Dec 25, 2017 Merry Christmas!

The pictures aren't very good, but he looks good and is happy.

We didn't write this week because we got to talk to Elder Lancaster.  This was his 2nd and last Christmas in El Salvador.  He has 6 months and 3 days before comes home.  So, lots of letters and 1 more phone call on Mother's day.  The time is flying by with lots of learning and growing left for all of us to do.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Dec. 18, 2017 Ilumina el Mundo

What up tho...!!! How are we all doing? Well I have had a pretty tuanis week this week. We have been working hard and getting references and having family home evenings so we can get people baptized you know. We also put a bunch of fechas this week. Those are baptismal dates but it is way faster to just say fechas right? These people here are amazing and I love them so much. They are a little stubborn and don't want to go to church all that bad but we are getting there. So we had interviews with Pres. Duran and he let me know why I was with Elder Roundy. He told me that he isn't emotionally ready to be with a latino comp. He wouldn't be able to handle it with him and he and the Lord felt like I was a great choice for him... I was like well the Lord and you want me to learn a ton more patience... He kinda laughed. So he told me to help this District out and he told me that I have his trust and he wants to see these areas succeed so that means a ton of work to do right? Another thing not too cool happened here this week. The other Elders went to have a family home evening with the Branch Pres. and they asked him what he thinks would help the branch grow. He said we need to rededicate the building. They were like WHAT???? He was like ya. I don't know if you had heard about this but the missionaries were teaching a girl that was possessed and ever since she had a melt down in the church the branch has not grown. When I mean melt down I mean the bad spirit came out and stuff. She told a member who tried to reprimand her that he had broken the law of chastity and was not worthy to even take the sacrament let alone reprimand the spirit. Hahaha in interchanges I met the girl!!! Wow it just felt gross being in the same house with us. No I didn't have her come out or anything but wow it wasn't a good atmosphere. Then Pres. Mario Branch Pres. said that even new converts had felt scared for some reason and he feels like it is for that reason. So we are trying to fix that right now... Hahaha pretty cool right? Anyways I have been studying in the Book of Mormon and wow is it powerful. No wonder Pres. Tommy Monson said that we needed to read it and get a testimony of it. And in this last conference there were more talks about reading the Book of Mormon. I love the activities that Predicad Mi Evangelio tells us that we can do. It is great you all should go try some of them out. Well it is only a week until Christmas and man am I excited to have my last Christmas in the mission field. Christmases just aren't the same here. All they do is blow off fireworks on the 24th they don't even do anything 25th. There is 0 celebration of Christmas. Even some of the churches that are "Christian Churches" don't celebrate it or have Christmas lights or trees because it is a sin to them to celebrate Christmas. These type of people walk around with a veil on their heads. It looks like the stole someone's table cloth and put it on their head but... Ya.. I'm sure Briar knows what kind of people I am talking about. Hahaha well ya we made a dope poster of Light the World in Spanish obviously, to sing Christmas Hymns and go caroling and take pics with some people and Light up their world and their Christmas right! Hahaha ya welcome to the Kingdom. Mommy put the pic on Facebook Instagram Twitter you name it because Elder West, Mower, Roundy and I want to be famous. Make sure you put the ·Lighttheworld on it so we will be famous! Haha love you guys have a great week!!!

Dec 11, 2017

Hey what up fam?! So this week we had a pretty good week. So we were working hard and having fun always right? So this week we had a sick family home evening. We had 9 investigators in it so that was cool. Then we had interchanges on Wed. I went to Ilobasco with Elder McDaniel. So that was really fun. We found a huge snake.... Wow... SShe was like I love just to listen to the Gringitos pray. So that was weird. Anyways it was really fun because we also put 5 fechas bautismales and they were all pretty positive people. Even in my area they were working pretty hard they put 4 fechas here too. So pretty happy for the success. Then we shared the Light the World video with them. It was really a great lesson. My comp even worked on his Spanish. Then rolled around Saturday and no one was home and it was honestly was so hard. Sunday rolled around and we only had one investigator. But he had a great time there. After that we went to sing Christmas Hymns in the Old Folks home. It was funny because we did that and the Nuns were super happy with us but the best part well there were 2 parts. 1 our investigator took us there. 2 we got a pic with the Nuns. That was my fav about this week. I have a flipping pic with Nuns. Well that is really all I did this week so ya! Love you!!!

Jackson. 

