Travis's Email July 18, 2010

Hey mom,

Yeah, it’s hard not to get just a little bit trunky when I think that in a few weeks we´ll be at the beach.

Well mom, you’re the best did you know that? You wrote to me every week for 2 years that’s pretty impressive. Thanks for all the support and all your prayers. I know that the Lord protects His missionaries and he understands perfectly the worry that parents feel when their son´s are on a mission. Thanks for everything, thanks for teaching me everything I needed to know so I could be an effective missionary.

Hey guys,

Well, pretty much ending my mission this week. That’s surreal. This has been the greatest time of my life. Being a missionary is the best thing there is because you don’t have to think about your personal problems, you just have to think about the salvation of others. That’s gotta be the most rewarding thing there is. The biggest change possible happens in our lives when we forget ourselves and focus on other people´s needs.

I´ve been thinking a lot lately about my testimony and a story from John Chapter 9. It tells the story of a man that Jesus healed and then the Pharisees try to tell him that Jesus was a sinner. The man said, if he´s a sinner I don’t know but I was blind and now I see.

I still know very little about the church, about the scriptures, about Joseph Smith and the Restoration of the gospel but I can testify that it’s true because I’ve seen the results- the change in my life and the change of others. Serving a mission would be the greatest disappointment of my life if I had spent 2 years teaching lies to these people. I just want you guys to know that the church is true for this reason, because of the change that has occurred and because of the Holy Spirit.

I love you guys,

Elder Jenson

Questions:
1. What do you want to eat when you get home?
Hmmmmm.... Steak fajitas, subway sandwiches with potato chips, Barros pizza, or in n out burger. Whatever one is easier for you; maybe sandwiches for lunch and fajitas for dinner?
2. How old is the mission pres. daughter?
19.
3. Tell about your best investigator?
Do you remember the story about the drunken guy who fell asleep during sacrament meeting? Well, he stopped drinking and smoking and he´s going to be baptized this week. He´s changed a lot. I’m going to send you guys a before and after picture next week.
cya

Travis's Email July 12, 2010

Hey Mom,

Don’t worry about thinking about me going home because it’s a fact. When President Fernandes was ending his mission he said, they say that there are two types of missionaries, missionaries that get Trunkey and liars. He said, I’m Trunkey but I’m still working hard. So don’t worry mom, there’s no getting around the fact that I’ll be home in a little over two weeks but I’m still working hard. We baptized a woman and her 3 children yesterday. It was a really special baptism. I attached a picture for you to see. I´m really excited to get home and see everybody but at the same time it’s really sad for me.

Hey there,

This week was really eventful; so much stuff happened that this week seemed like a month. As I said to you guys in my last email, the new mission president arrived. On Tuesday he came and visited our zone. He talked to us a little about his family and about a message he was to transmit to the missionaries. The message is that the mission is the foundation for your life. It was cool and I could see that the president and his wife really love this work. After the meeting the president said he wanted to give me a ride back to my area and go on exchanges with me and my companion. That was cool. While we went on exchanges with the president, his wife and their daughter went on exchanges with the sister missionaries. It was cool teaching investigators with President Hall and our investigators liked the visit. He´s a really cheerful man and he really like the city here. He said, it’s such a nice, clean, calm city. And it really is. We taught with him a woman named Mairly who is a chemistry professor and we taught the relief society president´s husband who isn’t a member of the church yet. After the lesson the family insisted on having the president and his wife eat dinner with them. I had a really good time.

Also this week I ate a famous northwest Brazilian dish called Buchada. It´s a goat stomach filled with ground beef and intestines, sewed shut, and cooked in a pan with goat feet. I´ll be honest, it was gross but I managed to get it down and not offend the sister that made the food for us. My companion gagged but luckily nobody saw.

Also this week we baptized a really special woman and her three children. 2 weeks ago she was having some really serious problems and she went to one of the members of the church for help and the member went to us. We were able to help her and we saw a huge change in her life. Every time we showed up at her house she greeted us with a huge smile. Now she and her children are members of the true church of Jesus Christ. I know that it wasn’t us who made the change in her life but God used us to show her what she needed to do to change her life.

These last few weeks have been really happy for me. We are teaching a lot of really good people and it has been a lot of fun.

Tchau

Elder Jenson

Questions:

1. What are you planning to bring home to remind yourself of Brazil?

I´m going to take a hammock home with me, a few toys that the kids on the street here play with, I’m going to take some soccer jerseys, I’m going to try to take home CD´s that have the local music, maybe some Brazilian movies. I don’t know, do you have any good ideas of things for me to take home?

2. How many missionaries are in your zone?

14

3. What are some things that you like about the new mission pres?

When you´re with him he is always talking so you can learn. He talks about experiences from his mission, he talks about experiences with apostles, and he asks a lot of question to get to know the missionaries.

4. Will you finish your mission with the same companion?

Yup, Elder Kittell will be my last companion.

5. Who was your favorite companion and why?

That’s a tough question. I will always be grateful to Elder Sanches, my trainer, because he took really good care of me and was really patient. He taught me that you can get any companion to love you if you cook for him so I always cooked for my companions and that helped a lot.

The junior companions I had while I was an assistant to the president also helped me a lot because they had really good reasons to come a mission and that was reflected in the way they worked.