COMPANION/2ndTRAINER: ELDER TUFT
Hello everyone. I am in GAINESVILLE FLORIDA!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It's in the southern part of the mission. I am serving in the Gainesville 3rd ward, and my address is: "Elder Jorgensen, 2625 SW 75th Street #1036, Gainesville, FL 32608." So feel free to Google Earth me or send me a letter or love or something. Or just pray. I like the praying.
Our mission has almost 300 missionaries. Wow. So there are three companionships in this ward alone. I am in a car-share to we bike half the time. The people are INSANELY friendly. WOW. Even when they're mean they are nice. They also ALL believe in God. Everyone everywhere. The University of Florida is in Gainesville, so the ward is populated almost exclusively by medical residents from out west and we give a ton of YSA referrals. And my apartment...
This deserves it's own paragraph. The people of the Great and Spacious Building are jealous of my apartment. It is palatial. There is a weight set in the apartment (in addition to the gym that we have as part of the complex that we get to use every morning). Two couches, a kitchen, an eating room, a laundry room (with washer and dryer) a den that we study in, a walk-in closet off of our bedroom, a gorgeous bathroom with tile, and a sitting room where the weights are. The entire kitchen was stocked with food when we got there by the previous missionaries (my companion and I "white-washed" in, which means we are both new in the area) and the entire place smells delightful. Plus there is air-condiitiong and heating so we are comfy and cozy. Not that we have needed it, the weather has been absolutely perfect since the moment I got off the plane.
My companion is named Elder Tuft. Here is the history of his misison service: First 12 weeks, he was trained. Next 12 weeks, he served as a trainer and a district leader. For the next 12 weeks he was a Zone Leader. Then for the next 10 1/2 MONTHS he was an asisstant to the president (AP). Now, at 18 months in the mission, he is my trainer and the district leader for our district (which has 6 companionships). He knows everything, casually calls the mission president, knows everyone, and is something of the rockstar of our mission. He is a bulldog, willing to sacrifice ANYTHING to get the job done. Sometimes he gets impatient while we are knocking on doors and we just sprint from house to house. It is exciting. He is deeply committed to the mission and has imbued me with a sense of urgency in the work. Also, he is a facebook missionary, which is a fun tool we get to use. ALSO, we go up to Jacksonville on thursday to get trained to use I-PADS! Elder Tuft has been chosen to be in the first group to receive one so we will be trained and then train the other missionaries. He is anxious for me to learn what he knows, and I have taken an exceedingly active role in helping with his various responsibilities. He is 23, and a blessing to me that I could never have expected. Wow.
I want to take a second and say how deeply thankful I am for the Book of Mormon. I took Javier's advice and studied Elder Bednar's talk entitled "Character of Christ" exhaustively in the MTC. I have since begun searching the scriptures for answers to my questions and problems, and seen astounding results. Uneblievable results. Any question, any problem, can be resolved with a prayerful consideration of those sacred pages. Chapters I have read literally dozens, perhaps dozens of dozens, of times leap out and propel me forward in a search for peace and truth that is changing my life after mere days. It is a continuation of the miracle that propelled me onto my mission. I had to do a lot of things to get here. Diet, exercise, the support of my family, extensive medical attention, all were fantastic tools and I am grateful (for some more than others. Broccoli is nasty.). But the thing that saved my life and brought me here is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The saving power of my Redeemer healed my body, my mind, my heart, and my soul. I know, because I was there. I know He can do it for you, and for the people of Florida, because he has done it for me. I can testify with my whole soul because my whole soul exists because of my testimony. My savior, "whose wonderous power, hath lifted me up. And filled with sweet, my bitter cup. What tongue of gratitude can tell, oh gracious God of Israel."
That He fills you with sweet is my prayer, and testimony.
~Elder Jorgensen
Letters Home
To Mom: THE FLESH IS WEAK
YOU DIDN'T WRITE ME!
Unacceptable.
