Editor's Note:  Folks this is Travis' last email/epistle from his mission, and hence the last post we will add to this blog, unless we download pictures from the airport Tuesday night :)  Thank you to every one who has followed the blog over the last 24 months.  It has definitely been an amazing adventure for him, and for us.  We should find out tonight (12 July 15) what the ward boundary changes are and where and when Travis will be speaking after he comes home.

Thanks again for the views, prayers and support of Elder TJorg!

So Sister Ballard wanted me to write this up and send it to the
mission office... And I am sending it to you guys too! 

 
LIST OF COMPANIONS
 
Elder Mike G Cooper- September 9th 2013 - Deceber 2nd 2013 - Beaverton West
- Elder Cooper instilled a good work ethic in me. Neither of us really
knew what we were doing, but we didn't let that stop us from working
hard.
 
Elder Tyler Morrison - December 2nd 2013- February 24th 2014 - Beaverton West
- My companionship with Elder Morrison was one of those that I learned
more from the things that went wrong than the things that went right.
We didn't get along very well and the two biggest factors were A) my
pride and B) the fact that we didn't ever talk through our problems.
Not talking about things usually doesn't help them go away.
 
Elder Austin Goff- February 24th 2014 - April 7th 2014 - Milwaukie
- Elder Goff is one of the best examples of having a good attitude in
life that I have ever met. He always does his best to be upbeat and
happy even when your area is hard and its cold and rainy outside,
Elder Goff was happy to be working.
 
Elder Mathew Warenski - April 7th 2014 - June 23rd 2014 - Milwaukie
 - I love Elder Warenski. When we first got put together, I wasn't
sure that I would, he reminded me a lot of Elder Morrison. But I made
the decision after Elder Morrison that I'd never have a bad
companionship due to lack of effort on my part again. So I decided
going into that companionship that I was just going to love Elder
Warenski and do all that I could to help us get along, and he is one
of my best friends for life now.
 
Elder Gerardo Soriano - June 23rd 2014 - September 22nd 2014 - Milwaukie
 - Elder Soriano is the best example of the pure love of Christ that I
have ever met in my life. He loves everybody, and insists that you
love them too. When I was with Elder Soriano it really helped me to
look outside myself and realize that there are other people and they
have other ideas than I do, and sometime's it's not all about me.
 
Elder David Peterson - September 22nd 2014 - November 3rd 2014 - Evergreen
 - Elder Peterson was great about being sincere with people, and
helping members understand the vision of and purpose behind missionary
work. We whitewashed into Evergreen, went to work, and saw miracles
happen.
 
Elder Waylon Jessen - November 3rd 2014 - December 15th 2014 - Evergreen
 - Elder Jessen and I got along well as friends but clashed very
frequently as companions. We had different views of missionary work
and often butted heads because of it. One day, after a particularly
heated debate, he told me that before the mission, it was people with
attitudes like mine that had made him not like the church. That was a
profound moment for me. There I was trying to help other people come
unto Jesus Christ, and yet I couldn't even do that in my own
companionship. At that point being a good companion took on a whole
new meaning to me. Was it still important to help my companion be a
good missionary? Yes. But how I went about doing that was equally as
important as what I was trying to do.
 
Elder Gaven Mann December 15th 2014 - January 22nd 2015 - Tigard
 - With Elder Mann I learned to trust in the Lord about how He does
things. Elder Mann and I got along really well, we were like brothers
most of the time. We told each other all of our stories and a lot of
the ones that he told me he said I was the first companion he had told
them to. Towards the end of that transfer, he told me he needed to
meet with President, and subsequently ended up going home. After he
went home, it came to my attention that he had been breaking a lot of
rules that I didn't even know about, which partially opened my vision
to some of the other reasons that he went home. A lot of them were
things that other missionaries knew about, that no one told me about,
and if I had known about them I would have tried to help him with
them. But that would have affected our friendship, and in the end a
good friend can do more for someone than anyone else can.
Elder Marshall Tuten and Elder Dakota Bair January 22nd 2015 - January 26th 2015
- Being with Elders Tuten and Bair was a good little recharge for me.
They are both very diligent missionaries and for the few days that I
was with them I kind of just fed off of their energy.
 
