What a week!

Hello everyone, I am here in the rainy side of the world today. It has been cloudy for about 3 days this week, and I was able to hear thunder again. It´s been like a year since I have heard thunder or seen lightning. I still haven´t seen lightning. It´s too bright here to see.

But anyways let´s get onto the highlights and lowlights of the week.

So the first thing is, is that we were able to finally mark a date with K for baptism, we have been trying with him for weeks now, but finally we have gotten an actual date set. We are hoping to do the ordinance this week on Sunday, and Confirm him the following one.

Next is the lowlight.

So this week we had another one of our investigators fall. A is her name. She already has siblings that have been baptized but her mom is playing that whole, you need to be 12 years old to be baptized thing with us. As well as her time is super stretched so we haven´t been able to set a direct date with her yet, and then she didn´t want it anymore.

Next thing, and it´s a good thing.

So we were able to find super old investigators that the missionariies were teaching about 2 years ago. So they had a lot of problems with an Elder here in the past who caused a lot of trouble for them. They were going to get married so they could be baptized but when another Elder came into the area, he spent the money for the marriage, and then no one ever passed there again. But we were able to find them again. They have been waiting for so long and we are going to help them so they can get married and baptized so that in the near future they can be sealed together as a family.

So that´s about it for this week. I don´t have a message or photos, because I forgot my camera today, but I will bring it next week so that all of you can see the changes in the mission! But that´s all for this week. Have a good one. I love you all. Boa semana para vocês!

Another...uh...P-Day?

So I know that a lot of you especially my mom probably have been having a heart attack about why I didn´t send an email yesterday. So something new our President is trying is, he is moving all of the Zone Conferences to Mondays and then after we have a P-Day with the two Zones. But we don´t get back to our areas in time to write emails. So we will start doing this probably once every four or five weeks. So don´t anyone freak out if you don´t get an email from me on Monday, it will most likely come on Tuesday.

So this past week was pretty chilled, we had our ups and downs this week. The training is going really well, my filho is having some struggles but we are getting along great in the work. He´s doing a great job. Eu sou um pai com muito orgulho.

So the highlights for this week, and the lowlights.

The first one is, we found a less active family a couple days ago I think on Thursday or something. But they welcomed us very well, and we found out that they have someone in their family who wasn´t baptized, because she was only 7 years old. That was four years ago. But now she has accepted our help to be baptized and we will try to get the family active again. A lot of them want to come back it´s just that they work on Sunday. But we will work with that.

The Lowlight.

We had another one of those sucker punches to the gut. Well at least I had it again, this was the first time my companion experienced this. But that one young man that we were preparing to baptize, F, who was progressing a lot and was moving forward with such great vigor. Came to us on Sunday and said that he didn´t want to be baptized anymore. We tried everything we could to get him to stay active, but he just wanted to keep following the Catholic Church. I know that this is normal, to lose somebody that you have been working with for a long time, but it gave a hard one on my companion, so it´s been a little hard for him the past couple of days. But we did have something awesome happen that night.

On to the next highlight.

We had been trying to teach a young man for a really long time, but he was having a really hard time in listening to us. Well on Sunday night we were able to catch him and give him a lesson, he really enjoyed it. He also opened up with us a lot. He really likes a lot of the same things I do, and that was super awesome. His name is K. He´s such a great guy and we will for sure baptize him.

So that´s all for this email. I guess now I will leave my message for the week. For this message I decided that I would share a music that I really like that explains a lot of how we need to be faithful in our work to help the kingdom of God grow here on the earth. I´ll send it on a seperate email. But I know that if you apply the things that it says. It will help give that Energy to keep working on strong.

That´s all for today. I love you all! Have a great week everyone!

Elder Jacklin

My Message: Strong and Courageous

 We are daughters of God

 With vision of who we are

 And the love of the Savior in our hearts

 We are sons of a King

 Heirs to our Father’s throne

 We are true to the priesthood that we hold

 We live in perilous times

 But with prophets here to guide us

 With the Spirit inside us

 With angels walking beside us

CHORUS:

 We will take the shield of faith

 We’ll withstand the evils of these final days

 We are fearless

 We are brave

 We’ll defend our Father’s name

 At all times (we are strong)

 In all things (we are brave)

 In all places

 We will be strong and courageous

 We will not be afraid

 To walk in the Savior’s way

 And prepare for the day when He will reign

 We’re calling all of the earth

 To return our lives to virtue

 To be faithful in all we do

 To join the great cause of truth 

CHORUS:  

 We will take the shield of faith

 We’ll withstand the evils of these final days

 We are fearless

 We are brave

 We’ll defend our Father’s name

 At all times (we are strong)

 In all things (we are brave)

 In all places

 We will be strong and courageous

  

Minha Nossa Treinamento, é Maravilha! E Muito Cansativo!

Another week in training. My goodness I never want to do this again, but the experience is super great! Everything is going great, this week was amazing. We didn´t have anyone in church this Sunday, but everything is going fantastic! Allow me to share the highlights of the week.

