Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Dearest Family, 26 Dec 2011

Hope you all had a very Merry Christmas! It was so great to hear your voices. Congratulations Lisa and Will on the new baby girl! I can’t wait to see a picture of her. Have you named her yet?

Well, unfortunately Mario and Lixi weren’t baptized this week. We’re hoping they’ll be ready next week, along with Denia. She wants a little more time to get to know the church but she really is ready. She has such a great testimony of the gospel. She was telling us about her experience growing up going to the Catholic Church and how it never felt right to her. She said, " I wish I had met you two and learned about the gospel earlier in my life when I was a young girl." Hopefully we’ll see her baptism soon or even better with her family. We taught her mom and her brother for the first time this week. She was a little nervous about how her family would react but when we met with her mom she gave us permission to baptize her. Please keep them all in your prayers.

Love,

Hermana Jackson

P.S. Thanks again for all the Christmas gifts and treats. Mom, here’s a picture of Hermana Nava and I with our headbands in front of the tree. And the other is a picture of us and our zone leaders.

Feliz Navidad

Dearest Family, 19 Dec 2011

Feliz Navidad!!!! I hope you are all enjoying the Christmas season. I'm so exited to talk to you all this week!! So, I tried to figure out what day I can call you but my leaders said we have to wait till our meeting with the president to find out. But they told me I get to call you some time in the week for just one minute to tell you what when and at what time. It would be great if you could call me but I’ll let you know when I call you. I'm going to try to do everything I can to call you guys Saturday morning. Alright, I only have a few minutes to write. ..aahhhh! But I had a really great experience I want to share and hopefully I can write enough to do it justice. So we are teaching a girl named Denia. She is 22 years old and we set a baptism date for her this Saturday but until this week she still wasn't sure if she knew the church was true. She has been reading the Book of Mormon and praying and said she hadn't received an answer yet. So we invited her kneel down with us and pray right then and there to find out if it was true. So she did and wasn't sure. Then I asked her how she expected to receive her answer and she said she wasn't sure but maybe through a dream or something. So we explained to her what the holy ghost feels like read D and C 9:7 through 9 and while she was reading she looked at us with a surprised look on her face and said whoa! I feel like my heart got split open but it doesn’t hurt and that something warm is being poured into it. She felt the Holy Ghost and knew for surety that the Book of Mormon is true. It was a beautiful experience. Maybe I’ll write more about it next time but I’ve got to go!

Love you all!

Hermana Jackson

Monday 12 Dec 2011

Dear Family, 12 Dec 2011

How's y’all doin?! Getting ready for Christmas?! Mom, dad, do you have the tree up yet? I know it always takes a while for you to get it set up. haha. Well, i hope you are all doing well. Well, for the past few months Hna Nava and I have been teaching Keren (Sandra’s daughter) She is 17 and wasn't very receptive when we taught her and her brothers. But all of a sudden she decided to start coming to church and even seminary! They even made her secretary. And the other day she said she couldn't have us over because she was visiting less actives with the some of the youth. but she still doesn't want to be baptized ugghh! we found out that she has a different idea of how the holy ghost works so we're going teach a little bit more about that and hope that she eventually receives her answer about the book of Mormon.

Well, I’m out of time, but there's not too much new stuff to write about anyways.

Love you all!

Hermana Jackson

Some slightly sad news

Dear Family, 5 Dec 2011

Guess what… we've got a new rule and the mission that says we can't be on the internet for more than 30 minutes. That means we have to write the mission president, report our data, and our write our families in a half hour. So it’s going to be tough. My letters are going to be a lot shorter from now on but I’m going to try to prepare better so i can write more. So what I’m going to do is not read your letters while I’m on the internet. i will just take pictures of the screen and read them after. Then i will respond to what you write the next week. So if you want me to respond to something sooner, just write something in the subject and I'll read it while I’m on the internet…but if not, I'll get to it next week.

Anyways, about my week…this week was great! even though it was freezing. Even though it doesn't snow or anything here, I feel like it’s worse than Utah because they don’t have anything to heat the buildings so I have to sleep with a sweatshirt, socks, scarf...everything! haha, but this week was wonderful because we set 2 baptismal dates for a family. The Godoy family is really big and only about 2 or 3 of them are active in the church. So we went to their house to visit them and then we found out that the dad isn't a member and one of the youngest hasn't been baptized either. We talked to the dad (Mario) a bit about the church and he said that he didn't want to be baptized before because he wanted to be absolutely sure about his decision. We talked to him about baptism and also how he is the head of the family and how his family can be together and how he can recieve the priesthood if he is baptized. He was really receptive so we left him an assignment in the book of Mormon and returned a few days later. He had read the assignment and said he has a testimony of the restoration and we invited him and his daughter to be baptized December 24 right in time for Christmas! Yay! It is a miracle seeing the changes he's made and that finally this family will be united together in their faith.

Hope you are all doing well,

Love you lots!

