The Drinks decided to leave their containers

 Written January 13, 2014

Dear dad,
We have not been able to do much service

 lately, but we hope to start
doing some more soon. This week we were 

really busy with teaching. We
taught 23 lessons this past week. This week

 we have a goal to teach 24
through, so we should be really busy this

 week. I am happy with
getting 23 lessons in, because the

 standards of excellence for our
mission is 20 total lessons. But,

 most areas don't quite hit that.
Right now our zone average is only

 13 lessons a week.
 And I know what you mean about

 people not knowing how
to drive in those conditions. 

Whenever we have freezing rain or a tiny
bit of snow they won't let us 

drive or ride bikes. It's not 

because we aren't capable, but 

because no one here knows how 

to drive in those conditions. 

On Friday in Greensboro 

(a city about the size of Boise)
we had a zone meeting. It was 

raining super hard, and had been all
day, so the roads were somewhat

 slick. I was asked earlier in the week
to give a training on talking

 with everyone and teaching when we find them.

 (Not just talking to them and setting 

up a return appointment,but we should 

teach them as soon as we find them.) 

After zone meeting we could go and 

get something to eat and bring it back to the stake
center so that we could have lunch as a zone. So my companion and I
went to Wendy's since I had a gift card to there. On our way back to
the stake center we stopped at a stop light, but the car behind us
didn't quite come to a stop in time. So....I was in a car accident on
my mission already!! Haha it wasn't super bad, and most of the damage
was done to the interior of our car :/ we had gotten our drinks and
another set of Elders drinks to bring back with us in a drink carrier.
Well when we were hit, the drinks decided to leave their container.
So, I was covered in fruit punch, root beer, and sprite. It was
great!!! Haha
 
My week went pretty good. It was really fast, which is nice.
 We have a couple new investigators. We found Marvin
and miss Connie this past week, and we were able to teach them a lot
this week. Both of them came to church this week along with the
Taylor's and mike. Marvin has a baptism date for the 25th of this
month, but he smokes. We are teaching the stop smoking to him today
though, so if he stops today, then he will be able to be baptized
then. He is so excited to be baptized, and has already been to church
twice :)
Miss Connie is a friend of a lady that we are re-activating. It is
good because then miss Connie has a friend with her, and the less active
has to come to church because she has to pick up her friend. And when
less actives have the opportunity to bear their testimony to them it
helps them grow in their own faith as well.
Mike is crazy!! I think I may have told you about him, but he is a
Vietnam veteran, so he has a little PTSD as well. He called us over to
his house yesterday before church, and we weren't planning on him
being at church. We convinced him to come though, and had someone pick
him up.
 He has a love for the scriptures. We told him about

 the Doctrine & Covenants, and Pearl of
Great Price. He immediately wanted them. He knows that all of the
standard works are true, and that they are the word of God. He has a
huge desire to be baptized as well. He said that he wants to be
baptized more than anything else. But, he smokes and is an alcoholic.
He is committed to stop though, and he hopefully smoked his last
cigarette last night. We will see how it go's though. He just has to
get his life in order and meet the qualifications so that he can be
baptized.
The Last two Taylor's are committed to be baptized in February sometime.
I'm so glad that you are spiritually feeding your soul. You should
watch the Mormon message "daily bread". It is so good. D. Todd
Christofferson does an amazing job expressing our need for daily
nourishment. Also the talk "my soul hungered and my stomach growled"
is a great one from Hank Smith.
That is so amazing that Cris won 3rd place!!! Way to go Cris!!!!!!!
I'm so glad the spirit whispered to you to have dad give Cris a
blessing. I know that it helped. I hope that was able to not only
build his confidence in himself, but also build all of your faith.
That is so amazing! We got in late last night because someone called
us at like 9:20 and said that someone needed a blessing, so went and
gave one. 
Has Randi been at any of the wrestling matches? What is she up to?
Thank you so much for the letters and the packages. All of the
seasoning is so useful, as we have started to cook a lot now. I'm back
down to 250 pounds! Yay!!!
It was really cold here! Haha at home I can handle 10 or 15 degree
temperatures, but here it is crazy cold. I just cuts right through you
chills you from like the inside out it seems like. But the past few
days it has been like 60 degrees, so thats not too bad :)
 
I know that it isn't your birthday yet, but HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE BEST
MOM IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD!!!!!!!!! I LOVE YOU SO MUCH!!!!! I'm going
to send you a card, but it won't get to you quite in time :/ just know
that I love you and pray for you every night, and you are always in my
heart no matter how far away we are from each other.
 
For our district activity Elder Snow and I came up with the idea to
have a marshmallow gun fight!! Haha it should be so fun. We are going
to go to Home Depot and get the parts to build them today :) we
thought it should be cheap, but also pretty fun :) and the sisters
will pay us back for our expenses :) haha I was
curious how the missionary's in our stake are doing? Are they being
obedient and everything? Do they have many investigators?
Oh, and I wanted you to look at a page too :) in the gospel library,
under missionary there is the hastening the work stuff. You and dad
should look at that, because it really explains what the members role
is, and how they should work with the missionary's. And if you want to
see exactly  what being a missionary is like, you could watch the
districts. That is my life to a Tee haha.
I love you all so much, and I pray for you all the time. Have a great
week and I will hear from you soon :)
Love,
Elder Jorgensen