This is gonna be a short little guy this week!!!

This week we have just really been trying to work with Lorena and Jose! Jose told us that he knows that the CHURCH IS TRUE and that he wants a live in the celestial kingdom with his whole family(: but they have not committed to the date the 29 that we extended to them because he says that he wants his wife to also do her part and that she also receives a testimony that the church is true. We have been teaching them separate because Lorena has been working night shift and she leaves right when José gets home! But this week her schedule is normal and we will be able to teach them together! Its seriously so crazy cause José was the most devoted catholic ever haha and like the second visit he totally hid from us! haha but because they’ve been reading the BOM they’ve just completely softened their hearts and know that the gospel is true. loooooove seeing peoples conversions!

I think I told you we are teaching this little alcoholic named E… haha he is super cool but he likes to drink a lot and this week he missed church cause he went out to drink.. Ugh. But we did a service for him on Wednesday! We cut all of his grass with machetes’... it was the worst hahaha I had a huge blister on my hand by the end of the service!!! Poor Hermana Jackson I know(;

Yesterday at church, me and my comp gave talks and literally EVERYONE was sleeping!!! It was incredible!! I was like, what in the world I am just talking to myself right now. haha so that made us a little bummed cause the ward kind of stinks right now and people aren’t coming even though we visit a million less actives all week. 

But the upside is that I’m good and healthy. The most important thing is la salud..(health) that’s what all the Peruvians here say(;

haha love you!!!

Hermana Jackson

Goodbye to darling Hna Soto who I just love. She is from Chile.

Received Aunt Liz & Uncle Paul's Pkg.  Sooooo Happy! 

A sister from Cusco built her oven out of clay.

Our Pensionista's Children eating a kind of nut, that I can't remember its name.  But they

cook it first before eating it.

This is our house.  It's very nice and it even has a small kitchen area.

We each have our own bathroom too.

Looking into our bedroom.

Still in Pucallpa

Hey guys(: This week was cool cause we started it off trying to make strawberry cheesecake... haha it turned out pretty dang good not gonna lie. But other snacks that I ate this week were a lot sweeter!!! Shout out to Aunt Liz and Uncle Paul cause I can’t tell you how happy it made me to open their package and see those O’Henry bars hahaha,  me and my comp have already eaten like half of them(: love you guys so much! thanks a ton!

So changes were Monday and I’m still here with the same comp! Which means I’m gonna kill her haha she’s my fourth comp that I’ve killed in my mish, kinda crazy! but I’m pumped to have another change with her so we can find another family like Enrique and Leonor(: Speaking of those guys, they are SUPER converted! ahh its the coolest thing, they just feel and know that its true even though they are just starting to understand the gospel. BUT they left town until the end of October. Ugh. but they had to because they literally had no money at all.  So Enrique found a job like 4 hours away that he’s gonna work at until the end of the month and then they’ll come back to start their own business selling food in the calle! So Leonor went to her mom’s chacra to help her harvest her cocoa! But we keep in touch by calling so it’s all good!

This week Hermana Velazquez came and stayed with us for 3 days because Hna Fink is her comp and the new Hermana leader so she went to Iquitos for 3 days for the leader counsel. Velazquez is my fav. she’s seriously super cool and we get along suppper good. she’s from Vegas but her fams Mexican! So she’s gringa bamba haha. no but it was way cool to work with her because she gave me a lot of animos to keep working hard in my area but at the same time having fun.

What I really loved this week was seeing the conversion in one of our investigators! His name is José! I told you guys in one of my letters that he is super catholic but his son is on a mish in Lima. Ahhh I just love this guy because even though it’s hard for him to just drop all of his catholic beliefs he is truly doing everything he can to see if the church is true. HE READS THE BOOK OF MORMON EVERYDAY! And it’s so sick to see how much that has truly softened his heart. We brought a member to visit with him last night and we started talking about baptism and then ended up talking about the history of the church a little bit haha but while we were talking my heart just filled with joy... idk I can’t describe it but I just felt so completely happy and satisfied cause I know how amazingly true this church is and I just testified to José what I felt in this moment and that I knew that he could feel this joy too. Cause like we learned in conference, the gospel is JOY. But anyways we are trying to help him and his wife be baptized this 29 de octubre! 

