OPA!!! Como vocês estão

Hey everyone. This week has been really crazy for me. I´m sorry that this email isn´t going to be very long. This last week was a little strange. I was in Liberdade in Campina Grande, but I was transferred to a new area in João Pessoa called Manaíra. Apparently this is the Area of Heaven for Missionaries in the way of shopping. We have huge buildings and lots of stores. We also have a beach in my area... FANTASTIC! That makes the work hard I hear.

Well to start the week off. I was too sick to work on Wednesday and Thursday so I was in the house of a member and in the apartment for those two days. That sucked a lot. President also called me Thursday as well. I thought it was just to see how I was feeling... but it was because he was calling to tell me that I was being Transferred to the other side of the mission to replace an Elder who´s going home because he´s sick. So on Friday I got a taxi to João Pessoa at 6:20! That was a long and a little bit of a hard ride because I was still feeling a little sick but I got to the Apartment all right and met my new companion.

His name is Elder Kozlowski and he´s also an American. He´s also freaking awesome! He´s always so positive in everything. He does amazing work and we do so much together and have a lot in common. He´s also a tall Elder as well.

We had a Baptism this week. The lady that we baptized is about 72. Now that´s a stud right there. She´s so great. She has a great spirit and she has a light about her that is amazing. She received the Gift of the Holy Ghost yesterday and she is doing very well now.

Well that´s about all for the week. I think I´ll end with my Spiritual thought. My topic today is Enduring through the hard times. I bring this up because of many reasons. One is that my Grandpa just passed away. Another was because I was sick to the point that I was in bed for 2 days straight. These are hard trials. But I know that when enduring hard trials the blessings we receive after are amazing. In Helaman 5:12 it talks about this. Through all the hard trials in your life. Always believe that the Savior will help you through it. He is the Sure Foundation of your life if you have Faith in Him. He will help you through all of your trials. It is sad that my Grandpa passed away but I know that he is in a better place now and that makes me happier more than anything. I know these things to be true. Again if any of you are having trials I pray for you every day and every night. I want you all to know that you have my Spirit with you. I say these things, and close this email. In the Sacred and Saving name of our Lord, Jesus Christ, amen.

OPA! Este é sua missionário em Liberdade, Campina Grande!

Oi meu família e meu amigos, como vocês estão! Eu estou bom aqui em Brasil. Muitos é indo em agora! Nos tivemos transferências hoje. É foi finalmente tempo por eu vou um borra. Os membros em Bayeux foi muito bravo eu foi saindo. Mas eles desejam me boa sorte! Eu estou em Liberdade agora e eu tenho 2 companheiros. Élder Strong e Élder Fernandez.

So as I said, I finally got transferred to a new area. My new area is called Liberdade. It´s in a city called Campina Grande. I will admit I did not want to leave Bayeux. I had been there so long and I had so many friends in the ward and they were all sad that I had left. But you 've got to get used to change in the mission. Otherwise it´s going to be very hard. I keep listening to a talk by Elder Bednar that says: You are not called to a certain place, but you are called to serve. So I guess I just need to muscle it up and accept that I won´t be in the same area forever, but to always remember the memories I had in that area. I also need to accept the change of Companions. Elder Goodwin is still in Bayeux Centro, and I´m in a trio now. I have one Companion that's from Iowa. His name is Elder Strong and he´s as new as I am. The other is a Brazilian named Elder Fernandez who´s been in the mission just a little bit less than Elder Goodwin. I will miss Elder Goodwin, but I can see that this trio is going to be fantastic. I can´t wait for the stuff we are going to accomplish here in Campina Grande. I´ll miss Bayeux and all the people I taught there but as I said before we are not called to a place, but called to serve. I think that this phrase can apply to all. Never accept the same thing. Always change and adapt in life. Life will never be the same. It is always changing. We will not have the same thing in life because that´s not what God created it for. I know that adapting to the things that God does is very important. When we are transferred or something happens to you at home. It is all part of God´s plan for us. I know these things to be true. I end this email with my testimony. I love and pray for you all everyday. Keep following the Lord and always find time to serve him and he will bless you throughout your life. I say these things in the Name of Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour, Amen.

Elder Jacklin 

OPA! COMO VOCÊS ESTÃO!!!!

Olá meu família tudo bom! Eu estou finalmente terminar com meu treinamento! Eu estou um normal missionário agora. Desculpa por este carta sendo muito pequeno, mas não muito aconteceu este semana porque eu foi em no hospital por uma coisa. Mas eu estou bom agora!

