January 25th letter

I literally just BARELY received all of grandma Neanies letters all the way back from November and I love them so much, so let her know! And I already started to write her back! I just need to finish the letter! And yes I agree it’s such a blessing that I have Sister Nelson here in the zone with me! I love her soo much she’s so awesome and her and Elder Nelson are so fun I love being with them. But yeah they are trying to make a stake here!! And our Rama (Branch) just needs more people with the priesthood! Our Rama and the Rama of Partido alto also! So yeah I think they are a little bummed out that they aren’t moving, but they are excited to help with the work here too and they understand the importance of it.

Yes, I got the foot cream and oh my goodness it has helped soooo much. It seriously looks so amazing and so much better! Thank you so much for getting that for me!

Yeah so crazy that Kalisa is getting married!!! I’m honestly so stunned but that’s awesome for her! That’s so awesome that Dan is home!! I love that kid he is such a sweetheart!!! Maryn is gonna love having him home cause he is like her hero!

On Monday I bought a hammock!! I have it in my room and if I’m still here for another change I’m gonna put it up in my house haha it was only like 20 bucks and its super cool. I was thinking of getting you guys one if you want it!!

That night we taught a family home evening at a ladies house that just moved in. They actually moved in to the same house with a less active who we are teaching! The lady who just moved in is from the other ward Aeropuerto and she is awesome. It was her birthday so there was like 3 people who shared a spiritual thought and then we shared about how we are all missionaries and can all share our testimony and then we had cake, so that was fun, but a tonnn of people were there for family home evening so it was cool!

On Tuesday we had district meeting and then afterwards we had a work visit and Snyder came to my area! You already know that we hated being with each other the entire time (; no! just kidding it was so great!! That night there was a big lighting storm but it was just lighting, there was no thunder or rain and the lightening literally lit up the whooollleeee entire sky like it was day time. It was super bizarre! Also that day we taught a lady who just recently moved here named Bessy and we thought she was a member because she told us she had assisted in Lima when she lived there but then we found out that she’s not baptized! she just loves coming to church!!! She’s sooo cute and she’s just 21 so she’s awesome and has a ton of potential (:

On Wednesday we had a service project and we cleaned Mariesol’s house because she’s been sick lately and then we went to Luzmilas house and made the sugar cookies that you sent ((: they were really good by the way so thank you. In the morning we had a conference for all the missionaries worldwide and that was pretty cool! After the conference we switched back comps. One thing that was super weird that night was that we went and visited Juanita, that cute old lady that I have pics with her and her husband, she hasn’t been coming to church because she has been sick but when we were there she was fine and when we asked her to give the closing prayer she recited a catholic prayer and she KNOWS how to pray!! All of her prayers are usually super sincere, so Satan is definitely working on her because I don’t know why the heck she is back tracking so much. I’m probably gonna visit her today though because I love her so much!!

Friday I dropped my comp at the airport! Ruiz is way cool and I’m super glad I was her comp. We literally laughed our heads off every day, usually it was at something I did or stuff I had said in Spanish but yea it was good times(;

 I’m excited to actually get a comp that’s not gonna finish her mission in just one transfer and doesn’t talk about going to the beach every other day!!!!

So yeah I’ve been staying with Gurney and Inca for the past couple days and then I work with Hermana Nelson in the evenings! I would stay at the Nelsons house but this weekend they had 97984 people at their house including the patriarch (idk how to spell that) but Hermana Nelson is awesome. Yesterday we went on a blitz in Partido alto and we searched and searched for this guy who was a menos activo and apparently the house number was wrong that they gave us and we FINALLY found him! It was a way cool lesson and he wants to come back to church so hopefully that works out! This week NO ONE came to church!! I was so annoyed cause I called them all and everything and no one came besides my converts!!! People are annoying!!! haha but its fine. But yeah that was my week basically!!

Love you guys!!

Hna Jackson

January 18 letter

 I FINALLY GOT YOUR CHRISTMAS PACKAGE and I loved every bit of it!! Your cookies worked perfectly!! They are so yummy!!!!!(: I shared them with some of the missionaries and Elder Foote who is from Idaho who is our district leader says that they’re really good and thanks (; The package was perfect and I was super happy haha and all of the peruvians love Jays necklaces. I gave them to Luzmila, Mariesol and Rocio and my comp. so thank you for everything (:

So my hair has like 3 different colors now its super weird and I’m ok with it haha.  My foot is getting better.  Luzmila has been pouring boiling water on it to kill the bacteria.  That sounds worse that it is, but it has helped.  I’ll be happy to get the medicine you’re sending cause I haven’t been able to do much contacting for a couple days.  It was painful to walk on it.

