Last week of this transfer!

Hi Moooooom! This week was so much better guys. On Thursday we had a work visit with Hermana Pardo! She is the comp of Snyder. She’s super cute and has one month in the mish!! She’s from Argentina and we worked in my area!! I actually love working alone in my area cause then I get to direct it and make all the plans and stuff. Anyways we taught a lady named Maria del Carmen. She’s adorable I love her. Her son is a member but he is less active but he wants to go on a mish.  So we are helping him as well. But the mom is our investigator and she really really wants her son to go on the mish because she knows it’s going to change him and help him. Her husband died a couple years ago so she is a single mom. But she is super willing to do everything to learn about the gospel!! And I invited her to be baptized this march on the 26 and she accepted!!! And she’s is preparing herself and always following up with all the homework I give her (; 

I forgot my journal so I'll try to remember ...

This week we had our room checks and that went super well!! The Nelson’s actually did the room checks and our room passed their inspection haha. Pres Gomez is super awesome though! I love him. It was good to talk to him; he really has a big heart and truly loves the missionaries here. Also me and the comp are wayyy better. We still get annoyed with each other but I know that I for sure needed to be with her this change, I honestly have learned a lot from her and I really do love her. She leaves in two days though!!! On Wednesday!!! And I’m not really sure who I’ll be staying with yet... ahhhhhhh always allllooonnne. But its fine haha

Our area is so blessed right now it’s so crazy!!! On the other work visit I found this family and now we are teaching them!! Alan and his wife Diana! She is around 20 and he’s thirty and they have one daughter who’s almost one! They have a big desire to learn about the gospel and they are progressing really fast! They came to church this week!!!(: we had 5 investigators in church this week!

Yesterday this family was pushing a make shift stroller through the dirt on this busy street, it was parents and their two kids and they had like 4 bags, and their make shift stroller was falling apart and they couldn’t really go anywhere.  We passed by them and asked if we could help them and they said no because they lived in Morales which is pretty far away from there. Well we started walking away and I started to feel really bad, so I decided to go back and pay for a motocar to take them to their house. They were sooo grateful. The dad then asked me what religion we were a part of, and it turns out that the missionaries had been teaching them a year before and they had attended church but had to stop because the dad had heart problems, but he wanted to know all of the dates and times for the church activities!  The lord really does put things in your path for a reason doesn’t he ?!?

Anyways this internet is crap, and this computer is a dinosaur so I gonna stop there(; but today we are visiting some cool waterfall!! oh yeah!! and tomorrow we are having our first baptism(: she’s a lady who has been waiting for forever to be baptized but had to have a interview with the president in order to do so, so next week I’ll have pics of that for you(: I’m really hoping I stay in this area though to see my converts Maria and Fernando get baptized!!

Ahh that would be awesome!!

Love you so so much and thanks for everything!!

Hna Jackson(:

                             Their Pensionista, Lydia, Hna Tinta, Hna Jackson :), Lydia's Mom & Fernando

With the smaller tortoise.  A families pets, not food :) She thinks,  haha

Hna Tinta and the tortoise's 

Helllllo. This week was nuts. We haven’t had the interviews with Pres Gomez yet, that will be tomorrow and our room checks also.

Oh my goodness yes I saw the new temple in Provo!! We don’t ever get to watch any of that stuff but when I’m with the Nelsons they show me and update me so it’s okay(: but yeah I wanna get married there its soooo pretty.

I haven’t seen violins or any instruments here!! Seriously just the piano in la capilla. but that would be awesome if I could find one! Maybe I’ll ask President Jimmy or something!