Hermana Jackson

Hermana Jackson Monday 28 Nov 2011

Dearest Family,                                                                      28 Nov 2011
I hope you all had a fantastic giving.   There are all these smiley faces on this email but this computer is a little messed up and I can't figure out how to get it to stop doing that.  Anyways, that’s too bad that Shirley's kids were sick but I hope you all have a happy turkey day on Sunday.  (I wrote turkey day instead of the other name because i do, these weird smiley faces pop up)  But well, this week we had 2 baptisms.  Yay!  Jaime y Mario.  They are sons of Sandra who was inactive for years until the past couple of months that we've been visiting her.  She's the one in the photo with the yellow sweater.  So now she's back and active in the church and lets us teach her kids.  The only one we weren't able to baptize was her oldest, Keren.  She's the one standing next to me.  We were teaching her for a while but she had a lot of doubts about the book of Mormon and didn't want to go to church.  She started going to a different church instead and became really distant from us.  We've been praying a lot lately that she can soften heart and give it another chance.  Our prayers were answered!  She showed up to Jaime and Mario’s baptism and saw one of our pamphlets and asked if she could read it.  Then she told her mom that she wanted to go to church with the family.  After church she said she wanted to go to seminary (even though it starts at 5 am) and that she was willing to let us teach her again.  She still has a few doubts but it truly I a miracle that she has changed her mind.  We're hoping that she is our next baptism.  Also in the photo on the right is Oscar.  He is a recent convert that the elders taught.  He is the father of Sandra's 2 youngest.  He recently received the priesthood and got to exercise it for the first time with Norman's baptism and here with Jaime and Mario.  It was really special.
I know that the gospel is true and that its principles and ordinances bless families.  I'm so grateful to have been blessed to have been born into such an awesome family with all the blessings that the gospel brings.  I love you all so much!

Hermana Jackson

P.s. the other photo is of Julio.  He is one of Sandra’s youngest and likes to dance like Michael Jackson.  I tried to capture him in the act but it just doesn't do it justice.  haha


________________________________I thought I would share this note Rachel sent to me today also__________________________
 
Dear Mom,              28 Nov 2011
I'm to hear that you are still fighting the cold and I'm sad to hear about Becca too!  Poor thing!  I hope she gets better soon.  But I know she is in good hands, Dr. Mom!  Sounds like you had a lot of fun with the YSA guests.  It was fun reading about that…and also that you invited Mary Pletsch to the Training Center.  I bet she just loves it!
Well, the weather here is off and on…cold and rainy or hot and sunny.  It’s always changing.  Sound familiar?  I know Utah can be that way.  And no, we didn't get to celebrate thanksgiving here. I just tried not to think about it and get lost in the work but I really do miss our family dinners.  Also, I have some semi sad news.  I looked at my card that tells me my official date that I return from the mission and it says December 4th!  So I guess I don’t get to celebrate turkey day you guys next year. Kind of sad huh.  But that is the closest day we have transfers.  At least I get to be there for Christmas!!
Love you Mom!
Rachel

Contacting the Bus

21 Nov 2011

Dearest Family,

This Wednesday is transfers and our leaders called us last night to tell us that both Hermana Nava and i are going to stay for this one. I'm going to be with her until she goes home! She returns January 2.

So when I first got to Esperanza she told me about this tradition that the elders have here when they travel to district meetings. The other area in our district is really far so we have to take a 30 min bus ride every other week. Anyways, the elders contact the whole bus when they travel to these meetings or in other words the 2 of them ask the bus driver to turn off the music and they stand up in the front and preach to the whole entire bus. We’re talking grey hound size. So my companion was telling me she never had the nerve to do it but that she wanted to try it with me (which is funny because my Spanish is still awkward and not so good). So this Tuesday we decided to muster up the courage to try it. I was really nervous before but felt surprisingly calm when we started. All was going smooth and dandy (besides the fact that we were clenching to the overhead bars trying not to fall over while teaching as the bus was turning all the crazy curves of the mountain) but our message was going pretty well until i was talking and i saw some of the people with concerned looks on their faces yelling "Bolsas! Bolsas! Una Bolsa!" (bolsa means bag) I was a little confused. I thought. What bag? What are they talking about? Do Ii stop talking do I keep going? Uuhh.... so I stopped for a little and decided to keep going and we eventually ended. After we got off the bus Hermana Nava told me that there was a lady that started throwing up when we were teaching. haha! So I hope our attempt to preach the gospel wasn't that bad, but at least we had a good reaction from the rest of the bus. About 5 people asked for book of Mormons and we got their information. So, that’s all i have time to write about this week. It was an adventure and it strengthened my faith in this work. If we have the courage to stand up and open our mouths, the lord will bless us and give us the words and the strength that we need to do it. Words, so powerful that they make someone throw up…no, just kidding about that part. But really I know that if we have the faith, heavenly father can use us as his servants.


Love you all,

Hermana Jackson

Baptism!

Dear family, 14 Nov 2011

Mom, dad, and becca, im sorry to hear you’ve been sick lately. I hope you feel better soon! Also, I’m sorry to hear about marelen’s mam and kaleen. Isn’t it great that we have knowledge of the resurection and the life after this one. The brings such confort.

So, this week Norman was baptized! Yay!!! This man is just great! So, i guess he went to church a couple of times when he lived in the states and the missionaries taught him a few times at the beginning of the year but he didn’t progress. Yesterday, before his confirmation, one of the elders handed me an old teaching record with his name on it. The previous elders wrote, “He told us he didn{t want to go to church anymore and that he didn’t like it. That is was a lot of responsibility. Right now he doesn’t want anything from the church.” I was so surprized when I read that because the Norman I know now is so different. Also, the past 3 and half weeks we’ve been teaching him he’s quit drinking alcohol and coffee. He is punctual to all the meetings and has really showed a sincere desire to change and make god a priority in his life. Its amazing to see what the restored góspel and the atonement of jesus christ can do to the hearts of men. It was also encourging to see that seeeds were planted by missionaries before and here he is sprouting up in his own time. It made me think about all the investigatores we’ve had that haven’t accepted the góspel but that maybe they will change their mind when the time is right for them. Theres always hope. Well, thats all i have time to write today. Love you all!