I miss you. I miss talking to you. I miss just listening to you! Send me long letters that require no response but that I can just read! Let me hear your voice and the voice of our family just so I can feel like home.
Sigh.
Did I mention I acted as voice in four blessings in the MTC? I may have. I'm still going crazy about it so I'll talk some more. It was THE MOST incredible feeling. Only doing the prayer in the temple compares in my whole life. WOW Mama. Wow. To reach out for words and find them, floating through some ethereal firmament of the mind to my lips, was life-changing. And ridiculously humbling.
I had an experience I would like to share. We spent some time tracting in the college housing so we could give referrals to the YSA. My companion loves knocking doors more than anything else so we do it a lot. He is incredibly devoted, although I worry his devotion will be the death of me. He finds sleep and meals and planning and occassionally studies to be annoying burden, and my sleep, quantity and time of food (dinner has repeatedly been at 3 in the afternoon so we don't miss any "prime proselyting time") the open honesty of companionship inventory, studies, and the daily structure that I rely upon have been hard to come by. I am concerned but working hard and not dead yet! He reminds me very very much of Tuckert. Anyway, he is just a lot stronger than I am right now, which provides a wonderful opportunity for the Lord to bless me with drastically and rapidly increased strength.
Anyway, we were meeting a lot of young, bright college students. You could see the light pouring out of their eyes, it was amazing. So many people willing to hear our message (one young man even accepted an invitation to be baptized that I felt prompted to extend right there in the doorway!), it was exhilirating. It was DUMPING rain so I was soaked but all smiles. Later that same night, we met one of our investigators. Same age, same city only a couple miles away. His was the most depressing setting of my mission thus-far. It was soul-sucking. You can literally smell the cigarette smoke and alcohol from the street in front of his door. He has been homeless much of his life, his girlfriend is leeching him for everything he is worse, and as we attempted to teach him there, squatting in the empty den of a lifetime of crushing hardship and despair, even my deperate prayers could not bring the spirit into my heart.
As we left his home, my heart began to weep. How could that be? What was the difference? What made one group so full, and one so desperately empty. It was more than location and circumstance. The emptiness hollowed out the very marrow of my soul.
One progressed, and one did not.
Mother, I must progress. For the first time in 5 years, my goal is not finite. It does not hinge upon a single event. I do not want to accomplish, I want to progress. I want to grow a little every day. Not faster than I am able, but every day. In my letters from Carlsbad, I often mentioned the desperate desire to collapse into nothingness when I returned. Music, games, naps, any escape, proud of what I had accomplished. I realize that this escape comes from a fear of the pain I experience, and the fear that if I do not escape, I will become enslaved to that fear, pain, and the terrible self-destruction which it has and would continue to wreak upon my life. But that experience harrowed me. It presented me with evidence that demanded a decision. I could choose to believe that the gospel could help me, and help him, and could bring light every day, or that it would not. It does. It does and I want to grow. I want to listen to music and nap, while I grow. I want to move forward my whole life. The Lord blessed me with that. It was perhaps one of the worst evenings of my entire life, but within hours prayer guided me to realize and receive the glorious blessing it held.
Anyway, that all sounds very preachy. Maybe the south is getting to me. Actually, I know it is. I immediately adopted the accent and the vernacular. You would laugh and laugh and laugh.
The investigators we inherited from the other set of Elders are mostly drug-addicts and mental patients so we are dropping them pretty quickly. But on our first night here we were knocking doors (so much knocking...) and found a woman named Brittney. She said she wants to go to church, wants to be baptized, and will have us by this week to teach her. WHOA. Miracles. We invite people to be baptized pretty regularly. 2 a day is the zone commitment. There is a LOT of emphasis on baptizing here. A lot. A. Lot.
Cassidy: I LOVE YOU. I miss you darling. Lets read a million books together. Lets have a million adventures. Will you do something for me? I want you to read the Book of Mormon all on your own all the way through while I am gone. And I want you to pray about it sincerely (which means you believe you will get an answer to your prayer) and with real intent (which means you will DO something about that answer. You will act on it) and then write down your experience (just one paragraph would be enough) on the back blank pages of the Book of Mormon that you read. Will you please do that for me? Is there anything that I can do for you? I love you so much.