Something super funny is that our pensionista Marvela has 2 kids and then her little nephew who is always over at their house. And these 3 little kids seriously always ATTACK ME haha. If they see us walking to their house they all start running together towards us and then just all latch onto me in a group up and WONT LET ME GO. And they call me their mom... hahahaha its super funny, they’re super crazy!

Thanks for all your love!!! And thanks Gma Neanie and Aunt Vicki for the letters!!!(:

Love you guys!!

Hermana Jackson

Hey! This week went by suuuper fast, kinda crazy.

On Tuesday we had zone conference with Pres Li! He came with his new assistant who is ELDER DYE! (He is the Elder from Pleasant Grove who was assigned as Kaitlyn’s flight buddy in the seat next to her flying from SLC to Peru) kinda crazy cause we both just barely hit a year in the mish! But he’s gonna do super great! In the conference we learned about working together as a team and about the importance of family history!

That night, as we left to go visit a less active family it started POURING! It was so crazy! Our house flooded a little because all the water entered in through the windows. I love the rain here though cause its super pretty, but all our streets in this area are dirt.. So it was just straight mud. haha our pensionista gave me her husband’s rubber boots to use. They were huge but they did the trick(; That night we visited a less active family and helped them understand WHY we read the BOM. This family always gives us some weird type of food when we go to visit them. The time before they gave us Soro. I think that’s what it’s called. Some wild animal that eats chickens idk haha but it was super good!! Then this time they gave us cooked peanuts!

Thursday we visited a new investigator! Her name is Marilin and she lives on the first floor of our house. We showed her the video He Lives! Its super powerful and she said that she could feel the spirit while watching it. She actually asked for us to teach her! We were just walking by and she was like when are you guys gonna come and talk about cosas bonitas with me haha

Then we taught another less active who told us about a spiritual experience of what helped him and his wife gain a testimony of the church! He was already baptized but during this time his wife was just an investigator. Their son was super sick and even though they weren’t attending church he got the impression to ask for a priesthood blessing for his son from the elders! Well this day that his son received his blessing he was healed, and his wife decided to be baptized! Priesthood power is super cool (:

Friday was my favorite! In the morning we had a super sick service! We went to the Chacra (it’s like their farm land they have) of one of our converts Omnil and Marcia! It’s like 20 minutes away from our area and her land is just covered in mango trees! So we raked up all the leaves that were all over the ground and burned them! Then later that day I had a work visit with Fink! Hna Fink is from Arizona and she’s like my favorite haha super spunky and knows a ton about the doctrine so I always love talking to her about bible stories and stuff. But on our visit I got to see her investigator accept a baptism date!! It seriously strengthened my testimony lots, because they just testified to us how much the gospel had changed their lives! It’s a 19 year old girl and her mom, and the 19 year old has had lots of drug probs in the past 2 years, but she said that once she started receiving the missionaries she’s come to love herself and understand that she has a purpose and that Christ loves her and desires more from her. ahh so cool!

Then of course we had General conference this weekend! Literally all the missionaries just get super excited for conf. I absolutely loved Pres. Nelsons talk about joy and how our purpose is to have JOY in this life. But to have joy and be happy under every circumstance depends on our focus. Which should be on Christ and his teachings and the lord’s plan of happiness for us. I also really liked Elder Bednars talk about believing and Donald A Rasband’s about remembering spiritual experiences, because our mind quickly wants to forget. Oh and also K Brett Natress and his story that he told of being a little boy who didn’t want to listen.. idk I just really liked them all.

Love you guys! (:

Hermana Jackson

Our service project at the families mango tree farm.

With Hna Mora waiting before conference,

Before conference.

With Geysi (she is so cute)from our ward who leaves for her mission this week.