Hermana Jackson


Oh, and the 2nd picture has Hermana Isis in so now you can know what she looks like. I think i’ve probably talked about her a lot.

Dear Family, 7 Nov 2011
Sorry this is another short one. This week we had to clean the baptismal font/swimming pool. Here are some pictures. Yep, that's where we baptize our investigators her. Behind the pool is the branch meeting house/ chapel. The other girl in the picture is Genis. She is a recent convert that accompanied us in lots of our lessons. She is great! This week we are hoping to baptize Norman. He is a friend of Hermana Isis. We are really happy for him. Please pray for him that everything can go well. Well, i have to get off this computer now but thanks for sending the fotos of Halloween costumes. They are awesome!
love you all!
Hna Jackson

31 Oct 2011

Dear Family, 31 Oct 2011

Happy Halloween! Sounds like you had a great Sunday! I would love to see all the costumes. Could you send me photos next week?

Well, this week Hermana Nava was feelings lost better until we ate lunch with a member and all of a sudden she got up from her seat and ran to the bathroom. She came out of the bathroom scratching her skin like crazy and walking around franticly. She said she felt like her whole body was burning like a fire. She was having some kind of allergic reaction to what we ate. Luckily Isis, the member we always eat with, is a nurse and she took us to a clinic she used to work at that could get her treated faster than the other hospitals. They gave her some kind of anti algergy medicine and now she is fine and we{re back to working!

The other week we were contacting and we found this woman named Jami who was really receptive and accepted another visit with her fiancée. Later we went to Isis’s house to eat and Jami was there sitting at her table! Jami sells avon to her and they are already friends! So we talked to her more and she started to feel more comfortable about the church and I thought everything was going great. So we show up to our appointment this week and her husband is outside working on his truck and tells us he doesn{t want anything to do with us because he is catholic and in the process of trying to get approved by the church to get married to Jami. So we left really disappointed and went on with our week. Then we were at Isis’s house again and Jami and Renee (her husband) called saying they were going to stop by. We quickly decided to kneel down and pray that they might be receptive and listen to a lesson. Dariani, Isis’s daughter gave the most sincere prayer and then they showed. At first they didn{t want to come in when they found out we were there, but eventually they did and we talked for a while. We convinced renee to let us teach a lesson and grudgingly accepted. We started teaching the lesson and I mentioned how we believe that marriage and families can be sealed for eternity. When he heard this his whole countenance changed. Then after we quoted the 1st vision he sound, “how beautiful!” it surprised me how his whole attitude had changed. Its amazing how the spirit works in the hearts of people and how this message really speaks for itself.
Love, and Prayers,

Hermana Jackson

Oct 24, 2011

Dear Family,

This key board is really messed up and the spacebar keeps sticking so it takes me an eternity to type one sentence so sorry this is going to be a short one! Thats great that you got to spend time with the king family. Send them all my love. My companion has been sick this week so we didn{t get to work a whole lot. We went to get her tested and found out she has gerardia. Pretty sad. Shes doing a lot better now but still has a bit of stomache pain So i don{t have a ton to write about but i thought you might like to see some more pictures. Here{s a picture of our apartment and the view of the hill from our window. I{ll try to send some more if i get time.

All my love!

Hermana jackson

Esperanza en Esperanza!

Dear Family, 17 Oct 2011

I’ve been transferred to Esperanza! For those of you who don’t speak Spanish, Esperanza means hope. There is definitely a lot of hope in this new area, even though there is also a lot of rain, and large amounts of mud that I didn’t even know existed! I’ve decided that mud is my new enemy. Yesterday, my foot sunk into a pit of brown stickiness and I could barely pull my leg out without it taking me shoe! So, yeah, this place is way different than the scorching heat of Comayagua. It’s more mountainous and definitely colder! I really love it though. It’s beautiful. I tried to take a picture of the view from our window this morning but there was too much fog so I’ll have to send one next week. But here is a picture of my new companion Hermana Nava. She is 39 years old and is from Mexico. She has 7 siblings serving missions right now! Crazy huh?! She told me that she was the first to go and set the example for the rest of them.

So here in Esperanza, we have a small branch. On Sunday, I had to speak in Sacrament Meeting and lead the hymns, teach primary, and Sunday School! Whoa! It’s going to be a new challenge, but it’s been a good experience. I have felt a big change in myself with this new companionship and new area. I feel like I’m starting to reach potential that I didn’t know I had. For example this week, I met my new investigators and gave 3 different lessons with them, I felt prompted to invite them to be baptized. All of them said yes! It blew me away! My faith in the power of the Holy Ghost is growing and my confidence also. Even though I don’t speak Spanish very well, I’m learning that I can still be of use to Heavenly Father. It’s amazing what the Spirit does to people. Last night we were teaching a girl named Keren. She is 17 and her mom is inactive but recently came back last Sunday. In our lesson, they had a lot of questions about her dad who is dead. We taught the plan of salvation last time and they had some time to ponder it and we answered their questions about the Spirit World. Hermana Nava felt prompted to tell them that her dad is in Spirit Paradise right now praying for her to accept this gospel. The Spirit was really strong and we hadn’t really taught anything we planned on teaching but I decided to ask her "will you follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized?" Before I even finished the invitation she burst in to tears and nodded her head and said yes. She left the room for a bit because she couldn’t speak. The Spirit was overwhelmingly strong! I was so surprised by her reaction. I didn’t realize how much the Spirit had prepared her for this step in her life. It was a beautiful moment. Heavenly Father truly guides us to the people who are ready.

