January 26, 2015 ~ Week 79

Hi people,

This week has been super good.  We got to go to the Washington DC temple on Saturday and that was super fun.  Someone Elder Engleman baptized was going so I got to tag along with them. Going to the temple after not being there for a year and a half was such a cool experience. I was so excited to get in there when we were outside the temple waiting to go in. It was killing me because I just wanted to go in.  When we got in the temple, I  just felt so peaceful and so at home. It was amazing. Once we went into the temple we did baptisms and I baptized Elder Engelman for the dead and it was really funny because he's like 6'5".  While we were in the temple I received answers to lots of prayers, a couple different ones, but it was so powerful and so specific and direct like I've never felt before. I can't wait until I can go again. If I could, I'd just spend all day every day there. I'm so jealous of the temple workers. I'll be one someday! 

Elder Engelman goes home next week... So that's weird. We were supposed to have this crazy big huge storm today and all our cars got grounded, but it only snowed like half an inch. Delaware is the most boring place ever. Even catastrophic life threatening blizzards that supposedly ravage the entire east coast barely even affect us. Oh well. Things are going great with me! Love you!

~Elder Jorgensen

Washington DC Temple

January 19, 2015 ~ Week 78

Hello good people!

This has been an awesome week. We had zone conference which was super good. A certain companionship in my district, on the way to zone conference, which was in Dover Delaware, put in the address wrong, and didn't realize it until they were 20 minutes away from Broomall PA.  They were like an hour and a half late... It was so funny. We gave them so much crap. But zone conference was soooooo awesome, I walked away from it and had such a huge desire to be so much better at planning, and at setting goals and all that fun stuff.

So then we had all sorts of other adventures. We have an investigator named Ed, who we set with a date for February. He's doing super awesome. He has read the Book of Mormon in a week. He's working on it again, and he's doing so well. I went on exchange with Elder Morris, one of our zone leaders, and we had a lot of fun. We taught a ton of lessons on exchange. So on Sunday's we have been recruited into the ward choir. I really enjoy it. We are singing next week in sacrament meeting a super cool song. It's "Oh My Father," but to the tune of "Come Thou Fount." It's amazing and really such a beautiful song. It rained like an inch yesterday, and it was crazy. It rained so much. I love this gospel, and love being here! Have a great week! Love you.

~Elder Jorgensen

January 12, 2015 ~ Week 77

I got a reply to my email today but Elder Jorgensen did not have time to send a Blog Post this week.  I am sure there is a REALLY good reason.  :)  Stayed tuned for next week's post.

January 5, 2015 ~ Week 76

Dear everyone,

Happy New year! This past week for me has been super great. For the most part it's been full of learning experiences. New Year's Eve wasn't too eventful for us, to the point where it came and went, and I didn't even realize it. I guess that's the nature of missionary work sometimes though. 

So first off, I absolutely love my companion. He's the greatest, but ever since he got here, I've felt like something was wrong. Everything I did started to suffer, and I felt like I just sucked at everything. We would come out of lessons, and I would feel like I hadn't done anything to contribute to the lesson. My mind would go completely blank mid sentence, and I was really, really frustrated. 

Thursday we had a super good zone training, and afterwards I went on exchange with Elder Pollmann, in Bayview. I'll tell you... That was a learning experience. Elder Pollmann has been on his mission for 3 1/2 transfers now, and he's an awesome missionary, but he hasn't been out for very long. Throughout the exchange I just kind of took charge of everything, and was trying my best to work with him, and work together, but I was able to take charge of things. We went to visit one investigator at a member's house, and the member's non-member son, and daughter in law were sitting on the couch as we went in. As missionaries do, I invited them to take part in our lesson. They accepted, and when we asked them if they had ever been taught by missionaries before, they said that they had never been invited to before. So it was awesome. We went on to teach the investigator, with them sitting in and taking part. Then at the end when we set up a return appointment, Jessie, the member's son, thanked me and said that if it wasn't for me he wouldn't have ever sat in. Now the purpose of this isn't to say "hey look at how awesome I am," but it is to illustrate a growing experience I have had. 

At that moment I realized the reason I was so frustrated, and had sucked so bad at everything. It was because I didn't believe in myself. I was trying so hard to be just like Elder Engelman, and trying so hard to make sure I did things just like he did, that I wasn't doing things the way I did. Of course I suck at being Elder Engelman... because I'm not Elder Engelman. But I realized, I do make a pretty good me. From that time on, I came back and talked to him about it, and decided I was going to be me. I feel good about my ability to follow the spirit, and teach effectively again. I'm confident in myself, but more so, I've gained a better appreciation of my Heavenly Father. He knows my true potential, and he has a plan laid out for me so that I can achieve my potential. He loves me so much. Now it's my job to continue to help everyone know how much He loves them too! I'll tell ya, it is the greatest job in the world. I hope everyone has a great week! Love you all!

-Elder Jorgensen