Monday September 26, 2016

This week was so crazy! It went by super fast but there was like 54684231321 things that happened so I gotta tell you by days.

Monday for pday we were supposed to play games as a zone but it ended up raining suuuuper hard! So we just chilled in the mall all day and bought ice creams at this suuper good ice cream shop called Stefano’s, it’s like a tradition that if you’re in Pucallpa you gotta buy ice cream there on pdays. haha That night we taught our less active that we were able to rescue this week, her names Rosenda! She’s a super cute old lady who never wants to pray with us haha every time we ask her she’s like "no Hermanita I want to hear you pray and learn more" but then we insist and then she says the prayer and always tries to make it super pretty with like little rhymes and stuff haha 

Tuesday we had district meeting and we talked a lot about working with members! Elder Figueroa is our DL and he’s super cool! That night we taught the Family Allain and we explained the commandments to them! The law of chastity and the word of wisdom and Enrique said that there’s nothing holding him back from keeping the commandments but then he started to tell us about some crazy dreams that he’s been having lately!!! He said that in his dreams he sees Satan, but he doesn’t see him as an evil demon like you see in the movies, but as a handsome man with blue eyes, he said that Satan asks him why he is trying to repent and change his life and tells him that he can’t because he is his son and should follow him, and when the devil reaches out to grab Enrique in his dream he wakes up... super freaky. It goes to show just how much Satan did not want Enrique to follow Christ! but we finally got everything figured out and in the end he only needed an interview with our DL. He was super repentant. And about his dream, it really freaked out my comp but the next day she received a blessing and everything was all good.

Wednesday we had a mini change with Hermana Soto. I went to her area and we did service together! We went to a ladies house to wash her dog... oh my gosh this tiny little dog had like over one hundred BUGS that attach to your skin and eat your blood and they were all over her little body and in her ears and everything and we just had to take them off one by one with tweezers and it was so gross ugh.. but the work visit was cool!

Okay Thursday I completed a YEAR in the mish!!! So crazy that it’s been that long since I left! To celebrate a year in the mish I went to the clinic.. (: yayyyy haha but no worries I’m all good.  On this night we had the interviews for the family Allain for their baptism and everyone passed with flying colors!

Saturday was the craziest day. First of all in the morning I went to move a big mirror that we have sitting against the wall in our house and a huge tarantula type spider came crawling out from behind it and we tried to kill it but it was way to quick and it escaped into our bedroom and now we can’t find it.. So that’s fun for us. This day we just tried to get evvvverything ready for the baptism!!! It was 4:45 when we finally had everything ready and we decided to call the family to ask if they were already in the chapel or if they wanted to come with us. Enrique sounded super weird on the phone and said that they were still in their house so we told him that we would meet them there and go together. Well we got there and he immediately started asking me if we could postpone the date of his baptism.. Can’t tell you how much my heart dropped!!!! A bunch of things happened that morning that just made the family super stressed about their situation -  Enrique lost his job and they needed to pay their rent and he was saying that maybe they were going to live on their farm so it would be pointless to get baptized and blah blah blah just a TON of stuff. We literally sat in their little room for a whole hour, just telling him that he needed to trust in the Lord and the blessings would come. Feeling super frustrated I bore my testimony that I know the church is true, and Enrique told us that he also knows that its true but he just can’t think clearly with everything that’s happening around him so we decided to say a closing prayer. Enrique said it and after we all just sat in silence for a minute and then he said VAMOS. He said that during his prayer it was as if someone was saying "GO". Can’t tell you how much this strengthened my testimony of honest and true PRAYER. Well we got to the church an hour late but we were able to help a family of five make saving promises with the LORD(:

Love this gospel!! Love you guys!!

Hermana Jackson

Family Allain Baptism 

Elder Figueroa baptized Hna Allain and one of the daughters - 

The Bishop baptized Hno Allain & the other  two daughters.

Pday at the mall - Favorite mango juice and tiny cups :)

Still at the mall

Buddy from behind the mirror in our casa.

