"Onda" is your Spanish vocabulary word for the day. For those of you that try and translate that it won't work because apparently only punks from Guatemala use that phrase. It's pretty sweet, it directly translates to "what's slinging?". Seeing as Elder Jensen is a punk sometimes and definitely from Guatemala he uses it a lot :)
Anyway, reporting live from the land of eternal rain and the only state in the United States where the state flag can be higher than the American flag, I'm Elder Jensen and this is a chronology of my adventures in the happiest place on Earth...Houston, Texas! I hope you all are having a very merry Holiday season because I can assure you that the Christmas Spirit has descended on Texas...the tow truck drivers all wear Santa Hats and smile as they latch your car on the back of their "big boy trucks". It makes for a pretty oddly comically sad experience when you walk out of lesson and notice your nice Chevy Cruz latched onto that said "big boy truck". Alas, Elder Jensen did indeed get towed this week, the final count of this car rounding to an even 5 times in the last 6 months.
To tell the truth, missions have ups and downs and the last week was sort of a down and I didn't really have any funny or cool stories because it was a stinky week. All of our investigators decided to play that fun game where they pretend they aren't home when we stop by to visit and our ward went from it's high of 200 members back down to a low of 50. We were all kinda struggling to figure out what went wrong, and were all pretty bummed out.
Then service came around and my whole week changed. We did our normal service at the food bank, but also had the opportunity to help the English ward Elders with a service project. There's a member of the ward who's a hoarder and their house is full of boxes, trash, roaches, and it wasn't really livable anymore. So we undertook the project- 10 Elders and Sisters and 5 Relief Society members took the challenge to clean it inside and out. It was hard and at times, kind of gross, but we knew what we were working for and we managed to get it done before they got home. It completely changed around my week. Seeing others give so selflessly motivated me to look for more opportunities to serve every single day! Whether pushing a car to the side of the road, helping people load their groceries, I noticed that as I served more and more my attitude improved more and more. By the end of the week I was so very happy and I know that came because of those opportunities to serve. There's this poem I like, I have no idea who it's by but it goes a little something like this "Christmas is not a day or a season, but a condition of heart and mind. If we love our neighbors as ourselves; If in our riches we are poor in spirit and in our poverty we are rich in grace. If when our brother asks for a loaf we give ourselves instead; if each day dawns in opportunity and sets in achievement however small- then every day is Christ's day and Christmas is always near". I invite all of you to get out there and serve. You guys rock and I hope you have the best Navidad in the history of Navidads! Don't give up and keep moving forward :)
Love you all lots!
Elder Jensen
Catch us on the next episode of EHM!!
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