Love you all!

Hermana Jackson

Dear Family, 10 Oct 2011

Mom and Dad, that’s great that you had the Lambs over for dinner. They really need that friendship. Keep it up! Sounds like you had a lot of fun with Morgan Jean and Shannon. Thanks for sending the package. I´ll send a list of things for Christmas later.

So, we taught the 8 American girls again this week. It’s so weird teaching in English because Hermana Alvarado and I have really swapped roles. It’s also strange using church vocab in English because sometimes I can’t remember words in English like priesthood. Haha! But it’s really fun and these girls are really special. Last time one of the girls told us that she thinks that God sent us to them for a purpose and she is willing to listen because she thinks we have something that will help them. When she told me that I just wanted to shout,“Yes! You have no idea how important this message is!” It’s going to take some time with them because they are very involved in their church but they are open to listening and reading the Book of Mormon. The sad thing is that I won´t be here to teach them. That’s right I´m going to be transferred. This week! I don´t know where I’m going yet but I will find out this Wednesday. I´m going to miss this area and the members and my investigators but I’m excited for the change.

So, we set two baptismal dates this week! The first one was for Hermano Walter. He looks like Chrisian Bale but a Latino version. It’s weird. But he accepted a baptismal date but he didn´t go to church last time so we made plans to stop by his house in the morning to invite him. So yesterday we were on divisions and I went to his house and his cousin let me in the house. I didn´t realized he was sleeping in the hammock in their living room. He started waking up when I walked in and I did my best in my broken Spanish. I said “Buenos dias!” and then said something like “Are you going to go to church this morning?” He looked really disoriented and confused as to why I was there. My temporary companion was a 19 year old from the ward and she didn´t say anything so I continued to try my best. “It starts at 9. Ok? Alright, we´ll be seeing you there!” It was super awkward! It’s one thing in English but in Spanish...ahhh! Hhhaaha. He probably won´t remember half of it anyways.

So we had a baptism for Melisa. She is the daughter of an inactive and she is 13 years old. Her baptism was really beautiful. Yesterday I asked her how she felt after she was baptized and she said “Senti un gran alegria en mi corozon!” which translates to something like a great joy or feeling of happiness in my heart. She later told me she wants to serve a mission. After hearing that I had a gran aleria en mi corozon too! There is nothing happier than hearing something like that!

Also, last night we found the sweetest family, couple and their 2 year old daughter. They live in a tiny room without windows and it’s about the size of an office cubicle. There were no chairs and no bed, just a blanket on the floor. At first they didn´t want us to come in because they were ashamed of the living. We started teaching them the first vision and the spirit was so strong and they were really receptive. At first I felt really bad for them but while being in there I had the strongest impression of how happy this couple was and how they were truly humble. Hermana Alvarado told me she felt the exact same thing. These people here are amazing. They´re such good examples to me and I hope I can help them receive the fullness of the Gospel.

Love you all! Hermana Jackson

What a week!

Dear Family, 2 Oct 2011

Did you all just love conference?! I´m sure you did but maybe not as much as I did. No, just kidding. But this was one of the most special conferences I’ve experienced. I will admit that I was praying I could get the chance to listen to it in English. It’s just so much better hearing it from the source and actually understanding everything they´re saying. When we got there Saturday morning the Elders were getting a TV set up in English but the problem was that I was the only sister that spoke English and I’m not supposed to be alone. The elders started making phone calls to see if I could get permission to be with the Elders by myself. So I started to worry and prayed a lot that I would be able to. It was 3 minutes before starting and I still didn´t have permission but the Zone Leader got ahold of the President just before it started and he said I could go! I know it might sound like a little thing and that I should have been so worried about it but I felt so relieved and grateful just like President Monson said when he found his 5 dollar bill or the other speaker who mentioned his experience finding the quarter to buy chicken. Heavenly Father is very much aware of us and loves us so much that the things that the little things that are important to us become important to Him. So during the first session during the beginning of President Packer´s talk, the power went out and we didn´t get to watch the last bit. But we were able to watch the other 3 without problems. Going through all of this made me so much more grateful for the opportunity to listen and I realized what a privilege it is to listen to our Prophet’s voice. Overcoming all of these obstacles made me so much more appreciative attentive. I soaked up every word in contrast to before the mission when I was a little more casual about the event. I also received really specific answers to questions about my investigators. At the beginning of this week we were contacting in the evening and came across a house of 8 college age girls that only spoke English. 4 of them are from the U.S., 2 from England 1 from Jamaica and the other from some island in the Caribbean. They are all here serving at a school teaching English. They were really receptive and had a TON of questions. The second time we taught them they had a bunch of really tough questions about the fall and it really tested me. I´ve learned a lot in the Book of Mormon this week and I think the Spirit helped me out a lot but I felt more motivated to study diligently and understand our doctrine better. The girls weren´t trying to bible bash or anything just asked a lot of whys that I wasn´t able to answer.

I´ve got to go now but I’ll tell you more about them later.

Love you all!

Hope you enjoy the photos, I’ll have to explain those more next week too!

Hermana Jackson

Mon, Sep 26, 2011

Dear Family,

This week we went to Marcala for a training with the President. He basically called us all to repentence and it was really intimidating but good. I learned alot from him. Afterwords, our group got to eat together in a resturant near by. I sat next to an elder who told me about all the scary things he had eaten on his mission so far. He said he ate frogs, rats, turtle and bats! eeew! luckily i haven´t encountered any of those and i hope i never will!