Wedding, one step closer to the family baptism's

Hey this week was super great!! Wow, we have been sooooo busy that me and my comp honestly feel really dead haha. But it’s good because it means that we are working really hard! Saturday was the wedding of Hermana Leonor and her now Husband Enrique! It was a civil wedding where 23 other people were married at the same time haha but it was cool. The wedding was supposed to start at 9 a.m. but Peruvians are the worst ever with time and we waited until like 11 to actually start. Also at the end of the wedding they were doing a broadcast thing for TV and this guy came up to me and shoved the microphone in my face and asked me how awesome was this wedding and how other couples can get married there for cheap hahaha so I think I’m famous now hahaha ;) look me up in weddings at the Municipalidad in Pucallpa(;  Then later that night we had their reception! but it was super bamba because hardly any members were there ahh.. We left at 9 p.m. and I guess some other members showed up at 10:30 p.m. and danced until 11:30 p.m. but yeah. it was super cool though because at the reception Enrique gave his speech and just said how much his life has changed in such little time and how he already feels like a different person. He said that he just wants to be a member of the church and is ready to follow Christ(: ahhhh seriously the coolest thing ever how prepared this family is.

On Sunday we had 8 investigators in church! 5 people from the family Allain, and Jose and Lorena who have a son in the mission and are trying to get testimonios of the church so they can also get baptized. Lorena knows that it’s true, but Jose still has trouble accepting the doctrine because of his catholic background! But he reads like 2 chapters in the Book of Mormon everyday and then tells us almost word for word what happened in the part where he read haha. Honestly I think they’ll be ready to be baptized for October.

Yesterday it rained all morning! And our whole area was MUD! I don’t have boots so I was tromping around in my toms all through the mud and my comp was laughing super hard at me, but we were super happy for the rain because it’s been suuuuper hot lately!!!

Last night we walked home from church and we stopped by a less actives house and were able to talk to her. She said that she’s not assisting because of a million things that happened with the members and also she said that every time she has a calling in the church, she has more problems in her house. Honestly tons of member less actives have this excuse! But it’s just that, AN EXCUSE. If they really understood the doctrine then they wouldn’t drop the church for others, the promise they made is with our Heavenly Father and not with their vecinos (neighbors). but we are gonna try to help her come back.

Right now we really are just focusing on preparing this family to get baptized, so after this week things will cool down a little bit for us haha(:

Also this week I’ve been reading in the Book of Mormon about the two thousand stripling warriors! Today I read that they were so obedient to Moroni because their parents had taught them correctly and I just couldn’t help but pour out my heart in gratitude to my heavenly father for my parents and how they raised me and my siblings(: I am sooo grateful for you guys!!

I love my mission!

I honestly can’t remember anything else from this week haha

Love you guys(:

Hermana Jackson

This was at a service that we did for one of our investigators! We helped her clean her house. her name is Aniam! Her aunt who lives in Piura is a member. One night we were walking home from an appt and she stopped us and asked us to visit her at her house.. We were super stunned but super happy cause

 that never happens.

Enrique & Leonor with their cake.  They had other refreshments called te-cacho, its like a fried banana ball thing, not my favorite ;)

With Hna Mora and Leonor at her wedding

Our Bishop and his wife 

 I ate Lagarto (Alligator) Super Yummy!

I think this is called Uvillo, its a weird grape thing that I really liked at first

 but later decided its really gross.

Busy Week

Hey guys!

This week was all about getting the family Allain ready for their wedding this Saturday(:  We had to fill out a million papers and do a bunch of things to get all of their certificates and stuff ready.  Hermana Leonor didn’t have her birth certificate with her so she had to call her dad who lives on their farm like a days trip in a boat away from Pucallpa and he had to send it to her and then we had to get everything done in 4 days so it was a little stressful! But we did it (:they are super pumped and can’t wait to get married and baptize their whole family of 5 on the 24th. It’s the coolest thing how the Lord was preparing us to come to this area! Especially from being in a super hard area for 6 months where the progression was slow, to coming to Centenario where everyone is READY to hear the gospel. So happy!! Also the family Allain told us that their parents are coming down for their wedding and they want to investigate the church!