Elder Parker Engman January 26th 2015 - March 9th 2015
- With Elder Engman I saw from both sides of the spectrum how attitude
really is one of those small things that makes a big difference. While
he was my companion I sprained my ankle really bad and had to take a
few days off. My first day that I was allowed to be back, my ankle
still REALLY hurt to walk on. I could have asked for another day off,
but I knew that if I did that, my heart wouldn't really be in it for
the right reasons.
 
Elder Dakota Bair - March 9th 2015 - April 20th 2015
 - Elder Bair really showed me the value of doing the little things
right all of the time, of just teaching simply and planning thoroughly
and being obedient. We saw a lot of cool things happen together.
 
Elder Gregory Mayer - April 20th 2015 - July 13th 2015
- Elder Mayer and I worked harder than I would say that I've worked
with anyone else my whole mission. We got along great but also had a
desire to help people. We saw a lot of cool miracles about finding
people. Things happened that no one but God could have lined it up.
And yet even after praying to be able to teach someone who was in the
middle of an addiction and needed the Gospel to make it out, and
finding someone who had been struggling with a pornography addiction
for 5 years, or praying on my birthday that God would lead us to
someone who would be baptized, and the only person that we talked to
that day was someone who told us that she knew God had sent us to her,
and the date we felt like giving her was her birthday, which she
graciously accepted, or praying to find someone who really just needed
to hear our message, and finding someone who did With all of those cool experiences, try
as hard as we could, we couldn't go anywhere with them. It gave us a
unique perspective on enduring to the end because things were going
well, but not the way we had hoped.
 
 
MISSION PRESIDENTS.
 
 
 - President Jeffrey R. Morby.


President Morby taught me a lot about
the importance of being a good companion, of helping others increase
their faith in Christ. Looking back, I can see that he did that by
giving me companions that helped me a lot, even when at the time I
thought that I was too prideful to be helped. And then for his last
act as my Mission President, he turned the tables on me and gave me
the chance to be a good companion for somebody who needed it.
 
President Craig B. Ballard.


President Ballard taught me the most about
the importance of personal conversion and living the Gospel every day.
Through his emails, through trainings that he gave, always after
learning from him I came away with a better realization that sometimes
at the end of the day, our testimonies are all that will keep us
going. That feeling was often accompanied by the desire to be
continually strengthening my conversion so that I can be ready when
the storm hits and constantly be helping those around me.
 
 
MIRACLES THAT STAND OUT TO ME
 
 
1. The baptism of Eric Salazar.




When I first came out on my mission, it was a spur of the moment type
decision, so I probably wasn't as prepared as I should have been, but
I knew, and I still know, that I was where I was, when I was, for a
reason.
In my first area, my trainer and I practically whitewashed it. My
trained had only been out for 3 months longer than me so neither of us
really knew Spanish very well, let alone how to do missionary work.
But we did work hard, and as we did so we met a young man by the name
of Eric Salazar. All three of us quickly became friends and after a
lot of prayers and fasting, he was baptized on my last Sunday with my
trainer. It stands at a testimony to me that God has a plan for each
of us and he knows what He is doing.
 
2. The baptism of Eric's parents and sister.


Initially when we started working with Eric, no one in his family
wanted anything to do with us. We usually had to teach him at a time
when no one else was home. So when he made the decision to be
baptized, and told his parents about it, initially there was some
friction, and they said no. I fasted that day that God would soften
Eric's parents' hearts, and the next day they accepted his decision to
be baptized. They came to the baptism, and three weeks later they were
baptized. A few weeks after that, so was his younger sister.
 
