Monday 29 Oct 2012

Dear Family,                  29 Oct 2012

Ok, so this is a picture of Merlin that got baptized.  She has basically taught herself the gospel by reading the book of Mormon on her own and we would leave pamphlets with her in the bread store and answer her questions.  One day she had an appointment with the elders to teach her the Plan of Salvation but a problem came up and she wasn´t able to get there on time.  But she was really anxious to know about it and she also wanted to know more about baptisms for the dead.  We explained a little bit about the Spirit World and Heavenly Father´s plan for his children.  While we were explaining she stopped us and said "So, that means I’m going to see my grandmother again?"  We answered with confidence that she would.  Her eyes watered a little and then she asked "And my aunt?"  We assured her that she would be able to see her too.  She smiled the biggest smile with tears of joy in her eyes.  I felt so privileged to be able to share that with her and see the hope and joy that the Gospel is bringing into her live.

Let us not take for granted the precious blessings that are promised to us through Gods plan of salvation.

Have a good week.

Love you all,

Hermana Jackson 

22 Monday 2012

22 Monday 2012 

Ok, I'm sorry this is going to be such a short letter but I only have like 4 minutes.  Edgar went to Church again and wants to be baptized but he’s still not sure about a date.  There is a family in our Ward that owns a bakery and one of their workers started showing a lot of interest in the gospel. Her name is Merlin.  She started reading the Book of Mormon and going to Church on her own and the family gave her name as a referral to the Elder in her area but they never got around to visiting her.  But we started teaching her little by little every time we stopped by the store.  She was baptized on Saturday.  I have a really sweet story about her that I want to tell you but I’ll have to leave that for next week.  Sorry!

Love you all!   Rachel

15 Oct 2012

Dear Family,
Hope you´re all doing well.  Especially Dad.  Ya´ll take care of him ya hear?! 
Yesterday, Edgar came to church again.  Edgar is 18 years old and he lives with his Aunt who is catholic and his parents are catholic too. We've only taught him a couple of times but he has showed a lot of interest in the church.  Unfortunately his family doesn´t support him very much and its really hard for him to get permision to leave.  Yesterday he traveled 40 minutes in bus by himself to get to church.  He still doesn´t feel completely comfortable with everything that goes on at church because he´s not used to it but I really admire the sacrifices he´s made to be there and to learn more despite all of the challenges he faces.  

Love you all!

Hermana Jackson

Monday 8 Oct 2012

Dear Family,                                                        8 Oct 2012

     Wasn´t conference just great!  I loved Elder Uchdorf and Elder Holland´s talks.  Elder Holland gave a talk really similar to that in the MTC and its one of those famous shake up the missionary talks that we see a lot in the misión but he just this versión was a Little different.  I love it.  It made me reflecto on how I want to be when I get back.   I want to keep the good habits I’ve learned in the misión and use them for the rest of my life.

     So a few of our investigators went to conference.  Jacobo went with Nancy and Edgar went to both sessions on Sunday.     Edgar is a new investigator that we found this week. His friends invited him to church but they realized that he doesn´t live in their Ward boundaries so they took him to our Ward last Sunday.  We only taught him the first lesson but the spirit was really strong and he seems to be really spiritually prepared to hear about the restoration.  He says he´s looking for a church to join right now.  After watching conference he asked if he could serve a misión.  I think he was really inspired by the messages.  We didn’t get the chance to talk with him much after but we´ll ask him more about his experience on Wednesday when we teach him.

     Hope you all had a great week.

Love,

Hermana Jackson

1 Oct 2012

Dear Family,                                                       1 Oct 2012

Cynthia was baptized on Saturday and confirmed yesterday!  She seems to be very happy.  I will attach a picture of her and of Josue (her boyfriend who is a member of the church) Zulma went to the Relief Society broadcast with us on Saturday.  I think she was a little confused by some of the stuff like Visiting Teaching and the pioneers but at least she could feel the Spirit.   She has told us she wants to be baptized but that she doesn’t know when.  She is the process of praying to get an answer.  A few weeks we had a multi zone conference with Elder Duncan (an area authority).   He talked to us about giving a teaching record to our investigators for their own copy so that they can see what they need to accomplish before being baptized.  It’s actually really helpful because Zulma was able to go through and tell us what principles she doesn’t understand yet for example she asked, “What’s the resurrection”  or they can ask us to teach about something they want to learn more about.  It’s been good for her to have a vision of her progress before baptism to help things move along.  Her boss has showed a lot of interest too so we’ve started teaching her these past few weeks.  But she has a lot of crazy questions about the Church like…”Why does the Prophet have body guards?” and other interesting stuff like that.  We’ve been trying to keep things simple and direct it back to the basics to not confuse Zulma.

Well, hope you are all doing well and that you enjoy Conference this weekend.

Love,

Hermana Jackson