Feliz Natal para todos amanhã!!!

Wow this week was a great week! It was also super crazy to think and still is that tomorrow I will get to see my family again. Vai ser topy!!! Minha nossa, eu vou falar isso agora, eu estou na quele ponte onde eu vou começar falando e escrevendo só em Português, então eu estou com medo que eu vou perder todo de minha outra idioma. Now let me translate that; My goodness, I will say this now, I am at that point where I will start writing and speaking in Portuguese (without thinking), so I am scared that I will lose all of my other language. It should be fun for my family tomorrow.

So what happened this week we had some great highlights. The first is we were able to start teaching T´s family again. For those who don´t know, I don´t think anyone does, but she has been a firm member in the church for 1 year, basically a little bit after I came to Brasil last year. So her whole family is baptized in the church, it´s just that they are all inactives. One hasn´t been confirmed yet, whose name is J. But earlier this week we were able to teach J again and help her understand why she was baptized. Because going into it she didn´t know what it was or why she needed to because the missionaries in that time didn´t teach her very well. She had no idea about the church. But we were able to give her a lesson of The Restoration and she loved it a lot. We will start teaching her more and get her to come to church so she can be confirmed finally.

Another thing that happened, is we were able to reactivate a member who had been baptized two years ago. He has always been a fan of the church, he just lost the excitement to go. But we were able to help him these past few weeks and yesterday he came to church. He loved it a lot and said that he would start coming again.

Now finally on to the best of all of these miracles. We were finally able to get R that girl we have been trying to get to come to church for four weeks, to come yesterday. She was confirmed a member yesterday and is really happy about it. She has also started her Personal Progress as well, so I think she is going to stay firm, but just to make sure we will keep on passing there to see how she´s doing. So my family and amazing friends. That is all for this week. It will be another super lit week this week as well. We have transfers coming up this week as well, so we will see what happens there. So that´s all. Eu amo todos de vocês e eu espero que vocês tem um Feliz Natal, este é tudo por hoje, até o próximo!!!

Elder Jacklin.

O que esta acontecendo minhas pessoas!

What is happenin my people! It has been another fantastic week in Brasil with many miracles! Allow me to share some of the grand experiences of the week.

So to start the week out we had our Christmas Conference with the ENTIRE MISSION! That was a party. We started it out by listening to the Christmas Devotional with the First Presidency. Then we had a training about how we can be more dedicated in finding new investigators. For Missionaries who are in the field right now. Don´t give the person their space, don´t get to close, but try to be super persistant when you find someone. Be super firm when you are talking with them and use a strong voice and they will feel the spirit of your words. Like Elder Holland does. But that was most of the training for that day. Then the second half came, which was a huge party. We had a huge talent show as well. My entire Zone did a dance, that wasn´t very great to add on. But we were all still laughing in the end. Then we did White Elephant gifts, I got a new bag to work with, which I have been needing for a long time, and we took a bunch of pictures so I´ll send those as well.

So the next thing that happened is we also had our Christmas Party for the ward and we were able to get Ryssa, one of our recent baptized, but not confirmed investigators to come to the party. She loved it a lot and she loves the church a lot. The only problem is is that she has a sister that always drags her off to some place on the weekend and she wasn´t able to come to church yesterday AGAIN! But we are going to be as firm as we possibly can for this next week.

The next thing that happened this week, is that we were able to find some new people to teach. Two men named Antonio and Paulo who are really great. They have seen us passing by for a long time and yesterday we stopped and talked with them. They like us a lot and want to come to church with us this next Sunday. So it was an awesome week this week. We are going to have a lot to do next week.

Well that´s all I have for this week. My message for today is a talk from Elder Bednar which is called The Powers of Heaven which is a really good talk, which is more sided for Priesthood holders, but it can always still be applied to everyone. Because we can all use the influence of the Priesthood in our lives and for the lives of others. So that´s all for this week. Eu amo todos de vocês e espero vocês tem uma boa semana e um Feliz Natal! Tchau, até o próximo!

Elder Jacklin

Pictures from the Christmas Conference

I thought that this photo wouldn´t make it on to the computer, but believe it or not. Our phone has a way to do photoshop, so I made this little photo just to say Merry Christmas to all of my good friends and family who have always given me such a great example and many great experiences in my life. Feliz Natal tudo mundo!

Hello people!!!

Wow this week was a very interesting week. We had a lot of very strange experiences this week, we had awesome ones as well. So to start them off.

So to start off the week we had a man walk up to us and ask if we could read the bible with him. So we started to read with him and such, he really enjoyed what we had to say to him, but when we asked him where he lived, actually only I heard this. He said he lived in the prison and that he escaped from there that week... I have no idea if he was being serious or not, I hope not, but he didn´t give us any problems so I don´t think so, but it was a very weird experience.

