. I wonder what Cuban food taste like. Here is a mix of Mexicans Hondurans and El Salvadorians. 

There will be a big meeting in 2 weeks where we will meet the New President. 

I probably won't go to the temple in a while. I have been 5 times since I have been in Texas. The president wants us to go every 6 months, but I have been lucky because of my companions having recent converts going.

Well I hope that you all had a great week. Talk to you later.

Week 30 in Farmers Branch, TX

This week the lord is teaching me patience. We have been doing a lot of tracting. We started knocking on a different apartment complex that we thought might have some potential. It is right in the middle of mini Mexico and it has over 300 apartments in it and no one would answer their door. We think that it might have been hit too many times by the Jehovah's Witnesses. After knocking almost all of it with no one answering the doors we decided to re-knock the place. This time we hit it later in the day when people are returning from work.  We could tell that they were just ignoring us. We knocked one door and this little kid answers the door and as he was opening we could hear the mom yelling no no no no no. She came sprinting to the door. We did our door contact and you can tell that she was just saying stuff to get us off of her porch. The conversation went like this. E:elder H:lady at door. E:can we share a message with you? H:other day. E:what day can we come back. H:I work a lot. E:what time do you get off of work. H:late E: like at what time? H:6 E:can we come by tomorrow at 6? H:no I'm busy. E:how about the next day at 6? H: yes.     and then after all this we never see her again. it kind of sounds bad, but I miss the English work when they would tell us if they are interested or not when we ask. No one here wants to tell you no.

On a different note,  F. and C. D.were confirmed this last Sunday. They are so awesome.  

I got the package and the cookies were still really good. They were nice and soft. 

We have district meetings once a month and that is with like 6 or 8 other missionaries in your area and we have a zone meeting every month with the missionaries in the zone which is about 20 to 24 other missionaries and then we have big conferences with about 60 missionaries every month.

So jealous that you got to Meet President Taylor and Elder Schroeppels parents. 

The hike sounded like fun. Taylor said that she hated it, but it sounded like a lot of fun. Did you find another ski to complete the pair? 

My ear is fine. I just used some Hydrogen peroxide and it sound better.. 

Well I hope this letter was long enough for you guys. 

Have a great week.

Week 29 in Farmers Branch, Texas

Jesse has been so excited for this baptism.  This is his 1st time that someone he helped teach has made it to baptism.  I know that this wonderful mom and son had to make incredible sacrifices to be baptized.  I gave Jesse a hard time about his lame letter writing :)  He doesn't realize that that all the uneventful details are interesting to us here at home.   I do appreciate the fact that we at least hear from him each week! 

BAPTISM!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yesterday I had my first baptism. Elder S***** baptized C****** and a member baptized F****. It was soooooo cool. There was also an 8 year old that got baptized too. Everything went perfectly and I got to see my old companion and it was just a great experience. 

One last piece of business, I have been getting some complaints about my letters being too short. I would formally like to apologize for this. I am sorry that I can't have a more exiting week . Not all my weeks can be a tree climbing, baptizing, bible bashing adventure. But I assure you that I hereby promise that if and when an exiting or amazing event happens to come my way, that I will write every last detail about it to you. I hope you accept this apology and I sincerely hope that you all will have a most exiting week filled with much excitement.

                                                                                  Love,

                                                                                         Elder Jorgensen

Week 28 in Farmers Branch, Texas

I am a lame mom who skipped posting last week :) I had told Jesse about one of Taylor's track practices where the did a work out call the Indian Run.

Not very much to report on this week. The one major thing that is going to happen is the Baptism of some of the  D****** Family. I am so exited. They will be baptized next Sunday. It is my first Baptism and I just cant wait for it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now other than that it just has been the same stuff, knocking doors and contacting. 

Wow all of my friends are leaving for their missions. It is soo cool to see that. It is soo awesome that Mikaela lettered. It would have so funny to see those kids doing the Indian Run. I'm glad that your Gospel Doctrine class went well. The Old Testament is really interesting isn't it. I really like the Old Testament thought calendar you gave me for my birthday. It has some pretty cool scriptures. Everything is going good here. My this transfer will be a bit harder.

I'm glad you are liking the warm weather up there.

Well have fun planting your garden. 

I hope that you all had a very fun week.  And i love you all.

Week 27 in Farmers Branch, TX

Jesse was so sad to say good-bye to his companion.  They really worked hard and got along great!  He always gets a little nervous with new companions.  Hopefully they will work really good together continue on what Jesse and Elder S***** have been doing :)

So this week is transfers and my companion is leaving me:( He is going to be an assistant. A spanish assistant. He is so nervous for this. I will be getting Elder G*****.  He was my companions District leader in the MTC.

