here are some pics from his last transfer, two weeks ago.  Merry Christmas to all!

Re: Ho, Ho, Ho Merry Christmas!

Travis Jorgensen

12/22/14

Hey guys!!!

This week was freaking... crazy... ridiculous. Allow me to give a few examples. Thursday and friday (yes, both days) we got phone calls from random phone numbers and it ended up being English members in need of blessings. The first one was a man who had just had his appendix out, and then had a stroke.... and then the next day was a sister who found out her boyfriend had cheated on her, and had like suicidal depression... so that was hard to be around, but it really drove home the importance of being worthy to use the priesthood whenever it's necessary... Although in all sincerity I was kind of shaken up after that second one.

And then Saturday was straight LOCO!!!! There is a member of the branch whose husband died recently, and she is moving back to Arizona, and getting evicted from her apt. So on Saturday we were planning on moving her stuff at 2, and at 1 she called us and said she didn't have a truck. So we called everyone under the freaking sun trying to find one, and the best we could do was a set of elders with a mini van, so we freaking had to switch vehicles with them and make like 3 trips in the mini van.... and then we got home from that and had locked our apt, the elders with our car had the keys, which meant that I had to scale up to our second story apt and break in the back door... #beastmode.... Rereading this it doesn't sound like that thrilling of a week, but it was crazy, little things just happened.

I did get the package this morning, thanks guys. As far as skyping goes, yes I'm planning on Skyping, but we don't have the when quite figured out yet... probably sometime around 1, but I'll keep you posted... we have to find a member to go with because my comp's ipad doesn't work for skyping... that's about all I know!

I love you guys and hope you have a good week, remember that package can't be opened until I'm present on skype!

Hey guys!!!

I'm sorry to hear about grandma B...

that is sad news but at the same time a testimony strengthener about the plan of Salvation. Wes, I already told you, but I'm sorry about your migraines, bro. Those suck. Please keep me updated on those, I'm keeping you guys in my prayers.

So my new area is FREAKING STACKED!!!!!!!! My companion and I were walking around in the promised land last night, a HUGE apt complex that is LOADED, and we saw a family unloading their truck of moving stuff.

They just arrived in the states YESTERDAY, so we helped them unload and shared a Christmas message with them, there were like 5 of them so we just off the bat got 5 new investigators. Freaking MIRACLE. There are already baptismal dates set, oh my new area is Tigard by the way. So my new comp is Elder Mann, he is from California, I was his district leader in Milwaukie his first transfer out. He got to serve in Sandy, the lucky fetcher. He is 18 and has a scholarship to Princeton

to play football after the mish. He is a HARD worker and we have been getting along pretty well. I love Elder Jessen and we will be lifelong friends, but the work was freaking slow. So being back Spanish, in a stacked area, with a hard working comp... Im very very very excited.

However, I was sad to leave Evergreen. That is a good ward and I got very close with a lot of people there. Dad, I have come to a conclusion, I like your ties more than any of my other ones, and because of that I give them away to people that I get super close to. For example, the member that I told you about that Elder Peterson and i ran into, who spoke spanish, we had a good lesson with him on Thursday and connected a lot. He told us that the harder he tries to have the Spirit in his life, the more opposition he sees. So dad I tried to hang on to that tie but I just had to give it to him.

This is my new address... I'm not quite sure the ZIP but the city is Tigard. It's a pretty big area again so please in your prayers ask that I can get to know the area... I am also still a district leader (not sure why) but.... yeah...:)

Alright anything else? I love you guys, let me know if there is anything I can do for ya!

Elder Travis Jorgensen!

HEY GUYS!!! So I just had the greatest pday of my mission... NIKE!!! FREAK YES!!!!!!!

Legitimately, I think I had a spiritual experience inside of that store! I walked in and it felt like I was coming home. It was fantastic I got some good hoodies, shirts, shorts, and FANTASTIC fly knit frees. And also some shades...  For you guys sending me something, I'd say wait until after transfers. As for the bike, I will try to leave it with a member here. But really there is no way of knowing exactly what will happen until it happens. I promise, I will not just leave the bike around, I will take care of it.

Tell you about our investigators... We really don't have that many.. so it's a good and a bad thing that we get along so well. We get in a ton of fights over stuff like that but we're never mad for too long. We butt heads A LOT!!!!! It has made me question how stubborn of girls I will want to date when I get home...

Anyways, even though Elder Jessen is stuggling, I love him a lot.

Alright, I also am struggling with something else that I would appreciate if you guys kept in your prayers. I miss girls, A LOT!! .  so that's my mini vent, girls are freaking getting me off my game some days.

