The spiders are HUGE here!

Elder Jensen is still in Chalatenango. He has been in El Salvador for 2 months now, has a new companion and the language is coming easier. He says, "The language is going really good. It's awesome to see how fast you can learn the language when you have the Lord's help. It's a huge testimony to me that the Lord has blessed me to understand and speak. I feel like I can finally start focusing more on what and how I teach and trying to focus on having the Spirit while I'm teaching. The mission life is good. I'm used to most of the food, the heat, the hills, the sleep (or lack of) and I love the people here! They're awesome! Especially the members in our rama. They are some of the strongest members I have seen in my life. One member, Leo is 16; he teaches seminary, gives talks about twice a month in sacrament meeting, teaches class sometimes in church, blesses the sacrament every week, he's the branch mission leader, and he knows a ton about church history and the scriptures. Also, every Sunday morning he helps us bring investigators to church and sometimes he goes on splits with us in the evening on Sundays, and he does a ton more that we don't know about. But I haven't once heard him complain about doing all of this. He has no time to do anything else except go to school and then serve the Lord. He's awesome and he's only 16! I think back at what I was doing at age 16 and it was nothing compared to the sacrifices he's making. He's definitely a future apostle. That's the kind of sacrifices that people have to make in these small branches."

Elder Jensen is serving in a little town called Chalatenango. He says it is very poor and very hilly and they pretty much walk everywhere. He says that his calves are ‘huge’! Living conditions are pretty primitive. They do have electricity and running water but the water only comes on for a couple of hours each day and they are usually not there when it does, so they “shower” with buckets. He says, “Washing our clothes is definitely an experience. we do it ourselves. in our little sink. It´s fun... I definitely am missing the luxuries of the United States. I´m pretty sure this is the hardest thing I´ve ever done but it´s definitely worth it. I find that the only way to not be bitter about the challenges is to thank God in my prayers for all the trials. When I´m walking up a huge hill in the 90 degree weather, 90 percent humidity, all I can do is say a prayer and thank Heavenly Father for the trial. I´ve been trying to do that a lot more, give thanks for trials and it´s helped me a ton to cope with all the changes. I know that it will get easier once I can speak Spanish :)
“There aren’t too many gangs in the main part of Chalatenango, but if you go to the mountains there’s a lot. It reminds me of the gadianton robbers- they retreat to the hills :) But we haven’t gone there a lot. Once we went at night and we saw a bunch of MS 13, but I think they respect us and don’t kill us :)
We got a baptismal date for Javier and Hermes this week! Hermes is awesome and I´m pretty sure he will follow through, but Javier started drinking again so we´re going to take all his alcohol. I hope we can help him. This week we had a baptism fall through. Carlos. He´s 9 years old and he is awesome. He came to church one day and asked us if we could baptize him so we told him he needed to come to church for 2 weeks and that we needed to teach him about the gospel. So he did and we did and we got permission to baptize him from his grandma. We filled the font on Saturday, got all the paper work finished and invited all the members we could to come to the baptism and he didn’t show up so we ran to his house and found him. It turned out his mom, who lives in the United States, doesn’t want him to be baptized. So that was stupid. But that´s basically how it goes here. Hopefully we can get more people to follow through!

If anyone is as new to the whole "pouch" way to send a letter as I am, here are directions:


Lay the blank side of the single-sheet letter facing down with the writing facing you.

• Fold the top of the letter about one-third of the way down, and crease.

• Fold the bottom of the letter to the top of the first fold, and crease.

• Use two pieces of tape or two sticker tabs on the top to secure it, not more than one inch from each side, but do not seal the ends.

• Do not include any other item in the letter such as printed pictures, currency or medication, etc.

• In the top left corner, write the return address.

• Affix a stamp in the top right corner

• In the middle of the sheet, write:

Elder Brian Lee Jensen

San Salvador East, El Salvador

P.O. Box 30150

Salt Lake City, Ut 84130-0150

For anyone interested...

Mission Home Address:
Centro Commercial 105, Local 204
105 Avenida Sur Paseo, General Escalon, San Salvador, El Salvador, C.A.
El Salvador

Mailing Address:
Pouch Mail Only: P.O. Box 30150
Salt Lake City, Utah 84130-0150
United States

So since we heard from Brian today I am guessing that Monday is his p-day. And since his letter is so short, I will share it with you all!

Hola mi familia! I'm in El Salvador! My first area is in Chalatenango. People drive crazy. There aren't any rules, pretty much, but it's awesome! I love Chalatenango but we only have running water for about 1 hour in the day, and we never know when that is...so we have to shower in the morning with cold water out of buckets. Pero, esta bien. Chelatenango is a funny place. There's dogs running everywhere pooping on stuff. Garbage everywhere...It's hard to get used to. Every night I go to bed thinking that I'm used to El Salvador, but then I wake up and realize where I am and realize how much I don't fit in there! :) But it's sweet, my spanish still isn't too great, but I can understand most of what people are saying now, so that's pretty sweet. But yea, Chalatenango is crazy, really poor, lots of hills.
I love you guys, take luck!
Oh and my companion is Elder Hernandez from Mexico and he says "hola" :)

Elder Jensen's email address

I have had requests for Brian's email address (Steven!) so here it is:

[email protected]

We are not sure what the rules for the mission are yet, but I am pretty sure that anyone can email him, he just may not be able to write back. I will update you all when I hear from him!

