OH MY GOODNESS I HAVE NEVER SEEN SO MUCH FREAKING RAIN IN MY LIFE!!!! E-VER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I swear between Saturday and now it has rained more than Kuna gets in a year. It just doesn't stop! I have been all sorts of grateful this week to be a Spanish Elder with a car... And, thanks to all the rain, I have discovered that my shoes aren't as waterproof as I once thought they were. I would still classify them as somewhat water resistant, but they are definitely wet at the end of each day... but it's all good.

I don't really have that much to update you all on... it's been another long, slow week. We did at least 20 hours of tracting again. We have quite a few people we have found whom have said we can come back, and when we do come back WHEN THEY TOLD US TO (<---- that part might be starting to frustrate me, just a little), they are either gone, or they say they are doing something... so we are going to start getting their phone numbers so we can call them and be obnoxious about it, and hopefully get more appointments. Other than that not much happened this week, every single appointment we set or made fell through...

We did have one answer to prayers. On Wednesday our District leader called us and said there was an investigator moving into our area, ready for baptism. She has been taught all of the lessons multiple times and has been an investigator for like 6 months. So, we stopped by, helped her move in, and talked with her for a little bit. She said she is pretty much ready to be baptized, she just wants to come to the ward a few times and see how it is. She ended up getting sick and bailing, but we are still pretty hopeful about her. She has already seen a miracle; she survived and recovered from a pretty bad stroke. The doctor's diagnosis was that she was going to be a vegetable for the rest of her life, but she is doing just fine.

So, did you guys realize that today is my 2 month mark??? Whooooo!!! It's passed by for me pretty quick at least, I'll be home in no time!!!

So the last name "Jorgensen" is a freaking tongue twister for Hispanics to say.

Even when they hear me say it they can't say it back right. It used to REALLY bug me, A LOT, and I'd just keep going until the learned to say it, but I don't really care that much anymore:) I will either just say "sure" with a big smile to whatever version they come up with, or half the time I introduce myself as Elder Jorge... which they still don't remember. And ironically enough as bad as my name gets butchered here, it still comes nothing close to when XXX XXXX thought my name was "Travis Gargantuan" back in high school...:)

The only other thing I really have to say is that I STILL can't handle hardly any heat with my food. Almost every meal I have ever been served has had some sort of spicy condiment on the side, be it salsa or hot sauce or sometimes the heat is just an unavoidable part of the meal, and I start panting like a dog every time!!! It is my goal to continually try to expose myself to it, in hopes that through these meager efforts I might build up a resistance, and IT ISN'T WORKING!!  And the worst part is that pretty much all of the other Elders in this ward love food that is picante, (hot), so one of them will always ask whoever is serving us dinner "es pico?" (is it hot?) and the response will always be "not very." So I then of course think it means my level of not very spicy, like you can barely tell you are eating it, and fricking just go for it... and burn my mouth off.

 I heard a story of a training companionship in this mission who when the greenie came out, he understood nothing in spanish. So his trainer would always tell the people feeding them dinner to make it mas picante, and his greenie didn't know, but he didn't want to be rude, so he ate everything that was put in front of him. After 2 weeks his insides had pretty much been burned... and he became lactose intolerant! He had to take a pill with every meal he ate... I don't know why I shared that story... I would die if I ate that much spicy food... Elder Cooper has made it his goal to see me eat a habanero whilst we are a companionship... I highly doubt that will happen, but if it does, you guys will most assuredly hear about it!

OH!!! Mom, I have new levels of mad respect for you for being the primary president. MAD respect. Elder Cooper and I taught sharing time yesterday... and I'm pretty sure not a single kid in there learned... anything. Within 10 minutes a game of tag and a couple wrestling matches had broken out, 

 a kid needed help peeing, and Elder Cooper and I had a really firm grip on the proceedings of the hour... or not. The best part was the reason we were teaching was because apparently there was some really good lesson being taught in Relief Society or Priesthood or whatnot, because ALL the adult supervision magically... DISAPPEARED. Elder Cooper and I tried to start things off with a hymn.. "Soy un Hijo de Dios" (I am a Child of God)... Except I can't sing, Elder Cooper can't sing, and the little kids don't know HOW to sing... so I mean that just really set the tone for the rest of the hour.

