Week 30 --- Transfers . . .

Squad. So here's the thing, we received a call last night about the transfers, and guess what?! Nothing happened, we're both staying here, pretty legit right, I'm super stoked to continue working with Elder Mogollon, we have a ton of work to do here.

So I wanna tell you guys about something pretty swell that happened this week! Is that alright? I'm gonna do it anyway. So pretty much every day when we leave to work, we pass this guy who's just chillin’ on the curb, and every day we stop for a bit and see how he's doing, and chat and what not, well here's the thing turns out he works for a radio station here in Rawson, and he frickin gave us a shout out on the radio. Pretty sick huh? So we had been thinking about asking his address for a while now, and now we like have to, I don't know why we just had a feeling about this guy every time we passed him. So we will see what happens there.

So the other day we were teaching this family right? The Perez family, and we had a pretty strong feeling that we had to teach the plan of salvation to this wonderful family, so we did. It's such an amazing feeling to teach families that they can be together forever. It's crazy the amount of love we have for this family, we just have a sincere desire for them to have an eternal family. I mean that's the goal right? That should be the goal for every family and I'm so grateful to know that my Father in Heaven has given us this plan.

Bueno, oh my goodness, so we have this investigator named Gustavo right? Well he's gonna be baptized next week, and he had a problem with drinkin’, and guess what, for 6 weeks he hasn't drank, and another named Lourdes she's gonna be baptized in 2 weeks, and she had a problem with smoking right, well not anymore, 2 weeks without smoking, we have prayed so hard everyday for this to happen, I'm so happy that God answers our prayers.

So I finished The Book of Mormon again, and everytime I read it, my testimony becomes so much stronger, if any of you haven't yet read The Book of Mormon, I strongly encourage you to do so, it is such a great experience.

In Moroni 10:30 it says:

30 And again I would exhort you that ye would come unto Christ, and lay hold upon every good gift, and touch not the evil gift, nor the unclean thing.

Well I know that The Book of Mormon is a good gift, and it's a great way to come unto Christ. so lay hold upon it, read it, ponder it.

Well squad I'm heading out, until next week. I love you all!

Elder Keaton Jorgensen

Argentina Mendoza Mission

Week 29 --- Hay un razon.

Squad!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!#$^$%*^($&$%^@

Sorry I got a little carried away. So it has been a week since I have written an email for you. Stuff has happened so you are about to know what stuff happened. If you want, if you don't want to, then don't read it, sorry that was a little mean.

So I thought I would tell you all about the exchanges that we did this past tuesday, the t should be capitalized in tuesday, but I ain't trying to go back and fix it. So we did exchanges. So in the afternoon, me and Elder Webb, the elder with whom I was doing exchanges, were planning for the afternoon, and honestly we didn't have a whole lot to work with, we looked in our handy dandy area folder, and we found the family that were members, less active, but one of the kids wasn't baptized. So obviously we started planning with a prayer, and when we saw this family we just knew we had to go to them... Soooo.... we went to them. The mom said she knew there was a reason that we went to their house. Turns out, that their family has gone through some tough times, and the crazy thing is it's the same thing that my own dear family went through a few years back, so it was such a powerful experience that we had the prompting to go there, and that I got testify to them the blessings that come from this gospel, that the peace and comfort they need is found in the Church each and every Sunday. It just made me think that I really am here in the Mission Argentina Mendoza, in the area Rawson for a reason. Every calling we have is for a reason, that's why the title of this email is Hay un razon which means there is a reason.

Recently the topic of missionary work among the members has been brought up a lot in our ward, and so I'm gonna share a scripture to motivate you all to be missionaries. D&C 28:16
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16 And thou must open thy mouth at all times, declaring my gospel with the sound of rejoicing. Amen.

So do it.

So I'm about done with the Book of Mormon again, and well it just pains me to see that the people fall into wickedness time and time again, but repent when God saves them, when they are blessed, and I'm just thinking just frickin be good all the time, and then I thought, sometimes we are a little more motivated to be obedient, when we see the hand of God in our lives. I too am guilty of this, but I'm just thinking we gotta do better all the time, So let’s not just be Sunday Mormons who are obedient when it's comfortable, but let’s be Latter-Day Saints, true disciples of Jesus Christ. I love you guys; you are all swell. Until next week.

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Elder Keaton Jorgensen

Argentina Mendoza Mission

Photos:

So I might be 18 and a missionary but y’all know I still be hittin’ up those swings

I've noticed that a good majority of my pictures contain food, and I was just a little sad one night because a street vender burnt my hamburger, but it's whatever, the other is 3 KG of ice cream,some soda, and a lomo pizza.  If you don't know what a lomo is you’re missin’ out, but this thing was legendary. Then, as you can see, my comp is happy to be a missionary.

Week 28 --- ¿En serio?