I know he would LOVE to hear from his friends here at home! :)

Elder Brian Jensen had an awesome experience while working in the RC taking calls.
He got a call from a Pentecostal minister who was calling to request the “Finding Faith in Christ” video. Brian said that they talked for a half hour and found that they had many similar beliefs but the minister just can’t accept that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God. Brian wrote, ” It’s amazing when the spirit works through you to talk to people. It’s kinda sad that people aren’t willing to pray to know that Joseph Smith was a prophet. We talked for half an hour and I asked if I could send missionaries to his house but he said that there was something wrong with his wife and they would be out of town for awhile. But you know me, I tried to talk him into it and I almost convince him but I ended up getting him to allow us to call back later when his wife was better. So we ended there and I said that I would pray for his wife. If nothing else, I hope
I planted a seed.”
He says that next week they would be calling people in Spanish so that would be interesting!

Elder Jensen leaves the MTC for El Salvador on Monday the 24th of November and his family is looking forward to talking to him for a few minutes during his layover in LA.

Me and my awesome cousin Eric.

Me and Matthew

Me and my awesome companion Elder Pahulu.

Here are some awesome pictures from the MTC...Elder Westover, me and my cousin Elder Eric Taylor.

The MTC is going great! We've had 2 apostles come in the last few weeks: L. Tom Perry and Richard G. Scott! Their talks were awesome. Richard G. Scott's talk was hilarious, and he had a lot of elders and sisters answer questions and he made fun of them a lot. But the apostles are amazing and hopefully we'll get a few more before the end of my MTC visit.

Spanish is going pretty well, we're teaching the first discussion in Spanish now (well, trying to) and it's HARD! But it gets easier every time we give it.

Congrats to Preston for getting your mission call. START STUDYING SPANISH NOW. It will make it so much easier once you are in the MTC.

My companion is still asombroso (that means awesome in Spanish). We go to the Provo temple every friday morning at 7:00, if anyone wants to meet us there:) Fridays are my favorite because we get to go to the temple and then come back and take a nap! And that's good because I've been sick the last few weeks. Here's a tip for anyone coming into the MTC: don't get sick. It makes it so much harder to concentrate during class. But I've made it so far. I'm not dead yet.

Well, that about does it. The church is true, el libro de mormon es asombroso y verdadero, yo se que jose smith fue un profeta verdadero.

Go to church, keep the commandments, and play some Xbox for me!

Hoorah for Israel!

Love, Elder Jensen
P.S. SEND ME LETTERS OR ELSE

Oct 10
So this week was pretty awesome, we got to listen to General conference!! I didn't get to sing in the choir though, so if any of you say you saw me, you are mistaken! There was a woman speaker in the Sat. morning session that was from El Salvador! She gave an awesome talk about missionary work, but I'm sure if I heard any talk about missionary work right now I would think it was awesome! :) But I loved all the talks as well.
MTC is going good, we do solamente espanol every other day, which means we only speak spanish the whole day...or at least we try. My companion is the bomb! His name is Elder Pahulu. He is Tongan. He's from Florida. He's tite.
Pretty much the MTC is repetitive so if all my letters sound the same it's because we have been doing the same exact thing over and over. But it's awesome! I'm learning a ton. The church is true.
Stay golden ponyboyl
Hoorah for Israel!

For all you following Elder Jensen's blog: Sorry! I am a couple of weeks behind but I thought you might get a kick out of his last couple of letters, so here goes....

Here is Elder Jensen's address while he is in the MTC:

ELDER BRIAN LEE JENSEN
MTC Mailbox #131
ELS-SANE 1124
2005 N. 900 E.
Provo, UT 84604-1793

I finally made it to the MTC!

Hola! My mission is going awesome so far! I've been in the MTC for a little over a week, but it feels like I've been here forever. Which is a good thing because I'm learning so much! The MTC es loco. It's like EFY on 'roids. We study 13 of the 16 hours we are awake every day. And there aren't too many distractions thankfully. I've learned so much in the gospel and grown a ton. I've also learned a lot of spanish.I can now pray, bear my testimony, and set up appointments in spanish. All in a week and a half! It's insane the things you can learn when you constantly have the spirit with you. Well, I hope you all are having fun at home without me. See you in 2 years!

Love,
Elder Jensen

Update:

There are monkeys in El Salvador!!

Hey Guess What

I'm going to El Salvador Sept. 24th

Judgement Day

So I went to the doctor on Monday for the judgment of my ankle. After a few X-rays and a thorough cleaning of my nasty foot, I learned that it will be ok to walk on in the middle of September. What does this mean mission wise? It looks like I'll only have to delay my mission by one transfer, or 6 weeks. So hopefully this doesn't effect my call... I still don't know for sure, but I do know that once this whole ankle thing is over I'll be very relieved. Above is a picture of my new incision, adding to the one on the other side, which was also re-opened on this last surgery. For the third time...