We had a cool experience happen on Saturday. We haven't had a district meeting in a few weeks, people have been sick. But we got one on Saturday because we have an Elder going home next week. So it was my turn to give the training and practice, and I just gave it on having effective prayers. We have been having lots of trainings on ipads lately and I feel like if I were a new missionary I would know how to use the ipads but I wouldn't know how to be a missionary. So I took it back to the basics, and so the practice part was just saying a 20 minute prayer by ourselves. When we got back together, the spirit was STRONG! There are just 6 of us and we are all Elders, but one was crying and the rest of us were all very sober. It was just powerful and good things happened in all of our areas the rest of that day.

Alright I think that's all guys, did I miss anything? I love you, have a good week!

Hey guys! So Thanksgiving was the freaking bomb, Sister Salazar went HAM and made Turkey, Ham, Chicken, Rice, beans, and spaghetti!

Not the actual meal, but you get the idea...

I ate so fetching much, and Elder Jessen liked it too! It was funny because the  next night we got taken out to eat at Baja Fresh and Elder Jessen ordered some taquitos and rice, and after we finished he told me that now that he's had real mexican food he will never be able to go back.

Ok actually today has been dope. One of our investigators bought us breakfast, and then for zone pday we went to play laser tag

and a member payed for our whole zone to play 2 games, which cost upwards of 200!

Mom I don't think I will need the long johns

. Rumor has it that in 2 weeks I'm heading back to the spanish world...

I don't knowh what else to tell you guys. Yesterday was my 16 month mark, that hit me during sacrament meeting that 2/3 of my mission is gone..... I only have 8 months left...

Sorry guys it really was just a slow week. But next week I should go to nike...

I freaking hope so this nike trip has been a long time coming! Anything else? I love you guys!
Sent from my iPad

 

Hey guys!

So first of all, Mom, those cookies are fantastic! I love them and am struggling not to eat them all every day!

Thank you so much! And Dad, those ties are the bomb! I was so happy when I opened them up! I took the light blue and white one, you made it skinny and it's the bomb! Jessen likes his, Davis has seen a pic of his and he is in love, and I gave the green one to Elder Neerings, he is the one that is with Davis and I in the pics I sent home a few weeks ago, it's his birthday tomorrow and he likes it. Also, the day after we got them, I straight received revelation in a prayer. There was some Sons of Provo music playing in the background, and I had the idea of those ties made of white, so that we can wear them in the temple! On top of that, you could freaking sell them and people would love them. All I'm sayin is that there's 880000 missionaries in the world, at least half have to be missionaries.

OH so on Sunday, Jose Salazar got the Melchizedek priesthood yesterday,and I got to go back and help ordain him to the office of an Elder, they are gonna go through the temple soon. We are going to their house for thanksgiving, I'll have spent both of my thanksgivings with them!

I think that's about it for this week, I gotta go! have a good thanksgiving thanks again for the package, I love you guys!

 

 

Editor's note!!

I blinked and it has been three weeks since Elder Jorgensen's blog has been updated.  I do apologize. I will update chronologically, so the first you see is the latest from last week.  Thank you to all who keep looking at the blog.

Editor Dad.

11 10 14

Hey guys!!!

So, first of all, Elder Jessen is GREAT!!!!!!! We have so much fun together! He is definitely one of my favorite companions, up there with Cooper and Goff. Don't get me wrong, I've loved all of my companions, but there haven't been that many that I can just be myself and have fun with. We stay up talking until like midnight every night and we are laughing all day. We laugh so hard we almost cry pretty much every day! It's not really anything big, but just little things every day that we get a kick out of. He is a freaking hick,

his graduating class had 40 people in it, but he ran track and cross country.... He has just been having a hard time thus far out in the field.

Mom, as far as the package goes, I need some more of that lotion if that would be acceptable.

We had a meeting with the Stake President last night and he wanted to know what's going on in our area, apparently it has been doing better than it has ever done, so that was cool.

Alright one story from how well Elder Jessen and I get along. So on Saturday we played ultimate frisbee, and Elder Jessen sprained his ankle awhile ago so he hasn't been to active, but we played, for almost 3 hours. So yesterday he was SORE!!! And I walked up as many stairs as i could:)

And then we had to finish some weekly planning, which we usually do at the church, but he didn't want to walk all the way over there, so I made him do 50 squats so that we could stay at home:) It was FANTASTIC I was laughing at him the whole time and then he finished and was just not very happy but we both laughed about it. He also has never kissed a woman, 4 of my 7 comps now have not kissed a girl...

Ok one more story actually!!!! So our members have a little white dog that came from hell I swear, it is obnoxious and dumb and poops everywhere and barks at everything

and is a very needy creature. He likes to go in our room and get into our garbage. So Eddie (the dog) did that one day, and I may or may not have been tense already, so when i saw that he had made a mess of our room, I grabbed my companion's nerf bow

and chased the dog around the house for 10 minutes shooting him with it! Curiously, now every time he sees me, he barks even more!

