Christmas Week -- Email from 28 December 2015

Hey,

I hope the rest of the week was really great for all of you all. I enjoyed talking to all of you and I didn’t even feel trunky or homesick. Also I wanted to give thanks to all of the people from the ward that sent me Christmas cards. And also mom for organizing it. Well, the week has been relatively normal after Christmas. This Sunday we had the baptism of Vincent and Celeste. Here are a couple of pictures of the baptism. I baptized Celeste and my companion baptized Vincent. It was awesome. This week we will have the baptism of the kids of a couple leaders in the ward that are nine.

Well, here it’s hot. Like unbearably hot. I am dying now. I can’t sleep. Every night I wake up sweating, and I take a shower with my clothes on and then sleep again in front of the fan. I forgot the summer so fast, but it’s back again. Well, next week I am going to talk to president about when I am headed out, but I hope that we can figure things out so that I can head out in July.

Thanks.

Elder Jensen

Bad Pizza -- Good Week. Email from 21 December 2015

Hey Everyone!

This week was crazy. Everything started Monday and Tuesday when we went to an all you can eat pizza place for two days in a row. My companion and I and the other two elders who were with us all got really sick to our stomachs [after we ate]. Every day when we left to work we were dying of stomach pain and were in the bathroom forever. So that made the week pretty interesting. Then after that we focused in on our investigators that were progressing towards a baptismal date this Sunday. First, we salvaged the baptism of Melisa that fell through the last Sunday and we baptized her Saturday and she was confirmed Sunday. Then we baptized Patricia and Nico Sunday! That was pretty cool. They were all really content to get baptized this week. And we are really happy to have the chance to work with them. Also, this next week we will have the baptism of a couple kids of a family that has attended the church the last two weeks! I feel really happy for the work I am doing here with my companion. And of course, God really does everything. We just find the people that God is already preparing.

Well I want to wish you all a merry Christmas. I love you all and miss you all, but I’m content to be here and I’m content to be in the mission. I will get on skype at 6 this Friday with the same username that I used last time. If you have any other plans let me know. I am going to log on here Christmas in the morning to see if there have been any changes to the plans. Love you all lots!

Elder Jensen

Vucetich Week 9 -- email from 14 December 2015

Hey everyone.

I hope that your week was killer and that it met all of your expectations. For us here, the week went by so fast. I cant believe that we are almost at Christmas time. Its passing really fast. This week we worked hard, and we pushed the baptism of Melisa back a one week to this week, so now for this week we have three baptisms. The baptism of Melisa, of Patricia the mom of Brenda who was baptized a couple of weeks back and the brother of Brenda, who is named Nicolas! We are excited about this opportunity to work hard and learn.

Yesterday we went to a concert where 24 missionaries are singing christmas songs. It was pretty cool. After that a woman came up to me and she told me that she had another package for me. It was a missionary care package! Thanks for the present. I haven't opened it yet. Im going to wait until christmas to open it so that I have something to open christmas morning. The package from Gene should get here  should get here if they send it a week early. I hope that they are going to do it fast, but it would be the best if they could drop it off at the office in san fernando. I would get it for sure. 

Today my companion was cutting my hair, and he messed up bad hah. I ended up having to cut it all off again. So i am sporting a buzz cut again, but the worst part is that I have a hole in my hair haha. Well, I hope this week is well for you all and I am pumped to have the opportunity to chat with you all through skype. Let me know what account you are going to use so that we can get the call going! It will be the day of the 25th again, but im not sure what time. Love you all. Heres some funny pictures of my hair. Its safe to say that from now on im going to pay to cut it in a hair cutting place instead of letting my companion do it! 

 

Elder Jensen

Vucetich 8 -- Email from 7 December 2015

Hey.

This week everything went really well. I love my companion and we are like best friends. We have big things planned for this next transfer, and we put a steep goals that are going to both our strength and abilities to achieve them. I'm excited for the opportunity that i have to work. That being said, I know that I'm nothing in particular, but really god wanted us to baptize the people that we found the last transfer. I know that if we do all that we can God will help us find more people to baptize. We had the five confirmations that we were waiting on, and this last Sunday we also brought 3 more investigators to the chapel. We brought the mom of Brenda who is in the picture of her baptism and we also brought her brother and another girl who is called Melisa next week. We hope to baptism Melisa this Saturday and confirm her Sunday and next week The mom and brother of Brenda. And we are looking really hard for the last week of the year. We want to baptize two or three more the last week of the year!

