Matt's scripture for the week

Therefore, … whosoever will come may come and partake of the waters of life freely;

Alma 42:27





Friday, October 28, 2011

El Ejido 5

WHATS UP FAMILY!!!                                                                                     26 Oct 2011


 Okay, It looks like some pretty fun stuff has been going on at home! haha Thanks for the pumpkin carving contest pictures!  I can’t believe that it is already Halloween.  It doesn’t seem like it; one, because here they don’t celebrate Halloween or Thanksgiving, and two, we already bought some Christmas lights and have them hung up!!  Everyone here has a Christmas tree up already.  But yall already know that if I were at that pumpkin carving party, I would slay and would be walking away with the coveted Golden Pumpkin because that’s how it’s always been!   haha.

 So we live on the 4th planta (level or floor) of this building and are trying to move for sure.  We didn’t get the pink house.  Someone on the 2nd planta has been building something and for the longest time and we didn’t know what it was going to be.  But, the other day we found out that they built a church down there! Haha.  It’s a Pentecostal sect and all day Saturday and Sunday they are pounding on drums and throwing their hands in the air screaming gracias a Dios (Thanks be to God), .... So, we thought that we would move so that other’s won’t be confused seeing 2 LDS missionaries always walking toward this other church haha.


We stopped to talk to a kid in the street the other day. His name is Milton and he speaks English and is about 15 years old.  But it’s hilarious, because he is so serious about everything all the time. We were invited to his house. so we went and taught him. He was attentive the whole time!   When we asked him if he had any questions about the lesson, he asked,... “So what is the KKK and why do they do what they do?”

I laughed so hard but, I still had to answer him because he was really troubled about it.

After that, he said something really surprising!  He told us that he had prayed and asked God to send him a white man that could answer his question about the KKK.......... WOW!!!   We were the answer to his prayer even though it was a seemingly strange question.  It just goes to show that God really does answer sincere prayers, and we can be a part of that communication. We are still talking to Milton and its fun.

DELVI , the one that I extended a fecha (baptism date) with, fried on the word of wisdom and so we had to set his fecha back almost a month.  That’s because of the counsel of our Mission President.  It was a little disheartening to see him like that, I asked him during the last lesson if he wanted all of the Gospel and its blessings in his life, and he told me that he really did but that it’s just really hard to change his lifestyle.  It’s hard to see him struggle like this. But, with our help and the help of the Lord I think that he´ll be just fine.

OH, I forgot something!!! Yesterday was crazy! We were eating lunch and heard someone yelling down on the street.  Then I heard a pistol being cocked and so I ran to the window (dumb right) to see what was going on.  I heard one gunshot and then looked and saw two guys running down the street. Then one guy ran around the corner and another man shot at him again!! It was insane! I couldn’t believe that it happened on my street.  So, then we went and asked the dueno (owner) what was going on?  And he just told us that  everything is fine and explained that one guy had just stolen something!!  Incredible!  2 shots at a guy for stealing like a juice box! My goodness,crazy haha

 Well, I love all of you and hope you have a great HALLOWEEN!!!!

Here’s An email that we received from the Mom of Matt’s companion!  It sheds a little different light on Matt’s language struggle.  ?

Hi Jolynn,

This is Lisa Jensen I am the Mom of Elder Jensen who is in the Dominican Republic with your son.  I thought it would be fun to say Hi.  I wondered how you are doing with your son gone.  I know Jeremy (Elder Jensen) is working him really hard and I hope he can handle hard work.  It is a hard mission.  Jeremy has just been out over a year now.  I hope the downhill goes a little faster than that first year.  It sounds like Elder Griner is doing great and Jeremy is so impressed at what a hard worker he is and how well he is doing with the language. 

Here’s an excerpt from his last letter - My comp has gotten a lot of compliments on his Spanish. We speak it a lot which helps him. Even President Lee took note and said something to the effect of "wow, the new missionaries are already better at Spanish than the trainers!" So cool. The generations of missionaries are better and better.

 We had our other son Cameron just get home from a mission in North Carolina about 2 months ago.  It has been super hard for me having them both gone.  I did a lot of crying but it helps now having our other Elder Jensen home.  I always looked forward to Wed. and getting that e-mail from them both.  I told Cameron the other day he needed to go up in his room and send me an e-mail because I missed it so bad.  I really think I did go through withdrawals for a few weeks. haha

We live in Rexburg Idaho right next to the Temple and BYU-I where my husband works.  I have been a stay at home mom of 7 kids.  We have 4 married children and 9 Grandkids, 2 kids at home right now and Jeremy.  Cameron is a full time student at BYU-I and we have a girl Malia who is a senior in HS.

 Well if you ever have any questions about the boys just drop me an e-mail and we will stay in touch.

Sincerely, 

Lisa Jensen

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