February 24, 2015 ~ Week 83

Hello all,
Today we are making a trip into Philly, and as such, our time to email is short. It's been a long time since I've had a good steak though, so I'm excited to get one today! All the ones I've had in Delaware have stunk.   

Anyways, about how I'm doing... I'm doing pretty great. Ernesta did not get baptized this week, and the other person we had dropped off the face of the earth, but it's ok, because we are finding all sorts of new people! It's great! In our mission we have a goal to achieve 60% of our Standards of Excellence every week, and I've only missed that once since it became a goal, and this week wasn't looking too good. We had appointments fall through with lots of investigators, we had members fall through on coming to our lessons with us, and Sunday I was stressed out because we weren't looking like we would reach our goal. 

Now, we set goals to show our faith, and we always associate numbers to names, we don't associate names to numbers. But all our plans fell through, and we knew not what to do. So we went out and we accomplished what we could, and reached the Standard of Excellence for new investigators in ONE DAY. It was great! Totally unforeseen, and completely a work of God. Goes to show that when you set goals, and do all you can, the Lord will always pull through. 

Elder Payne is doing fantastic, and has grown so much. I'm a super proud daddy. {Fun Fact: When an elder trains a brand new missionary, the new missionary is jokingly referred to as the elder's 'son.'}  

On Saturday we were supposed to go help in the Bayview Ward with an open house for their new chapel, but then it snowed 6 inches, and we got grounded, and it had snowed 3 inches before we could get home, and driving in the snow in Delaware is a lot different from driving in the snow in Utah.  We almost died. But we didn't  because divine protection. 

Yesterday (Monday) we also had a super cool mission wide conference where two seventies, Elder Allan and Elder Evans came and taught us. So as many may know, our mission has been a test mission for items such as iPads, Skype, and Facebook.  We are no longer going to be a test mission, but now we are going to
be a mission with ALL those things. As such, we are going to receive the same training, and everything that all the others will who are now getting these things, will receive.  Complete restart. We also are losing our Facebook for a few months so we can break any bad habits before we go to get trained again. Also, all missionaries have to buy iPads now in this mission.....Even the ones who are out...EXCEPT FOR THE ONES THAT ARE LEAVING IN THE NEXT SIX MONTHS!!! Can't even describe how happy I was that I don't have to buy one. That was a closey.

 But yeah! I love being a missionary!

~Elder Jorgensen

I am so thankful for Members who take pictures and send them to me...I kind of SCORED today.  

PROOF that Heavenly Father listens to whiney moms.  Tender Mercy for sure!

Thanks Sister M and Brother F!!!!

Philadelphia Temple 
If you look close the missionaries are across the street

TemporaryVisitor Center 

Elder Jorgensen and Brother F

There's no place like home....except the PPM

FINALLY..... A YUMMY CHEESE STEAK

Elder Jorgensen and Elder Payne

February 16, 2015 ~ Week 82

Why hello,

I have had a pretty great week this week. We have had a lot of great opportunities to learn and serve. But the highlight of the week was Brother Hall getting baptized! He has been working for a long time to get to this point, and we were super excited for him. He'd been taught for a long time, and wasn't really progressing.   He has had baptismal date after baptismal date just come and go, but in the last month we really tried to teach him straight from the scriptures. That's what it took to finally help him get it. Since then he has done awesome, and
I'm super excited to see him go to the temple and get sealed. His wife has been a member for a few years, and he actually was taught before she was. So he has been waiting for a while for this. 

Other highlights of the week, since getting the sister's area, we now have 256 new formers and potentials we can go see. The field is white and all ready to harvest. We have set up appointments with like 3 or 4 people, and plus one of our investigators, Ray, gave us a referral that we have an appointment set up with for Saturday, and we received an HQ referral on top of that. We've got so many things going for us right now. We are going to baptize all of Newark at this rate. On that note, we also have a baptism scheduled for next week.  Her name is Ernesta. Then another one that'll probably be in the first couple weeks of March. We also get to go to the temple again with a family we reactivated that is going to get sealed. So as far as the outward results of missionary work go, we are doing fantastic. As far as the inward results of missionary work, we are doing even better.  I had the chance to go on exchange with Elder Eves, one of our zone leaders, and it was an enlightening experience. I learned a lot on that day.  We also found a fun friend out in the parking lot.  

