Week 26 - Huancayo, Peru 6 months!!

March 13th, 2017

6 months today!!!

Just fun photos this week!!   Love and miss everyone!!

My companion, Angelica, me

Angelica's baptismal day

Week 25 - Huancayo, Peru

March 6th, 2017

Hey guys! Miss you tons!  

This week was good but very stressful as well. This area is also super huge and the ward is giant haha. Hermana Vilela and is my new companion.  She is super sweet. We have been teaching this girl named Angelica who turns 13 tomorrow and she is the cutest. She has so much knowledge about the gospel and always always wants to say the prayer. She is getting baptized tomorrow on her birthday!   I am pretty excited about that!  We are kind of lost and do not have a phone but somehow we are making it through! haha.  Ward counsel is still hard for me to understand everything that is going on. There are lots of really intense personalities in the ward and most of the people just end up talking over each other.   

We ate lunch with some members the other day and we had pachamunca de la tierra! It is so good and a classic peruvian food. They make like a brick stove thing and throw in meat, this stuff called umas, potatoes and bean like things. It is hard to explain but it is so good!  We also had with inca cola so I felt very peruvian haha. Our district is really cool and almost all latinos haha. The spanish continues to come along and I understand and can speak more and more every week. I love you guys and love the emails. I can't believe I hit 6 months next week! Love you!!

Hermana Charlotte Jensen

As for the weather it still rains a ton. I need some sunshine!!

Our district.

Pachamunca (meat, potatoes, beans)

2 sisters from district on left, Hermana Vilela, my new companion and me

Hermana Vilela and me

Week 24 - Huancayo, Peru

February 27, 2017

Hola!

This week has been so insane. I was in Pilcomayo almost all week and we went to go see this convert Nayeli. We sat in her yard and she has these 3 sheep that wander around. I was being weird, and I was like I can talk to sheep haha. And then I just made this sheep noise and all 3 of them turned around to look at me! Then I just kept going and they started like coming towards me haha it was so funny!  I legit think Nayeli thinks I can talk to sheep. 

Friday we were in Castilla and I got a call from the office that told me they were going to close my area for the next cambio (transfer) and that I was going to be transferring next change. It was definitely a surprise and sad!   Saturday I ended up just trying to say goodbye to everyone that I could and I had to hand the area book over to the elders. We had to move everything out of our room and the land lady was soooooo angry. But yeah there was nothing we could do, so sorry lady. 

We had a really awesome lesson with Marleni and David this week. They are a couple who are living together who have a ton of problems. They ended up starting to fight right in front of us for a good amount of time and I could feel the spirit leave the room. I ended up just stopping them and burning them haha. I was like right now all you guys are doing is just thinking about yourself! Your relationship will never work if your not thinking about the other person more than yourself, because love really is about service. It was so intense and they just shut up. It was quiet for a moment and David grabbed Marlenis hand and they both started to tear up. David was like we really want to change, and David also talked about how he wanted to overcome his smoking and gambling addiction. We also then talked about baptism and how they could work towards it and how it is like starting fresh, being born again. They both really want it, and are really going to work on changing. I gave them some verses to read together and to pray together. It was such an amazing lesson and when I hugged Marleni goodbye we both started to bawl. I am going to miss them so much! As of now, I have been transferred to Chilca, on the other side of Huancayo and I will be training!  My companions name is Hermana Vilela and she is the sweetest .  She is from Tumbes, Peru. It is definitely a change and I will need time to adjust, but I am excited to work here. 

I love you all!!

Hermana Jensen

David & Marleni

Sister Rossi and me

Week 23 - Huancayo, Peru

February 20th

This week was good! I have been in Pilcomayo again almost all week and it is sad because we only get to go back to Castilla like a couple days a week.   I feel like my area is dying a little bit, and I really need to find news but I just haven't had time because I am barely in that area anymore.   It is hard not to feel down sometimes about that. But next week is cambios (transfers) and I will return! 

Last Saturday we had a multi zone conference and a member of the 70, Hugo Montoya from Mexico came to talk to us. It was sooooooo amazing!!  Lately I have been reading from the book "Our Heritage" about the history of the church and just been praying and trying to strengthen my testimony of Joseph Smith and my prayer was answered! Elder Hugo talked to us about 6 testimonies we need to gain on our mission, one including Joseph Smith. Hermana played Joseph Smith's first prayer on the piano while he read the story of Joseph Smith a little bit. I felt the spirit soooo incredibly strong. It really did feel like a burning in my bosom like the scriptures say!  haha but seriously, I really felt the spirit testify to me that he was a prophet of God, and that he truly restored the gospel to the earth. It was incredible. 

Yesterday it rained insanely and we walked to our investigator Rossi's home and we were just so soaked haha. A couple weeks ago, we visited her and she didn't really have any desires to change, to go to church, get married and wasn't really reading the Book of Mormon. But yesterday, she said she was reading everyday, and she felt so much peace when she read. Also she is doing all she can to get Sundays off to come every week! She said now when she works on Sundays, she feels like something is missing and that she should be doing something else. We also brought a member Fabiola, and she is such a perfect friend for her at church. So that was really awesome! I miss Castilla lots, but one more week until I am back permanently! 