Next thing that happened this week. We had the great opportunity of finding a Less Active that we had no idea existed. He loves the church, it´s just that he moved and he didn´t know where the church was in his new home. We were able to show him that we have a bus that will take everyone to the church on Sunday, the only thing is is that he wasn´t able to come on Sunday, but we will start visiting with him this week.

We had another interesting experience happen this week, one of the members here broke their cellphone when we were in their house, and I have never seen someone so depressed in my life about something so little. But her reaction was really funny. But she´s all good now and she should be getting a new one this week.

We had been planning to confirm someone this week but we weren´t able to get her to come to church again, but we will plan to work super hard with her this week so she will be able to come this next week.

Well that´s all from me for this week. I hope everyone is having a fantastic week with lots of Miracles happening. I hope that you are all enjoying the Holidays this week, with snow or cold or heat. Have a great week everyone! Tchau tchau!!!

Elder Jacklin

P.S. I don´t have any pictures for this week. Sorry...

Minha nossa esta semana foi um outra coisa...

Me desculpe mas esta carta provavelmente vai ser muito pequeno. Então não muito aconteceu em nossa área. Nos tivemos um bom tempo ajudando um membro com uma problema difícil mas em outras coisas nos não temos muito.

So now I´ll switch to english. This week in reality was a little bit of a drag. We didn´t have the success that we wanted to have, and it was very stressed with a lot of events going on. We had interviews this week with President though. I really don´t know why we have these anymore. It´s like 5 minutes of: Hi how are you? I´m good thank you, and you? I´m good. Ok let´s have a prayer. NEXT! Not much really happens anymore in these interviews when you have been in the Mission for more than a year. But it´s cool because it gives us a chance to relax a little bit and talk with the other missionaries for 3 hours.

Other than that, we had to help a member out with a problem she is having, that´s been giving us some stress but we are getting it resolved so that´s a big relief. We are going to try this next week to focus more on our work in finding people, because this thing was taking up most of our time last week. But we´ll be getting there.

So I guess I´ll leave my message now, because I don´t have much left to say. So my message is a very plain and simple talk from Elder Holland, it talks a lot about Missionary Work, but the point of the talk can be applied to everyone that is a member of this Church. The talk is called: Missionary Work and the Atonement. It´s a talk that when you are in doubt, or are having many trials, always have confidence in the Atonement, it will help you in all your trials, and if you are a Missionary, use it to help your investigators. That´s all from me this week, I hope you all have a fantastic week, I´ll be praying for you all. Keep on moving in the light. Eu amo todos de vocês! Boa semana para todos!

Pictures with the Hommies!

Beleza, eu não fiz isso em muito tempo!

Eu acho que é um tempo bom para mostrar meu Português para tudo mundo de novo. Eu não sei se vai dar certo por todos de vocês para entender mas eu acho que este pode traduzir para um outro lingua, então... No I´m just kidding.

But anyway, how´s it going with all of you! Things are going great here in Altiplano. So what´s been happening is I´ve received a new companion. He´s awesome, his name is Elder Souza. He´s from São Paulo and one of the coolest guys I have ever known in my life. I´ve never had such a good unity with any of my other companions as I have with him, except Elder Goodwin, but aside from that.

We had a good week this week, it wasn´t a week of new investigators, but we were trying to get someone that we baptized last week to come to church this week to be confirmed, but things happened with her mom and we couldn´t get the chance to confirm her this week, so we are going to help her out this next week with that.

So not much else happened this week and I don´t have that much else to talk about, so I guess that´s all for now, my message this week is just to express the challenge that I left two weeks ago. It has helped me learn so much more about the scriptures and what they say, and I know it can help all of you as well. Find the words that you want to know about then find the scriptures that have those words in them. It will help out immensley. That´s all for this email. I´ll put some photos up for everyone to see as well. Tchau tchau! Eu amo todos de vocês! Boa semana para todos!

Me and my companion

A street in my area

I´m back in High Plain again!

Wow! What were the chances of this happening. Last Saturday night I was not expecting to receive the call I got telling me that I would be returning to Altiplano again. The chances of that happening are super low normally here! But I guess that means that there is someone here the Lord knows only I can help. Everyone in the ward here is going crazy that I am coming back. It´s funny that I left the Area, went to another for a couple of transfers, and then came back. Again what are the odds.

This last week was full of grand Miracles, let me take the time to talk about two very special ones.

So the first was about one of our new investigators. His name is Antonio Carlos. How we found him was actually a very interesting story. We found him and his friend drinking... He saw us and came running up to us asking if we were from the Church. We said yes and got into a conversation about the Church. So what happened is he started to smoke and get high, which we got worried about because we didn´t want him to get hurt going to his house, so we walked him all the way back to his house and helped him out there. We then got into a conversation about music, and I had the impression to show him the music Peace in Christ. And his demeanor changed completely. We started reading the Book of Mormon with him as well, when Christ comes to the Nephites, and we could see a huge change in him, we could see that he wanted to change his life. He then handed us like 20 cigarettes and said that he wanted to be done with them. So it was such an awesome experience to see the spirit of someone change that fast.

