New Year's resolutions

December 30, 2013

WELLLLLL this week! woooo hooooo! Christmas is over! I loved the season  but also hated it! We had so many activities and reasons to not do missionary work it drove me NUTS! Honestly I thought it would be this fun great holiday season with a little break...and that is exactly what I didn't want!

It was so great to talk to everyone over Skype!  I was so happy!  Chirstmas was different this year! I liked it but not enough to say that I will ever spend another one away! It was cool though. We had a wonderful lesson with the Percinos who we spent Christmas with.  They are from Mexico and have not been back to church in 14 years until I came to this area! Ive seen miracles with them! We taught about the Saviors birth.. of course :) We read in Luke. We all took turns and then sang silent night. I have never really felt the spirit as strong as a I did when we left the house.

 Its interesting being out 8 months. You are kind of over the whole standing out from the crowd and looking foolish cause you are dressed WAY modest and people can just tell you are different. I worried so long in the beginning of my mission about being myself, about being not like all the other missionaries. At times I feel like I put aside my calling and tried to do things my way. I have loved being companions with Sister Daniels. She is honestly my closest companion out here. Its been hard because we are both kind of followers. We don't want to be the party pooper and tell the other one when it is wrong or shouldn't do that. Its not like we were being disobedient but we surely have let things slide like being to casual in lessons, or getting home 10 minutes late. SOOO finally we decided that we wanted to be better, that we needed to be exactly obedient. So we read this purification talk. I'm sure Lexi has read it actually yeah she sent it to me hahah But we decided to do it. We gave up 12 things that "poke at our spirit" Things that don't really invite the spirit. For example, a few of mine are "chewing gum in public" not allowed, seems harmless but its been hard for me! Another is "Language of the World" like no saying bro or dude.. that's a hard one because the word dude just finds its way in my conversation with my companion all the time! And the one I am truly focusing on is "Not speaking negatively about anyone." Those are just a few but those are things that I know if I can over come that the Lord will bless me for. So we fasted for 24 hours because we need the extra strength from the Lord. We are not going to do any of the things that are on the list for 40 days.. until the 5th of February.  2nd day into it and let me tell you I don't think I have ever desired gum so much in my life or saying the word dude or all the things that I have decided to leave behind... ITS BE HARD! SATAN DOESN'T WANT ME TO BE BETTER! And I hate it! I have started to come to realize that this mission only comes once in your life. Considering I hit my half way mark in a month and Lexi is coming home in 6 months it has shown me how fast this mission really flies. I kept saying I want a new comp that I can train so I can set the standard of obedience and do what is right without being scared to say something. But I was so kindly reminded by Him that I need to set the standard of obedience because I know what is right. When I get home it will only get harder. Things will come up that will be harder to face at home then out here and I need to learn now that standing up for what is right is exactly what I need to do regardless what others say. The Lord will bless you more when you show your love for him through exact obedience.

I was wondering do you guys have a preach my gospel at home? I'm sure you do since you are such the little missionaries! Go to page 129 and it is an evaluation of your Christlike Attributes. Instead of doing the self evaluate there are scriptures right next to all of the little lines. Go through and read them! Observe and look at how the prophets, the people and the Savior Jesus Christ have shown us the way to incorporate more of our Saviors qualities!

I know that this is the true church. I know that Jesus is The Christ. The only one that could do the Fathers Will. I have been changed by Him. I love my mission. I love my Heavenly Father for so kindly pressing the thought on my mind to serve a mission! I honestly cant tell you why I came out here on a mission.. What got me out here I have no idea. But I can tell you that I am staying on my mission because I know that we have a loving Heavenly Father who sent His son Jesus Christ to redeem our immortal beings to be able to return to live with Him again someday, and everyone needs to know this. May God bless you in your endeavors this week! Always praying for you and thinking about you!

love. Hermana Jorgensen xoxx

A member is wearing the shirt I got for Christmas! I gave them all to her! 

beautiful sunset! 

opening my pajamas 

 soccer on Christmas with the Percinos

 Malpartidos! great family! 

                          me and my comp goin out for our walkin day!

