Fire´s On Everyone!!!

What an exciting week I had, I can´t say we because I had to do a lot of District Leader stuff this week. But I can say that we as well have had a lot happen. So let us start with the business.

So first things first. Only 3 weeks left everyone!!!

Ok next thing. So this week we have been working a lot with Roniely this week. We have been preparing him for baptism this Saturday, but on the day of he said that he didn´t feel ready. We were a little stressed about that because it complicated our day a lot, but we agreed to move the date to the Saturday after General Conference. He wants to know a little more about the church and go a little more before he is baptized, so we will baptize him on my last Saturday in the mission. So at least I can say that I´m going out baptizing!

We were able to find two other families that are really good, I actually have never met one of the families because I was in division every day that Elder Paez went to visit them. But they seem really good, they couldn´t come to church because they had arranged a family reunion for sunday morning before we invited them. (By the way these two families are related). But we will be visiting them this next week and talking with them.

So I had a lot of divisions this week. The first one was with the Missionaries in Jardim Paulistano, one of my old areas. So that was really interesting. I went with a greenie named Elder Martins. He´s super awesome and he is going to be a great missionary. They were going to have a baptism last week, I have no idea it it happened or not, but our zone had 6 baptisms last week, so I think they did.

The other division that I had was with Elder Machado who lives in Prata 2, the missionaries who live with us. They had some interviews that I needed to do because they had a baptism last saturday. THAT WAS AN EXPERIENCE! My goodness the first part was alright, but when we started to do the baptisms one of the kids is super scared of water. He just kept going crazy everytime he entered into the water. It was a super stressed experience, especially Elder Jones who was trying to do the baptism. We tried at least 20 times and nothing worked. All of us were so stressed. Then it turned into a very spiritual moment. All that were in the room started to pray immensely. I almost started to cry in my prayer to help this child have the courage to enter into the water. We tried so much and we couldn´t stop the baptism because he had already entered the water. So I don´t know what came over me, but I had the sudden erge to go and check the church closet, and what I found I knew was an answer. There was a white baptismal jump suit that was perfect for me. So I had the impression and we all felt the impression that maybe the child would have more confidence if there was someone really big in the water that could help him, and it worked. The baptism was smooth and fast and the boy was really happy after that. That was a fantastic experience and testimony to me of just how powerful the spirit truly is.

So, that about wraps up the week. Only 3 left everyone. They hype is real and the fire is on! We are going to burn these last weeks of the transfer with success and many more highlights to come. Love you all and hope you all have a great week! Until the 3rd to last!

Elder Jacklin

P.S.- Photos will come on seperate emails.

Moving On, Moving Strong!

Hello everyone, it has been another successful week in the mission. This one passed really fast! We had a lot of good times and some bad times! But let´s just focus on the good these last 4 weeks shall we!

So let´s start with the first highlight. We have been teaching a man named S who has been progressing very well, and we were able to invite him to be baptized and he accepted. We marked his baptism for this coming Saturday this week. He has a lot of faith and wants to change his life for the better, so he was all for baptism. So we are super excited and it gives us a special energy to work super hard this week.

The next highlight is like the first. We were able to find another man named R, who has been progressing with us for some time. His story is very interesting. He told us that three years ago, he randomly passed the movie Joseph Smith, The Prophet of the Restoration. He said that he loved the movie but didn´t know anything about where it came from or what church it was, but he told us in time that God would show him the answer. So two weeks back, he happened to be in a store that we happened to enter, and he saw that we were interesting people, is what he said. We told him who we were and that we were from the Church and he wanted us to come and teach him. He loves the messages we have been giving him and he wants to be baptized. So we marked his baptism as well for this Saturday. It´s amazing at times to see these miracles. It shows us that the Lord always shows his work in our everyday lives.

Another cool thing that happened this week is that I was able to do some interviews in the Zone for baptisms. All of those experiences are always spiritually uplifting for me. I always feel something in me that is different everytime I enter into one of those interviews, like something just takes control of me and guides the interview. I don´t even really remember what goes on in the interviews. I only remember the results. Isn´t that cool. How we can be literal instruments to the Lord. Because everytime I ask an investigator how they felt, they said that when I started talking they felt a Spirit of Peace that they hadn´t felt before.

So something that happened this week, that kind of stunk was that we all got food poisoning this week. Everyone in the house. We went to a restaurant for lunch that wasn´t as good as we thought it was. We got super sick this week and it was really hard to work, but we did it anyways and we were blessed! The Lord visits us in our afflictons.

But that´s all for the week. I feel like I have said this everyday for the past mission. Love you all! I hope everyone is doing great! Have a great week and see you all in a month!

Elder Jacklin

P.S.- I´ll send photos in another email

From John Person, I go to Big Field-September 2, 2019

Well that translation probably doesn´t give you guys any idea about what happened to me. So to finish off my mission, I got transferred again, all the way to the other side of the mission. I was in João Pessoa, but now I am back in Campina Grande again. I´m in an area called Prata. It´s just outside of the big part of the city of Campina Grande, I´ve passed close to this area before in Jardim Paulistano. The area is going really great I hear and the ward is getting super close to divide. So it should be a good last 6 weeks, I´ll try to make the best of it!

