Week #26 Another Amazing Week!!!

Hello Everyone!!!

So this week was awesome!  We have seen a ton of miracles.  Most of which are the family members of people that we have already been teaching starting to open up their hearts to the message of the restored gospel. People who have been "die hard Catholics" or something to that sense for their entire lives, starting to listen to us and converse with us with interest.  

In specific, we have been teaching our friend Ivan and his family.  We are also meeting individually with his daughter Sabina.  She was a little mad at us because we told her that we couldn´t go into her house because her Dad and Brother weren´t there...she wouldn´t even do the lesson outside.  Well, Sunday morning while we were calling people to wake them up for church, I had the prompting to call her to invite her to church.  (She´d never been before)  I called and woke her up.  :/  I invited her to church, she said she´d try to wake herself up and go.  SHE WENT TO CHURCH FOR SACRAMENT!  It was literally one of the best feelings in the world to see her walking down the hall towards the Sacrament Room.  She enjoyed it.  Later that night, we had a family home evening with a family and a less active, but the less active cancelled, so it was just going to be the family and us.  Again,  i felt that i should call her and invite her to that even though she would be working right up until time for it.  We called and invited her, SHE SAID SHE´D GO!  She came and it was a perfect night and that after seeing the church from another prospective, that she is really learning why it is called The Church of Jesus Christ.  SO COOL!!

Other stuff happened too, but I don´t have the time to write about all of it.  The jest of it is this.  The young men here are on fire.  I love this ward, area, my house, my companion, this mission, Chile, and I am beginning to feel more and more at home and that I am just preaching the love of God and Christ to the world.  

I don´t have a scripture to share this week, but I do have a thought.  This week, I heard this.  "The world is in your head.  Get your head right, and your heart will follow."  I just want to testify to all of you that this is so true for all of us.  All of our worries, problems, stresses, and struggles are in our heads.  If we get our heads right, our hearts will follow what we put into our head.  Actually, I just thought of a scripture.  

Mathew 6:33  "But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and HIS righteousness: and all these things shall be added unto you."  

If we put the kingdom of God in our heads and seek after HIS righteousness, our hearts will follow that and we will be transformed into the people that we were destined and created to be.  With this thought,  I want to challenge each of you to do something to alter your life to seek more diligently the kingdom of God.  Help someone new, show increased love,  be a friend...something. You will find that these blessings will not only be yours to be had in this life, but your families and all of the people you impact for all of eternity.  This is my humble prayer for every one of you, in the sacred name of Jesus Christ.

Con Amor,

Elder Jackson

Week #25

First, I want to apologize for last week.  We were in the middle of writing and something happened and we had to leave immediately.

SO, the last two weeks in the mission have been absolutely AMAZING!  We are seeing people progress that having been.  We are seeing people coming to church that haven´t been in years.  We are denying what the old teaching records said...in the description part of the record one says "THIS PERSON WILL NEVER COME TO CHURCH. DON´T WASTE TIME." We decided to work with those people anyways...and they are some of our fastest progressing people.  It really is amazing to see that just because something didn´t work for someone else, doesn´t mean this isn´t the time.  Lesson learned, DON´T LISTEN TO OTHER MISSIONARIES, HAVE FAITH IN THE WORK OF THE LORD. 

I couldn´t even begin to tell all of the stories, but here is one.  Basically, there is  a family we´ve been teaching since I´ve been here.  We could only meet with them once a week so it´s been a little slow, but the lessons are always great.  It´s a family of five.  Basically, the daughter goes to mutual and has been trying to get the parents to talk to missionaries forever, but they just started when i got here.  The problem has been that the dad doesn´t feel completely prepared to be baptized because he doesn´t know everything.  We explained to him that none of us know everything and that we are all striving to learn more and to better ourselves.  We liken the church to a hospital...a place of refuge where people can recover from bad experiences and learn how to better take care of themselves mentally, spiritually, and physically.  I shared my testimony about how I never read the Book of Mormon before my mission....I  don´t have hardly any time in the church...i´m a misionary and kids in the church know more than me...but that I have an everincreasing desire to change, progress, and better serve my Heavenly Father.  We shared the scripture that says that if you have a desire, you are called to the work.  Then we explained that he clearly has a desire or he wouldn´t be meeting with us.  Then we explained about how the Holy Ghost will make "all things known unto you."  He responded with...."Tell me what I have to do to have that."  Then we set a date with him and his family for the 14th of March.  :)

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. Matthew 5:3-12

As a spiritual message for this week, I just want everyone to read this. I want everyone to think about these words with an eternal prospective. I want all of you to pay specific attention to verse 10. Why, because it says "for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." This whole part, but especially that verse speaks to me. We all feel at times like we give our all to the church, but that bad things still happen to us. We think that that is bad, but in reality, that is what is supposed to happen. We are supposed to be persecuted and attacked. That´s a part of the plan. Why you might ask? I don´t know the doctrinal reason, but in my opinion, it is because at some point, all of us are backed up against a wall of our faith. At this point, God wants us to make a stand for the gospel! He wants us to fight for righteousness...not for righteousness in others, but in ourselves. He wants us to find the strength in ourselves to take Satan on "headfirst". When we do this, we are making an ultimate example of our love for our Heavenly Father. We are showing humility that we don´t know everything, but that we have faith in what he has revealed to us.

I just want everyone to think about that and decide for youselves, How am I showing my love for God? I feel like that is one of the "million dollar questions" that Heavenly Father will ask us at our judgement...did you show the world that you love me?

I hope all of you are taking great care of yourselves and are living life to the fullest. Enjoying every day,seeking the good, showing love always, and testifying through your words, thoughts, and actions, that our God is a living God...and that he lives in EACH AND EVERY ONE OF US.

Love,

Elder Jackson