Well I hope that everything is going well, and that everyone is ready for the holidays. How did you send the box of presents to me? I hope that it gets here in time. I will send you a picture of the Christmas tree that we are putting in the apartment.

Love you all.

Elder Jensen

Baptisms! Email from 1 December 2015

WE BAPTIZED 4 MORE SUNDAY! I cant believe that the lord has blessed us so much this transfer! Its incredible. I will send you some pictures. Whats more is that my companion Elder Gomez left Thursday to be the next assistant of president. I was working alone in my area with members. I lived with the other elders but during the day i worked alone. Diego baptized his daughter Azul and his brother in law Jorge. I baptized a girl named Brenda who is a friend of member who has been attending the chapel for a couple weeks and we baptized the husband of a member who had the opportunity to be baptized after 7 years of investigating. That marks the tally at 8 baptisms this transfer. We have been blessed so much. And my new companion is named Elder Gutierrez. he is also from Chile. We were already together in the same ward in Parque Avellenada, and now we are companions! Now i am the oldest in the zone. Wow. i cant believe that haha.

Well, I hope that everything is going well for you all and that dad is feeling better and that thanksgiving was everything that you wished it would be. Don't send the chessboard because i found a good one here for free.

Love you all.

Elder Jensen

Vucetich -- Week 2: Lots of Baptisms -- Email from 2 November 2015

This week we worked really hard, and we had three of the four baptisms. So that is sick :) I will send you a picture. Adrian, Stephany, and Anthony all were baptized! I will send you a couple of pictures. 

Our zone is getting motivated too! We baptized 5 as a zone, and it was 20 percent of the baptisms of the mission! Hooray! We are still working hard, and leaving personal commitments with the elders to work harder, and find more people to reach the goals of the month as a zone. We are going to work really hard this week as well to fix the baptism of Porfiria and to find new investigators so that we can keep baptizing this transfer. I hope that we can keep doing it. Pray for miracles here in the zone.

My favorite part of my area is always seeing horses haha. There are a ton of horses. I really want to ride a horse to my area every day, but it’s not allowed :(

It’s alright if you all meet me in the Denver airport. Wow, I can’t believe that the whole family is going to come out to Colorado to see me when I come home. 

The time doesn’t change here. So that’s good. And it would be a good idea to go ahead and apply at CSU for me again.  I hope that you all are looking for my car also :) A cool jeep wrangler or something like that!

Elder Jensen

Vucetich Semana 2 -- Email from 26 October 2015

Hey,

The location of Matt's new area.  Vucetich, J.C. Paz, Buenos Aires

This week was really good. I get along really well with my new companion and he is a beast. Like a really good missionary. We are working really hard together and this next week we should have four baptisms. This area is huge, nothing like my older area. It’s like this size of a small town, and everything is spread out. It is really poor. Like really poor. Many people live in one room houses, and pretty much everyone is outside all of the time. All of the streets are of dirt. It’s like 40 minutes from Pacheco my first area, more in the other direction from capital. One of our investigators that we are teaching her is named Porfiria (Por-fid-eya), and she is from Paraguay. She is like 40 and all of her kids are already members and she is excited to get baptized this next Sunday. Here’s the kicker. She can’t read. We are teaching her to read and teaching her the gospel. It’s like two birds with one stone haha. And then we have a family named the family Fernandez. In the family there are Oscar and Sarah, the mom and dad. They are going to get married in the first week of December, and are going to get baptized that first week, but there three kids, Stefani, Anthony and Adrian are going to get baptized this Sunday as well. We are also working with a couple other possibilities. But this week was really good. I’m exhausted.

On another note, we started to do a ton of exercise and we are eating really healthy. I’m going to try and bulk up a ton and then cut off all of the fat for when I get done with the mission in 10 months. You should send a couple of boxes of protein bars and some money if you can for Christmas. AND I NEED GUMMY VITAMINS, LIKE TWO THINGS TO LAST ME TO THE END OF THE MISSION. And FOUR MORE RAZOR HEADS. Other than that, be creative and surprise me! :) If you have any questions let me know!

Elder Jensen


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I thought it would be cool to see the different locations Matt has served in.  Here is a map with his stops.