This week we had a baptism for Joseline. Yay! She is really special. Her mom is Hermana Lorena who we baptized a few weeks ago (she´s in one of the pictures holding the baby). In the beginning she wasn´t interested in the church but the week after Lorena and gabby (her sister) were baptized, we were in their house teaching them a lesson and all of a sudden Joseline told us she wanted to be baptized too. It was such a tender mercy! So saturday was her batpism and it was super stressfull becasue she showed up an hour late and pretty much everyone else showed up somewhere in between and the bishop who was supposed to baptize her, didn´t show up at all! But don´t worry, we found another priestood holder that was able to perform the baptism and it went really well. Hermana Aurelia, one of our recent converts (pink shirt on the right) spoke at her baptism. I was a little nervous for her becasue she can´t read and i wasn´t sure how it would go for her, but it turned out to be a really beautiful talk. Also, Lorena bore her testimony after Joseline was baptized and the spirit was so strong. She has such a powerful testimony and so much faith. Also hermana Karen was the other speaker. She was inactive right before i came and now she is really active in the church and is our number one go to person to accompany us during lessons. It was really beautiful to see all of these women together in one room and witness their progress and how much their testimonies have grown.

Hope you all are doing well and getting excited for conference this week becasue I sure am!

All my love,

Hermana Jackson

Running with the bulls

Mon, Sep 19, 2011

Dear Family,

This week we had a TON of rain! It was crazy. One night Hermana Alvarado and I were walking home at night and it was raining especially hard. So much that there were rivers in the streets. Some people were sweeping the water off of the side walks to keep it from getting in their homes. Cars drove by and waves of water soaked us to the waist. When we were crossing the streets Hermana Alvarado was up to her knees! And then the lights went out. It was pretty rough. but the rain has calmed down a lot now and its all good. That same day we had another crazy experience. I know that the girlies like hearing about my animal encounters so heres another one for you. We were walking down a narrow path to go to an appointment when a man and his herd of about 10 or 12 toros came walking behind us. They started to get kind of close so we started walking faster because we both are afraid of them. Then they started running towards us for some reason! Why, i don´t know, but we started running too! I felt like I was in spain, running with the bulls! Eventually we came to a corner and turned away but we were really out of breath. haha. Oh the animals here. Such an adventure.

So, we´ve been teaching two families that are related and one of the husbands, Amilcar, has a baptismal date but his wife has never attended church. We want to baptize them together so we´ve been trying really hard to get her to come. The other sunday, she finally came! We were in the basic principles sunday school class and all was going well. I usually hold my breath in there because all sorts of crazy can happen with people who have random questions but we want to stick to the basics for the sake of the other investigators. So sure enough, dagoberto threw the teacher a curve ball and asked "does Heavenly Father have a wife too?" A good question but not what we wanted to talk about. The bishop happened to be teaching and explained that we believe that he does. Well, Hermana Ana did not like that at all. She said she had never heard of that and was really bothered by it. We´re praying that she can pray about it or let it go and focus more on the more important doctrine. We have to women we are teaching that have baptismal dates. One is Joseline for this saturday and the other is the daughter of an inactive. Her name is Melissa and she is 13. We´re also praying that things go smooth and that they can continue to progress. Also the, women in the photo I sent were Lorena and her daughter gabriella and her sister Reina. They are still going strong in the church. We´re really happy for them.

Hope you all have a good week. Love you lots!

Rachel

ps. here

and here´s a picture of hermana karen, a member that we recently started coming back to church. she goes on visits with us alot. She´s great! and yes, me with my ubrella as always. President says i have to always use it to protect my pale skin from the son. So i basically feel like marry poppins all the time.

12 Sep 2011

Dear Family, 12 Sep 2011

First of all Happy Birthday Brian and Ruth! I hope you have great birthdays! And dad, snail mail is just as good as dear elder. Thanks! So yesterday Dagoberto came to church again! Yay, that’s 3 times in a row. And he´s been reading every reading assignment I give him in the Book of Mormon. The only problem is that he is not in our area and he is supposed to attend another chapel. And the Elders need to be teaching him and not us. But he says that he wants us to teach him. It’s a bit of a problem. We´re praying he can become detached from us and accept the Elders. This week Honduras celebrated something called Children’s Day. It’s basically where all the kids get to have a party. Luckys! I think you should all get this tradition started in the US so it’s in full swing when I get back. So this week I started to get a cold. One night it was giving me a really hard time. We went back to the house so I could take some Airborne and I was so tempted to stay and rest because I was not feeling well! But I decided to give it a go and we got a reference from one of the members who is 14. Her friend just had a baby and it’s been pretty hard on her mom. We shared the restoration message with her and her husband and they were really touched by it. It was really rewarding. I know that the Lord blesses us when we make sacrifices. Sacrifice brings forth the blessings of heaven. I’ve learned that a lot this week.

Ok, gotta go.

Sorry so short!

Love you all!

Hermana Jackson

And here’s a photo of the women we baptized the other week. I’ll try to explain more next time!

5 Sep 2011

Dear Family, 5 Sep 2011

Thanks for the emails. I love hearing from you all! But sometimes I don´t have time to read them as thoroughly as I would like. Do you think you could copy and paste what you write to me in a dear elder so I can eventually read with more time to enjoy it? Keep the emails coming though. I love hearing the recent updates. And Dad happy birthday!!!! I realized that it was coming up after last week’s e mail. Sorry I didn´t send you wishes earlier but it sounded like a lot of fun. And send my wishes to George too! How awesome that Becca got to go on the boat! That’s so fun.