Kathryn: I LOVE YOU. Katie I miss you so MUCH! How are you doing? Are you PLEAE having too much fun without me?? I can't wait to hear you laugh and play games with you again. Will you do something for me while I am gone? Will you make a gratitude journal? I will be gone for about 734 days. That's not so many. I was thinking you could do something like make a paper chain with 734 rings, and every day cut one off, write two things you were grateful for that day, and glue it into a book. Or maybe Just write them in a book and illustrate it with pictures you draw! However you want to do it is best, you are so creative and wonderful. Will you do that for me? Is there anything I can do for you? I love you Katie.
Courtney: HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
For Dad and Mom: I was laying in bed thinking of you and I just burst into tears. Happy tears. Sweet tears. The sweetest. I worked through missing San Diego and the things I did there. I have resolved or am resolving most of my lusts for fudge and video games and novels and television and the beach. They are fantastic things and I hope that they will garnish my life, but the crippling effect giving them up has had is rapidly fading. But as they decrease, my knowledge of the enormity of the sacrifice that it is to be away from you for two years is increasing. A good sacrifice, one that will permanently strengthen our relationship for eternity, and help me to appreciate you. After just a couple of weeks here, I want to testify of how much I love you, and how much you saved my life. I simply would not exist without you. It would not be possible. When everything was undone, even had physical life endured (which it almost certainly would not), I would have been permanently damaged in every meaninful way. Progress, growth, and the expansion that MUST come with light would have been forever beyond my grasp had you not been there to catch me. The financial and physical resources sustained my body when I could not, and have allowed me to grow into a healthy (aside from a minor cold that is currently serving as an unwelcome annoyance) and strong man. The spiritual, intellectual, and emotional nourishment, of swims and watched football games and long talks in the car, of prayers and blessings and temple trips and submission of my name in the prayer roll, of counseling and care and patience and endurance, saved my soul. You were and are agents of the Savior. So imperfect, and so ABSOLUTELY perfect for me. No one else could have done it, and I would have rotted in the same manner I see others suffering in. An eternal decomposition turned to an unending salvation. That is what you have allowed to happen, that is what the savior has done through you. Your unending smiles and calm faces, your hugs, your support, your testimonies, your thoughts and prayers. Whatever else you do, wherever else you go, you and the Savior redeemed a soul. You have and will do so many other incredible things, but on days when you feel empty or purposeless or unfulfilled, know that somewhere I am crying out to God thanking him for you. Everything I ever do from here through eternity, everything I ever learn or anyone I ever help or make happy, you were partners with the savior in accomplishing. It was all the three of you, and I, even in all my gift of eloquence and expression, flounder and stutter in this woefully inadequate attempt to express my forever deepening and endless gratitude. I love you.
Funny story, I found out my release date is 12/22/2015. My birthday. I was born on a sunday on the 22nd in Provo. I turned 22 on a sunday on the 22nd in Provo. I will be released (they apparently do not grant 6 month extensions in this mission and haven't in years) after 2 years, on the 22nd. It's a long way off, but I thought that whole thing was poetic.
That's all I really have to say. It seems like so long but I know it will go by fast. Please pray for me. Please include me in your fasts. My flesh is weak. I have deeply trying, troubling, and disturbing times. I struggle much much more than I expected. But I love my Father so much, I am growing so much, I am changing in the ways I begged to, I feel the spirit constantly, I am having questions I was too afraid to frame answered in glorious revelations. I have been a missionary again for less than a month, been HERE barely 6 days, and already it is making my simple body and spirit into a true temple of the Lord. I hope that work is completed. I hope it never stops. I hope a true hope. A hope that is trust, a hope that is sure, a hope that eluded me for so long, a hope that is mine forever.
I love you.
~Elder Jorgensen
Unacceptable.