Stake conference was this weekend, and guess who I saw? None other than my favorite man ever, Jose Salazar! It was good to be able to see him again, he is going to get the Melchezidek Priesthood soon and I am stoked for him!!

 11 4 14

Hey guys!!

So... Transfers happened! Elder Peterson left to go be a zone leader in Tualatin, which is HILARIOUS because the whole 6 weeks we were companions, I was telling him he was gonna go into leadership. To take it to the next level, friday night, the night before we got transfer calls, I had a DREAM that Petey was going into the upper echelons!! I woke up and told him, and he was not happy at all. And calls didn't come freaking like all day long, and we did service all day to help stay distracted, so we had gotten back and I was showering, I got out of the shower, was walking to our bedroom and Elder Peterson stops me and hands me the phone. I look down and it's President Ballard on the line. As I started talking to him he told me that he was giving me my new companion because he's had a rocky start to his mission and Pres wants me to work him hard, help him have fun, and help him realize that this was the right decision. At transfers yesterday President told me that I "am one of his work horses"

and he knows he can trust me to get the job done. But back to Saturday, I was ok with it, and at the same time part of me was nervous because out of my 7 comps, this is only my second who is younger than me time wise in the mish. His name is Elder Jessen, he's from.... yep, Utah, and he came out the same time that Elder Soriano did. He barely turned 19 and he is a hick. That's ok though, one of his good friends is also one of my good friends who reminds me of Jonah a lot (the 2 of us together are SUPER immature and just laugh about very childish things sometimes... but mom you can still be proud of me because I am immature!)

Petey and I saw a miracle happen on Thursday, I'm just gonna copy and paste from my email to pres..

Miracle. The beginning of this week was kind of slow, and we weren't finding as much as we had set goals to do. On Thursday morning in our companionship prayer, I asked that that day we would be able to give away a Book of Mormon to someone who would receive it well. As we were walking to our Halloween Party that night we talked to a homeless man

who was going through some hardships and gratefully accepted the Book of Mormon from us. What made it such a miracle was we almost went to the Ward party a lot sooner than we did and if we would have I don't think we would have met JJJJ.

Other than that, we had a pretty cool Halloween party on Thursday night, we took some good pics.

It's been awhile, so here's some pics! I love you guys have a good week! let me know if I missed anything! 




10 27 14 

Hey President!

Companion. I feel like I say the same things about Elder Peterson every week but he is a hard working, good, solid missionary. He is always up for the crazy ideas I have and always willing to try something new, and to go out and work. This week we really made sure we focused on being out of bed by 630

and not wasting time on FB. It has helped us increase in the Spirit tremendously. Elder Peterson is such a good example to me about the areas in missionary work that I need to improve, such as nightly planning, goal setting, weekly planning

Area. This week was kind of slow. What we need now is to get some of our new investigators progressing. The ward is more than willing to help us out, our only problem is getting stuff for them to help us with. We have an XX year old who wants to be baptized, named Hoooby Joooby, the only problem is getting his guardians approval. His parents are on drugs and in prison, and his guardians are parents of the friends and not necessarily fans of the Church. His only contact is the Church is his grandma, but she is a very strong willed and able lady so we are confident that she will be able to get it done.

Miracle. Our miracles took place yesterday night from 8-9. At 730 we knocked on one of our less active's door, and he was sick. After that we had some other less actives planned, or even some planning to do, but I did NOT feel like doing either of those things! So I told Elder Peterson, and we prayed about it. We both felt very strongly like we needed to be in the Southern part of our area, in downtown Hillsboro. We walked to the place I was thinking of, and nothing happened. At that point I thought it was just a trial run to see if we'd follow it. However, as we kept walking, we passed a tram station, and Elder Peterson felt like we should sit down on a bench. Alright. We waited for about 10 minutes, and just as we were getting ready to leave, we saw a guy walking on the other side of the street from the right, and a couple from the left. I talked to the guy first. His name is DDDD and he had moved from New Mexico 4 weeeks ago, he went to our Church for a few years when he was younger, but he said he would like to talk to us... the only problem is that he lives outside of our area... He is however a Spanish Speaker, so I was wondering what you felt about that. We talked to him for about 20 minutes, which was great, and then we went and talked to the couple, who also spoke Spanish. One of them had to go on the tram but the other, VVVV, talked to us for a good 30 minutes and asked all the right questions. Sadly, we had not restocked on Books of Mormon... but we got his contact info. So, after he left, both Elder Peterson and I were stoked out of our minds, and it was 9, so we started our 30 minute walk home. A few minutes later, as we rounded a corner, we ran into one of our potential investigators who was just coming back from studying for a test, and he wants to have us over for dinner next week. His name is abby gabby. Soo... Elder Peterson and I can't figure out what we prayed for yesterday, but we're happy we did.