So to start off the week, we were able to visit an investigator who we have been working with a lot. His name is F. He´s so awesome, he has such a strong spirit about what we were telling him. This week as well we gave him the baptismal invitation and he accepted. He´ll be getting baptized this next Sunday! As well as we were able to give it for his cousin as well, and he accepted too! His name is E. They didn´t come to church this Sunday because of a bit of family problems, but they are super excited for the next one. Especially their baptisms. We also have another who´s name is K who has also accepted to be baptized as well for this Sunday. So this next week the pictures in white will be coming in!

This week was also a week of English, I have never seen this happen here before. This week I feel like I spoke more in English with people than in Portuguese. We talked to a Brazilian who spoke in English, taught him for a bit, then we went to grab a bus, and an American passed us in the road, asking where the beach was. We talked with him for a bit as well. As well as we had a member give us lunch this week, that lives in Orem. That was interesting. They were super great and they work with helping families visit the areas of their kids that serve missions. So that was a pretty awesome experience.

So this week was a very interesting week. My companion is doing very well, I have a question on how all of you know he is short? How does the picture... oh it´s the video that I sent isn´t it. But anyways that´s all for today! I hope all of you have a great week, and we will see you on the next email. That´s all for this week, love you all!

Elder Jacklin

No photos this week, sorry. For those who don´t know my camera broke again. It stinks.

Primeira Semana de Treinamento!

So I only have a few minutes to write this, because my time is almost up and I need to get out of here because P-Day is ending.

So this week was fantastic, the newbies finally made it. My new companion´s name is Elder Hurtado, he´s from California, and he speaks Spanish and English. He´s super awesome and we will have a lot of success together!

So this week we had a lot of success, we were able to mark 4 people to be baptized in the next few weeks. One of them knows a member here and they have been friends for a long time, so he was super excited when we gave the invite to be baptized. We had pretty much the same response with all of our investigators that we marked.

Next highlight is that we were able to find a youth who is super interested in the Gospel. We were able to teach him the Restoration and invite him to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it. When we returned the following day, he said he read and he prayed and he received an answer to what we were saying was true. So we left him with a Pamphlet of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and tomorrow we will invite him to be baptized, we have faith that he will accept the invitation.

We also had something else happen that was super awesome, is that we had a girl come to church yesterday who´s sister is baptized but she hadn´t been baptized yet, and we talked with her a little bit and asked her if we could pass by their house and share a special message with them about Jesus Christ. She seems super interested and we will see if we can help her be baptized this Saturday.

Well everyone, that´s all for today! I hope that everything is going well for all of you back at home and in your missions. I love all of you and hope that you will all have happiness and joy in all of your activities and works! Até o próximo meus amados!

Élder Jacklin

Photos:

I found my Italian Book of Mormon again!

Pictures with all of the trainers.

My Son Elder Hurtado!!!

MINHA NOSSA! TA PEGA!! EU VOU SER UM PAI!!!

My life is going nuts right now I have no idea what to say!

We had transfers come in this past Saturday and I got a special call from President, and this was the conversation;

Elder Jacklin: Good evening President, how are you?

President Dias: Good evening Elder Jacklin, I am doing well.

Elder Jacklin: Great, what do you need?

President Dias: I have one question for you. (With exaggerated seriousness)

Elder Jacklin: What is it?

President Dias: Are you ready to train?

...

...

...

...

Elder Jacklin: ... Heh, what?

President Dias: You will be training this next transfer in Altiplano, are you ready?

Elder Jacklin: Ready, no, do I accept, yes.

President Dias: Awesome, but, ARE-YOU-READY. (He said that in English to make it more dramatic)

Elder Jacklin: ... ... ... ... .................... Yes, I´ll do my best.

President Dias: Great, have a great night Elder. Until later!

Elder Jacklin: Until... ... ... Dang. Well I´m gonna die.

So if you guys didn´t catch the message in the little story, I am going to be training this next transfer.

I don´t know who is my new companion, and I won´t know until Wednesday, but I am super excited for the new opportunity.

So right now I am in Manaíra right now for the next two days waiting for the Greenies to get here.

This should be very interesting.

I´m sad to say goodbye to Elder Souza though, he was a really good companion and he helped me a lot to prepare for this, this past transfer.

I´ll still be in the same area, so at least I won´t be opening an area.

So this week we didn´t have much happen, there were a lot of meetings this week and we didn´t have time to do much in our area.

But I do have highlights for this week though.

So this week I had the grand opportunity that very few Elders experience in the mission, and that is that I baptized with normal clothing.

So some Sisters in our district had a baptism and they only brought clothing for the person being baptized, and there were no members from the ward there.

So I had the closest clothing to white, so I had to do the baptism with my tan pants, so that was an interesting experience.

The other experience of the week, was that I got to speak with my family again and that was super awesome, it was awesome to hear that many people I know are marrying and that I will have another Nephew or Niece which will be awesome!

So that´s all for this week. I hope everyone is having a great time and having amazing experiences.

Until next week everyone, love you all!

Elder Jacklin

Photos from the transfers with my Pai and Tio and my biggest friend in the mission!