I miss you. I miss talking to you. I miss just listening to you! Send me long letters that require no response but that I can just read! Let me hear your voice and the voice of our family just so I can feel like home.
Sigh.
Did I mention I acted as voice in four blessings in the MTC? I may have. I'm still going crazy about it so I'll talk some more. It was THE MOST incredible feeling. Only doing the prayer in the temple compares in my whole life. WOW Mama. Wow. To reach out for words and find them, floating through some ethereal firmament of the mind to my lips, was life-changing. And ridiculously humbling.
I had an experience I would like to share. We spent some time tracting in the college housing so we could give referrals to the YSA. My companion loves knocking doors more than anything else so we do it a lot. He is incredibly devoted, although I worry his devotion will be the death of me. He finds sleep and meals and planning and occassionally studies to be annoying burden, and my sleep, quantity and time of food (dinner has repeatedly been at 3 in the afternoon so we don't miss any "prime proselyting time") the open honesty of companionship inventory, studies, and the daily structure that I rely upon have been hard to come by. I am concerned but working hard and not dead yet! He reminds me very very much of Tuckert. Anyway, he is just a lot stronger than I am right now, which provides a wonderful opportunity for the Lord to bless me with drastically and rapidly increased strength.
Anyway, we were meeting a lot of young, bright college students. You could see the light pouring out of their eyes, it was amazing. So many people willing to hear our message (one young man even accepted an invitation to be baptized that I felt prompted to extend right there in the doorway!), it was exhilirating. It was DUMPING rain so I was soaked but all smiles. Later that same night, we met one of our investigators. Same age, same city only a couple miles away. His was the most depressing setting of my mission thus-far. It was soul-sucking. You can literally smell the cigarette smoke and alcohol from the street in front of his door. He has been homeless much of his life, his girlfriend is leeching him for everything he is worse, and as we attempted to teach him there, squatting in the empty den of a lifetime of crushing hardship and despair, even my deperate prayers could not bring the spirit into my heart.
As we left his home, my heart began to weep. How could that be? What was the difference? What made one group so full, and one so desperately empty. It was more than location and circumstance. The emptiness hollowed out the very marrow of my soul.
One progressed, and one did not.
Mother, I must progress. For the first time in 5 years, my goal is not finite. It does not hinge upon a single event. I do not want to accomplish, I want to progress. I want to grow a little every day. Not faster than I am able, but every day. In my letters from Carlsbad, I often mentioned the desperate desire to collapse into nothingness when I returned. Music, games, naps, any escape, proud of what I had accomplished. I realize that this escape comes from a fear of the pain I experience, and the fear that if I do not escape, I will become enslaved to that fear, pain, and the terrible self-destruction which it has and would continue to wreak upon my life. But that experience harrowed me. It presented me with evidence that demanded a decision. I could choose to believe that the gospel could help me, and help him, and could bring light every day, or that it would not. It does. It does and I want to grow. I want to listen to music and nap, while I grow. I want to move forward my whole life. The Lord blessed me with that. It was perhaps one of the worst evenings of my entire life, but within hours prayer guided me to realize and receive the glorious blessing it held.
Anyway, that all sounds very preachy. Maybe the south is getting to me. Actually, I know it is. I immediately adopted the accent and the vernacular. You would laugh and laugh and laugh.
The investigators we inherited from the other set of Elders are mostly drug-addicts and mental patients so we are dropping them pretty quickly. But on our first night here we were knocking doors (so much knocking...) and found a woman named Brittney. She said she wants to go to church, wants to be baptized, and will have us by this week to teach her. WHOA. Miracles. We invite people to be baptized pretty regularly. 2 a day is the zone commitment. There is a LOT of emphasis on baptizing here. A lot. A. Lot.
Cassidy: I LOVE YOU. I miss you darling. Lets read a million books together. Lets have a million adventures. Will you do something for me? I want you to read the Book of Mormon all on your own all the way through while I am gone. And I want you to pray about it sincerely (which means you believe you will get an answer to your prayer) and with real intent (which means you will DO something about that answer. You will act on it) and then write down your experience (just one paragraph would be enough) on the back blank pages of the Book of Mormon that you read. Will you please do that for me? Is there anything that I can do for you? I love you so much.