Personal. I'm not going to lie, towards the end of the week I was feeling super trunky. I missed sports, I missed girls, I missed my friends

, and I just wanted to be home. Saturday night and Sunday morning were freaking hard to make it through. However, because being trunky is not something I'm a fan of, on Saturday night before I went to bed I started a fast to be able to focus more and be distracted less. By yesterday I evening I was feeling a lot better (probably due to our miracles that God gave us) and even this morning I was just excited to be a missionary. I love fasting, it really calls down blessings from heaven.

Studies..... This week in studies as I was reading in the first Book of Nephi it really just stood out to me how Laman and Lemuel had so many opportunities to pray and receive a witness for themselves if what they were hearing was true. Prayer makes the difference in our own lives as well in those of our investigators.

Excchange. On Thursday evening we started our second exchange with Glencoe. I went there with Elder McMahan to GLencoe and Elder Tanner came here. I learned a lot from Elder McMahan about the importance of planning and we worked hard that day.

Elder Jorgensen

Sent from my iPad

Hey guys!

I'm gonna start off with a story because it's been awhile. So on Tuesday evening, we were at the Stake Center (our church building) doing... something I can't remember why we where there. There was a relief society activity going on, they had done like a potluck. One of the Sisters came out and practically forced us in the relief society room to get some food, even though we had just eaten. And may I just say, that was AWKWARD!

So we go through the line, and really just grab little tidbits here and there to appease the Sisters. At the very end was ice cream. I didn't need any; we had already had a big dessert. So my companion goes for some of it and I just said, "Atta boy, Elder Peterson. Grab some of that ice cream! And THEN he freaking tries to take the scoop he was gonna put on his plate, and put it on my plate! NO! That was not happening! Dad, it  was like green beans at camp Morrison all over again. So, Elder Peterson in effect dumped a scoop of ice cream on the floor in front of the entire relief society!! I was laughing SO hard! It was great!

The other cool thing that happened this week was the Stake I'm in is doing ultimate frisbee on Saturday mornings for the next 2 months almost. We went on this passed week and it was great!  non-member came and we started talking to him and he wants to hang out this week, so we're gonna see what we can make happen.

uuuummmm... my toe is doing good. I wanted to take the stitches out myself but the nursing couple made me go to the urgent care center again... that kind of frustrated me. Oh and Dad there is a book coming your way about... I think it's a WWII story, written by the uncle of the mission nurse. I saw it in their car and asked them to send a copy home so I can read it when I get back. 

We are going to teach a 13 year old named HHHH tonight. She is a friend of one of the members we ate dinner with, the same family that had their dad get up and bear his testimony on how much he enjoyed having us in his home. Fingers crossed!

Hrrrmmmmmm I can't really think of anything else to tell you guys. Part of me, sometimes, might be excited to come home. But don't tell anybody I said that.

I learned something cool in studies today... I wrote about it to Prez so I'm just gonna copy and paste. Dad, btw Prez reminds me of you sometimes. He played rugby for Highland when he was in HS, and Larry Gelwix.

His team has their pic in the end of Forever Strong.

Studies. This morning I had a really good personal study that answered my prayers. I have been praying lately that I have the determination and drive to do all the little things I know I should be doing. The reason I bring that up is because my senior year, running was my life. Anything and everything that I could do to help me become a better runner, I did it, and I didn't let anything get me off track. So as far as dedication goes, running is the standard of comparison for me.

How dedicated am I to my mission versus how dedicated was I to my senior year of running? I've been praying to be able to get the 2 equal and eventually be able to say that my mission is the most dedicated I've ever been to something. But I haven't been able to figure out how to make it happen. This morning I was reading in 1 Nephi 14 and 15. In 15 Nephi has just finished seeing the destruction of his people, and verse 5 says that he was overcome with grief. I think that is the only time that the scriptures ever mention Nephi having a hard time. But as soon as he gets his strength back, he went right back to trying to help out his brothers. The thing that stood out to me is how hard Nephi worked for the rest of his life, even with the knowledge that ultimately nothing he did would save his people. That gave him the perfect excuse to sit down and stop trying at each trial he faced. But he never did. Next to the Savior, Nephi is one of the greatest examples of "not shrinking."

Dad, this week's requested talk is "Of Souls, Symbols, and Sacraments" by Elder Holland, he gave it as a talk at BYU in 87 or 88.

The reason I ask you to send them to me is because on the ipad pretty much every website other than LDS.org is restricted. So when you send it to me as an attachment I can download it to the ipad.

Alright, I love you guys, I'll send you a message on FB tomorrow about the fenders. Thanks, love you, bye!

Elder Travis Jorgensen