Meet Lorenzo.  Lorenzo also loves Jesus Christ.
{Note Elder J's family hanging on the wall behind him. }

Elder Payne is doing great. He is so full of energy, and has such a desire to improve. They say Goldens come out with this golden fire... It's true. He's amazing. Lately I've been studying a lot about why people don't accept the gospel, and what makes someone hard hearted, and why people choose to be prideful. It's a fascinating subject that goes a lot deeper than I would have ever guessed. One particular scripture that helped me understand this quite a bit was John 3: particularly 19-21. I love being here and I love being a missionary! Have a great week!

~Elder Jorgensen

February 9, 2015 ~Week 81

Hello everyone! 
It's a cloudy overcast day here in Delaware.   The current temperature is 32 degrees Fahrenheit with a low of 28 and a high of 34. It ain't even bad! Really though, it's been pretty warm the past few days. Which is good because my companion is from Nevada. His name is Elder Payne and he has been out in the field 5 days now.
He's practically a veteran.   On Tuesday we had transfer meetings and on the slide show we always do, my name popped up, and a picture of a smiley face..... A Golden! So then Tuesday night me, Elder Roberts and Elder Saltzgiver were all together... One last trial before I got to train right? 

So we showed up to the "Get Your Golden Meeting" on Wednesday morning,  got our "Goldens," had a get to know you game, had some training, set up their iPads, and off we went! The first thing we did when we got home was do some role plays and then we went out tracting. It was awesome!! Elder Payne did so good.  Being with him, especially right after being with Elder Engelman is so weird. This is the first time I've ever had a companion who has been so young. It's weird to think that when I came out on my mission, 5 lifetimes ago, I was probably a lot like him. I can see how much I've learned and grown in the past year and a half more now than ever. Now we just gotta get Elder Payne learning and growing too! It's the best! 

I've realized that the biggest thing I've learned so far on my mission is the need for communication, and honesty. I feel like there would be absolutely no problems in the world if people just communicated and we're honest with themselves, and those around them. There really wouldn't be any hate, or hurt feelings, or anything like that if people just let each other know what they were feeling, and what they were doing. I know that communication is good. 

Brother Hall is being baptized on Saturday so that is super exciting! We've got the whole program planned, and it's going to be awesome! Oh, also, they took the sisters out of our ward, and now we have dinner appointments almost every single day... Before we had only like 2 or 3 appointments. Awesome stuff is happening, and we are working super hard! Talk to you later!

~Elder Jorgensen

Elder Jorgensen and his Golden...Elder Payne

Elder Jorgensen and Elder Jones from Mission Office

Elder Jorgensen and Elder Engleman {and the rest of his district??}

February 2, 2015 ~Week 80

Hey guys! 
So I don't have a lot of time today, I just dropped Elder Engelman off at the mission office so that he can go home... It's been fun to be his companion. I'm going to miss him a whole lot. He's definitely been one of my favorites. 

This last week has been pretty slow with Elder Engelman going to the temple, and other stuff
like that. So on Sunday I talked to president at the church, he just so happened to be there, and he asked me to train. So that'll be fun. I'll have a brand new missionary starting tomorrow... A weird thought
is this: Elder Engelman will be on the plane home at the same time that my new one is on the plane to the mission... Odd right?   I'm excited to train though, I was starting to get scared of being old and infertile and never having any "mission children" because when you train you call it giving birth, and he will be my son. But yeah!  But another thought is this... My sisters are currently going home tomorrow. That's weird. Also my trainer goes home tomorrow too. Crazy stuff!
We have an appointment we need to go into right now.  Again,  I'm sorry I wasn't able to respond or write any other emails this week.  See Ya on the flip side!

~Elder Jorgensen