3. The baptism of Karla Salazar.


My second area, Milwaukie, was a very trying time for me. I went from
seeing a lot of success in my greenie area to a hard area where the
work I put in was not always equivalent to what I got out. I was there
for 7 and a half months. After my third transfer there I thought for
sure that I was going to leave. But when transfer calls came, I found
out that I was training and staying, and I was not excited at all.
That two second period when I heard Elder Bair tell me "Elder
Jorgensen, you're staying," was probably the hardest two seconds of my
life. I felt broken. The next thing we had on the plans that day was
to go see one of the few members that we had in our area, her name is
Sister Guerrero, and she is one of the sweetest old grandmas that I
have ever met. She has been through a lot of hard times in her life.
She told us a story about how her husband was abusive and she couldn't
take it anymore, so she was praying hard for help to leave him. She
said she felt a hand on her shoulder, and looked up, and saw someone
dressed in white standing above her. That personage told her that her
husband is important to God, and she was the only one who could help
bring him back. So she endured 10 more years of that relationship, and
just before he died, he had a change of heart.
The reason I share that story is because I had a very strong spiritual
impression as I sat there listening that there was a reason that I was
still in Milwaukie. Soon thereafter one of our investigators started
progressing, and before I left she was baptized.
 
4. Michael Plummer.
One day Elder Soriano and I went to go be translators at a dentist's
office for one of our investigators. The appointment was in the
southeast part of Portland, in a part of our area that we didn't
venture very frequently We finished at about 10 AM, and wanted to
hurry and get back home so that we could finish our studies and get
out working. As we were walking back towards our car, I had a very
strong impression that we needed to stick around for a little bit. I
had been paying close attention to our surroundings the whole time and
never saw anything that gave me hopes of finding hispanics in the
area. With that, we got in our car and started to drive home.
We didn't make it two blocks before I once again felt like we needed
to go back to where we were. I looked around desperately, trying to
see some clue or glimmer of hope as to why we still felt like staying
where we were. Although I searched with scrutiny, nothing called my
attention, and the more that nothing called my attention, the stronger
the prompting became. So I looked at Elder Soriano and told him, "I
don't know why I feel like this, but we are going back." I found a
spot to turn the car around, and drove back to where we had parked the
first time.
As we got out I noticed a Safeway off to the left, and I decided I was
in the mood to preach to captive audiences. Before we even made it to
the door, a tall, caucasian gentleman in ragged jean shorts, a
threadbare grey shirt, with a white beard covering his face stopped us
politely asked us if we believed in Jesus Christ. He introduced
himself as Michael Plummer. That is one of only 2 times my whole
mission that someone not of our faith has approached me in a non
combative manner to learn more about what we believe. As we got
talking, he told us that he had been bed ridden for 25 years, had just
barely started walking a few months ago, and that in a few weeks he
was being evicted from his home and needed help moving. It took us a
full week, but we helped the man pack up his truck and get on his way
to California. I lived the Ammon experience, and we also got to teach
him. He told us that the first time he saw us, he just felt like
talking to us, he said we had a glow about us. Which is interesting,
because remembering that experience what he saw and how I felt were
two very different perspectives.
 
 
3 POIGNANT SCRIPTURES
 
Alma 31:5. This scripture has really helped me understand the
importance of scripture study. As we study the scriptures we are
enlightened as to how we need to change and what we can do to become
closer to Christ.
 
Mosiah 24:13-15. I love that the first thing the Lord said to them was
"lift up your heads." I love that, because it shows that we still need
to have confidence in God even when we are going through trials. And
it also opened my eyes as to how the enabling power of the Atonement.
 
D&C 19:18. Elder Maxwell explained this scripture and said "Not
shrinking is more important than surviving." In my mission I found
that quote very applicable to missionary work. It is easy to "survive"
in an area without necessarily fulfilling our purpose. The same
principle applies in the Gospel and in our callings. Shrinking from a
calling or position and magnifying it are opposite things.
 
 

 
A CHANGED PERSPECTIVE OF THE ATONEMENT
 
I'll be pretty honest and say that before my mission I didn't really
even know what the Atonement was.






