Rachel's New House

Back Patio

Dining Room Stairs to office

Rachel's boys & Lemon their dog

Travis's Letter Sept 23

Hello everyone!
It was another great week here in Brazil; things are going good here at the CTM.

So I have a cool story about one of my instructors, Brother Lindeberg. He grew up in here in Brazil, in a small town that was run by bank robbers. In this town, the robbers give guns to the children in hopes that the children will become familiar with them and then one day join them in their robbing endeavors. So Lindeberg grew up with his friends carrying around and shooting off guns all of the time, this was just the way it was and he never saw it as wrong or out of the ordinary. One day the missionaries came and taught him the gospel and he was able to see a better way to live his life. Today, out of all the kids he grew up with in his town only he and one other man are alive today. The gospel literally saved his life.

Also this week another Brazilian district from our floor left. It was pretty sad, one of the elders who is from João Pessoa was crying because he was going to miss the CTM so much. I had gotten to know this elder really well and he was so grateful to me and the other elders in my district for going and serving his people in João Pessoa. I told him I´ll leave the CTM and he can stay here if he wants, he just smiled and said sorry. :)
Well I only have one more P-day left after this! Everything is great here, I´ll talk to you guys soon. I think Jeremy Gratil got here today so I´m going to try and track him down.
-Elder Jenson

Travis's Letter Sept 17

Date: Wed, 17 Sep 2008 15:39:11

Seven weeks in the MTC and no end in sight. The walls are closing in; I’m beginning to wonder if there is still a world outside or if I will ever get to see it again. The routine is turning me into a zombie and I don’t know if I can take it anymore!! Will I ever get out of this place?

Ok, just kidding, it’s not that bad. I have been here for 7 weeks but on the good side, I only have 3 more to go. I feel like I have seen way too much of the MTC but it’s ok because I love that place.

Some really cool stuff happened this week. We went proselyting this week on the most famous street in São Paulo. There were like 10 thousand people walking down one street and it was kind of hard to get people to stop and talk to you. Let’s just say for the first hour and a half, me and rejection became pretty good friends. But after an hour and a half of rejection and me starting to get discouraged, I said a silent prayer and after I did, a scripture came to my mind. It’s Alma 26:27 I believe, and part of it goes like this, ´when our hearts were depressed and we were about to turn away, the Lord came to us and comforted us and said, bear with patience thine afflictions and I will give thee success.´ After that, I realize even more than before, that I was doing the Lord’s work and also that what I was going through wasn’t that bad at all. Soon after that, we started to find all kinds of interested people. One of which was a young woman who said she was studying religion and would love to read the Book of Mormon. It was really fun.

Also this week we got to go to the São Paulo temple that was really cool. It’s by far the most beautiful building in São Paulo.

This week one of my instructors asked me why I was learning Portuguese so fast and I just joked with him telling him I pray harder than everyone else. It kind of made me think though and I realized the reason I’m doing so well is so I can help my struggling companion. So I’m starting to do a lot of that.

Funny story of the week: my companion thought it would be cool to show us how he can walk on his hands but after gaining 20 lbs. here in the MTC he found it a little bit harder to support his own body weight. He body slammed the floor and I think almost made a hole in the floor. Don’t worry he’s ok. Everything’s great, I hope you all are doing well back home!

-Elder Travis Jenson

Travis the Jedi missionary

 

Travis and some of his buddies in the MTC... Double Click on the image to see a larger version.

Hi everybody,

I’m over the half way point, I only have 5 weeks left in the MTC! It’s going by really fast. I am really short on time so I’ll just share some cool stuff real quick. Before I do, what do you guys want me to put in these emails? I’m open to suggestions and if they’re boring let me know.

Ok so here some cool stuff that happened. It was Brazil’s Independence Day so I got to watch fireworks out of my window that were being shot off from the nearby soccer stadium, one of the many in the area. Sunday was fast Sunday and it was actually really easy to do it because we had some great meetings and time seems to go by a lot faster when you are feeling the Spirit.

This week I had a dream in Portuguese. It was funny, some mobsters were trying to steal stuff from the MTC and it was up to me and my kung fu skills/handgun to save the day. They were talking in Portuguese and I understood most of what they said. It was pretty awesome.

So there is teacher at the MTC who came in and told us some stories about his mission in Rio de Janeiro. Most of them were really funny, some were about teaching drug lords the gospel lessons, and a couple freaked out the missionaries from Utah. He told us about some drug cartels that use heavy artillery and machine guns. It’s cool though because the drug lords look out for missionaries and ´take care of any problems that they have. I guess they want to keep up a good image, kind of ironic.

Another cool thing that happened was when I was practicing teaching with one of the Brazilian sister missionaries she asked me where I had learned Portuguese before coming to Brazil and when I told her I had only learned it at the MTC she was surprised. That felt really good.