Kathryn: I LOVE YOU. Katie I miss you so MUCH! How are you doing? Are you PLEAE having too much fun without me?? I can't wait to hear you laugh and play games with you again. Will you do something for me while I am gone? Will you make a gratitude journal? I will be gone for about 734 days. That's not so many. I was thinking you could do something like make a paper chain with 734 rings, and every day cut one off, write two things you were grateful for that day, and glue it into a book. Or maybe Just write them in a book and illustrate it with pictures you draw! However you want to do it is best, you are so creative and wonderful. Will you do that for me? Is there anything I can do for you? I love you Katie.
Courtney: HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
For Dad and Mom: I was laying in bed thinking of you and I just burst into tears. Happy tears. Sweet tears. The sweetest. I worked through missing San Diego and the things I did there. I have resolved or am resolving most of my lusts for fudge and video games and novels and television and the beach. They are fantastic things and I hope that they will garnish my life, but the crippling effect giving them up has had is rapidly fading. But as they decrease, my knowledge of the enormity of the sacrifice that it is to be away from you for two years is increasing. A good sacrifice, one that will permanently strengthen our relationship for eternity, and help me to appreciate you. After just a couple of weeks here, I want to testify of how much I love you, and how much you saved my life. I simply would not exist without you. It would not be possible. When everything was undone, even had physical life endured (which it almost certainly would not), I would have been permanently damaged in every meaninful way. Progress, growth, and the expansion that MUST come with light would have been forever beyond my grasp had you not been there to catch me. The financial and physical resources sustained my body when I could not, and have allowed me to grow into a healthy (aside from a minor cold that is currently serving as an unwelcome annoyance) and strong man. The spiritual, intellectual, and emotional nourishment, of swims and watched football games and long talks in the car, of prayers and blessings and temple trips and submission of my name in the prayer roll, of counseling and care and patience and endurance, saved my soul. You were and are agents of the Savior. So imperfect, and so ABSOLUTELY perfect for me. No one else could have done it, and I would have rotted in the same manner I see others suffering in. An eternal decomposition turned to an unending salvation. That is what you have allowed to happen, that is what the savior has done through you. Your unending smiles and calm faces, your hugs, your support, your testimonies, your thoughts and prayers. Whatever else you do, wherever else you go, you and the Savior redeemed a soul. You have and will do so many other incredible things, but on days when you feel empty or purposeless or unfulfilled, know that somewhere I am crying out to God thanking him for you. Everything I ever do from here through eternity, everything I ever learn or anyone I ever help or make happy, you were partners with the savior in accomplishing. It was all the three of you, and I, even in all my gift of eloquence and expression, flounder and stutter in this woefully inadequate attempt to express my forever deepening and endless gratitude. I love you.
Funny story, I found out my release date is 12/22/2015. My birthday. I was born on a sunday on the 22nd in Provo. I turned 22 on a sunday on the 22nd in Provo. I will be released (they apparently do not grant 6 month extensions in this mission and haven't in years) after 2 years, on the 22nd. It's a long way off, but I thought that whole thing was poetic.
That's all I really have to say. It seems like so long but I know it will go by fast. Please pray for me. Please include me in your fasts. My flesh is weak. I have deeply trying, troubling, and disturbing times. I struggle much much more than I expected. But I love my Father so much, I am growing so much, I am changing in the ways I begged to, I feel the spirit constantly, I am having questions I was too afraid to frame answered in glorious revelations. I have been a missionary again for less than a month, been HERE barely 6 days, and already it is making my simple body and spirit into a true temple of the Lord. I hope that work is completed. I hope it never stops. I hope a true hope. A hope that is trust, a hope that is sure, a hope that eluded me for so long, a hope that is mine forever.
I love you.
~Elder Jorgensen