Rainy week with lots of work!!!

What a Week!

Wow, I have never felt so tired in all of my mission. Branchs are really hard to work with, its because everyone is new in the church and we have to do everything, but it was still an amazing week.

So to start things off, we had our Zone Meeting this week. Were thinking about calling the zone the Zone of Giants or something like that, because we have the three tallest Elders in the mission, which is first, me of course, then Elder Kump, that other really tall american, and then our Zone Leader Elder Medeiros. So we literally have high spirits here in our Zone if you get my point. Well we do have high spirits as well. But we have a super awesome Zone and it is going to be super hyped this transfer.

So I thought that I would take this moment really fast to talk a little bit about my area, since I didnt really say anything last week. So for those of you who dont know, Sape is a city in the middle of our mission. Like it is dead-center in the mission. Its not a big city like Joao Pessoa or Campina Grande, but its more of a country city, or its more of a town really. It is full of super receptive people. The people here are super awesome, it is really easy to start up a conversation with someone here. Its a town that needs the gospel of Jesus Christ in it. This place is where all the missionaries in the mission dream of going and I am very lucky to be able to be here. This will probably be my last area in the mission, I dont know, but I will enjoy my time here in the area.

So some things that happened this week, lets count them down.

So we are teaching a lot of people right now. So many people, we are running around everywhere, it is super tiring. One person that we are teaching right now. He has a problem with smoking. His name is L. We are trying to help him stop with his addiction, but he loves the church, he wants to follow the teachings of the church, but he is a little lazy in going and keeping committments. But we will try to work with that.

Next we have two boys that we are working with right now. We might be cutting them this week. They were baptized, but were not confirmed, and we have been trying to get them to come to chruch so we can confirm them, but they keep on trying to get away from us everytime we visit. So well see what happens with them.

We are teaching a recent-convert right now. His name is F Jr. He was baptized in the church, but he hasnt been coming for a little while. He believes that the church is the only true church here on the earth, but he still wants to go to the other church that he was visiting before. So we are trying to get him to pray about what church he needs to go to and which one he needs to leave behind. So we will see what will happen with him this week.

So... my goodness there are a lot of people. So someone I was able to meet on Saturday is actually two people. Lu and S. So these people have been really interested in the church. Unfortunately they didnt get out to church yesterday, because of the rain we have been having, but they are amazing. Lu has so many questions and it is super awesome to talk with her and see what the knowledge of the gospel does to her. We were able to teach the Plan of Salvation to her as well as part of the Ordinances and she loved the fact that she can help her ancestors with their ordinances. I think she will progress immensely.

One more person we got to meet this week is a woman named N. She is super interested in the church and was able to visit yesterday. She loved it a lot. She was so excited to see the church and she told us that she will come more to visit and learn. She is probably going to progress a lot in the gospel.

So another cool thing that happend this week was that I had the opportunity on my first sunday in the branch to give a talk. My talk was on Sacrifices and the blessings that come from them, and how it is necessary for us to make sacrifices, because if we dont have the will to make sacrifices we wont be able to show our faith to Christ. If we were not required to make sacrifices, we would not be able to have the faith to enter into the kingdom of God. So that is just a little bit about my talk. But yeah, so that was a cool experience. We had 12 investigators at church which was another win as well.

So that about raps up with my investigators and these are the ones that I was able to visit this week. But there are still a lot more out there in the area that I need to visit. But it is going to be hyped this next week!

So I also will take the time to talk a little more in depth about my companion. So as you all know from my last email, his name is Elder Larson. He has 9 months in the mission. Hes one of the Elders that I have always wanted to be companions with. He and I have many similar attributes, we love to do many of the same things. Hes a super funny guy and is always super hyper and exciting. We laugh a lot here in the house. We also have two other Elders with us here in our area. Elder Alfonso, who has 21 months in the mission. He will probably end his mission here in Sape, he only has one more transfer after this one. He is super awesome and a legend in the mission, so I am super excited to be with him. Then we have my nephew Elder Degel he is the son of my brother Elder Hansen who was also trained by Elder Goodwin. Elder Degel only has 5 months in the mission, but the way he works makes him look like he has way more time than that. He is super awesome as well. All of us in the house have the same likes, so we all get along pretty well. This will probably be the best house I have passed in the mission.

Well everyone, that about does it for the week. I dont have much else to say. I love you all and hope you all have a great week! Until next week everyone! Falou!

Elder Jacklin

Saudades Prosind... Bem Vindos Sapé!!!

Hello everyone it was an amazing week this week. We were able to do so much work this past week. Allow me to share a few honorable moments!

So this week we were able to do a lot of work with a less active that we are teaching, or that Elder Poyfair is teaching, because I don´t know if you guys noticed, but I got transferred to a new area, but I will get to that in a minute. This less active has been less active for 7 years and no one has been able to get him to come back to church, but after working with him for a while we were able to get him to return, now they will start to work on teaching this less active´s wife and see if they can baptize her.

So next highlight we have is we had a party in the ward and we were able to find a lot of new investigators there. It was a fun activity and it was great way to end my service in the ward. It was really hard to leave Prosind, I am going to miss the members a lot. But I am happy to be here in Sapé now. With my new companion Elder Larson. He´s a stud and I am going to enjoy being his companion. Elder Poyfair lives in the same stake as him, so I already know a lot about him. So I´m super excited for this transfer. But that´s all I have for this week. I unfortunately don´t have any new pictures to post, or because I forgot my camera at my new apartment. But that´s all. Have a great week everyone!

Elder Jacklin

This Week was Full!

Wow, what a tiring week. I don´t think I have ever had such a rushed week, in my entire mission! I´ve never seen my planner full of visits everyday, there wasn´t a single white spot on my schedule. We were running all over the place. Things have been going really well for us this transfer. We have been receiving so much help from the members and everything is going fantastic.

So to start things off, we were able to receive many new references this week from the members. As I said before they are helping out a lot. We have been receiving at least 3 new references per day this week, and we have found a lot of new people to teach because of this. We have met up with a woman, who is a less active member. She loves the church, but her only reason for leaving was because she got a little lazy with going, like she lost the will to go to church. But after talking with her a little we are starting to get her to come back. We are also wanting to talk to her family because 3 of her kids have the age for baptism, they are all super great people. I think we will move forward with them.

We had a visit with F and he was talking with his brother who is living in Canada. It was really interesting because he was speaking in english. He talked a lot about the Money Mafia or something like that which made absolutely no sense to me. But the talk with F went well. He is starting to get very lazy in doing commitments. We might be cutting him this week, because this is the third time he has said he was going to come to church and it is the third time that he hasn´t come. So we´ll see what happens there.

This week we had a Family Home Evening with my mom of the ward. We call her mom because she is always calling us her kids. But it went really well. We were able to leave a good message with some of her neighbors and get to know them a little better. We left a message that talked about the many distractions in life, and how that the gospel of Christ is the only way we can return to live with our Heavenly Father. They liked it a lot and we will be planning more of these Family Home Evenings more in our weeks to come. Or week to come because transfers are happening this next week. So we will see if I leave or stay.

Another cool thing that happened this week, was that my newly baptized convert I blessed the Sacrament yesterday. He is progressing so well and I love watching his progress. That was a super awesome moment.

But yep, that´s all for the week. Hope that all of you are doing well in your lives. Keep on moving on strong in your lives. Love you all! Have a great week!

Elder Jacklin