One of my roommates, Elder McGruder, got drilled in the face with a volleyball during gym and it was probably the funniest thing I have ever seen. Don’t worry he was ok. My life would be a lot less funny without that elder.

Everything is going really well, I’m having a great time here.

Love you guys,

Elder Travis Jenson

Benson playing with his ball

Little cutie pie Benson

Travis's Letter September 3, 2008

Hi everybody!

First of all, Mom the SD card didn´t play the videos on my camera so that stinks.

Everything is going great here in Brazil. This week was pretty crazy, we went proselyting last Friday and it was awesome. At first it was pretty scary because I´ve only been learning the language for a few weeks but I´m lucky to be serving in a place where the people are really nice. So we went proselyting in downtown São Paulo which was honestly a bit of a culture shock at first. The city is so huge, it´s like NYC with no rules, and there is a ton of stuff going on but I got used to it pretty fast. I was a little nervous at first but after getting totally rejected by a man on a bench I laughed it off and went on to the next person. There were a couple of people who I felt that we really needed to talk to and those people were the most receptive to our message. Oh, and we gave some pass-along cards to some nuns, that was fun. My companion really struggled with proselyting and he had a tendancy to freeze up when talking to someone but I was there to help him out so it was ok. That was the highlight of the week.

In other news, I was called to be the assistant to the branch president. So it´s up to me to organize sacrament meeting and set an example for the other missionaries, among other things. My comp. has the worst gas of anyone I have ever met. I won´t go into detail but it´s nasty. I doubt you guys wanted to hear that but in case you did..... Everything is going really well, I´ve been here a month and it´s just flying by, before I know it I´ll be in the field with a senior companion who doesn´t speak english and i´ll probably be wondering what I got myself into. It´s going to be awesome.
Well, I love you guys. I hope to hear from you soon.

Travis's Letter Aug 29

Mom: It´s good to hear you´re helping everyone so much, it´s always good to stay busy and what better way to do it than helping the family? Tell nate I said good luck with school, too bad I can´t be there to help him out cuz some of the material is probably a lot fresher in my mind. I guess that´s what Scott is for, if he´s ever around. It looks like you´re going to start planning for the wedding soon, yikes! Just kidding, i´m sure you´ll enjoy it. Well i need to get to the main letter, love ya mom!

Dad: Thanks for the updates! and the blog is awesome! You just have to make sure it´s cooler that Matt Heningers. haha. It´s good to hear about all the sports stuff and the story about mom and nate laughing at, i mean with you. I could picture it so well. Well dad, keep up all the good work you do and thanks for working so hard so i can be out here on my mission!

Well hello everyone!

It was another great week here in Brazil! I hope your week went well. A lot of stuff happened this week so I´ll just get right into it. First off, one of my instructors almost got fired for teaching us about some weird symbols on the US dollar bill. Apparently if you hold the bill in the light, the pyramid makes a star of david. It´s kind of a long story but there was absolutely no reason to fire him and things are ok now. It´s cool because both of my instructors are in their early 20´s so we get to joke around and have fun with them sometimes. Some of the guys in my district were unintentionally making obscene gestures after dinner one evening and some brazilians were shocked, they ran up yelling, no! no! elders! So if you´re ever in brazil, don´t snap and then hit the palm of your hand to the top of your fist. haha
This week we did a service project and I never thought I would enjoy physical labor so much. We worked with these crazy non-member brazilians that cracked me up.
The elderly doctor that I told you guys about, Elder Linford, is leaving this week so he spoke. He gave this incredible lesson on the atonement and then expressed to us how much he loves his mission and loves the Lord. I don´t think there was a single person in the building that wasn´t crying, even janitors were crying, even people down the street were crying, I wouldn´t be surprised if you guys were crying. Ok, so the people down the street weren´t crying but everyone in the room definitely was.
Bishop Edgely of the presiding bishopric spoke to us last night. Talk about a kind old man, he is so humble and he cracked me up. That´s one of the coolest things about the CTM, the speakers.
This week our beloved Brazilian roomates had to leave us. Those guys were awesome, we spent so many nights have crazy conversations about nothing with them. The good news is we get some new Brazilians and some elders from Mozambique this week. I told some of the last elders from Mozambique that I might be going there after my mission and they thought it was the coolest thing ever. We´re totally going to hang out if I end up going.
Annie if you read this I just wanted to say, you´re awesome. Thanks for the goodies and the letter! I don´t have time to write you today but I´ll mail the letter out next p-day so you can expect it in about 2 weeks.

Well, I love you guys, talk to you soon!

-Elder Jenson

Travis and Brothers Scott & Nate

I didn't have any pics of our son Nathan on our Blog so I am adding this pic of him hamming it up with his brothers. We love Nate and he is a lot of fun. Oh yeah, Nate is the one on the right with the massive bicep. ;)