Ok, so I’ve got 5 minutes now. Sorry this is going to be a shortie but here´s the latest.

We had cambios last week. I don´t even remember that missionary term in English but yeah, turns out I’m here in Comayagua another 6 weeks. I’m happy about that. This area is great and the members are wonderful. Although we do a ton of walking. All of our visits are super far from each other. Our zone leaders suggested this week that we look for a new house or apartment closer to our work. So we’ve been doing a little house hunting lately. Also we had 3 baptisms this week! We were not expecting that one, but the lord has his plans and opens the way for his children to receive these important covenants in their lives. We baptized Hna Lorena and her daughter and her sister Hna Reinita. I have lots of pictures from this week but can´t send them on this computer. Hopefully next week. Also we did splits for the first time this week where I went on my own with a member. I thought I was going to die because I had to lead the way and remember where people lived and direct the lessons and all that. And I had to prepare one of our investigators for their baptismal interview. Scary! But it ended up being a good experience and my temp. companion was really good.

Well, that’s all I have time for today, but I’ll try to write more next week.

I’m glad to hear things are going well and I love you all!

Hermana Jackson

Tegucigalpa

Dear Family, 29 Aug 2011

This week we went to Tegucigalpa for a meeting with the trainees and trainers. I got a big stack of mail from all that has been collecting since July. It was like Christmas reading all of your letters! Thanks! I’ll try to responds as soon as I get time.

So we left for Tegucigalpa early Wednesday morning. We woke up at 2:45. I wanted to die! But I got over it. But I was super tired on the bus and I fell asleep for a little while. When I woke up I looked to my left and saw a new man sitting next to me. "Tengo sueno?" he asked me. "Mucho!" I responded. He asked about my tag and I told him I was a missionary and he said he had met some before. Then we got to talking and I pretty much gave him the first lesson! We talked for about and hour and half and I realized, hey, I’m having a full on conversation in Spanish! He had to help me with a few words and his Spanish is much more clear and enunciated than most people here, but it made me feel good. But what made me feel even better was what we talked about. I started teaching him about the Book of Mormon and he showed a lot of interest! He also showed a lot of interest in me which made me worry a little (men here are not hesitant to say what they think of you) but I brushed his compliments aside and kept talking about the Book of Mormon. He showed sincere interest and desire to learn more. From the questions he asked me, it sounds like he is really spiritually prepared to hear this. It made me so happy! For example, while I was reading the intro to him it said something about asking the Lord to know if it is true. He asked me, “How can I get an answer?” So I started to explain how we pray and feel the spirit. Then I asked him how he felt as I was talking about the Book of Mormon and our Church. He paused and told me, "When I hear people talk, I listen to their words but I also watch their face as well to see if they are lying or being sincere. When I look into your eyes, I know that you are not lying to me. There is a pureness that tells me that you are being sincere and that what you’re saying is true." This just blew me away! I didn’t realize I could communicate that just with my face. It was also almost word for word what Bishop Barrett promised me the night I was set apart to be a missionary. He told me that people would be able to see the light in my eyes and come to know the truth. I never forgot that but it was really cool to see it happen. Sometimes I think we really underestimate the power that is in us to share this light that we have. It gave me so much hope and a lot more confidence to keep pressing forward and trying even if I feel discouraged when I can’t express what I want in Spanish. So, I gave Dagobierto a pamphlet and some reading assignments written down. He said he had a Book of Mormon from years ago but he wasn’t sure where it was and that he would look for it. He also committed to come to church. And guess what... he did! And he had read everything. And he stayed for all 3 meetings. It was great. My first contact on my own! But then we found out that he doesn’t live in our area so the Elders have to teach him instead. I hope he gives them a chance.

Ok, got to go. Times up.

Love you all!

Hermana Jackson

Barely got to write!

Monday, August 22, 2011

Dear Family,

Well, it was quite the struggle to write you today! First, Hna alvarado and i encountered a big black bull in the path on our way to the stake center to email. It did not want to let us cross! Hna alvarado started throwing rocks at it and i was scared that it was going to get angry and charge us! but eventually it left. Then I got to the computer and wrote my entire letter to the president and when I sent it, the website was down and lost everything! So i had to write it again and now I only have 10 minutes to write so i´m sorry this is so short!

So last week we baptized Hermano Nacho. Yeah, thats right Naaacchooo! like nacho libro haha. But he is a great man! His wife, hna gladis was a member but inactive for a while. the hermanas before helped her to get active in the church again and helped them towards marriage. so last week we got to witness their wedding. I´ll send a picture of that. And then the same day he was baptized. This week we had 2 more baptisms! We have been really blessed. One of them is hna Yaemi who is 12. She is so sweet! Then there´s Hna Aurelia. We had plans to baptize her earlier but she left town and then started having some doubts. but with lots of prayer, she finally got a confiramtion that it was right, We are really happy for her. Even better was that she was able to get a recommend right after to attend the temple dedication of el Salvador. It was really incredible. Elder Eyering spoke and the spirit was incredible stong. He talked about the joy we will feel being with our families in the celestial kingdom and that all of the is possible becasue of the sacred covenants made in the temple. It made me think of you and of how blessed i am to have such an beautiful loving family and i know that those blessings are availlable to us. He went on to talk about how when we feel that joy, we have a stronger determination to serve the lord with all of our heart so that we can enjoy those blessings. Remember the eternal perspective and all that we do in this life becomes more meaningful. Also, during the dedication, they mentioned Carlos Rivas and thanked him for all of his work to make it possible for the construction of the temple and the dedication. It made me think of that one time he was talking to us at shirleys house about his experience finding the land. Do you remember that Shirl? mom and dad too. You were there. Anyways, i´ve got to run. No time left. So sad. But i love you all!