So just remember all that you have been blessed with and I will to. You are the most amazing person that I know and I can’t think about you and dad without tearing up a little bit and I am just so grateful for you guys and that I got sent to a family where we have been given so many opportunities and blessings and a family that truly loves one another. We have an amazing life and we really should be grateful for everything because I would never ever ever want to live like the people here live. Not just the conditions, but the lack of family unity and importance of living the gospel.  So go take Jaylie and go buy a cupcake at cravings and get a chocolate one for me(; haha  and go clean your feet so you don’t get a flesh eating bacteria like me(; haha just kidding, but I gotta go soon!

But I know that you are just a ray of sunshine to all those who know you mom. Everyone really looks up to you and every time I’m in relief society I think of you teaching and how good your lessons must be(;

Oh and my comp leaves this Thursday and changes are next Tuesday ugh so I’m gonna be alone again!! Hopefully I get to stay with the Nelsons again but Idk cause they are leaving to another area in like a week! Everything will work out though. love you so much!!

Hna Jackson

(I thought I’d better add a little note that her foot IS NOT a flesh eating bacteria, :) just a bad case of athletes foot/infection. Also what a tender mercy it is to have your daughter say such kind things to you or about you and express her gratitude for the things that are truely the most important in life .  Very touching to this momma, and also we got to pick up her broken camera from Sister Nelson who came back home to be with her daughter and new grandbaby for 10 days and there are some great pictures on the sd card. so here are just a few below.)

Out contacting in the rain. :) 

Their Christmas Decorations :)

Christmas lights in Tarapoto

For a girl who is terrified of bugs, I'm shocked that her hand is so

close to this Lacoocarocha  :)

View inside their apartment.

On a mototaxi with Hna's Vega, Snyder and Snyder's comp (sorry I

 can't remember her name)

View from her porch/entry on laundry day.

Visit From President Uceda - Area President Over The South American Northeast Area.

Hello family,

I seriously am so blessed to have Tarapoto be the place that I started my mission because Mariesol and Rocio are the best and I love them lots so I wanna tell you a little about them.  Luzmila is the coolest she was actually a menos activo and we just rescued her last change and now she is in the presidency for relief society. She has 5 kids and her husband is a motokarista but he is not a part of the church, I think he is evangelico so that’s a huge problem for them. But she’s hilarious and has a super sarcastic laid back personality. Mariesol is amazing. She has more faith than anyone, she has four kids and her oldest is on a mission in Bolivia. Her husband passed away from cancer about 3 years ago so it’s really sad but she is just so strong in the gospel and it’s so cool. And all of her kids are named after Joseph Smith, Hyrum, and Brigham Young haha and then Rocio is just a super cool mom and I talk the most with her because she is just a sweetheart. She has two little girls and a son and they’re family is awesome!

So this week I hardly worked in my area because my comp was with Synders comp whonwas having work done on her root canals again, and my comp is Hermana leader and has to be there for all the medical stuff.  Anyways we worked in her area and taught one of her investigators!

Good news though! This week we finally got a new investigatora! Her name is Arcely! She is 18 years old and she nannies the kids of one of our members. She is really interested in the gospel and follows up on every commitment that we give her, so we are really excited to see where she goes!!

Something suuuper cool this week though was we had Elder (President) Uceda from the 70 come and talk to us. (He is an area President) One thing that he talked about was how important it is for the latinas to study the scriptures in english because the scriptures in spanish are awesome but they are a translation and there are so many small changes that make a huge difference. He taught us also how to really read the scriptures. To take a verse and analyze it line for line to really get the meaning and to look up definitions of words, just really doing everything you can to fully understand what we’re learning.

This week I’ve been living in LAKE POWELL. Not even kidding I’ve been roasting aliiiiiive. My comp right now is in Iquitos so I stayed with the Hermanas  in Partido Alto and I’ve loved it. Hermana Gurney is from New Jersey and she’s super cool. She didn’t know any Spanish before she came here and now her Spanish is pretty good and she is just a change ahead of me so I love talking to her about the mission cause we both feel the exact same, ha.  