Squad... I´m gonna be honest, I´m a little frustrated, that´s why the title of this email is, en serio, which means seriously? Here is the thing we were gonna have a baptism this Saturday! This guy is a stud, he has some serious desires to follow Christ, and to change his life. So this is what happened we had a meeting with our ward mission leader, to discuss our investigators, and to see what he could do to help us. Well one of the counselors to the Bishop was there doing some stuff, he´s also the uncle to the investigator that is going to be baptized. Well we started to talk about Gustavo, his nephew, the guy that´s gonna be baptized, and well the uncle, the counselor to the Bishop, Well he said we can’t baptize him until he talks to his nephew to see if he’s ready, because he had kind of a wild life. So we were like whatever, everything is gonna be fine, even though we are kinda called to do this work, and we can determine if he’s ready. Anyway we found out later, that he didn’t just talk to him he told him straight up that he can´t be baptized yet because he isn’t ready. He can’t really do that. So this is the only cool part of this story, we had interviews with our Mission President, and well we talked about this. He told us to tell him, that our mission president, who has the keys to baptism and the confirmation, trusts in us, to make this decision. So I felt pretty cool when I heard that. But the damage was already done, and he’s gonna respect the opinion of his uncle and wait to be baptized. So that was a little sad, but what are you gonna do, just gotta keep your chin up and keep pressing forward.

Now maybe I can share something positive that happened. Well the day we had interviews, the president’s wife gave a sick little lesson about the Holy Ghost. So I´m gonna share a little bit about that, if you don’t mind. Have you ever wondered why during the confirmation, we say receive the Holy Ghost, and not receive the gift of the Holy Ghost, well honestly I never did, but the answer is interesting. We must allow the Holy Ghost to enter into our lives, we can’t force the gift of the Holy Ghost upon someone, they must make the effort to allow the Holy Ghost to dwell in them. In a talk by James E. Faust, he said ¨True Saints are the temple of the Holy Ghost¨ The Holy Ghost can’t dwell in unclean places, so we can´t be unclean, obviously, so we need to strive every day to be worthy of the presence of the Holy Ghost. Also in this talk he talked about how when cooking frogs, the frogs died in the boiling water, but didn’t suffer. How is this possible. Well he said that they raised the temperature very gradually, until it was too late for the frogs, and he related this to sin, that sometimes we justify sin, because it´s only a little worse than what I’ve already done, and eventually it can lead to bad bad things, so don’t let this happen.There´s a scripture in 3 Nephi 14:13-14 which says:

13 Enter ye in at the strait gate; for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, which leadeth to destruction, and many there be who go in thereat;

14 Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.

Don’t enter into the wide gate, with that’s all broad and what not, even though it might be easier enter the straight and narrow, it may be a little more difficult but we will be blessed if we do so.

--

Elder Keaton Jorgensen

Argentina Mendoza Mission

We didn’t really have anything cool to take pictures of, but I got this sick Messi jersey, for like not even 10 american dollars.

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Week 27 --- La Esperanza

Squad!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!         

So it's been a week since I last talked with you, and some stuff has happened, for example I completed 6 months in the mission, like a fourth of the mission, and we taught and stuff and that's about it. I'll talk to you next week!

Nah I'm just playing. So these last 2 weeks it's been a little rough, I've been losing hope, not gonna lie, that's why I titled this email "La Esperanza" because that means hope. So we hadn't had a whole lot of luck finding new investigators, like 0 last week for example, and this week we also had 0 until Friday... First I'm gonna tell you what helped me so much that caused this lit experience. So we had Zone Conference, right? During it we learned a little about developing attributes of Christ, and one of those attributes is Hope. So we were walking Friday, and I was a little down, but then I remembered that I gots to have some HOPE! So we passed this house right, and I had the feeling that we should try to teach these people right? So I turned to my companion and said "vamos a bautizarles" which means we are going to baptize them. And guess what happened? Noooo they didn't turn us down, they said "yes please come in and teach us so we can be baptized" Or maybe it wasn't quite that direct, but they let us in, and we taught Javier and his wife Ana. Then guess what happened?! No, wow you guys are really bad at guessing, no what happened was we set baptism dates. It just shows what miracles can happen when we try to be like Christ. For reals if we hadn't been thinking that we need to be more like Christ, we wouldn't have found these amazing souls!!!!!!

So I guess what I wanna tell you is that we should always be trying to develop attributes of Christ. You know he is our perfect example. In 3 Nephi 12:48 it says:

48 Therefore I would that ye should be perfect even as I, or your Father who is in heaven is perfect.

He wants us to be perfect like him, and like our Father in Heaven, obviously we can't be perfect, but we need to try!

And one more scripture that I want to share, if that's okay is in the book of Acts. Yeah in the Bible so Acts 4:10-12:

10 Be it known unto you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by him doth this man stand here before you whole.

11 This is the stone which was set at nought of you builders, which is become the head of the corner.

12 Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.

We rejected him, spit upon him, and crucified him, and yet his love for us never changed. He still gave us a way so we can be saved. I'm so grateful for my Savior Jesus Christ, and I'm grateful to be here preaching His gospel.

That's all for this week I love you all!

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-- 

Elder Keaton Jorgensen

Argentina Mendoza Mission

I got some sick new kicks, then I bought a bunch 

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 food and some watermelon to celebrate my 6 month mark

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