 It wasn't until I was going out with
the missionaries one day and heard them teach very simply that the
Atonement is A) Christ's suffering in the Garden of Gethsemane B)
Christ's crucifixion on the cross and C) Christ's resurrection. So I
thought I knew it from there. But it turns out I was only brushing the
surface. Later on, through scripture study, I began to understand how
it works. I began to understand that it was more than Christ just
suffering for our sins, He suffered through everything we could ever
imagine, and He can strengthen us through those experiences.


And I've
just had simple, yet profound experiences my entire mission that have
shown me why that is important. On days when we feel like we don't
know where we are headed or what we are doing and the burdens on our
backs are so heavy that we can't take another step without some divine
means of aid, or so we think, until we take another step because
Christ matches us step for step as we continue. 


Or moments when we
feel that we are the hardest workers, yet the least recognized or
known, and all we want is a little attention from one of our peers,
until we realize that Christ was human too, He knew what it was like
to want some attention for the things that He did. But He gave all of
the glory to the Father because in the end He knew what His priority
was. In the end, the Atonement will never be able to be fully
understood, yet even small fractions of understanding can bless our
lives every day. The Atonement is Christ's greatest teaching, and as
we follow His teaching  we reconcile ourselves with Him.

last pday!

 

first of all... i am sorry this is late... we were making good time on
the hike, and we get back, and the kid who brought us had left his
lights on and the car was dead.


we were legit 10 miles off of a
backroad in the middle of nowhere. so we say a prayer asking heavenly
father to help us. we were parked uphill, so we decided to just coast
the car in neutral, and we got several miles that way. just as we were
getting to level ground again, there was a suburban that,
coincidentally, around the same time we had said the prayer, got 2
flat tires right where we ended up, and they were able to jump us! 
Not a suburban
so,
sometimes our misfortunes can be answers to others prayers:) so the rest of this was before that
adventure...how am i doing... well... thats a loaded question... i love the
mission. i am honestly scared to go home. not that im a stellar
missionary or anything but i feel like this is all ive done. i still
feel like the next year will be spent trying to motivate myself to get
up in the morning, and going and getting on the grind. but at the same
time i am worn down.


mayer and i are honestly working harder that i
ever have before, and weve seen people come to us saying i have a
pornography addiction, can you help me, or i know that God sent you to
me because He knows that i need help, or another that knows without a
doubt that the BOM is true, and another who freaking has had a dream
where God told him that the Bom is true,  so im scared to come home but
also getting drained at the same time.

 

Story time! On Saturday we were driving around, and as we were turning
a corner, our car put put puttered, sputtered, and died because it ran
out of gas.


We didn't even miss a beat. There was a gas station not
very far away, so I pushed and Mayer drove, we flipped a u-ey, got
back onto the main road, and kept on pushing. The sketchy part was
that the speed limit on that road was like 45 miles an hour, so we got
over to the middle lane, and thankfully there was a slight downhill,
so mayer was like scooter pushing and driving at the same time, and
then I got on the passenger side and we legitimately turned our car
into a scooter going 20 miles an hour in the middle of a 5 lane road.
#score.
And, as far as ZZZZ goes, we fasted for him this week. On Monday we
had a pretty powerful lesson where he gave us his last cigarettes and
started crying because of it. He told us he doesn't even want religion
anymore, just God, he feels like he is on the threshold of change but
doesn't have the fight left in him. So we fasted for him, and we had a
lesson on Friday where he told us in a dream, he saw two outlines,
with like fire around them. He heard a voice (God's voice) telling him
that He had sent two warriors


to help him. Matt kept thinking who it
was, and finally God told him it was us, and he saw us in the
outlines. But then he still didn't come to church, so that is
frustrating. But, little by little!