Christmas right around the corner

December 23,2013

This week has been good to say the least ummm I went and toured a slaughter house this past week.. saw Alex Boye and have had 68 degree weather! its been super weird! 

ate a chicken heart btw... ahhhhh

Hello Family:) How are you doing today?? Can you believe it has been 8 months since we have talked and this week we will be skyping. I'm excited! But at the same time I'm kind of weirded out! What if I look different?!?  Today we are a little bit later emailing because we went out to lunch at Teak. It's a sushi restaurant. Our president of the branch, Adrian Flores, is a sushi chef their and also one of my favorite members, Odilone, works there. He is the sweetest man ever! He doesn't live in our area so we never get to see him much outside of church, we might be going to his house for Christmas though. Anyway we ate a delicious crab salad and yummy sushi. The best part was, they paid for us. Seriously my opinion of the people here is they are such hard workers.  They work 6 days a week. 12 hour days. Washing dishes. Odilone was SO happy to see us there, that we came to visit him at work.

Anyway last week.

Tuesday: 3 dinners in a row.  Dinner #1 Carmen Limardo. Dominican. We watched the Joseph Smith movie with her. So awesome! She's a strong convert of 3 years. Primary president. It was her first time seeing the movie. So that was super special. Dinner #2 Angelica. She always feeds us, .. she  says, "oh hermanas  Gardel cooked." mmmmmmmm great. It really was. He cooked Tacos Dorados. MY FAVORITE. We then drove out to wall to visit the familia Perez. Justino, the dad, is easily one of my favorite people here. We pull up and he says. "Hermanas get in, were going to Chilis" Dinner #3.

Wednesday: We took a tour of Catelli Brothers. It's a slaughter house. I will spare you the details, but numerous active members, less actives, investigators, and lots of potential investigators work there. Long story short we put on hair nets, hard hats, boots, and trench coats. You can put the dots together. We saw the cows living.... and then not. It was definitely an experience I won't forget. Then that night we went to a Brazilian restaurant, where I was still full from the night before and we only ate red meat. YUM...... struggle. I wasn't fine to say the least could barely do it since I just saw the animal slaughtered... yeah.. yikes!

Thursday: We went to a dinner for the all the relief society woman for the branch. It was great to be together and get to know them more. We had a new missionary just get home. Dalia Mendez. She is the cutest. She's stoked on life to come out with us to teach.

Friday: We had our all mission conference! Alex Boye came and gave a killer devotional about setting expectations without doubt. God wants us to achieve our goals but we have to set high expectations so that he can help us! It was amazing. He is an amazing singer! We got some Christmas packages.... which I haven't opened up quite yet! It was so fun to see all my friends from the whole mission. This is the best Christmas present I have ever been given is to be here out on the mission.

Saturday: Dalia came out with us and we had an appointment with our new investigator that we found on Thursday walking around. His name is Eleazar. He's nice. Potential. So I will keep you updated with him. Our branch had a temple trip to the DC temple and our member, Hermana Castillo went through for the first time to receive her endowments!!! SO HAPPY for her:) Slightly sad that she didn't go with her husband, but she's waited long enough. We bought her roses and wrote a card because we were so happy for her.  We ended the night by seeing the Malpartidas. Which means we ate Peruvian food and laughed. Benny is so amazing.  Well his son, Enzo, just left on his mission so blessings are in store for them!!

Yep my hair is all dark again.

The beauties of Jersey

Alex Boye and us. 

 xxoxxx

Hermana Jorgensen

NYC and the temple

 December 16, 2013

wow December is probably the craziest best/worst month of the year! Especially being down south! why? because we have so many activities up  north and it takes us 2 hours to get there but then jersey traffic so probably 4 hours and then 4 hours back so our days are shot! About 3 days out of the week! Its been great though! Last week we went up to the mission home to do a Jingle with the Jeppsons! President and Sister Jeppson made us breakfast and then we all dressed up and put mustaches on! But we played a scripture game and the sisters got scarves and the elders got ties! Then we played songs with bells! It was SO fun! President and Sister Jeppson played some songs for us and of course it was incredible! Then we all read about Christ's birth and dissected it. President Jeppson gave us his insight on Mary. He talked so highly about her. I promise you he will one day become in the Quorum of the 70! He is the most inspired incredible man I have ever known.

