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