Hey Guys!
So... this week was kind of frustrating... especially yesterday.
Yesterday left a bad taste in my mouth. After PPPP FINALLY came to
church last week, we were freaking pumped to get a baptism. He works
from 12 til 9pm and has a horrible habit of sleeping in until 1130 so
teaching him is a struggle. we usually try to set up an appt at like
11 or 1030 most days... so this wee, we did, every single morning, and
every single morning between 3 and 5 am wed get a text saying he had
stayed up too late and that we should stop by later. So yesterday we
freaking said to ourselves that we were gonna see him and stopped by
before church. We woke him up, and he told us that he had been staying
up each night watching naughty videos... he relapsed. So we asked him
for the millionth time I swear if he had been reading The Book of
Mormon each day, and he said no, we asked him why not and if he
thought it could help him, and he basically told us about how the
Bible says there's a lot of false profetas.. prophets... and that The
Book of Mormon is from the devil. He didn't really want us to come
back that badly.

That was great. Do you guys remember the rude black guy I told you
about a few weeks ago?? Well... we ran into him again. In the exact
same spot. We saw him down the street coming towards us so we headed
the opposite direction to our lesson. We stopped right outside the apt
to re go over our plans. The guy took a 90 degree turn to come tell us
to get away from some guy's truck, we didn't need to be trying to
steal anything. Elder Mayer Walked a few steps away... however when he
said that it cut right into my stubborn side... I waited a few
seconds, and took like maybe a few steps away. The guy told me to move
again and I should have but I honestly just hate when people belittle
me and try to tell me what to do.

So I stood my ground. The guy said
"stay right there, Satan, I'll go tell him you are standing by his
truck and he'll come out here." (quotes aren't exact... there were a
few more swear words in between and he kept bashing on Joseph Smith.)
So I should have followed Elder Mayer's example and just stood by him
but i'll be honest I was pretty freaking pissed and did not want to do
anything this guy told me. So the black guy disappears, and a few
minutes later a fat older white dude comes screaming and yelling and
gets right up in my face, telling me to get off of his property (I'm
in the driveway in front of an apt complex) anyways... I needed to get
off of his property or he was gonna call the cops. He was 6 inches
away from my face and I thought for sure he was gonna take a swing...
But he stormed back inside yelling about how his Father's Day had been
ruined... Mayer Nd I were both pretty chapped by this point... We
waited a few seconds to calm down before knocking on LLLL and JJJJ's
door, and the black guy came walking by as we were knocking and told
us we needed to have some more respect. I told him we were trying to
teach them, and he asked what, because it wasn't salvation, Joseph
Smith didn't die to save us. And a whole bunch of other retarded
comments.

Holy cow guys. I haven't been so upset in a long time. Still
this morning I was freaking angry still. But then we discovered that
our lazy boy recliner was super dusty and took it out on the balcony
and beat the living stuffing out of it... That made me feel better:)
Other than that.... Not much else is new. Actually things are going
super well with ZZZZ He has a daughter in a correctional facility and
she has been talking with a lady 3 times a week about Morrmonism and
she wants to be baptized:) he went to the hospital this week again for
his infection, he couldn't come to church because of it...he
reminds me a lot of Trevor or Clay Nell... And Mayer says that ZZZZ
and I are exactly alike. You guys remember how I was kind of mouthy
before? Well.... I have honed that skill on my mission. I'm not sure
if it's a good skill to have or not but I can go toe to toe with just
about anybody... So Wes when I get home, watch it;)

mini golf tuff guys

Hey Peeps!
Sooo.... this week was good. Nothing special that I can think of
really. We did 3 exchanges on back to back days so that was a blur. We
had pday, tuesday to wednesday was an exchange, wednesday to thursday,
and thursday to friday. by the time mayer and I got back together on
Friday afternoon... we were freaking tired. As far as the week goes,
we did a lot but not a lot happened. On tuesday afternoon right before
we started the exchange, we got a call from IIII, who was in the
hospital... he has a lot of health issues and is there a lot... so we
went to see him. The video was just him freestyling... he is freaking
funny, one of my favorite people I've ever taught. And then on Friday
after Mayer and I were back together we went and saw him, he had
gotten out of the hospital and was in his house, and his brother in
law was over, and IIII told us his brother in law could "shred us
theologically" and the guy just asked us questions for an hour, trying
to prove that Joseph Smith could have written The Book of Mormon... he
wasn't trying to prove us wrong or bash necessarily he just wanted to
know what we thought and then tell us what he thought... BUT it was
dope because IIII every once in awhile would throw in a "But what if
Joseph Smith really was a prophet?" or, "but what if The Book of
Mormon really is Another Testament of Jesus Christ?"
Not Elder Jorgensen