Mom... Mint Cliff Bars are good, the Chocolate Chip Coconut ones are good (or whatever one has coconut), the Fudge Brownie ones are good, and if you see one you think I'd like, give it a try. I also like Power Bars, Peanut butter Crackers (or the Town house Chocolatey Peanut Butter ones... or any Town House Crackers:) Those salted peanuts that I got from Winco are delicious, Samurai Peanuts are amazing, and so are Sesame sticks. And don't get me wrong, I think I kinda explained this badly last week, I still like candy and all that good stuff too, chips and cookies are good, and the last package you sent me was GREAT, I loved it and am grateful to you guys for it. But I get the muncheez pretty bad some days, and if all I have to eat is sugar, then I eat sugar:) Does that make sense? .AND The actual address of my apartment is 3280 S.W. 170th Ave, Apt 2106, Beaverton, Oregon, 97006.

Oh Mom to answer your question about Cooking... I haven't been doing much of that:) For breakfast I usually make a smoothie because it is quick, healthy and decently filling. I usually throw down some spinach, a couple eggs, some protein powder, some fruit, and some milk. It's pretty good. And for lunch I usually make a sandwich... I am eating wheat bread now...:)

That's all for now.  Love you guys!

Elder Jorgensen

Week 8.  Pictures computer and parent not grooving, so only a couple this week...Here's Elder Jorgensen:

It's been a busy week with not much happening here in Beaverton Oeste!! 

Elder Cooper and I are working super hard to try to find new people to teach. We spent 20 hours knocking, and of those 20 hours I finally got to teach a brief first lesson to a lady on her doorstep. Her name is XXXX and she is pretty interested, she asked us if she could come with us to Church, and wants to keep coming, although she said she might not have enough time for us to teach her until December... which is slightly frustrating.

  I also placed my first Book of Mormon with her, which was ironic because we found out later that she can't read... but oh well. Other than that we don't have much happening... Mom as for what you said about making sure we are full with a love of the Gospel, I agree that that is a good thing. But another important aspect of the work is members. People are more likely to get taught when the members invite the missionaries and a friend/friends over and have the missionaries teach the lesson than the missionaries could teach alone. And it's so freaking true. People hardly ever let us in when we knock their door, and none of our members have references for us, so we aren't getting much done. But if we could team up with the members with references that they give us, things would be a lot more successful.

So we have portal time for an hour every week, which is just time to get on a computer and look at videos and stuff on lds.org, and it is pretty sweet. I have found some pretty good videos. The first one is called Extraordinary gift and it's about a kid who is blind but tears it up when he plays the piano. The second is called A Secure Anchor and it uses analogies to rock climbing, so that is obviously a win. The third is a series of 3 short videos called Patterns of Light by David Bednar, those are all good. and fourth is another series of 3 short videos by D. Todd Christopherson, called Daily Bread, and those are probably my favorites. And I was just reminded of a pretty good Devo I heard in the CCM too... I don't really remember who it was by or that much about it except that he talked about when we are talking with people and testifying to them and inviting them, we need to have a testimony of that which we are preaching. He then gave us 5 easy questions to ask in our personal prayers, kneeling, that night, about things that we have been brought up believing, but probably never found out for ourselves about.

1. God, do you really exist? Are you really there?

2. Do you really have a body of flesh and bones?

3. Are you really my father?

4. Do you know who I am?

5. Do you love me?
I did it that night and just felt so peaceful and also slept super well, which didn't happen too much in Mexico... and I feel like that would be a good thing to challenge the youth of the ward to do.

