Week 20

Aaron wrote this letter on Monday before he got transferred on Tuesday morning. 

Well this week went really well.

First off we had a baptism!!!! Yeah His name is Diego.  He’s 23 and super dope.  He’s really good friends with the family we are going to spend Christmas with. They brought him to church and then after we committed him to be baptized and then taught him every night and baptized him in 7 days.  Thats how we do it in Brazil, but really he was like already a member, he just wasn’t baptized so that’s tight. O yeah and I got to baptize him too, it was cool.  After I pulled him out off the water he gave me a huge hug and told me he loved me.  Its definitely the best part of being on the mission.  In the font the spirit is just sooooo strong like the fire is burning. Honestly I think this was the first investigator we have had that I taught the majority of the lessons so that’s really cool. My Portuguese is getting a lot better and its coming much more easy, especially when I am teaching. I can just flow with the language and the spirit definitely helps and works through me a lot, which I really need.  So this week is transfers and I am pretty much like 10000 percent sure I am going to stay here with elder Payne as a junior for one more transfer.  Which is what I want to do hahaha we have way too many people that I want to baptize here before I leave and plus I really want to spend Natal (Christmas) with the Andrade family.  They are just awesome and make really gooooood American desserts like cupcakes and brownies so its tight hahaha.  So on Tuesday we did splits with Dalcio and Patrick it was fun. I went with Dalcio my first baptism and man is he going to be a sick missionary. He was like talking to every one no matter what just getting addresses like it was his job, after every one he would say in English (umm your number babe)  Hes great.

Wednesday we did splits with some elders in our district and I went with Elder Castionaro, it was fun. I taught about 80% of all the lessons and really felt like a senior comp it was really cool.  Friday we went by Jose Almires house and I shaved his beard again.  It was great, it was like so hot that day and his house is just like a little oven so I was like dying in there but the best part was after I shaved his beard he made us some tea and I was like heck no I am dying of heat exhaustion and now you want me to drink your old man tea but actually it was really good and super hot. I have no idea what kind of tea it was so I just called it wisdom juice hahaha! It was great but the best part was that he just like keep saying weird proverbs.  It was great. I love old people on my mission.  It was like uncle Iro from Avatar was giving us some of his jade tea and sharing some of his wisdom with us hahaha.  

Saturday our ward had a super activity where everyone went to this ranch and spent the majority of the day there. it was fun. But man did I feel over dressed at a pool party in my missionary clothes.  Whatever we still played soccer and had fun, we had 5 investigators come so it was really cool.  We played GREAT DOW for like 3 hours and man it was great. I was the dow for like 20 games in a row. Good times. then after we had Diego’s interview and then we watched the Joseph Smith movie with him, it was great.

Sunday after church we went to the hospital with 15 people from the ward and walked the halls and sang Christmas songs for 2 hours. We all had Santa hats on and it was great. It was sooooo cool the spirit was really strong and it was way cool to see all these people singing in their hospital beds as we walked by.  At one point I started to cry because it reminded me of Grandma Dot a lot.  It was kinda sad remembering her.  But the last part we went by all the new baby rooms and every one was just so happy it was cool. After that we watch the Christmas devotional at the church and it was really good.  It was like really the first time I really thought about Christmas this season so it was kind of a trunky day but really good too. 

So a really good week hopefully we will have another baptism next week!!

Love elder Jensen 

Week 19

Well this week was really good.  We worked our butts off and it definitely paid off.  We baptized a girl name Natalia who is 12 years old and has the hots for boons (David) so watch out for them Brazilians boons.  That pic of David with the nike AIR hat on is pretty much famous here in brazil.  Natalia is really cool she lives with her grandma who is a die hard catholic but she sat in on all the lessons and came to church this Sunday to watch the baptism.   So we will see where that goes.  Natalia is reallllllly shy and hardly talks but when she does its perfect hahaha  Shes really spiritual and will be a great example for her family. She lives across the street from the young women’s leader so that’s perfect and o yea they are best friends and pretty much inseperable haha its great!

On Monday night I had my 5th birthday party hahah and it was the best one! with the same family that I  will spend Christmas with, they are so great we played some sweet Brazilian games and ate some cake.  They even smashed a egg on my head so yeah Happy Birthday!  Here’s a raw egg for your hair. It was a really fun night though because tons of recent converts came so it was cool. 

Tuesday we had interviews with president Ferrin which were really cool.  I talked Portuguese the whole time during the interview which was 25 mins so he probably loves me now hahaha  It was awesome, I learned a ton from him and hope  he likes me as much as I like him.  Elder Payne and I were the second to last companionship to get interviewed so we pretty much just chilled in the chapel all day waiting to be interviewed which was a big wast of time but whatever.

Wednesday we really just tried to talk to members and ask for references all day because that’s what the President wants us to do and it went really well. We got some really good references and we are really starting to get the ward excited about missionary work I think. 

We taught a really cool lesson to an older couples that are like way tight. We taught the first lesson and they accepted the challenge to read and pray about the BOM so we will see how it goes.  After the lesson when we were about to leave the wife said, “well who knows maybe we will find the right path this time” and I a was like “yes you will”  hahah it was great! 

We taught another cool lesson to a new family, they have a baby that’s like 25 days old, about the plan of salvation and how if we accept Christ’s atonement through baptism we can live forever in the celestial kingdom with God and our family’s forever.  She asked the best question ever, “So how do I get baptized?”  We explained a little bit and she accepted baptism so we will se how that goes.  Unfortunately she couldn’t come to church this week so thats kinda lame. 

Sunday it was fast Sunday and we had a really cool sacrament meeting.   Dalcio and Jose our recent baptisms of less then a month both blessed the sacrament and it was soooo sick .  They were both like dead scared and I could feel the spirit really strong when they were praying.  After the sacrament, Dalcio bore his testimony and man it was strong!  He talked about how much the church and us elders have changed and helped his life.  It was like the best thing ever. 

It was a really good week like normal but I am really tireed and sooooo hot.  Right now its like 95 in the café where I am writing my Email.  Thanks for  all the Emails and the package.  I will get your Christmas boxes on the 19th  at the Christmas conference. Glad you got my package and yes you should open it Christmas eve because that’s when you open presents in Brazil.  They stay up till 12 and then open them all.  We will definitely skype for Christmas and I will be in the same area for Christmas most likely. 

I already told Aya that she was going to take up to Japan skiing after her mission and serve as our translator  hahah yes I am soooo pumped for that-going to be awesome for her in Japan.  So excited for Ellie’s boyfriend. thats soo cool for him and good for them. I hope they don’t get married before I come home.  

Happy birthday Mom.  I hope it was a wonderful day. Dad told me about the spa and date night so sounds like it was fun Sorry my letter didnt get there on time. I wish i could have been there to give you a big hug and make your birthday nice.  also congrats on the 25 year anniversary. Man thats awesome.  Congrats, your relationship has been a great example to me and many people. keep up the good work.  Thanks for being a great mom for the 20 years of my life, I couldn’t have asked for anything else.  I love you tons and hope that you are doing good. The only thing I want is more peanut butter, JIFFF smoothy is the best I am fresh out and in need of more hahaha.  

LOVE

your son Aaron Jensen

PS  Picture of me slack lining some metal chain.  It was fun until I broke it.