I wasn't even going to email today. All of the libraries are closed and we don't have a computer. Don't be surprised when you see a letter from me on Wednesday saying the exact same thing as my Email. 
Other than that not much happened. We did go chalking, but I forgot my camera. this time we did the gospel of Jesus Christ.   To answer your question on chalking I don't know how effective it is. It is more effective than doing nothing and just as effective as knocking doors.

Yesterday we were taking pictures and there is one sister missionary that has a minor in photography and she was taking the pictures. We hand her all our cameras and as she takes mine she stops and stares at it. I asked her is it old. she said ya. Then i said it is a Kodak. She replied yep. I said it is out of business and she replied for a while now. She also added it has 6.2 mega pixels. I said yes  it does. It was a great camera about 9 years ago. It was pretty funny conversation. She has a $600 camera. I wouldn't trust myself with that I know that I will break it.

Sorry this weeks letter was so lame, but nothing really happened. 

Love you all

Week 26 in Farmers Branch, Texas

We loved being able to Skype with Jesse on Mother's Day.  We were able to talk to him for four hours!!!  Time passed so quickly and he never ran out of things to talk about.  He has an amazing companion who is like a brother to him.  I am so grateful for his companion and the example he is to Jesse.  I have seen so many changes just in the past couple of months since he has been with him.  I don't think Jesse could be so lucky to keep his companion for the next transfer, but you never know :)

We received pictures from 2 different members this week.  One was from Stake Conference and the other was from a sister who wrote us a sweet letter and sent pictures she had taken.  There are such wonderful people down there in Texas that take good care of Jesse. 

Sorry i didn't write last week. We kind of skipped e-mailing to do more sports and shopping and stuff. Sorry. Not much has happened in the two weeks.  One of the more exiting parts was that we did something different besides knocking doors. We did something Called Chalking. If you have seen the amazing drawings of other missionaries...............ours looks nothing like that. I was able to do it three times. Once the Saturday before last and then again on Friday and lastly just last Sunday. I will send some pictures later.

Lastly, the most important part of the week was that we are going to have a baptism next month. It is the D***** Family.  We are only baptizing the mom and son. They are so solid. We taught them the word of wisdom and the Mother said that she will stop drinking coffee and hasn't drunk it since. They are amazing. I hope that I will be able to stay to see them get baptized. Transfer calls are this week and most likely I will stay because my companion has been here 6 months already, but who knows. Love you all and have a great week.

Week 25 in Farmers Branch, TX

This week has been one of those slower weeks. We have had alot of appointments fall through on us and we have been doing a ton of tracting. There are two pieces of good news to this we have been getting an excellent tan and we have found some really great people that seem interested. One of them we met, answered and said that he has seen missionaries once before and they left him with a Book of Mormon. Then he never saw them again. Then he moved down here and he has been reading the Book. We asked him if he thought that it was true and he said yes I know that it is true. We taught him the restoration and afterward he told us that it makes so much sense right now. Hopefully we can teach him more. He is moving again to an appartment in our area. We are really exited to get back in.

Other things that happened. Got chased by another dog on my bike. Got into a bash with a  pastor from a non-denominational church. We knocked at his door and he let us in and said "I finally get to meet legitimate Mormons. (red flag) Then we asked if we could offer a prayer and he said yes, then we asked him who would you like to say it? He replied to the father in the name of Jesus. We answered back yes but WHO would you like to OFFER the PRAYER? My companion or me. He told to offer it to the father in the name of Jesus and no other name. (another red flag) My companion offers the prayer and directly after he says amen the pastor (we didnt know he was a pastor at this point) starts offering a prayer. Here are a little bits of what he says. Jesus is our savior, open up these young mens eyes,  only through Jesus and not by any other name, please help them see their errors, please help them know that the bible says that if any man changes his gospel that god will dam them, and so on and  o forth for about 5 minuits.(Many red flags) at this point we just wanted to leave with the spirit and leave him with an invitation. The prayer ends and all he says from here on is that the bible says that if any man adds to the gosple God will curse him. (the actual scripture is if any man adds to this Book and any way it is not even talking about the bible.) then he says that Jonathan Smith is a false prophet because the bible says that there will be no more prophets (nowhere in the bible does it say that) and then he hit the repeat button a couple of times and he would not even let us talk. He also did not bring up any doctrine at all. All he said that we are following a false prophet and our eyes need to open. He did invite us to his church and then we left. There is no use talking to someone who won't hear.

The BEST for LAST. So there was a big presentation here in Dallas. It was put on by someone named Gladis Knight. Gladis and her quior were there and i got to go.They are only Grammy winners. it was so fun. the music was really good. She is set apart by the first presidency to give this presentation and afterward she shared her testimony about the Church of Jesus Christ. Her testimony is so powerful. I was so exited to go there. the Music was really great. Gladis has a really good voice.

Well that was my week. Have a great week.