So as I said this letter wont be very long. I had something happen during the week that hindered our work for this week but now I´m good. I had to go to the hospital and get something fixed and I wasn´t able to do much this week. We did however have a lot of interesting experiences with snakes and cobras this week. I don´t know if you guys know what that means but it´s not something great.

We got a lot of new investigators this week, which makes me very happy and a little sad, because we have transfers next week and I might be getting transferred. I finished training finally! I´m a normal missionary now! The language is very hard for me sometimes. It´s hard to understand people sometimes and I don´t know what some people say at all. But I´m getting better.

This week was a challenge for me because of my insident, (Jeez, did I even spell that right? My English sucks now). But I remember always a song that I really enjoy. I remember the words to it all the time. Onward ever onward as we glory in his name. Forward pressing forward as the Triumph song we sing! God our strength will be. Press forward as we call to serve our king. I remember these words everyday in my mission. They are great things to remember. I strive to keep pressing forward and move onward in all I do. I hope you all do to. It is something very important for all of us to have. I know if we keep moving forward with steadfastness in all we do we can have joy and the Spirit in our lives. I know these things to be true. I know that our Father in Heaven wants us to keep moving forward to return to him. I know he loves us. This is my testimony of this thing. I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ amen.

Well that´s all for this email I hope all of you are doing great in all you do! I pray for you all everyday. Keep following the Lord. This is your missionary in Brasil saying, Tchau, até o próximo carta!

Élder Jacklin

Olá! Família e amigos! I ask that you all please read the end of this when you get the chance. Where the big letters start

Opa tudo mundo. Eu posso finalmente escrivar em Português este semana! Meu computador foi mal ótimo semana! Mas, este semana foi bom e não bom também. Nos temos muitos que foi bom mas muitos dificuldades também. Eu se por quê. Nos pensamos muitos coisas iria ir bom, mas eles não foi.

Anyways off of that. This week we had a lot of good and bad. I´ll start off with the good then go to the bad.

This week we were blessed with another big miracle. We had prayed a lot about being able to teach someone and on Sunday last week we met someone who wanted to be baptized from the other ward. I don´t know where he came from but he really turned a bad week into a really good week. It was really interesting to be sitting in Sunday School and then the other bishop from the other ward came in and told us that someone wanted to talk about Baptism with us. We immediately jumped up from our seats and ran out to meet him. He was 18 years old which made us even more excited because our goal in the mission is to convert at least 100 men who can hold the Melchezideck Priesthood. So it was a blessing for us and mostly a blessing for him. We had his interview on Wednsday and Baptized him after the same day. His friend who just opened his mission call that night did the ordinance. We told his friend after that he could count this as his first mission Baptism.

That was a great first half of the week. But the second half we had a hard time getting commitments with people. We would talk to people and make a lot of contacts, but they were being malis. Which means they act nice but then they don´t want to see us after. It was really hard. To top all that off we had none of our recent converts come to church yesterday. Which made me and Elder Goodwin a little frustrated. Also the fact that our Sisters in our District like to lie to us. They give us times for interviews but then they change it at the last second to another time so it screws up with our schedule. Most of the Sisters in our district are leaving also this transfer so they are being fubecas. Which means lazy and bad missionaries. Us and the Elders in Santa Rita have been getting all the Baptisms for our district.

The end of this week was a real challenge for me and Elder Goodwin. It drove us crazy trying to do all this stuff and having our Schedules change on us every second. Then I remembered a talk by Elder Holland that helped with the week. It said:

Anyone who does any kind of missionary work will have occasion to ask, Why is this so hard? Why doesn’t it go better? Why can’t our success be more rapid? Why aren’t there more people joining the Church? It is the truth. We believe in angels. We trust in miracles. Why don’t people just flock to the font? Why isn’t the only risk in missionary work that of pneumonia from being soaking wet all day and all night in the baptismal font?

You will have occasion to ask those questions. I have thought about this a great deal. I offer this as my personal feeling. I am convinced that missionary work is not easy because salvation is not a cheap experience. Salvation never was easy. We are The Church of Jesus Christ, this is the truth, and He is our Great Eternal Head. How could we believe it would be easy for us when it was never, ever easy for Him? It seems to me that missionaries and mission leaders have to spend at least a few moments in Gethsemane. Missionaries and mission leaders have to take at least a step or two toward the summit of Calvary.