Hermana Jackson

Monday, August 15, 2011

Dear Family,

Its sounds like things are carryiing on as before. Grandkids still crazy and running around the house every sunday. Thats too bad about the wasps. and your knee dad. i hope it gets better soon! And mom, thats great that you found the ¨pot of gold¨ in the dumpster. haha! Keep at it!

So this week hermana alvarado and i were walking to a members house when we saw a woman and her children on the side of the road net to a big mound of dirt filling these little bags with dirt. They were right next to a nursery kind of place with lots of plants and trees so i´m pretty sure thats what they were for. So hna alvarado asked if she could use some help and the woman kindly accepted. So we got down in the dirt with our skirts and all and dug in! It was actually kind of fun. We would fill a bag and her son would pack it down. We talked to her and got to know her while filling the bags. When we finished, we asked her if we could come by another time to share our message with her and she agreed. So the next day we returned and taught her family and we were really blessed because her sister with her own kids came by at the same time and listened to our message too!

The other night we went to a house of one of our investigators but they weren´t home so we started tracting near by. By this time it was pouring rain! We hadn´t had any success until i saw one house with its door opened a little . Hna alvarado made me initiatethis one so i was a little nervous. i knocked an said ´buenas!¨ and a little onld lady started walking to the door. All i had to say was ¨hola hermana, como esta? and she just started talking away and let us right in. We started teacing and within minutesit stated raining really hard. All the homes here have roofs made of metal so when it rains hard it gets really loud inside. it always seems to hapen at the most inconvenient moments. So i´m talking and its getting louder and louder to the point where i couldn´t even hear myself talk! and i wass literally yelling in spanish hoping she could understand me. Then i asked her if she could hear me nad she said yes so i hestatingly continued. Eventually we waited for it to calm down. While it was slowing down, she started singing to us. I know that it sounds kind of random an strange she would just sxtart singing but for some reason it was one of the most beautiful moments i´ve had while being here. Even though she was an older woman, she had the most smooth beautiful voice. In contrast to the tumultous ranistorm pattering on her tin roof we sat in complete peace as she seranaded us with her soothing song. She is a great woman. she has a lot of faith and almost everything she talks about she relates back to God and how he has blessed her life. She said she felt really blessed that we came to visit her that night. We asked if she would come to church but she hesitated becasue she has heart problems and can´t walk much. So we´re going to try coming by in a taxi to bring her and we hope she decides to make the effort.

So we had a marriage and a baptism this week but i don´t have any time left to tell you about it! Next week. and i´ll send pictures too.

love you all!

Hermana jackson

Happy August!

Monday, August 8, 2011

Dear Family,

Thanks so much for the e-mails! I love hearing from all of you. Rex and Emily, congrats on moving into your new house. Thats great! Dad, it sounds like you've had a great time. Wisconson, boating, that is so fun! i would love to see pictures (yeah, we're allowed to have them sent to us) Mom, I hope the geneology conference went well. I admire your diligence in seeking the spirit in you work. Your work really is missionary work. Keep it up!

Since i dont much time, I'll just give a quick synopsis of the week. President Flores assigned his daughter to be a trio with Hermana Alvarado and I this week. She is 17 and serving as a "mini misionera" for just a week. We're not sure why he wanted her to be with us since I've only had 2 weeks in the field and she's training me. I felt bad because she had to take care of both of this week and do most of the work as usual since we don't really know whats going on. But it has been really good. Hermana Flores is wonderful and she's given me a lot of hope about the language. Her english is really good so it was nice to be able to communicate thoroughly and expresss my self in english a little bit.

I experienced my first babtism this week! Yay! Kimberly and Alexandra. There mom is a recent convert but has been able to make it to church very much so we had the chance to teach them. Kimberly is 15 and Alexandra is 12. I'm so happy for them! Even though I can't communicate with them we've really connected. They are darling. I'll try to attach a photo if I have time. It was interesting preparing the baptism because someone left water in the font from a month ago and it was all nasty. Because the drain is on the bottom, hna alvarado had to walk down in the water and stand on it for a long time to drain because it was broken. Eww! Poor thing. haha.

Well, I'm grateful for the privelage I have to be apart of this work and to learn more about the gospel and share it with others. I'm so grateful we have a loving heavenly father that wants all of his children to enjoy his blessings.

Love you all!

Hermana Jackson

p.s. hrmna flores is the one on the left in black and white and alexandra is the shorter one in white. kimberly is the taller.
also, the other 2 pics are the streets that we normally walk home on after emailing but we obviously had to take another route. Crazy eh?!

Mas photos

1st typical homes in the area close to where we live

other two are from the bethancourt area

Photos

1st Jose and I. He is the recent convert that has given us tons of referrals and teaches with us almost every day. he is amazing!

2nd The view behind a house of a new family we found this week.

3rd Youth from the ward activity this week and jose´s mom on the left. She is so adorable!

4th My drenched dress at the end of the day!

