Week 8

Dear Family 

It is sooooo great to be in the field but everything is really fast.  Last week in the CTM was great. I learned a ton.   On the last Sunday of the CTM I  talked in church about earth life and our purpose in Portuguese for like 6 minutes.   I read (the testimony of a missionary) its a story you can find it on Google.  Its awesome and was probably my favorite part of the CTM because I realized that I was called to Brazil to find my friends and share the gospel with people of Brazil. 

OK the field its great!  My comp yes is Brazilian, his name is Elder de Oliveira and is from Fortilasa. He speaks really great english so its cool.  This is his last transfer on the mission so I will kill him (that means I will send him home) and I can tell he is a pro.  I am his 5th son or Elder that he has trained and I couldn’t have asked for a better teacher.  He is also the District Leader(DL).  

The first day in the field we had interviews and training like all day till 2:00 and it was pretty boring.  But I met alot of guys who know Truman and they all said he was the funnest guy ever!  They  told my some great stories about him. Hahaha.  At like 2:00  we meet our trainers and then just went straight to our house, we had to take a 2 hour bus ride to get here so its pretty far from Sao Paulo .   That night we went straight to the Rabello Family’s house, who are the best!  But they played a joke on me and had me teach them a lesson so they could see how good my Portuguese was.  It was scary.  My comp was just like “Elder Jensen will now teach you about the restoration.” and he wouldn’t help me at all.  It went pretty well, I was teaching Wissali, the lady who emailed you.  She was pretending to be an investigator haha!  It was cool I guess but after the fake lesson they all starting laughing and were like saying how good I spoke Portuguese so it was cool.  Their family is so great, we teach a lot of lessons at their house.

So we teach like crazy, its insane.  Like all day every day we are either teaching or going to another appointment. Its cool we have to invite people to be baptized on the 1st visit so its either they are interested or not. Because almost everyone here is Christian, we mostly teach the gospel of Jesus Christ and invite people to follow the example of his perfect baptism.  My comp teaches really simply and very cool.  I have learned so much from him already, and the best part about teaching is that he actually lets me teach too so its kinda scary but people here are really nice and they understand that I am an American and they speak slowly and have patience with me.  Its good. 

Every day we have lunch with the members because its the main meal here. Kinda wierd but its cool.  We eat mostly rice and beans and other random stuff.  My comp makes me give the message every day because he says I need the practice.  My favorite message is to talked about how the greatest joy in this life comes from spreading the gospel and bringing people to Christ.  I use Lehis dream and how he ate of the fruit and how he wanted to share this joy with everyone else. 1 Nephi 8 12. and then we ask if they have any friends that we could teach.  I have gotten some really good results and referrals from it.  Yesterday at church I bore my testimony because I am new in the field.  It was pretty good but scary.  Afterward tons of people wanted to talk to me and couldn’t believe I had only been out for 1 week.  I know that the only reason I am able to understand and speak Portuguese is because the help of the lord and the gift of tongues.  In sunday school the lesson was on obedience and it was perfect for our investigators.  The teacher talked alot about 1 Nephi 3:7 and how the lord would not ask us to do something unless he will help us do it. (This is Aaron’s mission scripture)  All we have to do is try our hardest and the Lord will do the rest. 

Pretty much everyday we get home and I am asleep by 10 haha!  I am definitely not used to walking this much.  Our area is huge, we cover 2 wards and have to walk a lot.  My comp says that this is one of the hardest areas because its not as poor. But I like it a lot. Our house is pretty ghetto haha.  It’s in a members home and it would make Peter’s basement apartment in the Victorian house look really nice.  But it doesn’t bother me.  All I need is a desk and a bed so its fine hahah.

I love you all 

Elder Jensen