The second miracle is that our frequency shot from 66 to 105 this last week in Sacrament and the other half of this Miracle is that Antonio Carlos came to visit as well. He loved it so much and he was super happy that a place like the church existed on the earth. So those were my two awesome experiences from last week. So my message for the day is... I don´t actually have one. Sorry but next week I will. But here are some pictures from Transfers from Campina Grande.

One year, one challenge!

Hows it going where all of you are at. It has been a rushed week this week, but I will leave the highlights. This week didn´t really have the turn out that we wanted it to, but it still had it´s miracles. This week we found a family that is a really great family. They were having struggles with finding hope, because they were having problems with their son who is Special Needs. It was hard for them, but the light of the gospel has helped them out a lot. They welcomed us with open hearts and have agreed to follow the path, but unfortunately they were not able to come to church this Sunday, because of things that happened.

The second miracle was we were doing a blitz this week and we found a girl who seemed really mole at the first but when we passed by again and talked about the Book of Mormon with her and her mom, she became really interested in what we had to say, and she invited us to visit her tomorrow. So it should be good. I think that we are going to read with her Christ´s visit in the Americas, and help her come to church this next Sunday. But yeah those are the two Miracles.

So for my One Year Challenge for you all, this is my message. So everyone remembers my last message right? So this past week I was trying to figure out how I could come closer to Christ and to help my confidence build in Him. One thing that I was turned to was the scriptures. As I was reading I had questions about specific words that I had questions about, one thing that I decided to do was to go to the guide in the back of the Triple Combination and mark in a certain way about that word and every scripture that had that meaning inside of it. It was such a great experience and helped me a lot with my confidence in God, and in Jesus Christ. It strengthened my testimony about the Book of Mormon and how the words inside of it are true.

So this is my challenge for you all, I promise that it will help you all with some form of trouble that you are having. My challenge is to go into the guide and look for words that you all have concerns about. Pray about what you wish to accomplish with reading the verses that have these words inside them, and then write down your experiences so that you will be able to remember your experience. I testify that it will help strengthen your testimony that Christ will help you when you are in need of Him, and that it will strengthen you in every aspect of the Gospel in your lives. I love you all and hope that you all have the opportunity to do this challenge. I promise again that it will help. It has helped me.

I have a video this week that I will send to everyone. It´s a video of me burning one of my Shirts, so if you guys want to look at that, I´ll get it sent out!

Pictures!

Cobrando a camisa! Feliz um ano!

I have officially reached 1 YEAR!

I am not believing what is going on right now. I was thinking that I would only make it for at least 6 months, no I´m kidding, but it feels weird that I have been in Brasil for 1 year. I can´t even remember half the stuff I did here. I have to go look back in my recordings and in my journals to remember what happened. This is a weird feeling....

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I´m just doing this because I figured out that I had a blog last week.

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So just for kicks and giggles.

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I bet you guys would like me to continue.

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This must be really annoying. Right?

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Ok I´ll stop... ... ... ... Heh ok. This week was an awesome week for finding new people to teach. We didn´t have much success though getting them to come to church, because one of them unexpectedly went on vacation for the weekend, and I don´t think it was her decision, and the others were working, is what we think. They weren´t home when we got there and we waited for 2 hours for them but they still didn´t come. But yeah.

Anyway, something super special happened this week. So this person who unexpectedly travelled. She is someone very special. Her name is Morgana, She has been in the hospital for the past 15 days and she was trying to find God in her life. Well one night she said she had a feeling to go outside her house and wait. She didn´t know what she was waiting for she said, but after a few minutes. My companion, I, and our Ward Mission Leader turned the corner to talk with her. She was so excited to see us. She told us all that happened, and that she was so grateful that we talked with her. She soon after accepted a Book of Mormon, and we will continue teaching her this week.

So my message for this week is not a talk, but a quote that I received just before I went on my mission. It is something that has been helping me out a lot in my mission, and I felt the impression to share it with all of you. So here it is;

´´Impossible is not a word. Impossible is just something that looks really really hard. But it is only hard if we let it, because it depends on how much effort we put into accomplishing our goal.`` 

-John Miller

 He told me after that, that I shouldn´t be afraid of any goal I have set in my mind, because when I trust in the Lord, my effort becomes limitless depending how much I depend on Him. Because He did the impossible, and through Him I can do the same. So that´s my message that I leave today. I hope that it can help you all out in whatever you guys are facing. That´s all for this email. I will have pictures finally for all of you to see. I´ll get those all up in a minute. Mas eu amo todos de vocês e eu espero vocês tem uma boa semana! Tchau tchau!

Birthday Celebration...

Guarana and Brasil are LIFE!!!