Okay this week was super good! My comp and I can annoy each other super bad sometimes haha but its fine and I’ve really been trying to look at her the way that Christ would and that helps a lot. Also she has taught me a lot more about being obedient so it’s all good! This week we had a lesson with one of our investigators! I think I told you about him last week. His name is Fernando and he is the Dad of our pensionista, Hermana Erika. He’s done a lot of stuff in his life that he really isn’t proud of, he wasn’t a very good father or husband but now he really really really wants to change and he realizes what he has done wrong. He is a person that Heavenly Father literally put in our hands because he is so willing. He always follows through with every commitment and remembers every single appointment that we have with him. He assists at church and he even wanted to talk with the president of our branch. And yesterday we had a lesson with him and I asked him if he would prepare himself to be baptized on the 26 of March and he said YES!! So that’s super exciting! and if I’m here for another cambio I’ll have my first baptism and my first real convert(: he’s so awesome though and he loves us so much, he just says how much he is grateful that we are willing to teach him.

This week my comp went on a change with one of the girls from the area Morales. So I was directing my area sola. I was with Hermana Valezquez and she is from Honduras but she speaks fluent English! But allllll of our appointments fell through so it was really frustrating. The night before I had made a list of all these old contact people that were in our book of references and I came across a family who the missionaries had contacted but had never returned to teach them! And the guy said he had prepared himself and read the folleto (brochure) and everything! So he and his wife, who is 20 are super excited for us to teach them because they really want to learn! We will teach them this week on Wednesday!

Another miracle this week was that a lady who’s house I was looking for on Saturday but couldn’t find, came to church on Sunday. She isn’t a member but her son is and she really wants her son to go on a mission! Her husband passed away a little while ago and she also really wants to learn about the gospel to be a better example for her son. We also invite the people to be baptized in every lesson that we teach, and she said that she was willing to be baptized!

My Spanish has gotten better this change and that makes me feel a lot better. We have really been working hard but the thing I struggle with still is just really teaching these people, it’s hard to know exactly what to say to help them. But I’m pretty good at teaching lesson one now haha , about the restoration(: 

  

Well I didn’t take very many pics this week!  So I’ll just send more next week(:

So ya, the lord is really blessing our area right now (: 

Love you lots and lots!! Thanks for everything!!!

Hermana Jackson

Aeropuerto Area

Hello mom (:

Oh my goodness this week was honestly SO much better. Throughout the week I just kept trying to think that there really are so many prayers being sent out to missionaries and it made it a lot easier to work. (Thank you everyone for your prayers, I truly needed them, we ALL need them.) Things with my companion are so much better. Sometimes we still don’t meet eye to eye but its literally so much better and we have been praying to have more charity in our service and I think this has helped us a lot. Also I know that sending my name through the temple really helped too because I know how beautiful, powerful and true the house of the lord is. The thing about the mission is that it’s really really hard to give everything you have because the mission can be really discouraging some days, but I’ve been trying to focus on working really hard to study and learn because when you give everything you have even when you’re tired then the lord makes up for the rest of our weaknesses and I saw this a lot in my lessons this week.

This week we were really blessed to find new people and families to teach, and I know it’s because our companionship was better that the Lord blessed us with opportunities. Last night we taught these two ladies who are catholic, lesson one. and they were very interested and said they were going to pray to see if the church was true. These ladies go every week to a prayer circle - its where a bunch of people meet from Tarapoto and from different religions and just pray for all the sick people and stuff -  so I know they are going to follow through with their commitment and I’m excited to hear about their answer!

This week we had one investigator come to church. My pensionista is Hermana Erika, she has 3 years as a member in the church and she is president of the relief society! She is such an awesome lady I really really adore her and look up to her. Her husband is not a member, he almost got baptized last year but his friends are really bad influences on him and he has a problem with the word of wisdom so it fell through. But Erika wants to go through the temple and receive her endowments this summer so yeah she’s just amazing. but anyways!!! The dad of Erika is our investigator, his name is Fernando. and he absolutely loved church! so hopefully he will progress(: they have a really awkward situation though because Fernando and his wife are separated but he won’t sign the divorce papers and he is living with another woman.... ugh. Peruvians.