Now, please don’t misunderstand. I’m not talking about anything anywhere near what Christ experienced. That would be presumptuous and sacrilegious. But I believe that missionaries and investigators, to come to the truth, to come to salvation, to know something of this price that has been paid, will have to pay a token of that same price.

For that reason I don’t believe missionary work has ever been easy, nor that conversion is, nor that retention is, nor that continued faithfulness is. I believe it is supposed to require some effort, something from the depths of our soul.

If He could come forward in the night, kneel down, fall on His face, bleed from every pore, and cry, “Abba, Father (Papa), if this cup can pass, let it pass,”¹⁶ then little wonder that salvation is not a whimsical or easy thing for us. If you wonder if there isn’t an easier way, you should remember you are not the first one to ask that. Someone a lot greater and a lot grander asked a long time ago if there wasn’t an easier way.

The Atonement will carry the missionaries perhaps even more importantly than it will carry the investigators. When you struggle, when you are rejected, when you are spit upon and cast out and made a hiss and a byword, you are standing with the best life this world has ever known, the only pure and perfect life ever lived. You have reason to stand tall and be grateful that the Living Son of the Living God knows all about your sorrows and afflictions. The only way to salvation is through Gethsemane and on to Calvary. The only way to eternity is through Him—the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

I testify that the living God is our Eternal Father and that Jesus Christ is His living and Only Begotten Son in the flesh. I testify that this Jesus, who was slain and hanged on a tree,¹⁷was the chief Apostle then and is the chief Apostle now, the Great High Priest, the chief cornerstone of His Church in this last and greatest of all dispensations. I testify that He lives, that the whole triumph of the gospel is that He lives, and because He does, so will we.

On that first Resurrection Sunday, Mary Magdalene first thought she saw a gardener. Well, she did—the Gardener who cultivated Eden and who endured Gethsemane. The Gardener who gave us the rose of Sharon, the lily of the valley, the cedars of Lebanon, the tree of life.

I declare Him to be the Savior of the world, the Bishop and Shepherd of our souls, the Bright and Morning Star. I know that our garments can be washed white only in the blood of that Lamb, slain from the foundation of the world. I know that we are lifted up unto life because He was lifted up unto death, that He bore our griefs and carried our sorrows, and with His stripes we are healed. I bear witness that He was wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities, that He was a man of sorrows acquainted with grief because upon Him were laid the transgressions of us all.¹⁸

I bear witness that He came from God as a God to bind up the brokenhearted, to dry the tears from every eye, to proclaim liberty to the captive and open the prison doors to them that are bound.¹⁹ I promise that because of your faithful response to the call to spread the gospel, He will bind up your broken hearts, dry your tears, and set you and your families free. That is my missionary promise to you and your missionary message to the world.

Heh this changed the size of my writing. Let this talk touch you. This talk helps me everyday. The Mission will never be easy. So don´t think that it will be. Just because I am in the Mission that gets the most Baptisms in the world doesn´t mean that it is easy for me. It is hard and it will always be hard. Just like it said, Salvation was NEVER easy! I know that there are those out there that might read this and think that my mission is easy because we just baptized over 200 people this past month. I know it´s not easy for you as well. This is an experience that will change our lives and the lives of our investigators. We need to show them that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is the Light that they are looking for in the world. We will have hard times. But we need to keep on moving strong, and keep moving stronger. That is our job. This is also directed to those that are at home as well. Always find a chance to teach people in your life. If you have served a mission then you should never stop doing what you did on the mission. Just like Christ said to Peter, in John 21:15-17

15 ¶ So when they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my lambs.

16 He saith to him again the second time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my sheep.

17 He saith unto him the third time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? Peter was grieved because he said unto him the third time, Lovest thou me? And he said unto him, Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee. Jesus saith unto him, Feed my sheep.

We are in this until the end. Everyone. I´m not trying to get into anyones faces or anything but we need to follow and teach the word of Christ until the end of time. I know that these things are important. I know that we will always have trials in our life that will test this subject. But it is our job to Feed His Sheep. I know that these things are true and I end this as my Testimony. I exort all of you to read and share this with others. I feel it is important to all to here this in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

I love you all and pray for you all everyday. Keep following the Lord. This is your missionary in Brasil saying, Tchau. Until the next letter!

Elder Jacklin