Hermana Ashlyn Jorgensen: Learning to cook tamales!!!

September 30, 2013

Thank you, thank you, thank you everyone for writing me!

This week... welll hmmm I wish they were as great as lexis.. with all of her baptisms and spiritual experiences but ehhh mine aren't! Who the heck knows when I'll get a baptism... So depressing to think but its okay, that isn't what this mission is all about.

Sister Garn and I have also both become very Mexican :) I didn't email earlier today because we went over to Hermana Bravos house, (1 of my 2 favorite members) and we made tamales and hung out! We also make Mexican salsa at home cada dia :) Aunt Arelene and I will be the best of friends when I return (before i forget tell Evelyn CONGRATS! and that she deserves it more than anyone!! I love that cute sweet girl!)

Its starting to become fall over here on the east coast, the mornings are getting REAL cold, and the days are just beautiful BUT I know that it is about to be bitter cold like EVERYONE tells me :) YAY haha NOT! Mom i laugh at myself because I am literally cold 24/7 you have no idea. Ask my companion those are the only words that come out of my mouth haha "sister garn turn the heat on IM FREEZING" "IT IS SO COLD HERE" I walk around with a huge jacket on and I definitely get some weird looks :) Oh well, I will never give up the west coast in me! HEAT FOREVA!!

We went to liberty island on Thursday and I met someone straight from Uganda who didn't speak barely any ingles! SO i used what i remembered and asked him how he was doing in Lugandan and he just LOVED it! They are such sweet people! Can I go back?

This week I got reamed about polygamy and prophets in our church again.. yeah it was great! President Jeppson always says The Lord has to send some strong missionaries over here because its not just that people don't know about religion or our religion, but everyone has there own beliefs and are not fearful to speak there minds or offend people! And let me tell you, I am not offended because I choose not to be :) BUT I get put down every week at least twice for our religion... its rough but hey whatever!

Awkward story... So Sister Garn and I drive a Chevy Malibu... remember the stories? Yes we still hate the car, yes it still has problems, but we should be getting a new one soon! haha ANYWAYS one time we were trying to parallel park our car and Sister Garn could not get it she tried like 6 times (there is a lady watching us too) so I had her get out of the car and let me try... WELL yeppp NOPE I cant park either. I tried like 5 times and eventually we just drove away and parked somewhere else haha After we parked we walked up to the house we were going to, and the lady that was watching us was outside of the house we had to go to... she just laughed as we walked up :) AND then Sister Garn was on the phone so she just started talking to me and of course I couldn't really understand her so it kind of got a little awkward cause I know she was making fun of us for the car... Language Barrier, never gets old :)

The work is kind of slow out here and its kind of depressing that I haven't had any baptisms like i said earlier. I know that it doesn't matter if you get baptisms but its hard when you don't.. lex understands.. One cool day though. So we had 4 appts. set for friday and LITERALLY every single appt. cancelled... worst ever. So Sister Garn said lets go see Hermana Guerrero, as we were driving there we had to pass by Hermana Lopez house. She is a SUPER less active lady that I haven't been able to get a hold of for 5 weeks. I saw that her car was home so I decided to call her, SHE ANSWERED! I told her I got a new companion and wanted to stop by so she said yes! Before we went in her house sister Garn asked me what we should share and I was like ehhh something about faith like in Moroni 7:42 and she was like okay. So we went up in her house and it seemed a little off so we started to share the lesson and after she was silent and said you girls are angels... Her younger daughter was crying and she explained to us that her oldest daughter has a growth on her neck that the doctors don't know what it is, and this is exactly what they needed to hear... After we left that house I was like woahhhh.. God led me to share with them what He wanted them to hear. I realized that i really only am the mouth piece of our Heavenly Father.. Missionary work is great, it is hard but it is worth it. I am glad I can be out here at this time, it seems as if I have trial after trial but now i am seeing them as opportunity after opportunity to grow. I like a few quotes from the talks that Momma sent me. One is "To trust means to obey willingly without knowing the end from the beginning" That is exactly what a mission is all about. I don't know what a mission entails but I know that God does and so that is all I can do is just trust that it will all be okay in the end! i love you all so much and think about you always!

love. Hermana Jorgensen