After a very short one-week-long fall, the Christmas season has finally come...and I couldn't be happier! This week has indeed been eventful...and freezing cold, as demonstrated by my newest companion and I attempting to capture our journey across the frozen wonderland that is Houston Texas...
Yes I have a new companion! This is Elder Palacios he's from Peru and he is absolutely awesome. He loves to sing, and laugh, and tell jokes...in 15 different languages...yes 15 languages! He speaks Spanish, Russian, French, and Chinese fluently and can speak in 11 others. But something's missing...yeah, the one language he hasn't learned yet is English...but we're working on it! Needless to say, Elder Jensen's Spanish skills have definitely improved this week!
The other thing that's improved? Driving abilities. Since Elder Palacios only has a Peruvian license that means Elder Jensen gets to be designated driver. Ever since receiving his license Elder Jensen has always thought he was a pretty decent driver...others may attempt to convince you differently. Elder Jensen scraped by with only 1 speeding ticket- but 5 hours of online class and 1 headache for mom and dad later it was taken care of! Enter Texas, the land where drivers prefer to use the highway signs like: I-59, FM 107.9, and I-77 Katy Freeway as their speed gauges (as opposed to posted speed limits). It's been an exciting week to say the least...I've even witnessed the famous "Texas-dive" turning-from-3-lanes-over phenomenon 3 times already. BUT, not to worry mother...I am being super safe and thus far we've only had a handful of close calls. We've had our fair share of adventures though...ask Tiwi (our automated assistant that reminds us to slow down) about our little accidental adventure into the Houston East Mission, or the one time I learned about the anatomy of one way streets and how they do indeed only go one-way.
In other news I SCORED A GOAL IN SOCCER THIS WEEK! WITH MY HEAD!!! Not sure if it was luck or a little bit of divine intervention but those that know Elder Jensen's less-than-adequate "hand-eye" coordination skills know it was probably a little bit of both.
Overall, it was an awesome week. Elder Palacios and I are working hard to make this area strong! We visit close to 50 people a week and we're slowly whittling our ward list down to who is actually still living in Houston. We've had so many special experiences this week but my favorite was with a family in our ward. They've been struggling with their marriage and the mother and father hadn't been talking and while counseling really isn't in our purview, Opisbo asked us to go with him to teach a Family Home Evening Lesson. We taught about the power that Jesus Christ has to heal our wounds and fix our problems and showed them this video:
It was such a neat experience to see the change that has come over their family this week. The spirit in the home completely changed. They have more joy, they've been more kind to each other and while they're not perfect, they're changing everyday to become more loving and to have more joy in their home. It's so neat to see the power the gospel has to change the lives of those it touches. It's such a blessing to watch how the Savior can fix families, take the torn, bitter, feelings of sadness...and change them into feelings of happiness, joy, and peace. Sometimes we don't know what lies ahead but if we trust that our Savior is there for us and keep moving forward, everything is going to be okay :) love you all!
Con mucho amor,
Elder Jensen
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