Wendy keeps up better than me. Masen got to skype

If picture is worth a thousand words, then skyping is worth a gazillion! We got a great surprise Sunday when Masen was able to skype from the jungle. There was a delay and it was hard to discern what he was saying, but just seeing his smile was all we needed.

He was at the ward mission leader’s house and as we talked people came by and Masen would aim the camera at them and introduce them to us. We were all squished together trying to be in the camera frame all at once. He had ear phones and a mic so they could not hear us, but we would wave and they would wave back. There were several children, a cute 2 ½ year old who Masen persuaded to say “Hola”! And a little eight year old girl snuggled right up to him and “shared” one of the head phones. Her name is Sondra and when Greg commented to Masen that it looks like he has a little “friend” Masen burst into a big smile and nodded his head. EJ and Brietyn cried several times when he spoke just to them.

He looked incredibly happy, showered with love, and completely at home. It was hard to believe he has only been there for 3 weeks. He has a pensionista—a member that is hired to cook for the missionaries. In Lima his pensionista did not cater to them, but his pensionista now has told him she will try and cook American food that he wants if he gets her a recipe. So his big request was a recipe for pizza dough. His companion, who is from Chile, was in the background saying “pizza please…pizza please”. He also asked for us to send him brownie mixes. We asked him if he was still having to eat a lot of fish. He said the pensionista saw him eating fish and recognized that he did not like it and told him she would not make him any more fish. Can I just say I LOVE THIS WOMAN! I am so grateful to her for spoiling Masen!

He said he has to cross the river everyday on a bridge this is bouncy like a trampoline…just like the movies. He takes a cold shower every morning…colder that the river. He said that the bugs and spiders have not been any more ominous than the ones in Lima. He said that it is beautiful and amazing and he is loving it. I don’t think it is as remote as you might imagine.

As we were saying goodbye, he aimed the camera at the group of people and we made a heart shape with our hands. He aimed the camera back at himself for a minute then back to the group of people who were making hearts back to us. All barriers vanish…geographical, cultural, language…and we all felt the exchange of pure love and we became brothers and sisters instead of strangers. It was a powerful moment for me.

We asked Masen to call us for his remaining 15 minutes so we could really communicate. It was about another hour when we got his call. The connection was fuzzy and still hard to hear and I asked him if he wanted to call back to try to get a clearer line. He said he only had 12 minutes left on his card and was headed for a meeting and asked me what else there was to talk about? Enough said…”been good talking to you but got to get back to work.” I actually thought that was the perfect way to end the call. Can’t wait for Christmas!

I’m writing this at work and funny thing just happened his mission president, President Blunck, just called in. I could not help it…I had to tell him that I had a missionary in his mission and what a great conversation we had with him on Sunday. He, of course, told me what a great missionary Masen is and thanks for sending him to us!

This is Masen’s “two-line” e-mail from Monday…(really Masen?)

ya so it was good talking to you yesterday. ill write you next week. this computer stinks. ill see if i can send you pics another way. love you all. bye

This last week Masen let us know that he is getting his wish and transfered into the jungle... oh wow

Hi Friends and Family,

Here is his e-mail from this week. It has finally happened…he’s going to the Jungle. This is why the Lord sends out 19 year olds…who else would be so eager to live in sweltering heat with giant bugs and spiders and endure poor, remote living conditions. He will have to fly to get there. The zone leaders fly to the mission office once a month to meet with the president and take back the mail. I believe a rite of passage of living in the Jungle is to eat certain giant caterpillar. Our mother’s day call is really going to be interesting now.

In Primary on Sunday the question was asked…do you have anybody you really look up to and want to be just like them. Several of the kids responded and cute EJ shot his hand up and replied that he wants to be like Masen. I was telling the story to Greg at home and Brynlie said to EJ that Masen is her hero too. Greg made the comment of how nice it is to have a big brother to look up to. I wrote about that to Masen and thanked him for being the kind of big brother that we can all look up to.

In this e-mail we did a question/answer section…so in the middle he includes my question and then his answer.

first things first, hold off on that package, im going to the jungle, so it wont get to me for forever. ya i just found out about my transfer. im super super stoked, but i wanted one more change here. the family of luis is going to get married so we can baptise his mom. puchi. oh well i just hope things keep going with that family like they are. im glad im changing though. gives me a fresh start, which means i have to work super hard and i want that because the time goes by faster becuase its funner. im super stoked, but ill be going to war with the bugs and spiders. alright.

Did you get to enjoy some baptisms on Saturday?
yes ma'am i did. we baptied luis's aunt. it was pretty cool because i guess she was a little reble a month ago alway leaving the house and staying out late. . . . if she came home, and rosemary (the mom of luis) said that she was changing, and that she new the church was true and this was the right thing to do. its super sweet to hear that come from one of your investigators, and its cooler that she is still young. i just saved her from a life of miserey. thats whats up.
Did I tell you that Grandma Lynn turned 85 a couple weeks ago? She is the same age as President Monson. Do you ever get visiting General Authorities down there that talk to you?
same age as president monson. she is a boss. thats super awesome. wow. she is living right ha ha. we have had 70s talk to us in the mtc and one time for our stake conference, but thats it. area 70 by the way. but they are super good at giving talks.
everybody is old!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! im old!! your old! ha ha we are all old. man life is so short. what to do in so short a time. well the best thing to do is do what larsen is doing and give your time to the lord ha ha. its pretty sweet to see what the lord can do, and the cooler part is what the lord can do with me. the lord has his perfect plan for everyone. we just have to ask to see what we have to do. that hero stuff is sweet to hear, but they should look at someone better. but hearing that makes me want to be better so that they can have someone better to look at.
love you all
Elder Fenn