Let's see... what else is new.... Oh Elder Cooper and I found some ants in our apartment the other day. That was fun. We had the whole place cleaned up and vacuumed in like 10 minutes... it was pretty great. If you guys haven't noticed yet, I now have a part in my hair. It's a mission rule... Not much else is new. We are trying to get a phone book so we can get some definite addresses to knock instead of driving around looking for houses because we are running out of places to knock. But we aren't giving up!!!!!

Oh as for stuff I need... the next time you send me a package, could you not send so much junk food porfas (por favor:) It's picky I know, but if you send it, then I eat it, and if I eat it, I might not work it all off:) Thanks guys I love you and miss you tons!!

Love,

Elder Travis Jorgensen

Week 7 ish?
Here are some pics and some verbiage after Elder Jorgensen's first week in the Oregon Portland mission.  Feel free to write to him at the mission home address, posted somewhere on this blog!
Thanks y'all!.

Jorgensens

Alright what to update you all on... I haven't really done much teaching yet. Last week we had a Zone meeting, a greenie meeting, and tons of other stuff that made it hard to get a lesson. Not to mention that we are white-washing, because our area has only been open for one transfer, we don't have a lot to work with. Actually I'm not sure that we have one solid contact... so this week it's going to be all about the tracting. And even that is gonna be hard because our area is huge, and it's almost all white people. It's kinda sad, Elder Cooper and I went driving around on Sunday to look for new areas to tract, and we had a scale of "whiteness" that the area was:) The richer it was, the whiter it was:) It's pretty great... Whatever I am excited to do some work!!

The name of our Spanish Zone is Los Guerreros de Dios... translated.... the Warriors of God. Pretty awesome, no? All the English zones have boring names like where they are located, but Spanish is too cool for the rest of that! Speaking of which, I almost think that serving a foreign speaking language in the States is in some aspects harder than serving foreign would be. In a foreign country, at least there is a pretty good chance that you can talk to everyone you see. Portland is pretty white... and if we get an English contact, we technically aren't even supposed to teach them the first lesson, but turn them over immediately... So it's making things interesting.

The Ward loves us and takes care of us pretty good. It has only been a ward for like... I don't think longer than 6 months, and membership is pretty low, there are only about 100 who come for Church. And because membership is so low, the area is huge, so in one ward there are 6 Elders... and they feed all of us copious amounts of food each night. Actually on Friday they had this party called "La Noche de Internacional"... International night pretty much. Because most of the members of the ward are from different parts of the world, so they showed off like their Guatamalian or Chilean decorations and all brought a ton of food, and then there was like a huge talent show. It was the best ward party I have ever been too. We as Elders got to sing a hymn for them in Spanish, except we were screaming and dancing around and dressed up weird.

Today for P-Day we went into Portland!! It is way crazier and bigger than Boise. 

We checked out the Library, which is huge, got some food, 

went to Voodoo Doughnuts,

and walked along the river. It was pretty fun. We got a lot of weird looks though because there were 6 of us, and we were in Proselyting attire... but it was good times.

Since I left home I have been rained on practically every day except 4... those were my first 4 days in the field. But now the rain is starting to come in. It is a weird kind of rain though, different from Mexico and the rain storms that happen in Idaho... a lot of the time it is like a gentle mist that you don't even notice is happening until you look down and you are soaked.... good fun.

I have been sleeping really well since I got back to the States. I'm talking REALLY well. I think one of the reasons is that compared to Mexico, Beaverton is silent. I'm almost sleeping as well as Mom, I lay down and usually 5-10 minutes later, I am out. I love it:) I am also studying better than in the MTC because it's only Elder Cooper in the apartment so I can focus. We study for 4 hours every day... Personal study, Comp study, Language study, and for the first 12 weeks I get a training study... Good fun.

I love you guys and miss you a lot, Wes, keep running hard!!!!

Elder Jorgensen