 Ive really been studying the Christlike attributes because this season is all about Christ. Ive been studying hope because I feel like I've been losing it a lot out here. Just because I haven't baptized anyone and I just don't know I feel ineffective. So, I decided to study. I was studying the attribute hope and I realized that with hope there are 3 attributes that come with it. Hope->Patience->Charity. Without hope we can do nothing.. but when we hope for things we must be patient and believing that God will answer our prayers. Then we need to have Charity. Charity in all things. Ive been really trying to master these 3 attributes. I feel like there is no better time than right now in this season to become as our Savior. I love the scripture in Romans 8:24-25 it is perfect! Look it up! But studying about Christ just isn't enough. IT IS ONE THING TO STUDY ABOUT JESUS CHRIST, BUT ANOTHER TO BECOME LIKE HIM. That is the quote I am trying to live by here on my mission. Its hard but it is a work in progress.  Goodness what a great opportunity I have to be out here on a mission to try to change! Why is the mission hard I ask myself? Because all I want to be and do is perfect. Perfect how my Heavenly Father would want me, but I always seem to fall short. It is so hard because I know I am so hard on myself but I have grown to love my savior, my Heavenly Father, and the Gospel so much that I want to do the best and live it exactly as they would have me live it. BUT I'm human and I fall short. I know it is something that we work on everyday. Thank goodness for our Savior Jesus Christ. How can anyone deny Him as the Christ? The Atonement is SO REAL. Okay off my spiritual rant. 

We went to the temple on Thursday! It was Great! I went with a question in mind. "Why am I on a mission?" But as I was sitting in the celestial room, I sat there and said a prayer and asked Heavenly Father that question. I was just flipping through the Bible. don't ask me why because I have never read it before. Well I started reading it a week ago for the first time (which i love it) But i started reading through and I just randomly read Romans 8:28 it says "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose." .... hmmm well i realized that maybe i just need to be content and trust in Him that since I'm called for HIS purpose that all will be well. Gosh as if I'm just not humbled enough out here! The temple was a special experience for me! It was cold! NYC was FUN! all like 25 missionaries walking through NYC was sooooo fun! 

Tender mercy well first had to give a talk in sacrament yesterday haha welll hmmm knowing me you know i couldn't pronounce a word so i just laughed and asked a member sitting on the first row to help me pronounce it... well i was talking into the  microphone so the WHOLE CONGREGATION said it together and then everyone LAUGHED! haha gosh these member just love me! they cant take me seriously! I cant take myself serious either haha but Sunday we drove up to Union City with those same elders and we all had a Spanish fireside so ALL the Spanish misioneros came and we did a whole like performance in Spanish! Well guess who came... THE BRAVO FAMILY!!!! talk about a tender mercy. I walk up to them after and as I was walking towards her she started crying.. :( She just kept saying i really miss you :( we talked for like 40 minutes and then we had to start saying bye and she starts crying again and all she said was hermana i know you will be back. I keep praying.. :( gosh i love her. AND I LOVE HER SALSA SO SHE BROUGHT ME 2 THINGS FULL! I love her and her family so much. I can NOT wait for you to meet her! We stayed the night in West New York last night and then drove home with the elders today and now we are back in business! We have a Christmas party with the whole mission Friday ALEX BOYE IS COMING! wooo hoooo!  HEY i love you family. You are all beautiful and the greatest family i could ever ask for! 

love: hermana jorgensen

ps. tell krissy, the lyons, and LEXI THANK YOU FOR ALL THE PACKAGES! 

 NYC!

hahah having some fun in NYC! oh elders!

Winter

The cute Bravo Family

Pictures from my week

December 11,2013

            my district at the mission home! me and my companion! our less active sam...he looks like aubreys brother.. TAYLOR LAUTNER!

that one time the elders had to drive with us for like 5 hours... WEIRDEST MOMENT OF OUR LIVES! haha SOO FUN!

Princeton

December 2, 2013

heyyyy super short email literally no time! but i got transferred! JERSEY SHORE! thanksgiving was crazy we got to play football in the Princeton stadium with just missionaries!

1769 Raleigh court w. 31B

Ocean, New Jersey

07712

anyways i love you all. stay safe I'm glad everyone is still living! xoxx

Princeton's field and ME :)

The Jersey Shore

My Companion Hermana Daniels and I