Feb. 22, 2016

Querida familia,

Happy birthday on Wednesday Brandon!! Also Nathan Brown's birthday is on the 28th this Sunday, so if you could wish a Happy Birthday to him for me that'd be great! I will try to send him a letter today, but might not have time with the zone activity.

So great mile-marker in my Spanish this week! Apparently a few nights ago Elder Madsen woke up in the middle of the night to me sleep-talking! And not just any sleep-talking, but Spanish sleep-talking. I don't remember any of it, in fact all the dreams I remembered that night were in English. But t'was pretty funny.

We also had the great opportunity of meeting a Jewish WWll Holocaust survivor a few days ago. Her name was Maria Pascua and she was taken prisoner when she was 7 years old. She watched 300 men get shot all at once and was present the night of a severe bombing in the war. Over 10,00 people died that night and she watched it all. She saw some pretty awful things while she was there, and she still has nightmares from it even today. She has been through a lot in her life and it was super interesting to hear about all the amazing things she's done. It makes me very grateful for my life at 7 years old, in fact my whole life. We are very blessed to live in freedom and relative peace. She wasn't too interested in the church for various reasons, but she said she wanted a Book of Mormon to read and learn more so we left one with her.

We also had the opportunity to hear from a general authority this week! The whole mission got together and he gave us an amazing training. It was Elder Corbridge, the Elder who wrote "the 4th missionary" talk. It was fantastic. He has a knowledge and command over the scriptures that really helps bring the spirit and enlighten the understanding. I realized as a subliminal message from his talk that the quality of our scripture study is more important than the quantity. That's a pretty basic and universal principal. Sometimes I think I have to read a whole bunch of different things and go fast to cram everything into our tight schedule, but really simple and focused studies always seem to be the best. If we treat the scriptures with great value and care while we study then others will be able to see that in us and realize their importance as well.

We had Monica at church this week! We had a few others promise us they'd come even the morning of that didn't show up, so that was a bit upsetting, but we were super happy to see Monica and her kids there. She'll probably be prepared for baptism in the next few weeks here. She's got a few struggles with her family, but her heart is good and she definitely wants the gospel in her life more abundantly.

That's about all for this week, we've met a lot of cool people and have continued on in the work. I love you all so much! Have a great week and save me a piece of banana cake!

Con mucho amor,
El Elder Jenson