Elder Jensen is serving in a little town called Chalatenango. He says it is very poor and very hilly and they pretty much walk everywhere. He says that his calves are ‘huge’! Living conditions are pretty primitive. They do have electricity and running water but the water only comes on for a couple of hours each day and they are usually not there when it does, so they “shower” with buckets. He says, “Washing our clothes is definitely an experience. we do it ourselves. in our little sink. It´s fun... I definitely am missing the luxuries of the United States. I´m pretty sure this is the hardest thing I´ve ever done but it´s definitely worth it. I find that the only way to not be bitter about the challenges is to thank God in my prayers for all the trials. When I´m walking up a huge hill in the 90 degree weather, 90 percent humidity, all I can do is say a prayer and thank Heavenly Father for the trial. I´ve been trying to do that a lot more, give thanks for trials and it´s helped me a ton to cope with all the changes. I know that it will get easier once I can speak Spanish :)
“There aren’t too many gangs in the main part of Chalatenango, but if you go to the mountains there’s a lot. It reminds me of the gadianton robbers- they retreat to the hills :) But we haven’t gone there a lot. Once we went at night and we saw a bunch of MS 13, but I think they respect us and don’t kill us :)
We got a baptismal date for Javier and Hermes this week! Hermes is awesome and I´m pretty sure he will follow through, but Javier started drinking again so we´re going to take all his alcohol. I hope we can help him. This week we had a baptism fall through. Carlos. He´s 9 years old and he is awesome. He came to church one day and asked us if we could baptize him so we told him he needed to come to church for 2 weeks and that we needed to teach him about the gospel. So he did and we did and we got permission to baptize him from his grandma. We filled the font on Saturday, got all the paper work finished and invited all the members we could to come to the baptism and he didn’t show up so we ran to his house and found him. It turned out his mom, who lives in the United States, doesn’t want him to be baptized. So that was stupid. But that´s basically how it goes here. Hopefully we can get more people to follow through!

If anyone is as new to the whole "pouch" way to send a letter as I am, here are directions:


Lay the blank side of the single-sheet letter facing down with the writing facing you.

• Fold the top of the letter about one-third of the way down, and crease.

• Fold the bottom of the letter to the top of the first fold, and crease.

• Use two pieces of tape or two sticker tabs on the top to secure it, not more than one inch from each side, but do not seal the ends.

• Do not include any other item in the letter such as printed pictures, currency or medication, etc.

• In the top left corner, write the return address.

• Affix a stamp in the top right corner

• In the middle of the sheet, write:

Elder Brian Lee Jensen

San Salvador East, El Salvador

P.O. Box 30150

Salt Lake City, Ut 84130-0150

For anyone interested...

Mission Home Address:
Centro Commercial 105, Local 204
105 Avenida Sur Paseo, General Escalon, San Salvador, El Salvador, C.A.
El Salvador

Mailing Address:
Pouch Mail Only: P.O. Box 30150
Salt Lake City, Utah 84130-0150
United States

So since we heard from Brian today I am guessing that Monday is his p-day. And since his letter is so short, I will share it with you all!

Hola mi familia! I'm in El Salvador! My first area is in Chalatenango. People drive crazy. There aren't any rules, pretty much, but it's awesome! I love Chalatenango but we only have running water for about 1 hour in the day, and we never know when that is...so we have to shower in the morning with cold water out of buckets. Pero, esta bien. Chelatenango is a funny place. There's dogs running everywhere pooping on stuff. Garbage everywhere...It's hard to get used to. Every night I go to bed thinking that I'm used to El Salvador, but then I wake up and realize where I am and realize how much I don't fit in there! :) But it's sweet, my spanish still isn't too great, but I can understand most of what people are saying now, so that's pretty sweet. But yea, Chalatenango is crazy, really poor, lots of hills.
I love you guys, take luck!
Oh and my companion is Elder Hernandez from Mexico and he says "hola" :)