Weeks 13 and 14 were just updated back to back, but we are current now.  Elder Jorgensen relates his accounts better than we can repeat them, so, in his own words, here is the latest from the OPM...

Well... I guess to start off with... BOOM!!! Another one bites the dust!!! We were playing some b-ball last week, I was pivoting, and part of me thought I heard the sound of fabric tearing. I didn't really care that much, kept playing, and next thing I know RRRRIIIIIIIIIIIPPPPPPPP and my shoe is around my ankles,

with my sock on the ground!!!! I think it is safe to say that that is officially the worst I have ever messed up a shoe! And then last night after we got back from all our stuff and I was chillin, thinking about what I'd do today, it occurred to me that I need shoes kind of, a little bit, to do p-day activities!! So, naturally I went to work and started seamstressing it! By the end of this week they should look good as new... kind of!

Alright... what do you guys want to hear first?? About the work or the funny stories that have happened to me this week?? After having raised the question to audience that really can't influence the decision making... I have decided to go with stories first, because I always forget some of them, and it's kinda hard to forget how the work is going!

Our first story comes from a couple weeks ago, that I should have told you last week but forgot to... hence stories are coming first this week. Awhile ago the Elder's quorum of my ward decided to have a bowling/pizza activity. Obviously that's not just something we can go to, but if you get an investigator to a ward activity it counts as a member present lesson. So... naturally we tried our very hardest to find a ride for XXXX... Pizza and bowling?? How can you pass that up?!

So we met at the Church and while we were waiting for everybody to show up, we started shooting some hoops. All I am going to say is that some of the members in this ward probably didn't play basketball in High School... I saw some RIDICULOUS, CRAZY ways to shoot a basketball. Some of them would treat it like a shot-put and just try to straight muscle it. Others would hold it kinda back behind their head and do like a crunch standing up, not even using their arms at all. Now, I am not one to talk about being bad at basketball... AT ALL... but Elder Cooper and I made eye contact a couple of times and had to try really hard not to laugh. The pizza finally came, and we feasted!!! I swear pizza has never been so delicious in all of my life!!! I love beans and rice... but the stuff gets old after awhile. Anyways by the time we finished eating it was like 830, and Elder Cooper and I had to get going cuz if we stuck around for whatever they ended up doing for bowling (in Spanish=Bolichi... AWESOME WORD!), we'd be late home. So, we bid our farewells, and as we were leaving we got asked if we wanted to take the leftover Pizza... which was like 2 whole boxes. Obviously... we did. We were given the instruction to share it with the other 6 Elders, but I'm pretty sure they knew we were gonna keep it.

As we were walking to our car Elder Cooper looked at me and said "This is God knowing I'm out of money for groceries!!!" (close to the end of the month... funds were running thin...). My favorite part of this story, however, comes from how we managed to get the pizza in the fridge!!! Our fridge has 3 shelves in it... and the top half is a freezer. Anyways Elder Cooper takes the top shelf, I take the middle, and we both kinda share the bottom. For the longest time there was this red, crusty stuff on the bottom shelf. I didn't really know or care what it was that much. One day Elder Cooper asked me "Have you ever wondered what that red stuff is??" I said no, but I was pretty sure I had it figured out... probably it was like Marinara sauce, or some spaghetti-o's sauce, or some such form of cheap missionary sustenance. So I told Elder Cooper my guess, and he just started smiling REAL big. 

"Nope, it's chicken blood."

Well.... that wasn't quite what I was expecting. So, we came home with the pizza, and the only possible place to store it was the bottom shelf. And we didn't want to put it on top of some crunchy, dried out, nasty chicken blood. (This stuff had no resemblance to liquid at all, it was just solid and dried up.) So... how did we decide to clean it out?? VACUUM HOSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We just vacuumed it up... no maintenance necessary. 

I had a Bedtime stories moment this week. I was having some GOOD, BEAUTIFUL, RESTFUL SLEEP. MUCH needed. And all of the freaking sudden I am woken up by someone screaming Spanish in my bedroom. I wake up, look around, and it's freaking Elder Cooper, screaming in Spanish at the top of his lungs! I didn't know if he was trying to talk to me... or if he was possessed and gonna start sleep walking soon or what, but he seriously went of for like 30 seconds. The next morning I asked him how he slept. "Good." I asked him if he had any dreams in Spanish... he said not that he could remember, why? Then I proceeded to tell him about how how he'd gone freaking BAT CRAP CRAZY and he just laughed. Weird.

Have I told you guys yet about how we have a monthly set of mileage for our car?? And about how if we go over then we lose the car and get bikes??

In September, a lot of Spanish companionships went over on their miles. Elder Cooper and I stayed under, but the ones who didn't got warned about how if they went over again "there would be consequences" (aka... bikes) So this last week Elder Cooper and I were getting close to our limit, and had to spend a few days walking. I didn't really mind, it was good fun... sunny... exercising... good stuff!!! We were walking to the Church and out of nowhere just heard a horn start blaring... We looked up and it's this lady who is probably somebody's sweet old grandmother, but she is just BLARING the horn at us, and her windows were up so we couldn't hear what she was saying... but if we could have I'd be willing to bet it rhymed with "duck poo!!!!!!"

Last story... HALLOWEEN!! We had a really good dinner with some members, and just chilled over there for like an hour and a half, and then had to come home to do weekly planning. However, I was in need of a hair cut... I'm still me and still don't like those things!!! Elder Cooper offered to take his clippers to it for me... and it was either that or pay to get it done... so obviously I went with the free option. We set up shop in our tiny kitchen, because it is the only tile in our house! And he just chopped my hair off!!! Companionship bonding activity!!! We also got the most trick or treaters I've ever seen in my life.

Kids just kept knocking and knocking and knocking. We had some old candy for the first like... 2... and then after that when they kept on knocking I was thinking to myself "Kid, I've barely got enough money/food to feed myself, and you want me to give away the precious few snacks I have to YOU?!?!" Selfish... I know... but Elder Cooper is a genius, we started handing out Jesus cards!! Problem... the writing on the back of them was in Spanish. Solution... everybody that knocked our door was Mexican!!!!!

I think that's all as far as stories go... as for the work... Elder Cooper and I got a call a few days ago from our District leader telling us we are leading the mission with our numbers. At first I thought he only meant the Spanish part, but when I asked him he said ALL of it... the whole OPM. We have 15 progressing investigators, we teach more lessons with members present than any other companionship, and we also get at least 2 to church every week. That BLOWS MY MIND to think about, because really, our area... isn't the best . Geographically, its long and skinny. Demographically, its white as white can be, We probably have the least Hispanic population out of any companionship. I like how Elder Cooper described what's happened, he said "your area is what you make it." And its totally true. Right now most of the other companionships in our district are where Cooper and I were when I first got here... ground zero. And our DL said we had a good knocking week last week, as a district we got 24 hours... which Cooper and I almost got by ourselves the first couple weeks. That piece of news was super good for us to hear, because before we got told that we were both kinda just feeling discouraged. Don't get me wrong, I love being a missionary,

but life is pretty routine and when that routine gets old there's not a whole lot you can do to break out of it... but it just makes me want to work harder and get better at Spanish, and turn these progressing investigators into baptisms!!! CCCC is set to be baptized on the 17th still, and she seems excited and ready for it!!! Elder Cooper and I just want to keep them coming!!!!

Alright well I am running out of time so I'm gonna sign off... it was good to hear from you guys, and good to get your package!!!!! I love you!!!

Elder Jorgensen