"Un día más, un día menos."

June 18, 2018

This was...a week for lack of a better term. 

On Monday we had the other elders over and had a little french toast bruncheon before starting our P-Day. We then went to the chapel, played sports with the other elders in the other district, and wrote emails whilst playing card games and such. 

And now, here is more or less what the rest of the week looked like: 👉🚪🚪.

For those of you who don't speak emoji, that means "tocando puertas." For those of you who don't speak Spanish, that means "touching doors." For those of you who are a little confused about the translation, it equates to "knocking on doors". Never before in my mission have I done so much door knocking. Normally there's a nice main street or neighborhood where you can try to talk to people on the street, but that strategy doesn't work here due to a lack of people outside and main streets. So, we've resorted to filling up all of our open schedules with the one stereotypical activity that missionaries do worldwide. We've knocked new doors, old doors, rich doors, poor doors, big doors, small doors, and fake doors. I've seen old people, young people, robed people, shirtless people, loud people, deaf people, and crude people. All of this human interaction, yet we haven't encountered anyone truly interested in the gospel of Jesus Christ and the blessings that come from it. The search continues regardless.  I know that I'm here for a reason, I just hope that reason is to actually find someone, haha!

On Thursday we had a poorly-attended English class followed by a very well-attended ward Family Home Evening. This time some members stepped up and lead, as they should be doing. Thursday is always a nice break in the monotony here because the evening is normally full of missionary-involved activities at the chapel.

Another out-of-the-ordinary thing that occurred was my first baptismal interview! The hermanas in our district have been teaching this solid Brazilian named Ygor (like Igor, but with a "Y") for the past couple of months. He's been going to church every Sunday, going to all of the activities that we put on, and has seen a complete change from what his life was like before he really tried to know about the Church. He is more than ready to make this oh-so vital-to-our-salvation covenant. His baptismal service will be held next Saturday!

As I said, pretty much the rest of our time has been spent in the streets. 

Rejection! Whoo!

Welp! That's really all I have to share. I hope things are going well and that everyone learns to appreciate just how much the shade can cut down the intensity of the sun! ☀️🌞☀️🔥🌡🌡🔥🌡🔥

Elder Jensen :)

Since no photos were included with this letter, I added a couple of maps to show where Cartagena is, because, if you're like me, your first thought was "Cartagena, Columbia? Like from Romancing the Stone? Because that's scary." So here you are. Cartagena, Spain. Not as scary. No offense, Columbia.

You can see why Cartagena is a sea port. All that . . . sea.