editor's note!
Sorry folks, we have been on vacation for a while. I will update Travis' last two weeks of emails, the most recent will be first, the earlier will be later, to keep things chronological. Thanks for watching his blog.
Editor Dad.
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Week of 30 June 2014
Hey guys!!!
So... It's been a good week. I love mijo.
Our first
lesson together was to a drunk white dude, the husband of one of our
less actives, and he was going off the whole time about how he misses
smoking marijuana and how its good for you and how he has a hard life
and... yeah. And Elder Soriano is usually a pretty timid guy, but he
opened his mouth and one of the first things he said was, "All I hear is
excuses." My jaw kind of dropped in that instant
I was not expecting
that much fire AT ALL!!! But hey... it all worked out pretty well.
We have also had some pretty colorful tracting experiences
together. Wednesday was our first full pross (proselyting--trying to find people to teach) day and we need some new
investigators so we hit the streets and tracted. (knocked on doors) No one really opened
up, but those who did left us with some good memories for sure. There was
one dude who we had to knock 3 times to get to open up. We heard noise
inside and knew someone was in there so I was pretty persistent. Finally
the door opened up, and there was a white dude standing in his briefs
with his pants around his ankles and a wild look on his face, and he
asked us, "Who wants to party?!?" Mijo was kind of stunned so I just
spoke what came to my mind, "not us." He said, "Sorry, can't help you
then," and slammed the door. Afterwards we heard some good laughter and
if I'd had a hat on I would have tipped it to the guy,
if you're gonna
reject us, might as well have some fun at it. The next door we knocked
this lady opened up and told us she was a less active and that they had
company over. She introduced us to her daughter. I asked who the company
was. Out of nowhere a 3rd woman popped out and the daughter told us it
was her girlfriend... nice. Good times.
Yesterday we had a good lesson with some new investigators. We
found them knocking on Friday, the kid's name is UUUU, he is 18 and
from Honduras. So yesterday we taught him and he opened up and told us
when he was 16-18 he was in prison.. .don't know why yet but when he
told us that I had the very strong impression that he is ready for this
message.
Because I know you are dying to know mijo is doing pretty good.
He's definitely green and kind of clingy... when we went out to eat a
couple times he ordered what I ordered, he always stops praying right
after I do and he always waits for me to go through a door first... but
he is always happy and humble so... sal good.
Aight peeps, gotta go.
Elder Travis Jorgensen
Week of 6 24
I HAVE AN HIJO!!!!!!!!
(meaning he is now training a new missionary, like someone did for him when he first went to Portland).
This weekend waiting for
transfer calls was STRESSFUL!!!!!!! How President does them is people
who are going to train get their calls first, and then later come the
ones for if you are going to move or not. Usually training calls come
between 10 and 12. By 11:59 I was about ready to kick a baby... and then
30 minutes later when I had all but pulled my hair out, President Morby
called me and asked me if I would train. I was PUMPED!!! Both Warenski
and I were also both assuming that I would go out to Sandy to do it too,
because this is Elder Warenski's last transfer and it just wouldn't
make sense to send him there. So that call came and I was a little
disappointed I'm not going to lie. I have had a lot of cool experiences
out in Sandy and feel really close to a lot of those families. So I took
it pretty hard. Thankfully God gave me an attitude adjustment. After
the calls came we went by a member who was one of the first converts in
Paraguay. She spent 10 years of her life living in the wilderness
because of the persecution she faced for being a member
. And then, her
husband went from being active to inactive and abusive. After 10 years
of that, she decided she couldn't take it anymore, so she said a prayer
asking God to help her in leaving her husband. In the middle of a
prayer, an angel appeared to her, put his hand on her shoulder, and
said, "He is important to God. You are the only one who can bring him
back."
And then left. So she spent another 10 years in an abusive
relationship, when finally her husband turned things around only to die
shortly thereafter. The Spirit kind of smacked me in the face a little
bit during that story. It's not that I don't like Milwaukie, but things
in Sandy are honestly just going to take off now that it has its own
set, and we don't have a whole lot here. Or I guess we do kind of this
area has just kind of gotten old to me. It's lost the "newness" factor.
Elder Warenski and I shifted through about 20-30 investigators in our
companionship and only got 1 to come to Church and the rest didn't
care... So I guess that's one of the reasons God gave me a greenie. I
feel pretty honored... no new Spanish Elders have come into the mission
since October and there are lots of Elders who still need to train... 2
that are a transfer older than me, all the other 5 of my generation, and
3 in the generation younger. Yesterday 2 Spanish greenies came in and I
got one of them. President Morby told us in our trainer's meeting that
because he is leaving (on Saturday:( he wanted to leave the mission with
the best trainers he could think of. I think he was edited for content but whatever;) However, Elder Warenski and I had an
interesting conversation about how big of a role training someone plays
in where you get called on your mission. As in sometimes you get called
to the mission you do so you can train a greenie there.
I have
definitely felt like that in respect to Cooper and Eric... so I am maybe
just feeling slightly overwhelmed... just a little. Any advice or
stories?? I'm all ears... and you don't have to wait until next monday
to do it either if something comes type it up and send me it!!
Luckily something that is taking the stress of is that mijo, Elder
Soriano,
is already fluent and native. So he's gonna teach me the
language:) AND he's from Arizona, so he broke the streak of white
companions I've had from Utah since I got out to the field. As far as
how he is... only time will tell. My first impressions of him are that
he is a big, giant, innocent teddy bear.
Oh, humble too. He is
technically a convert he was baptized at age 9 with his family. But he
seems excited to work so that's good. All in all I am excited.
So... randomly, I am getting quite the list of books I want to read
when I get home. Like The Lincoln Thesis that I saw in Deseret Book the
other day. And The Lost Language of Symbolism. And Lectures on Faith,
the Autobiography of Parley P. Pratt, and a lot more. I can't do
anything about it out here, because I can't read them so if I bought
them I'd just haul them around, but maybe if you see them in stores on
sale you could keep me in mind.
Alright I love you guys!!
Elder Travis Jorgensen
It was GREAT. I LOVED
it. It was weird being back with him again, it felt like old times, but
that companionship is definitely some of the best memories of my
mission.
I haven't had that many people in Church since I was
teaching Eric's Family! 2 of them were FFFF and his mom,YYYY , FFFF
is the one who went on Trek... Things are going really well with YYYY.
We taught her a 2 hour lesson about the plan of Salvation last night.
She felt the Spirit, I could tell. She told us she has seen a change in
her life since we started teaching her. I wanted to give her a baptismal
date but it didn't quite work out... That's ok. In Church she signed up
to feed us dinner on Wednesday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm freaking excited
about that, I'm gonna get to eat some good authentic Mexi food, it's
been awhile!
ummm.... not much else is happening. Hopefully things get
moving and we get some people progressing, that is what we need more
than anything else is a couple of baptisms.
We have quite a few
investigators who we can pass by and who sometimes will let us in, but
almost no one who really wants to learn or will keep their commitments.
And to be frankly honest, I am tired of wasting my time on people who
don't care or don't want to try to understand.
I'm ready to go find the
Salazar family of this area... I'm probably going to have to knock every
door to find them but I don't care, I really just have been feeling
this week like we need to find some new people to teach.