Oh my! So yesterday I went to church with Mariesol because we have to count all the people that we are teaching that come to church, and there was no electricity because the power was out. So it was soooo hot cause none of the fans could work and the microphone was off.  And so president goes and stands up and announces who was going to give a talk and he SAID MY NAME. HERMANA JACKSON VA A DAR UN DISCOURSO POR 5 MINUTOS. hahaha what??  Yeah so I gave like a talk on a scripture about Christ for like 3 minutes.  Apparently what happened was there wasn’t anyone there who had actually been called to give the talk and I was the only missionary there this Sunday and I guess one of the presidency had stopped by our house the night before but I was in the shower and he told this other missionary Hna Inca to tell me I had a talk but SHE NEVER SAID ANYTHING! What ??

Well that’s all for this week, remember, just keep your faith because all things will be made possible through your faith (:

Love you guys, Thanks for everything.

Hna Jackson

January 4th Email

Hey mom what’s uppp? yeah so I need to buy a new camera.... it’s not the battery that’s bad. We went to buy a charger for the battery thinking I had a bag one and they tested it before we bought it and the battery was fully charged so it’s just something to do with the camera. It just won’t turn on. We will look for a new one today. So last p-day I told you about spending the morning with Hna Snyders companion at the dentist for a couple hours before emailing and Snyder and my comp needed to turn in our numbers to the elders and then after that we planned what we wanted to do for p-days as a zone Then me and Hna Ruiz finally went and got lunch at like 4 because we hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast and that was really it!!! haha not really much of a p-day.

Hey your new years eve sounds more exciting than ours!! haha I spent mine sleeping (; or at least trying to sleep! It was actually nice.  But our neighbors were blasting dub step music until the early hours of the morning. I could feel the base in my heart just laying in my bed haha.  So on New Year’s we had to be in our house an hour early because everyone is outside drinking!  It was kind of nice to just relax a little haha, my comp called in delivery! I didn’t get anything though cause it was pollo de braso and here it’s like a super yummy meal but it’s just baked chicken to me haha so I didn’t get anything cause I already eat chicken every day of my life here (;   yeah, also everyone here loooooves to dance. And for New Years they all go to dance parties even the ward threw a dance party in the church haha but the Peruvians said it wasn’t very good because they thought the DJ was bad and they ended at 12:30 and I guess they wanted to dance for longer haha but yeah they just celebrate with super loud music and fireworks. But they use fireworks on the daily basis here. All the little kids play with them in the streets haha

So it’s me and Hermana Ruiz and a set of elders that are in the Tarapoto rama (branch).  Elder Nerdin and Elder Jones.  Sunday was fast Sunday and I think the testimony meetings here are really cool.   We have sacrament meeting and then we help with the class of principios which is for all of the new members or investigators. In sacragment meeting we are supposed to bear our testimonies if there’s ever a pause in people but in my rama there never is!! The whole time is taken up by members bearing their testimony one after another and it’s really really cool. And a lot of them are just simple truths not elaborate stories or anything but really sincerely what they know to be true. It’s awesome! And this week in church we had 130 people!! La capilla (the Chapel) was soooo full!!! And this week we fasted for our less actives and a lot of those we have been working with attended this week! Even some that we didn’t think would even come. Like this guy who lives way up above Tarapoto. He was baptized in Partido alto which is the other rama but his papers are now in our ward and he hasn’t wanted to come because he doesn’t know anyone and he’s been saying he will come for the last 3 weeks but doesn’t show up every time! And yesterday HE FINALLY ATTENDED WITH HIS SON!!!

And guess what?  Hermana Gomez is finally going to bring my Christmas package this week so I’ll get the stuff that you sent!!  It’s been at the mission home for a month. 

Well I gotta go, thanks for everything you do and if I find a new camera today I’ll have Luzmilla let you know okay!  Love you so much Mom!

Hna Jackson

* No pictures - her camera is officially toast and she wasn't able to find any worth buying so we will be sending a new one back with Sister Nelson who is coming to Utah this month to spend a week with a daughter, new grandson and her family.