Well, the past couple days have been really busy! But fun, tambien. It was great to get to talk to you yesterday. Jon, Heather, and Danielle, I´m sorry we couldn´t :( I hope your meet went well, though! I don´t know how to use this keyboard, so this will be all one paragraph. Well, traveling yesterday was...fun... Really, it wasn´t too bad. It can never be too bad when you have tons of young people to entertain you. I got to know some of the elders better. There are so many fun people here. Love it! I will miss our old district and zone and friends, but there are always new ones! Hna. Petherbridge didn´t get her visa, along with about a dozen other people, so they are still in Provo. :( We miss her, but hopefully she will join us here, and if not, Hna. Shearman and I will see her in Trujillo!!! We arrived in Lima a little after eleven, and then we had to go through immigration, and then someone picked up one of the elders, elder Massey´s bag because it looked like theirs, so we were waiting around forever until there was only one bag left and it wasn´t his, it was this Garcia person who took his. Poor fellow. Anyway, once we figured out that that had happened it was probably around midnight. And then we wen´t through customs, which wasn´t really anything significant, and then we got on a bus and drove through lima to the barricade--okay, that totally isn´t the word i´m looking for, but that´s okay--that is the CCM. High walls, three buildings, pretty landscaping, and I don´t really know what else. we arrived between one and two in the morning. There was another group that came earlier and another that came later--like around 5:30--but up at 6:30! Siempre! It´s good though. It´s best just to adjust and not waste time. In my room there are six hermanas--three american and three hispanic. So each of us has a native companion, but we split up to go to class (obviously, the natives already speak español). My companion is Hermana Cepeda, from Lima. She´s super nice. I like her. Sister Hoffman and Sister Robison, of Sandy and SLC respectively, are my companions the rest of the time. Everything is a little confusing here, because we just got a new president, President Cavanaugh, because the other president had to go back to the States for medical reasons. So, a lot of the time we don´t really know what´s going on, or what we´re going to be doing ten minutes later. It´s cool though. :) I´m sure it will get better. We have ´´free time´´ this afternoon, so we can unpack and get settled and everything. That reminds me of a thought-provoking story that our bus driver told us on the way up to SLC yesterday morning. He was talking about a couple of golfers who were friends (the names had absolute no significance for me, so i don´t recall them). Anyway, the one was asked if he though his friend would ever win an MBA golf tournament, and he said no. when his friend asked him why, he told him that it was because he never practiced in the off season. He never worked consistently to become better, so he would never be good enough to win. our driver related that to life and missionary work in that what we do with our ´´free time´´ is often a better indicator of success than what we do when we have to work. He mentioned something from a talk by Eld. Christofferson, which was soemthing about work preparing you for leisure and leisure preparing you for work. So if you don´t feel like working after doing something ´leisurely´ you probably should pick different activities. I thought that was interesting. I´m really grateful for the opportunity I have to improve how i use my time. I had another thought I wanted to share, but I´ve forgotten it. Oh! I´m trying to follow Hna. Bakaitis´s advice and speak en español as much as possible. It´s fun. I can´t beleive we have six weeks here--it´s feels like I know the people I knew for 3 weeks so well, I´m not sure i can even handle how well I´ll know my district after 6 weeks. Yikes. :) Anyway, I love you! Adios! Hna. Jackson

tocar la bateria

Hola lovely familia!

I feel ridiculously peppy when I write emails, which is probably a good thing.

