Rocky Mountain High

September 24, 2018

Howdy howdy howdy!

We've been pretty busy this week! Evidently, when you have an ex-pest control salesman from the Southwest as a companion, your days fill up without you even noticing it. Elder Harris is killing it in Andorra. His Spanish is great for the time that he's been out. He is from New Mexico, he's half-Mexican on his mother's side, and is just a ball of energy. His last area covered 14 streets in the thick of Barcelona, filled to the brim with members from Latin America, so he's having to adjust to the spread out, bi-national, low-teaching circumstances of this one. He is enjoying the fresh air and open space. As am I.

As I said, we managed to keep busy pretty much every day of the week in some way or another. 

We headed out of Lleida Wednesday morning and had an open afternoon. With the time we had, we ended up meeting with a less-active member who we'd been trying to meet for weeks, got to know the area a little better, and met up with Jhoselin. The member's name is Ricardo and he's really nice but was always working so we hadn't been able to meet yet. We decided to pass by, and he was home and let us in! It turns out that he stopped working over some kind of contract disagreement and told us that he wants to come to church. Unfortunately, he wasn't there on Sunday, but we'll just have to see how things turn out with him. Jhoselin is doing just fine. We went over some questions that she had about Joseph Smith and the Restoration, but most of them had already been answered through seminary, which had started the week before. After that, we went over the 10 Commandments with her as we are now going over Lesson 4 with her: The Commandments. 

After weekly planning on Thursday, we had some more visits set up. We met with Carmen, who gave us a bunch of Andorra merch. Where she obtained said merch, I have no idea, but that's beside the point. I now have pens from each major bank based in Andorra...*Achievement Unlocked*. After that, we had a little introductory meet-up with Isabella. She's doing fantastic. Her previously set baptismal date has come and gone, but that was something out of her control. We hope to visit her in her home more often with her parents so that they (her mom) will be more comfortable with the idea of Isabella getting baptized. Isabella tries to read a chapter from the Book of Mormon daily, prays often, comes to church every Sunday, and already has a strong testimony of the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ. Isn't that just wonderful? After Isabella, we met with Pájaro: The Sassy Venezuelan. We had a good visit with him in the chapel and he made us some take-and-bake pizzas. He and Elder Harris got caught up on some deep doctrine about the circumstances of exaltation, so I just mediated the entire time, enjoying the back and forth, while sipping some lukewarm, generic cola from a plastic bowl. The chapel is running low on kitchenware. 

Friday morning was full of Elder Harris pulling a telephone blitzkrieg and calling most of the members that we have on record to set up visits. It was impressive to witness. In the evening we taught English, met with Abdiel, and some less-active members in La Seu. Abdiel is doing alright. He had already read through our pamphlet on The Plan of Salvation (that never happens) so we had more of a discussion than a "lesson". He acknowledges the logic and reasoning behind it, and see's how it could be possible, but he's just struggling with certain aspects about the nature and role of God at the moment more than anything. He's an honest soul trying to find what the truth is, and I respect that. We'll try to meet with him again soon. The members we visited were an older Portuguese couple from Angola. They were really nice. Hopefully we can get them back to church sometime soon.

The town of La Seu d'Urgell

Saturday was just full of twists and turns. Well, the day wasn't, but the road we ended up driving on to visit a member in the middle of the Catalonian wilderness was. I'll send some pics of one of the many views we beheld. I don't have much to say about Saturday, really. As I said, we visited a member that I had never met before that lived in a pueblo 20 minutes south of La Seu. According to our map. The winding mountain road ended up taking about an hour to navigate where we met with this nice Bolivian woman who is probably the strongest member in the branch. Unfortunately, she works 24/7 caring for an older woman who is bed-ridden, so she can't get out too often. It was one of the more adventurous visits that I've had as a missionary. 

Sunday, once again was pretty tranquilo.

Remember how I talked about Saints last week? I finished it. I finished the book within six weeks. Man, I miss reading. Now all I can do is wait until the Church releases the next volume.

I hope all is well wherever you might happen to be, be it on the land or on the sea!

Have a good one!

Elder Jensen :)