Dec. 4, 2017 New Area

Here we are again with another week gone and another month too. I had changes last week and now I am in Sensuntepeque. It is a town about 2 and a half hours away from San Salvador. It is FULL OF HILLS. I am not going to be chubby anymore because there are not buses to use and it is just full of hills! My calves are going to be bigger than Coach Ripps calves! Hahaha. So I finally have my first North American comp. His name is Elder Roundy. He is from Panguitch Utah. He asked me if I knew where that was and I say YES! I know where it is and he was like you are one of the first. So ha. He is new in the mission. He just finished his training. But man he is struggling to learn spanish... I feel like I have to help him out so much. He is really emotional too. So that doesn't help him very much because when he gets frustrated he doesn't get mad like I do. He gets sad and cries. So we are going to toughen him up a bit and we are going to help him out. I promise I won't be mean. But really the kid is just a wonderful missionary. He has a strong desire to serve the Lord and be on His errand. He already has a strong love for this people which is amazing. I know he is going to teach me many things and he will help me be a more Christ like missionary. So I gave a district meeting and everyone thought that it was super fun because I played don't eat Pete hahaha to show the importance of the spirit. Then we had interchanges. I was with Elder Mower who has 6 months on the mission. We worked hard. We also kinda did it because he is training a Gringo and my comp can't speak spanish either so I sent them on their own so that they can learn how to speak. It didn't turn out too good. They said that they felt a feeling that they should go back to the house and I don't if it was completely true but I can't say no you should have stayed out working because of the situation that there is in this country. But these are some kids that are pretty soft. Like not trying to judge but I mean they go hide in the bathroom and cry... So Elder Mower and I are having a hard time. So anyways we had stake conference on Sunday and Zacatecoluca is part of the same stake as us!!!! I got to see all those guys!!! I was so happy to see them! Wow I even  got to see Doris my convert! She had a family member from the states and she was introducing me to them as the Elder that helped her find the gospel and start her journey and all that. That made me so happy. Like that is a true convert and I love her. I just want her to keep going. I didn't get a pic because she left really fast. But wow that was just amazing. So like that is pretty much all that I did this week. So I am just getting huge calves losing weight being leader and lifting the area. 

Love Jackson

 Voice Recording
What's up Fam?!  Just chillin' in a new area Sesuntepeque.  So, we've got 4 Elders in this branch that
 we have and the funny thing is that all 4 of them are white and from the States, not a single Latino here. I just happen to be the great and blessed District leader that SUCKS!   You know though, What it is, what it is.  so what  we're doing this week.   This week it was just a little wierd, because we had stake conference, we had a bunch of different things.  We had the Christmas devotional, I didn't get to work all that much in the area because it was just 3 days or something
 of work.  It kind of stunk it up.  So, I'll mostly talk about Stake Conference.  We show up, and immediately I see a previous investigator from Zacatecoluca.  My 2nd convert, O MY GOSH!!  Het eyes lit up when she saw me and I ran to her.  Gave her boyfriend a hug, gave David a hug.  And I shook her hand and she was shaking mine for like 10 minutes and saying oh my gosh, I'm so happy to see you.  Then she started introducing me to her family that's from the States that are members too, and she's like oh he's the who helped me find the truth, he's the one who helped me find my happiness on this journey.  I was like WOW!  This is incredible!  That's a real convert.  I just went and said Hi to all the others.  Even the guy who never wanted to be baptized when I was there, He got baptized.  It was awesome!   I even saw Ivan, one of my best friends.  The guy that I gave my shoes away to because he didn't have any.  So, like don't be mad mom, but I didn't like those shoe anyway.  They didn't even work, they were going to fall apart if I used them, but he only used them on Sunday.  It was just really awesome to see all those guys.  Then we had stake conference.  It was pretty good-- until the Stake Presidency started talking, they didn't give very good talks, but our mission President and the Temple president gave great talks. 
The Christmas Devotional was awesome.  We watched it in Spanish because there were 2 other people there to watch it in Spanish in the branch.  The branch President and his wife.  HAHA   The only reason he was there because we asked him if we could come watch it and he said yeah yeah, I'll come too, I'll watch it with you, so it was kind of funny. 
It was really good.  I really liked Elder Duncan's talk, because I know him.  I've met him, I shook his hand, I've talked to him face to face, so that was pretty cool.  It was a good talk.  Pres. Uctdorf's talk, everyone's talks were great, Everyone did a great job in that devotional.  I don't know if you guys are doing the Light the world thing, but we haven't been doing it here, it's a little bit different.  Like I feel like you guys have a lot more chances, a lot more opportunities to do different things. 
But my goal this week is to start doing the Light the World thing, because I think it will help us find some new investigators.  So I encourage you guys to do that.  so yeah, that's my jam, that's my beat.  Elder L