Two weeks late

Hi All,

I neglected to send this e-mail out last week. Funny story. A call came through on my home phone with like 20 numbers on the caller ID. I showed Bryn and said look at this crazy number and didn’t answer it of course because I thought it was a soliciter. I jumped in the shower and heard the phone ring two more times. Bryn said she ignored the calls because she knew I would tell her to tell them I won’t talk to them and she hates doing that. As I was dressing Tayden called on his cell phone and said mom I just talked to Masen and he is trying to call you he lost his debit card and needs it cancelled. I WAS IGNORING MASEN’S CALLS!!! He actually did call a few minutes later and we talked for barely 2 minutes. It was so fun to hear his voice. He sounds exactly the same which was strangely surprising… I guess because he had changed so much on the inside. We cancelled the card and nothing has been taken from his account. So that was a great bonus for the week.

He talks about telling an investigator the “story about you mom” trying to help her find courage to pay tithing. I’m not sure what story he is referring to and I am very pleased to find that Masen was actually listening to my stories. We were in St. George for a dance competition for Brietyn…he refers to that. The CCM is MTC in Spanish.

Here it is…

do i think in spanish yet. . . yes and no. when im thinking to my self it depends on the day. sometimes i wake up and i find myself thinking spanglish. its funny to catch yourself like that sometimes. one time i cant remember what i was doing, but i turned to my comp and started talking to him in english. it was funny cause he was like WHAT I DONT UNDERSTAND. haha but we had a good laugh with that. but the spanish is good. i can talk to almost everyone and understand almost everything. so its good. sorry about the email thing last week. i try to give you a heads up next time if i can remember, but this time i didn´t really know what was going down untill like friday before. the cool thing is that i saw one of my teachers from the ccm in the temple, then we went to the cafateria and i saw a kid from my class in the ccm. so that was tight. maybe i will see him today again because we are going to a place called larco mar. its a super rich place thats in his mission. so maybe or maybe not. we are just headed there to get out of our zone and play some fútbol on the beach. should be sweet.

1st place huh. dang super sick. i want to go to st. george. . . . no i dont i want to go to san diego. ya and go to the beach. ha ha. maybe when i get home brietyn will be pro and we will be going to san diego for here dance. ya that would be sick. so brietyn work hard and when i get home have a compitition that month. awesome. ha ha

the world is changing. we are supposed to be having colder weather for a month now. last week we had like 2 days where it dropped in temp. but the days after that it was super hot. not hot like bridger has, but 95ish i think. at night it drops, but i still cant sleep under a blanket. and i have a fan (big fan) in my face all night. when i got to lima it was cold enough in the mornings to wear a long sleev shirt outside. so im sure it will get there.

about the dude in the park. nothing much has happended with him. we have visited him a couple times now, but he hasent come to church because sundays he goes and visits his family like 2 hours away and plays soccer with them. but thats alright for now because he is smart i can can see him changing soon. as for the steak counsler ya dont know anything new. but he is a punk. ha ha no not really. the crappy part about it is that his wife is our biggest help here. hopefully that doesnt go away.

but i have a better story this week. so i was way scared to not have a baptism this month we have had the goal of this week for a girl named jenifer for this week 28 of april. she is kinda iffy still so i dont know if it will happen. but wednesday we went to visit this family that we thought we were going to drop. they have been listining to the missionarys for 2 years now. we have been visiting them for 3 weeks with not much new happeing. when we went we said that we were going to invite them to be baptised. if they accepted, cool. if not we were going to drop them. the mom actually started talking about baptism first and said that she was scared that she couldnt live all the laws like tithing. i told her the story of you mom and bore my testimony about it. then she said she was going to be baptised. it was super sweet. we asked her to prepare for the 12 of may. she said no. i was confused and asked why not. she said it was to far away and wanted to get baptised as fast as possible. we had an interview with jenifer already schedualed for thursday. so we just added her in and long story short she was baptised on saturday. it was super super sweet. now we just have to baptise her husband and 1 of her daughters. the other one is already a member. so that helps the month be better. im still hoping that we have another one this week.

my zone is going to the beach today to play futbol, and no i am super white still. that means i cant play futbol that good yet, but im still better than some latins. ha ha there are kids that are crazy good. FAT kids that work me because they have been playing all their life, but ya im alright for a white kid.

as for the garments and stuff that can wait a little if you dont have time or whatever. with that package though i would like my shoe conditioner that is ontop of my dresser i believe. and some kind of chocolete. ha ha. but the jeerky was supper good. i loved it. ah crap if you can i have like 4 pair of pants that can be washed and 2 get washed every week, but it takes about a week to get the laundry back, so if you can send me some pants that can be washed so i dont have to wear the same pants for like 3 days. ha ha and maybe 2 shirts. that would be super super sweet.

thanks for everything, and for the birhtday package. the tie is super sick. i loved it.

love you all.

Elder Fenn