So, we met our new teacher, who(m?) we had already met, but not as our teacher. Can I just say how weird (and very humbling) it is to have people who are so young teach you? Hno. Crawley is about a week older than I am, and he's been back from his mission an even shorter time than Hno. Pitcher. We're the first district he's taught at the MTC. Anyway, when we were practicing the verb "gustar" (to please) which is how you say you like things en espanol, he told us that he likes to play the drums, which is "tocar la bateria" (sp?), which can also mean "touch batteries." I thought it was funny, so I wrote it down for your enjoyment. :)

Anyway, I don't have much time--we're meeting our district to head up to the temple in, like, ten minutes. This week has been great--a little less tough. We're getting into the routine of things. I'm sorry I don't have time to respond to al lthe emails (thanks, Mom, for the dearelder, and Jon for your letter. Also for Rachael's and Bro. Bless's letters. They were great.) It's really been impressed upon my mind the importance of having charity. Which is something I feel really strongly about anyway, but Hno. Pitcher has been telling us that what really matters as we practice and role play is that you feel a real love for your investigators. And I've been telling myself that my biggest problem is the language, and not being able to say what I want to say in a comprehensible manner--something I haven't had an issue with since I was about 2. :) But really, if you really want to know what your investigators needs are and you really want to be able to meet those needs, you will be able to convey that through your expression and through your spirit. And the Lord will help you do the rest. But, oh my goodness it requires a lot of humility and charity and more humilityx50billion.

Anyway, I HAVE to go. I love you! And I'll respond to your mail asap.

:)

buckets of love,

Hna. Jackson

"Have I ever told you that I know, like everyone?"

Thanks Mom, Heather, and Dani for the letters! And all of you for the emails. Savannah sent me a letter via dearelder.com (THANK YOU!), which reminded me that I totally hadn't told you about that (or have I? I can never remember these things. I know it's crossed my mind). Anyway, You go to the website (dearelder.com) and you can send me a letter that will be put in my mailbox. All the benefits of email, except I have more than a half-hour to think about them. :) I'm sorry I probably won't be able to respond separately to all your emails. At least not this week. DearElder does cost to send to South America, but you still can. It's probably better than snail mail (not that you should ever use that as an excuse not to write me real letters). Anyway, I'm definitely sending off responses to Dani and Heather today, so be ready. :)

So, as the subject line indicates, I have met about 50 billion people that I know here. And when I say 50 billion, I really mean, like, a dozen. But really. I TOTALLY forgot to tell you the Very Important News: Hermana Marybeth Tew and Sister Katelyn Sneed were both here with me! My beloved roommates! Hna. Tew has left for the Guatamala MTC, and Sister Sneed is in Indiana (!!!!!), but it was awesome running into them while they were here!
I also met:
a couple girls from my freshman ward, Sisters Stevensen (-son?) and Fors
my coworker, Jorge Jimenez, who tutors here
a guy from my calc class, Joe Patten, who is the tutor for my zone (what?)
a guy from my summer ward last year, Porter Hunt, who teaches here
a girl I was in choir with, who totally didn't recognize me
Rachelle's friend, Eric Wells, who is a teacher here
Anthony what's-his-face (no offense) from Columbus that I met, like, once.
people I know that I've forgotten I've met
other random individuals I recognize from the dorms and classes. I'm tellin you: BYU and missions make a worldwide church a pretty small thing indeed. It's kinda freaky. Not gonna lie.

Things have been easier this week. I don't feel like I'm in quite so much of a perpetual daze. :) Our little (or maybe big...) companionship does a lot of inventories. I'm finding out all of these things about myself, well, most of them are things I already knew about myself that I needed to work on, but now I'm like, "BOY, do I need to work on that." It's pretty humbling, let me tell you. It's good though. :)

Our teachers are fantastic. Well, at least one of them. :) Hno. Pitcher has been teaching us, and Hno. Crawley has been posing as our investigator Rafael (we've taught him four lessons). We found out he was our other teacher yesterday. Yeah. I mean, he totally has an RM aura, so I wasn't super surprised, but yeah. So he knows how truly awful my Spanish is. And my Spanish teaching. Ugh. :) He's teaching us tonight, though. I'm sure we'll learn a lot. I really love learning here. classes are so engaging, even when I'm exhausted, I can't fall asleep. Even when I kinda want to. It's great. And the 8 fundamentals are even better than the Spanish. PMG keeps me sane. :)

Anyway, gotta go! the Gospel is fantastic and the path to happiness. Never forget that. I love you very very very very much! x50 billion!