One experience that was suuuuuper weird!! So we contacted this guy and we were about to teach him when he said that he had a gringo living with him and he wanted me to meet him! So I was oh okay yeah. So he lead us back to a little room in his house and there’s this 75 year old American living there! the guy speaks Spanish, English and Quechuwua - I have no idea how to spell that so spell check that guy please haha - he lived in the states until he was in his twenties in North Carolina or something and then he left on a mission for the catholic church and just never left Peru after that. hahaha we asked him if we could share a message with him and he got really creepy, like his voice got really impatient and angry and he said that he absolutely does not want to hear a message from the Mormon church. This guy is VERY catholic. On his tv was playing one of the catholic services haha but yeah he’s lived in Tarapoto for like 45 years and before that in a different area of Peru and here is where he wants to die. So weird!!!!!! Peru is beautiful but I would never want to live here for more than the time I have to serve my mission. I LOVE AMERICA (;

Our house is decent. The first night we were there I saw a huge rat in the bathroom and the person before us took the shower head and the toilet seat so we didnt have either of those two things for a couple days. Also we have a milllllllllllion spiders. They usually don’t bother us though,so oh well. Other than the rat and the spider it’s okay (;

Love you guys!!

Hna Jackson

And yes my foot is seriously all healed!! Thank you mommm and Dr. Rogers for being willing to prescribe me some foot meds without having to see me in person.  Which would have been pretty difficult. (;

New Area In Tarapoto Zone

Hey Mommmmm.

Wow that is horrible about Dennon. I’m so sorry to hear that, it really is a tragedy and I feel so bad for grandma too. Send her my love please. But she is so lucky to have you, Aunt Liz and Aunt Lee Ann there for her.  It’s awesome to hear how our family comes together.

This week has been super crazy. The elders in the office called me on Monday night and told me that I had changes! But I wasn’t going very far. I got changed to the branch of Aeropuerto! Its Hermana Snyder’s old area and Hermana Snyder went to my old area, Tarapoto. And the same thing happened with the elders! So basically our zone is the same we all just switched areas. And apparently changes like this happened throughout the whole mission. So we are all just opening new areas. It’s so much work.

My new comp is Hermana Tinta. She is from La paz Bolivia. And we get along good but when we have to make decisions, it’s a little annoying, only because I want to do one thing and she wants to do the other, but oh well it’ll get better !

 AND GUESS WHAT ??  THIS IS HER LAST CHANGE!!! I’m with another comp that’s going home hahaha , what in the world ? They just stick me with all the people who are dying (; that’s okay though it’s cool to have a bunch of different comps.

 This week we met a lot of the members in this branch and they are AWESOME, they always want to help us and they are super good with all of their responsibilities. Also something crazy, the president of our branch is 27 years old!! He’s so awesome!

This whole week we have been looking for a house to move into because right now we living in a hotel. It’s just a small, one room but Hermana Gomez doesn’t want us to stay there, so it’s been really stressful to try and get to know this huge new area, all the people and the members and at the same time have to find a new house AND a new pensionista. The lady that we have now is awesome, she makes American food but she is the Elders pensionista as well and I guess there was a lady in our area that remodeled her whole kitchen for us to come and eat at her house, so we were a little bummed to leave this lady. But our new pensionista is cool; she’s actually my fave lady in the ward. Her name is Erika. 

Also this week we found a new lady while we were searching for a home and her name is Palmir. She is a single mother and her only daughter lives in Lima.  When she told us about her story she just started bawling. We had felt earlier that day that we needed to pass by and talk to this lady. So it was cool to teach her and I think that she has a lot of potential.

 I am doing pretty good, but I’m a little bummed that I’ll miss Kalisa’s wedding and that I’m not gonna see her or get to be IN her wedding, cause she’s my bff.    But every day I keep trying to forget myself, so don’t worry!!  

If you could send me a cool talk next week, just a random one that you like that I could read that would be cool (: not just ones about missionary work though, got lots of those!

Well I don’t have anymore time so I’ll write you more next week (:  I will try and send some pictures but I’m not sure they will work cause we had to go to a different place to email and these computers are not very good.

I love you!

Hermana Jackson (:

Picking up Hna Snyder's new comp at the airport

Down time with a little oatmeal facial with Hna Gurney and her companion

With Hna's Inca, Snyder and Gurney