Love you all, THE CHURCH IS TRUE!
Hermana Jensen

Nayeli baptized in Pilcomayo

Relief Society sisters cooking picarrones! (like a fry bread)

Scavenger hunt for pday

WEEK 22 - Huancayo, Peru

Hola!


I do not have time to write much because I feel like a million people wrote me this week and I am trying to respond to them all, but I am good!  I am working in Pilcomayo and Mariscal this week with hermana Murugosa from Uruguay, Montevideo. She is super cool but it has been stressful to work in two areas .

Hermana Murugose and I totally were followed by dogs the other day. They just kept following and following us down this like dark alley.   There was like 5 of them!  It was freaky. Finally once we got on a bus, we got away from them. I hate dogs now. well peruvian dogs. still love cats though.   They are like a rare treasure here for me,

Love to you all!!    Hermana Jensen

hermana Murugosa

Lots and lots of rain, which means lots of mud!!

hermana Huanaco and my mini missionary

Week 21 - Huancayo, Peru

Hola,

This week was veryyy interesting. Monday we went to the clinic, and the doctor told her basically that her spine was super messed up and should go home to get it fixed and it would take months of therapy to fix. We went to the office on Tuesday and president told her since she only has a few weeks left, she should go home. She left on Wednesday and it was so sad :(( I want to write her but I do not have her email so if your reading this Hermana Torres, write me!! :P 

President Silva told me I needed to find a mini, a member to stay and work with me for the week. I got really lucky and found one super fast, her name is Deysi Surichaqui and she is waiting for her mission call right now and she is super cool. So basically this week has been me winging it with my spanish and doing mostly everything on my own haha. It hasn't been too bad but although been pretty scary.  

On Thursday we visited with our investigator and taught her the law of chastity because she is living with her boyfriend. Up to this point she has accepted everything really well but after this lesson she kind of went off and said that she liked what we taught but wasn't receiving an answer that Joseph Smith was a prophet and did not really want to make the changes she needed to in her life. It made me sooooo sad. I tried to explain praying with real intent to her. That when we pray with real intent, it means that we INTEND to act on our answer, and I could tell she wasn't doing that, because she is comfortable and does not want to make those changes in her life. It makes me sad, because I know that she could be sooooo much happier. 

Saturday we went and helped her clean her store and then came back yesterday night to teach her. I felt like we should teach her about temples and eternal marriage and families and the spirit was so strong. I told her about how she could be with her family forever and how the child that she lost she could see again one day. She was ecstatic!  I testified to her of the peace that she could feel in the temple and she expressed her desire to go and feel that peace. She said the closing prayer and was very emotional. It made me happy to see the spirit touch her heart but I still do not know if she is going to try and change :( 

On Friday we received a call from our investigator Maria Isabel!!  It made me so happy because she had decided she did not want to listen to us anymore for like a month and a half but called us out of nowhere to know what time to go to church! We have a lesson with her this week :) 

We had a lesson with our investigator Gladys who is reading, praying and coming to church every week now. She told us she did not want to think about baptism until the end of May!! ughhhhhh haha. We had an activity right after seeing her and I could tell how comfortable and happy she felt. She told us she basically wants to know everything which isn't possible and to fix some things in her family first. But yeah, if she wants it to be in May thats okay.  I know we are not here to force anyone.   

This week Deysi will be leaving and I think I am going to Pilcomayo with another hermanas whose companion went home for health issues. So I do not know if we will be just ditching our area for a couple weeks or what. I hope not!  Anyways,I love you all lots. 

Something funny is this week I kept hearing this loud boom during the night and in the morning. I asked Deysi what it was and she told me that people set off fireworks during the night so it won't rain. It is like a superstition or something. I don't undertand peruvians sometimes.... haha anyways the church is true!

Love, Hermana Jensen

Eating dinner with Deysi and Hermana Blanca

Tastes like top ramen!  yummy!

Deysi

Week 20 - Huancayo, Peru

January 31, 2017

Hola,

It has been a rough week.  My companion, hermana Torres is going home a few weeks early because of health issues.  Very sad about it.  

The bishop called and asked us to give a talk an hour before sacrament meeting!  He asked me to speak for 10 mins and sister Torres 5 mins. I had an hour to prepare and I was pretty scared because my spanish still kinda sucks.   I got up there and spoke for like 15 mins about service, and apparently it made sense and I got a lot of compliments so that was good. I know the spirit really helped me out for that one. 

I had to go on splits with a member last night because hermana Torres wasn't feeling well.  She didn't get any sleep last night.   I might be companionless for 4 weeks and have to find a member for everything, which basically means I will be doing everything on my own. I am super stressed though. I miss you guys lots. Sounds like things are changing in America.  I can tell that the last days are truly coming. But on a good note, in midst of all the crap thats happening, I can tell you I am changing and becoming a better person and I know I am learning a lot here.

Love you,

Hermana Jensen

Other missionaries from the area.

This man walks his cow every Sunday.