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