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.