Lots of Rain

Monday, August 1, 2011

Dear Family,

I hope you got my last emails. I didn´t get any from you this week. Hope everything is ok. Well, its been another week of hard work. We walk up in los laureles almost every day. Los laureles is an area that has a ton of hills and is more countrysideish. It is beautiful! I wish I could take a picture of it but I can´t take my camera out on any other day but p day. This week I was lucky because we had a ward activity and our district leaders told us we could bring our cameras with us that day so i got the chance to take some pictures of the bethancourt area. I´m getting a lot of exercise here. We go all over the place! During the ward activity it starting POURING and we got soaked! i´ll try to link a photo if i have time. We´ve had a lot of rain lately. I washed my laundry this week and it took FOREVER! It made me really grateful for washing machines. I feel like some of my clothes turned out dirtier than what they started as after being on our clothes line, but whatever. Better get used to it.

I killed my first cokroach this week. He was a big one. I´m getting used to the bugs though. Its been funny being in homes with animals crawling around. This week my companion and I were teaching in a home and during the prayer, their duck started nibbling on my leg. I had to hold back from laughing in the middle of the prayer. Yeah, its been interesting, but i like it. Last night I saw glow worms for the first time. They were so cool! Mostly what I love about this place is the people here. They really are just so friendly and loving. I´m starting to get to know the members better. At first all of the names were just a blurr. Since this is such a big area, there are so many people to keep track of. At first I really struggled to know whos name was what and what their situation was. My trainer goes really fast and starts explaining our plans in spanish and i had a hard time understanding who was who. I´m starting to get it down. We have 4 baptismal dates set. We were going to have a baptism last week but she decided she needed to leave town last minute so that was sad. But hopefully we´ll get another date set up for her. We´re also teaching teaching to girls who´s mother is a recent convert. They have made a lot of progress. Our other investigator is a daughter of a recent convert to but she didn´t make it to church yesterday so we´re praying she can continue to come. (she lives really far) We´re also teaching a man Nacho. He will be married soon so that he can be baptized. His wife to be is a recent convert. ´We´ve spent a lot of time trying to get their marriage papers ready to go. I´ve learned a lot this week and my testimony of the restored gospel is growing. You really do internalize things more when you teach them. Even though I stumble on my spanish a ton during our lessons, i´m grateful i get the chance to share my testimony. They can at least understand the spirit of my message if the rest of it doesn´t make sense. These people have a lot of faith and they are such great examples to me. At times i´ve felt in a panic about not being able to speak spanish or understand what these people are saying, but the Lord has blessed me with peace and hope. I learning to really put my trust in the Lord and humble myself to let him make what he wants with me.

Well, I hope all is well and hope to hear from you next week!

Love,

Hermana Jackson

More pics

The first pic is a photo of one of my legs. I got EATEN by the mosquitos my first day!






second is the expression on my face that describes how i felt after my first full day of walking out in the field.




3rd is a pic of part of the neighborhood and last is a little chicken that happened to be walking around. Tons of farm animals in peoples homes!

Estoy in Honduras

Monday, July 25, 2011

Dear Familia,
Ok, once again, i don´t have a lot of time because i had to get my emai set up here everything so sorry this isn´t as long as I´d like it to be. So, yeah. We flew to El Salvador as a connecting flight to get to tegucigalpa. it was lovely. We weren´t there for very long but I thought shirley would be happy to hear that i´ve been to her mission. one more country to put down on the list. check! So, now I´m here in Honduras. I´ve survived the first few days! its been tough but i´m sure i´ll get the hang of it some day...I hope. My entrenadora is Hermana Alvarado. She is from Guatemala and she speaks some English. Yes! Tender mercy! I still don´t know whats going on half the time becasue she explains everything in spanish most of the time unless i know she said something important, i ask her to repeat it in english. Sometimes we have a hard time communicating, but its getting better. My area is called Comayagua. Its one of the biggest areas so we do A LOT of walking! They also say its one of the hottest, so pretty much i´m sweating all the time and i´ve come to terms with the fact that i need to get used to sitting in my own sweat all the time. We live in a house that is bigger than i expected it to be. it has 2 bedrooms and bathrooms but its just us that live there. We can only use on light in our apartement because we have to pay for the electricity bill so its really dark most of the time. This week I took my first bucket shower. Yipee! Its not as bad as i thought it would be. This area has quite the variety of homes. We live more int the cityish area but often we walk out in the hills and countryside where people live in really humble living conditions. I expected to see dirt floors and such but its different when you actually walk into someones home and get to know the people. hermano jose lives in this area and his home has nothing to it really but he is sooo amazing! he is a recent convert and is so involved with the missionaries and gives us a new referral every day. We found two new families today and set a baptismal date. We also had a ton of people come to church. my companion said that this week was unusually successful so that was really neat to see all these people progressing. Something i´m really surpized with is how accepting of the message these people are. All most anyone will let us into their home and treat us like they´ve always known us. The people are very friendly and open. I really admire their faithfulness and willingness to accept the gospel. I really don´t know how i would react if two strangers showed up at my door. i´d probably close the door on them. but these people are so great. I´m really grateful for the oportunity i have to be here. I know that heavenly father is aware of me and my needs and he knows my potential and what things I´m capable of doing as his servant. its hard for me to see my potential and capabilities, but i know that in his hands, i can do whatever he wants me to do. I know that he loves us and wants us to progress and be happy. I know that this gospel is to teach us how to be like Him and be happy. I have a tetimony that when we keep his commandments, even when it doesn´t seem logical, he blesses us so much. Hopefully i can prepare more to write next time and give you a little more, but i´ve got to go wash my laundry (by hand!)

Love you all so much! Thanks for your prayers.

Hermana Jackson