Elder Jorgensen
He told us he has
been doing some deep digging and a lot of research, and we told him
that he didn't need to look any farther than what was right in front
of him. He also wants to come to church at some point... so it's all
going well the only problem is that IIII takes things at his own
speed. So we are just kinda waitin, gotta take things slow.
OH Mom you are going to love this one, so IIII upstairs neighbor
either used to be or is a gang member... the real deal. He has a
couple of teardrops on his left eye, and we were talking to him a
little bit, and mayer used the mediator/debtor example (the one of the
guy who owed a debt but couldn't pay it so he got thrown in jail
because mercy can't rob justice... and then a mediator comes in and
pays the debt so both ends are happy)... so anyways, Mayer used this
example with our gangster amigo and said let's say I owe you 50
dollars... and the guy just laughed... afterwards IIII told us the guy
had gone to prison for beating up someone who owed him $20... 


so
anyways.... IIII is doing well.
BBBB also made it to Church yesterday... and he said that he wants to
make it next week. We reset another baptismal date with him for the
4th of July... So we're praying really hard that that one happens. I
want at least one more baptism before I come home. IIII should happen
sometime... but that's gonna take awhile.
Anything else... I can't remember... i love you guys!

So these last couple of weeks have just been roller coaster up and
down crazy... Do you remember the guy I told you about last week? we
found him on Monday before the transfer meeting, and he had already
read The Book of Mormon twice. He is so funny. Our senses of humor are
exactly the same... one night we were talking, and had kind of been
bantering like we do, and he said "we had to pick up our holy bible
and respond accordingly" and then he sent us a poem, "Jesus loves me
this I know, for the bible tells me so... little ones to him belong..
they are weak but he is strong." and then he told us to put that in
our pipes and smoke it... and me, never one to back down from a
challenge,


I pulled a mister miyagi, clapped my hands together, and
came up with the following "God is mighty and full of grace. you will
know when you stuff your face... with his word cuz it tastes the best.
come, join the feast, and be blest." keep in mind that matt is a
bigger guy who really likes to eat... I told him he might need to eat
some laffy taffies to get him over the heartbreak of that one... he
randomly texted us  another day and told us he thinks that we should
get matching jesus tattoos... long story short I love the guy. He is a
classic example of a pineapple,


all hard and spiny on the outside (he
has a tattoo right above his left eye that says precious death), but
soft on the inside! he also told us that partially due to his obesity
he has an infection on his leg swelling to his groin, and asked us to
keep him in our prayers. so we set up an appointment, brought our
bishop with us (IIII speaks more english than spanish in case that
wasn't obvious!), and we taught IIII a little about the priesthood. It
was kind of hard because Matt has add and knows a lot... so one
tangent of the lesson was about baptisms for the dead and how IIII
could be baptized for his twin brother who died as a victim of gang
violence. anyways, IIII wanted bishop to give him the blessing because
he "felt a connection to him." by the end of the lesson, IIII was in
tears.he told us that he knew God had sent us to him to help him out,
and we tentatively set a baptismal date for the 11th of July. he
accepted. The next day we got a text from him saying he doesn't think
he is going to be baptized, we went over and talked to him, he didn't
really want to talk doctrine or religion too much... and we've tried
to set up another appointment but he told us he needs to rest all of
this week. We think that because he felt the Spirit penetrate his
tough guy shell... he is scared now. Super freaking frustrating. we
fasted for him yesterday.
On tuesday, the day after we first met IIII, we met another guy named
BBBB who has also already read The Book of Mormon. Tuesday after pday
was rough, we just talked to a bunch of jerkish white people.


