COMPANION: ELDER WELSH
ASSISTANTS
Today I am on an Island in the Atlantic! It is called Amelia Island. It's pretty nice. They just had one of he biggest car shows in the world here this weekend and private jets were flying back and forth overhead so much that we could hardly carry on a conversation. This area is the far north-east corner of Florida. Let's see if I can describe it.
The area is called Fernadina Beach. Today's letter will make a lot more sense if you have a map of my mission. Sorry! Anyway, Fernadina covers the Island (which is where we live. In a house. A couple miles from the beach. Yeah.) and the countryside on the "mainland", which is about as country as it gets. I don't know whether I saw more pitbulls or confederate flags yesterday, but it was a lot. The ward has about 80 people in it. I've been here since Friday and will leave on Wednesday. Yesterday we knocked the houses along the beach. We were probably 100 yards from the waves, but the beach is behind a little hill so we can't see it. It has a perfect smell though. Anyway, we found a beautiful young mother from Puerto Rico with a new baby. We taught her, and she loved it. She got her 7 week old baby out of the stroller and asked us to pray for her. So we did! It was a wonderful prayer. She must have thought so too, because as we were finishing she threw her arms around me, bowed head and closed eyes and all, and kissed my cheek! My companion just about had a heart attack. It was quite the finish to the lesson.
I also saw an alligator! We were biking along, calm as anything, and we glance over and there is a big old gator just sunning by the road. We were six feet from it maybe? 8 feet? Anyway, we scared it pretty good when we tried to walk over. They're a little skittish I guess.
The whole week has been crazy. Tuesday we drove to Waycross, which is in the north east corner of the part of Georgia that we cover. We spent a day with those elders, slept on their floor, and then drove all the way to the southern most part of the mission, Ocala, and spent a day with the Elders there. Then we drove during the night to be back home in Jacksonville in time to spend a day with the Elders along the Jacksonville beach. It was a lot of driving, and we try not to drive during proselyting time so it wasn't very much sleeping or eating. Elder Welsh let me play my classical music the whole time though, so blessings for him.
Friday was the highlight of the week for sure. Elder Kopischke, who is a member of the 70 and a counselor in the area presidency over the southeast United States, came to our mission and did a six hour training. It was a wild ride. I sang a song! Do you know the version of Savior, Redeemer of my Soul that they use in 17 Miracles? I sang that, and the mission nurse Sister Winter who is also a phenomenal pianist accompanied me. It was a ridiculous amount of fun. Then Elder Kopischke stood up (he's German) and had me and Elder Welsh stand up and role-play talking to people and teaching them about the gospel. He probably had us do it 30 or 40 times (this represented a significant amount of the entire 6 hours) and he never let us go longer than 30 seconds without stopping us and pointing out to the whole mission everything we did wrong! It was probably the hardest morning of my entire life.
And also the BEST! I got to work one on one with a member of the 70 for over an hour and he trained me the entire time on how to be better at what I love most! It was incredible! I learned more in that meeting than I could have in lifetimes on my own. He answered every question, he intrigued every complacency, he humbled every arrogance, it was phenomenal. I don't think I could have handled one second more of it, but I would not have asked for one second less.
One thing that he said in particular was significant. He said that peace is a fruit of the atonement, and the requirement is forgiveness. I have put that to the test this week, and found it to be true. He said a lot of things. The night after the conference I just sort of wandered around in a terrified daze, and I still feel super unsure of how to do things. But that's what growth feels like! That's what progress looks like. And I love progress. I love a lot of things. I love beauty, peace, warmth, love, intimacy, knowledge, music, light, language, harmony, synergy, work... I alphabet an inkling that everything I love is a fruit of the Atonement. I want to know what all of the pre-requisites for these fruits are. Forgiveness for peace. Repentance for purity. Loyalty in the pre-earth life for immortality. What about these others? What about hope or virtue or faith or patience or family or strength? One of the greatest evidences of the divine origin and authenticity of this Church is not only that it answers every question, but gives millions more to ask.
Happy St. Patrick's Day tomorrow! Hope you had a great Pi Day whenever that was. The days are a blur. Sometimes I lose track of when things are or where I'm at or who I'm with or what I'm even doing! But I always know why I am doing it. Always.
Love,
~Elder Jorgensen
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