Wednesday we did service in an investigators house who’s son is on a mission in Lima, but he’s the only member! A couple weeks ago her house caught on fire in the back, so we came with 4 elders and tore apart her roof and all of the burnt wood and this week we´re going back and re build it. It was super funny though cause by the end of the service we were all black! Especially Elder Robertson (from Layton) he looked like a chimney sweeper haha !!

My favorite lesson that we had this week was with a less active, Sandra! She hasn’t come to church in 4 years but these last 2 Sundays she came! Her son who is 13 is suuuuuuper active and the coolest kid ever. He goes to church every week and brings his little 6 year old brother with him and for the longest time has been trying to help his mom come back to church. Lots of things happened with their family.  Their parents were separated and since then Sandra hasn’t wanted to attend church. In this FHE we talked about families and how our goal should be the temple, to be sealed forever with our loved ones. She started to share with us that this Sunday, when her son got up to bare his testimony; she had felt the spirit and knew that she needed to come back to the church. Then her son started talking and he ended up in tears, just saying how grateful he was that his mom was FINALLY trying to change, how he can already feel the difference in his home and how grateful he is for the gospel. It was super spiritual! Like I said Mark is the coolest!

Then we were visiting another less active family and the sister called her brother Juan who isn’t a member and who the elders were visiting like 8 months ago and he came in and started talking to us and said he wants to be baptized because he knows that its true! Like what? This area is crazy! I’m still so stunned. This guy’s wife doesn’t want anything to do with it though and they arent really married so we’ve got to work lots with him!

Yesterday the whole mission did a sick activity. We all tried to make it a day where we could feel the spirit the whole time - one day with the spirit. Me and my comp really felt a difference in our work, our studies and our teaching, I think when I get back home, this is what I’m gonna miss most! Being able to feel the spirit so strongly (:

Also last night I lost our celluar and I was gonna have to pay 100 soles to replace it but then one of our investigators called our pensionista and said that they had found our phone in front of their house.. soooo blessd (;

love ya!!!

Hermana Jackson

Hey guys! 

This week has been super crazy and me and my comp have been dead at the end of each day. There’s literally so much to do here its nuts! Me and my comp get along pretty good. She gets mad super easy but she realizes it and later apologizes so it’s cool haha

I gotta tell you about this family that’s literally the biggest blessing! We found them last week and taught them Saturday. They came to church late on Sunday because they have to walk and their house to the Capilla (Chapel) is like a 40 minute walk, so when they got there they didn’t want to come in because it had already started! So we visited them during the week and yesterday they were able to come to church EARLY and they LOVED it. This family is absolutely prepared by the Lord. Hno Enrique and his wife Leonor and their  4 kids - a 9 year old daughter, a set of twin girls who are 8, and a little boy who just turned 1. The dad works in construction but when we found him he didn’t have any jobs to do, but the day after we came and invited his family to start to pray, he said that his boss called him the next morning saying that he had work. And every time we come and he does what we invite him and his family to do, he says he sees the tender mercies from God! This family is really poor. They rent a room (about the size of the room by the family room in our house) and have a little twin bed to share with their 4 kids.. but they say that they don’t need material things because they feel really blessed already for their family. They told us that everything about the church just feels right. Anyways yesterday they had an interview with the bishop and they want to get married and baptized! They asked him who they needed to talk to about baptism ….. hahaha THE MISSIONARIES(; so right now we are preparing all the marriage stuff for the 17 of September and we are going to extend a baptism date for the 24 (: SO CRAZY! so it’ll be a family with 5 baptisms (:

Another cool miracle that we saw was with another investigator Solange. She said that she has been going through a bunch of problems with her family. We taught her about the plan of salvation and her purpose and how she can have an eternal family, and she said that after she said her prayers in the night that she woke up the next morning and felt so alleviated from all the stress and sadness that she had felt the night before!

I’m super excited to see what else God has in store for us because this area is really blessed(:

Love,

Hermana Jackson