845 came
around and nothing had really happened, we were both kinda mad, we
were gonna knock on a few more doors and go home. as we were walking
there was a white guy, or at least it looked like he was, cleaning out
his car. I will be honest, when we saw him, I really really REALLY did
not want to talk to him, but we did, and some of the first words out
of his mouth were "yeah, I've already read The Book of Mormon." and he
was feeling super sick too, but he said he had just "randomly" felt
like going and cleaning out his car, something he had needed to do for
months. We have an appt with him Thursday, freaking hopefully...
The other up down part is GGGG. We've taught the guy like everything
except for tithing and a couple of other principles from PMG lesson 5.
he knows it's all true. the problem HAD been that he couldn't get work
off. He says the closing prayer every lesson and every time asks that
he can get work off so that he can come to church. Well, Sunday he got
work off. And what did he do? went to a party with a friend,
So all in all we are seeing A TON of cool miracles finding people,
more than I've ever seen in my mission, and it's because we are
praying for them and working for them. But it seems like after God
gives them to us, we don't go anywhere with them, that's the
frustrating part. I love these people. I want them to draw closer to
Christ. I know the Gospel can change their lives, and it is really
pushing me to see all of these cool experiences and not be able to
take them anywhere!


So... that's been our week! Hopefully someone, or a lot of someones,
will come to church this week!
 

Hey guys!

so... transfers came and went... and Mayer and I are staying together!! In beaverton!! without a greenie:( We had to go to the transfer meeting because zls have to... which I don't like. Guys I love you, but in all honesty I don't really want to come home that bad.

Sitting in the transfer meeting yesterday it smacked both Mayer and I that things are coming to an end. It was not a fun thought. We really are just working like crazy and it's been great. We had everything planned for our greenie too! Mayer sleeps on a futon, and we were gonna label it the cradle, leave a pacifier, and make him greenie waffles for breakfast!! Buuttt... I guess God didn't want us to traumatize the poor kid:)

So this week was up and down. The down was that we got into a couple of really freaking big bashes... the first one was Saturday, a guy straight was walking after us for like 5 minutes then said "hey guys, i have a question for you, how do you know what you believe is true?" "I'm a seeker of the truth." and then he proceeded to rip into Joseph Smith, hard, and the Book of Abraham, and the premortal existence... legit like the worst bash I have ever been in, the guy just went after everything. At the end, we invited him to read the Book of Mormon. To which he got smart and responded, "I invite you to pray about your Prophet." And in unison, pretty firmly I would say, both mayer and I looked him in the eye and said "I have."

To which he said "Then there's nothing I can do to help you." The genteman's name was KKKK. So now Mayer and I use KKKK as an insult.

The second one was with the guy who pretty much had memorized the bible and had a pretty firm belief in the Trinity.... good thing Joseph Smith saw God and Jesus Christ in a vision. That was another long one.

And, once again, no one came to church.

Yesterday was a cool miracle though. Before the transfer meeting, we figured we'd take advantage of being in our area on Monday and prayed to find someone who is ready to be baptized. Long story short, right before we left for the meeting... we met this dude, a BIG BOY,

Not him, but you get the idea..:)

covered in tats, and he invited us in, and said he has already read The Book of Mormon twice. He just looks at it as a historical document, but he said he loves Nephi. We just talked to him and he said he is struggling in his own faith right now, he used to be in a gang, after that he went to prison, before that he went through a super hard preacher's school or something, he told us he has to unlearn some things... right now I don't really think he has much interest in learning from us, but he says he feels peaceful around us... and I got a distinct feeling that I am going to learn a lot from him.

The last tidbit is that we were playing ultimate frisbee this morning... and I looked up to catch the frisbee, and a hand came down super hard and smacked my left eye.

