Another exhausting week but it is paying off.

Thank goodness it is P-Day today, it has been an exhausting week, we taught 19 investigator lessons (one short of a goal) We have 4 people on date to be baptised. So things are going really well. Lots of people progressing, and hopefully with this new branch mission leader the work will pick up! Still working hard (almost) every day, and will be working as hard as we can this week, every day. Looking forward to what the week will brings of surprises.

We had Zone Conference, which was really amazing. Learned a lot of things, including the importance of using personal experiences to help teach lessons. I was able to use my example of playing video games. At the beginning I wasn't so good, but the only way I could get better was to practice practice and practice! The same with everything, missionary work too.

We had a temple trip on Friday which was the greatest. I love the temple and I love going there because of the pure peace and happiness that is always present. Eternal happiness.

I also got my package this week and some more letters! Please write to me, I love to receive letters, about anything! Although it might take minimum a month to get to me :)

This week I have had a few experiences that has reminded me of my holidays.

First I find out my dad has gone to Denmark and that reminded me of the great trip I had there and how attending our church anywhere in the world feels the same. Lovely people in Roskilde. And all they lovely food there... uhmmmmn. I miss "frikadeller". 

AND then as I am thinking about this one of the members here in South Africa comes up to us at church and says that she forgot desert at the DA we had on Saturday, so she gives us this box and I'm like what's this? She says a "Copenhagen"..... and it doesn't click straight away... so I'm like okay.... then she says that it's got rasins and custard in, then it hits home and I'm like, ahhh a Danish pastry, then she mentions they call them Copenhageners, and then that clicks as well, so I ask her if she knows why they call them that, and she didn't so I told her what the connection was, which was quite amusing. 

But that also brought to my memory, that time we were getting the train to Manchester, to get the flight to Denmark, and on one of the cafe's it said come in and treat yourself to a Danish (obviously meaning pastry but it sounded like they were eating people :P)

I also remember the hot dogs and the ice cream which was really nice!

Talking about food, had a very interesting experience this week with food. So we were at a members house, and after having a very nice meal of pap and mince, they brought out a 'snack' for us. This snack was chicken feet. Yes, here they get chicken feet, you braai it (BBQ) and then you put a sauce on it, then serve. It took a lot of convincing but finally i gave in and ate 2. It was a very interesting experience........ there is hardly any meat on them, you pull off one of the.... toes? With your teeth, eat the 'meat' around it and then spit out the bones. I managed 2, they were surprisingly okay, they weren't as bad as I thought, i would eat them again if served, but not out of my own free will :P

General Conference has just been on!! (you can see what it is here) It is so weird to think that it is now a year since our holiday in America where we had the experience of attending General Conference. It feels like yesterday, but really, that holiday was one of the best holidays that have had. Awesome.

We will be watching the General Conference this week. We have to wait until they download it, but we are hopefully going to be able to watch all the sessions and take lots of notes. Because I know something they say will help both me and our investigators! That is something that i have found, is that whatever I study that morning, whether it be the scriptures or the words of the prophets, something that I read I will be able to apply to someone that day to help them!

The last thing this week is my Grandfather is coming on exchanges with us and is dying in 2 weeks! so a nice send off for him i think :)

(A "father" is missionary slang for the person who trained you. "dying" is missionary slang for finishing your 2 year mission)

All the best from me :) and I love you all

Elder Jorgensen

We won because we taught most lessons last month

Another great but busy week and lots to write but as always little time but I will try to get as much in before we have to go again.

As I am a big Star Wars fan it cracks me up the Afrikaans for Father is Vader so it give me great pleasure to write to my dad with "Dear Vader". It must be some Dutch connection.

A funny experience I had was when at the home of some Afrikaaners I quoted something from the movie "Best 2 Years" (situated in Netherlands) and she said "said "ah you're learning Afrikaans" I didn't say anything though, it is quite funny because Afrikaans is basically Dutch with some English and German words mixed in, all they've done is changed some of the letters (one word in Afrikaans is the same spelling as English they've just added an extra e) but they don't like being called Dutch so sshhhh :P A bit the same with the Danes and the Swedes and England v Scots.

Good Friday was a quiet day because it is the only day that EVERYBODY goes to church so we also went to sing the "Christ is Risen" at some church. 

Yesterday Sunday most of the town was out partying and drinking.

On the picture you will see a new shiny blender for our flat. We got it because we won. 

At the last round of interviews, Sister Dunn wanted to introduce blenders into the flats so we could make smoothies, to be healthier, so the Zone Leader apartments have them but I was wondering what was happening to ours. At Zone meeting (getting there and back we got lost both times XD) they announced that the area with the most new investigators last month would get a new blender..... lo and behold that was us!!!! The mission standard of excellence has been like 3 a week but some weeks we've had like 8. 
So the work is really picking up here! People are responding to the message we have. 

We give them the message and let them choose.

But the work has really been progressing. 3 investigators on date thus far with hopefully 3 more this coming week. More new investigators, and the lessons are going really well (we taught 16 investigator lessons this week) and we are aiming for around 20-25!)


Also we had 5 investigators at church!! Which was amazing, one of them accidentally went to the wrong church at first :') but it was actually good for him to see the difference and it sounded like he really enjoyed it!

I always remember my dad saying he is so grateful he worked hard on his mission and 25 years later he is still relating back to the experiences he had on his mission as they taught him valuable lessons for life.

A couple of quotes I remember he had was "One month on a mission is like one year at home" and "As your mission goes so will your life". The first is hard to believe until you are out experiencing it and then you see how much you constantly learn out here.

Time is up. Take care until next time.


Elder Jack Jorgensen