Love love love,
Hna. Jackson

"Mi hermana vive en Booffalo" aka Jane's first letter!

Hola!

Whew. Day four and it feels like we've done so much already. I have two companions, and they are wonderful, Hermanas Petherbridge and Shearman. We get along really well. They speak much better spanish than I do--we've all had some espanol previously. It's fantastic.

I don't even know where to begin. I still feel like I'm in a little bit of a daze. Since this is our first week, our preparation day is today, but normally it's on fridays. I'm very very tired, and I don't have very much time to write, as our scheduled laundry time is coming up. I'm a little worried, Mom, I still haven't cried--I'm afraid I'm going to hit some sort of wall and just break down. Hopefully it will be a more smooth transition, though. :) I think I'm kind-of in high stress management mode. Yesterday I did have a laughing fit, though. Li, they could rival yours. We were practicing to teach an investigator, Rafael. Hna. Sherman was being Rafael, and she said that she had family in New York, in Buffalo. Except she said it with a Spanish accent, so it was "boofalo." Yeah. I lost it. And my face was super red, since I was laughing, so Hna. Petherbridge kept looking at me and laughing too. It was bad. Fortunately, there were no laughing fits when we were supposed to teach. I'm grateful though. I've prayed to be able to laugh at myself and be optimisitc and good humored. And I'd rather laugh than cry, I suppose. :)

I still haven't slept all the way through the night. Fortunately, our room is cold. My skin is doing better--I've been medicating and hydrating and all that good stuff. Eczema is no fun. Oh! all three of us sleep on the top bunks. :) our roommates are also spanish speaking and a trio/threesome/whatever you call it. They're super nice, and they're really commited to being obedience, because president brown said that obedience brings miracles, and they want all the help they can get. It's fantastic. I need to do better to be more perfectly obedient.

There are two new districts in our zone. Our is district A. We have 8 elders. They are way funny. We love them already. Not just because they're funny, they're good people. :) One of them, Elder Sorenson, reminds me of Jon. haha. In the other new district, district B, there  are two elders who are going to peru! one is going to trujillo also. Oh! All three of us Hermanas are going to Trujillo! It's awesome. We're way excited. We leave the 24th. Interestingly, we are the only Hermanas in our zone. Oh! and Elder Kleinhenz (I don't know how to spell that) of our stake is a district leader in my zone! Crazy, huh? I recognized the name, and he looked familiar, even though I don't really know any of their family.

We are learning so much so fast! We've learned how to testify and pray en espanol. I need to practice much much more, but it's really cool. The english-spanish dictionary is my best friend. Seriously. I love the dictionary.

I'm sorry this is such a random conglomeration of thoughts--not very many thoughts, even. Also, I am going to send you a written letter today. I just have to actually sit down and write. I've meant to, but it's been very busy. :)

Before I go, I just want to bear my testimony of the power of prayer. I know that Heavenly Father hears our prayers and rewards us for the righteous desires of our hearts, especially when we express them to him. I am very grateful for that. It's been a lifesaver in my life so far, in my experience thus far in the MTC, and I know it will be in the future. Sister Hinckly has a quote that say something like "true spirituality...requires us to get in touch with our Heavenly Father every day of our lives." I think that is so true. I am so grateful for the support of all of you, without which my service as a missionary would not be possible. I know that Jesus Christ is my Savior and yours. He loves all of us very much. I have a huge testimony of the power of being in his service--the power it has to affect change in our own lives, and the power he gives us to help others change their lives. It's what mortality is all about. I'm so grateful that I can focus on this great work for 18 months. I love you all! Please write me! letters are better than emails, but I'll take what I can give. I love you, and I'm praying for you. :)

 

con amor,

Hna. Jackson