My vision was super milky afterwards, and it's gotten better, but it's still really blurry in the left eye. I went to the doctor and my vision in my left eye is crap. Miracles happen though because when we got home, I looked at it in the mirror, and there was a line of blood in the iris... I asked Elder Mayer for a blessing and now the line is gone, i just cant really see... things are super blurry. the doc says that things should bet better within the next 48 hrs... I've been icing... but keep it in your prayers I guess.

see you guys!

Hey Peeps!

So... it was a pretty good week. Who wants to hear about my birthday? It was one for the books. It was pretty uneventful until about 3 pm... we taught an 18 year old kid that we haven't seen in like a month... it's only XXXX's 2nd time seeing the kid... we showed him a mormon message called reclaimed,

and asked him what it made him think about. he talked about kinda how god gives us commandments... and THEN... Elder Mayer.... made the greenie mistake... he started talking about the law of Chastity.... I mean he took it, and ran the lesson off of a cliff!

It was so bad... the kid is 18 years old and has a girlfriend.... holy cow. it was bad. When we got back into the car, Elder Mayer reclined his seat, curled up into a ball, and screamed "WHAT DID I JUST DO!!!!".... But legit..... just imagine.... slaughter....

So not much else really happened... I had been praying and asked God to help us set a baptismal date with someone... by 845... we still hadn't had a very productive day.... we had an appt set up with some people we had knocked into the day earlier, we had taught the daughter and wanted to return to teach the family. It ended up being only the mom... she is from El Salvador, her name is GGGG, and she is probably the most prepared lady for baptism that I have ever met my whole life. One of the very first things that she said to us was, "I know that you guys were sent here as instruments in the Lord's hands because He knows I need some help." We taught a short version of the Restoration, and as I was thinking about when to extend as a baptismal date, I felt like we should extend the 20th of June. When I extended the date, she got a really thoughtful look on her face, and said the 20th is her birthday, and said that if she knew that our message was true by that day, she would be baptized. That was a pretty cool experience.

Except for that SHE DIDN'T COME TO FREAKING CHURCH ON SUNDAY!!!! NO ONE IS COMING AND IT IS FRUSTRATING ME!!!! That is my rant for the day.

So for our pday, it was pretty good, some members got permission to take us hiking outside of the mission, at a place called silverton falls, there will be pics coming next week. This is the only one we took on the ipad, but I feel like it's a pretty accurate representation of Mayer's and my take on life... oh and I got my last haircut last monday. And then the other pic we just found in someone's garden.... and no one was home... so we took some pictures and bounced:)

And next week is transfers... my hope and prayer is that I stay here in Beaverton for another transfer, with Mayer, and that we get to trio train a greenie! So keep that in your prayers!

OH, and it was cemented into my mind today... the woman I marry HAS to like outdoorsy things and hiking. #amust!

Hey guys!
So.. this week was pretty bomb. Super bomb actually. Numbers wise, it
was the best week of my mission. We taught 35 lessons and found 18 new
investigators. Most days we didn't have time to take a full lunch!
Freaking the only problem is that NO ONE WILL COME TO CHURCH!!! 


That
is the current frustration... Beaverton is a blessed area, there are
hispanic people all over the place, but thus far we've only had 1
person to come to church...
anyways... story time... so my companion and I were talking about how
much we hate cats.... and I don't remember how the subject came up...
but we were talking about what we'd do if we were going to propose to
a girl who had a cat... (edited/deleted for content...not exactly missionary focused...:) so... those are
the spiritually uplifting things that my companion and I discuss....
other than that.. nothing is really new. I'm excited to go home but I
really am gonna end on a high note, I've loved the last couple of
months!
also.... this pic is a pretty good representation of how our morning
went this morning...


we both woke up and weren't really... well...
yeah. By 930 halfway through comp study mayer was sitting in his chair
screaming "JORGENSEN!!!! I CAN'T DO THIS!!! WE NEED TO LEAVE!!! I NEED
TO PDAY!!!!!" and of course I Had to make some smart comments such as
"elder Mayer... I think we should take some extra hours of study
today. Let's study until 12 and then nap for the rest of the day...


:)
I love you guys! talk to you soon!