So my week in Altiplano went pretty slow, so I don´t have much to say about that, I was a little sad to leave, but we all need to cope with change right. The Lord always knows what is best for us even when we can´t see it. So we just have to have confidence in him and everything will be for our good. So I miss Altiplano, but I know that the best place for me now is Prata, and I will complete the purpose that the Lord has set for me here. Well that´s all for the week, I don´t have any photos for this week. But there will be more next week! That´s all! Until next week!!!

Elder Jacklin

I Am So Tired, What a Week!!!

My legs! I can´t feel my legs! What a week. We had so much work that came. Let´s get started with the week.

So it´s a new area so that means open season! So we just started going at the contacts. We found a family through speaking with the daughter of one of the couples. She was super excited about our message that she wanted us to come back and teach her family. We went back the next day and taught the Restoration to them the Restoration and they liked it a lot. We will be visiting them tomorrow. They are doing really well and we will invite them all to be baptized tomorrow.

We were able to find another family through a contact we made earlier in the week. They were super nice to let us in and teach them. We were able to teach them about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and explained to them the importance of being baptized like Christ was. They all accepted the invite. So we will be seeing them this next week, actually tomorrow to see how they are all doing.

So we were able to find some other people as well. We met someone with some youth in the ward and taught them as well. They were all super great, they have a lot of questions about the church because they had heard from others a lot of stuff about the church and they wanted to hear from us personally. So we were able to teach them and they liked the message a lot.

So another thing that happened this week was we found an old man, who is pretty cool. He went to church yesterday and is liking it a lot. We have tried to invite him to be baptized but he says he needs at least a years preparation to be baptized. So we will try to work more with him this week.

Next thing, get used to not seeing me with glasses anymore in my photos, they got all scratched up by something this week, and they make it harder to see, so I won´t be using them anymore for the next 5 weeks!

But yeah that´s all for the week! Love you all! Have a great week!

Elder Jacklin

P.S. Photos in the area!

7 More people!!!

My hype and stress are going through the roof right now! It´s almost over, there´s only one transfer left after this! It´s gone by so fast, but I have a hard time remembering what happened before I left the mission? It´s all fuzzy.

But anyways, let´s get on with the week. So this week, was a run week, we had a lot of events so our time in our area was very short. So to start off at the beginning of the week, we had our Conference of three Zones. It was a really good experience, there were a lot of good points made there on how we could better our work in our areas. I was able to see some people that I passed with in the mission so that was awesome to see all of them again.

After I had to do divisions with one of the areas in my district, they had someone who would be baptized (and was baptized) this week. So I had my first baptismal interview as a district leader. It was as spiritual as I could make it, but the kid´s parents kept coming in and asking me if he was paying attention. I had to keep reasuring them that it was fine and that he was doing and answering everything I told him. It was an interesting experience. But he passed and was baptized.

The next thing that we had this week was interviews with President. That went well, It´s always great to talk to him. He seems to know everything that I am going to say before I say it. This man is truly inspired by God. Just in a few weeks he has helped me so much. But if anyone was to ask me if I like him better than Presidente Dias, I would not answer because I can´t choose between the two. They´ve both been fantastic presidents, and I am happy that I got the chance to know them both.

So we were able to get a little bit of work done in our area, one of our investigators invited us to dinner at his house and to meet his family. They are all really good people and they want us to come back and teach them this week, we think that they will progress a lot. 

Well that´s pretty much it for the week. Hope everyone back at home is having a good time! Love you all! See you in 7!

Elder Jacklin

Another fantastic week! It’s been awhile since I’ve felt this worked out!

What´s going on guys, it has been another fantastic week! Probably one of the best that I have had is a while. The work is going fantastically well! We were able to find over TWENTY new people to teach this week. Let me tell you guys a little about them.

So we were able to find a bunch of young men to teach. They all have about 11 to 17 years. They were all great at the start but are getting a little soft on us now. But there are still a lot more people that we have to teach.

So we found a super great family this week to teach. We received a reference from other missionaries who passed here. This woman and her family were all ready to receive the missionaries, but after this missionary left, none of the other missionaries cared to pass there. They all thought that she didn´t want anything, but the moment I told her that we were Missionaries of Jesus Christ, the next thing I knew was, is that we were in her living room teaching her and the others in her family that were there. They are all super great people. We should be able to have a lot of success with them.

We were able to find an old woman who seems to like the church a lot. We were going to try and bring her to church on Sunday, but her son wouldn´t wake her up, so we are going to try and plan for better next Sunday.

We had a couple of others but they didn´t go so well with them, but it was still cool to find so many new people, well that was all for the week. Hope everyone is great back at home. Love you all! See you all in 8 weeks!!!

Elder Jacklin