Monday 25 January 2016

A Mother's Biggest Wish...

Hola familia y amigos!  (Hello family and friends!)

I feel like this week has been very long but very short at the same time.
Wed -  We went to eat at a Japanese restaurant.  Hermana Lockling (former companion) and Hermana Rowden (friend serving in the same mission from home) accompanied us.  They´re companions right now. The food is pretty authentic.  I´m pretty sure (LOL!) because the family there is from Japan.  It was really cool to hear the waitress talk in perfect Spanish with all the Chilean slang and jargon.  We ate a really good Japanese curry with chicken!
 


 
Today we went to Ruizá family house and made pizza Argentina style! The Argentines are known for their Italian food (there´s a lot of Italian influence).  They put eggs on their pizza!  It was a little weird but I can´t complain.  It tasted good!  We made the sauce and crust and baked it in Hermana Ruiz´s industrial oven.
 
(sample picture)
 


 
This week we participated in the first world wide capacitacion (training) for missionaries.  It was the best!  It helped answer all of my questions!  As I´m winding down to the end of my mission, I really want to give it my all and fine tune the skills that I´ve learned. Elder Bednar realizes that our purpose is to create an atmosphere where the Spirit can dwell and invite people to act.  As they act, they will receive their own spiritual experiences.  
 
This week we found a family of Adventistas (Adventists).  The mom´s name is Viviana and she had a lot of interest to know what the ¨Mormons¨ believe because her aunt and cousin are members of the church and they´re always inviting them to visit church! We shared the Restauracion (Restoration) and that families can be forever. It was magical the way the Espiritu (Spirit) filled the room.  Tears filled her eyes and she asked us to come back to visit with her, her husband and her children.  He has been angry with God since his father passed away and she feels that we can help him find his faith again.  Her biggest wish is that her family can grow closer together and closer to Heavenly Father.  I know that we can find real peace and happiness through the restored gospel of Jesus Christ and that families can be together forever.  
 
Really lame (I know!) but the connection with the camera refuses to work.  I´m as annoyed as you guys are!  Three weeks without pics is a long time! I got a new SD card though!  :)

I read this great talk on the Atonement!  I invite you all to read it! https://www.lds.org/liahona/2008/03/the-atonement-of-jesus-christ?lang=eng

Got to go! 

Love you lots!

Hermana Jakob
 
 

Monday 18 January 2016

Where Do We Go From Here?

Hola mis familia y amigos (Hello my family and friends)!
 
This week we worked a fool!  Por fin (At last/alas), we had a full week without interruptions of conferences or holidays. 
 
The other day, we didn´t have any citas (appointments), so we decided to pass by futures and have a day of tracting (proselyting).  Normally we do a ¨called inspirada¨ where we pray to receive inspiration of where we should go to find the people that Heavenly Father has prepared for us to teach.  It didn´t work.  We tried again and it didn´t work.  I thought something was wrong with us but we put our trust in the Lord and left without knowing where we should go.  We contacted people all day, praying a menudo (often) to receive direction.  We found very good people to talk to but we still hadn´t entered a house to teach.  We prayed to receive direction and we started to walk.  I didn´t know where we were going but I felt that someone was pushing us along.  We finally knocked on the final door of an apartment building in the upper most floor.  A woman named Olaya opened up and let us in immediately.  She started sharing her story and I couldn´t believe it! This women has been prepared for the moment that we knocked on her door!  She is sick with a heart disease and because of her trials she has great faith in Heavenly Father.  She was asking questions like, ¨Why are there so many churches? Out of all the churches, which church is the true church? and more!  It was a truly humbling experience to learn that we don´t always know what we need to do but we should continue to move forward with faith.
 
This experience reminded me of the prophet Nephi in the Book of Mormon when he said he entered into Jerusalem not knowing what he was suppose to do beforehand.  1 Nephi 4:5-6
 
5 Y era ya de noche; e hice que se ocultaran fuera del muro. Y cuando se hubieron escondido, yo, Nefi, entré furtivamente en la ciudad y me dirigí a la casa de Labán.
6 E iba guiado por el Espíritu, sin saber de antemano lo que tendría que hacer.

(5 And it was by night; and I caused that they should hide themselves without the walls. And after they had hid themselves, I, Nephi, crept into the city and went forth towards the house of Laban.
And I was led by the Spirit, not knowing beforehand the things which I should do.)
 
He followed the Spirit and Heavenly Father provided the means of completing the task he had given Nephi.
 
I invite you all to move forward with faith and in prayer and I know that Heavenly Father will direct you for good.
 
I´m so sorry but this week I won´t be sending any pictures either because I have to buy a new SD card for my camera.  Next week I promise!
 
Love you all lots!
 
Hermana Jakob
 
 
 *Sigh!*  Back to blackmail pics.... From family Easter 2013
 
With Uncle Phil and Uncle Joel blowing bubbles
 


With my Aunt Katharine
 
 
 

Monday 11 January 2016

Frustration With Cyber Cafes and Ode To Starfish Moments

This week was a week of travelling!

 
(Mom's Note: No pics this week due to technical difficulties, but found this picture in an Asian grocery store today.  Lots of fun finding products with your daughter's name on them! )
 
On Monday we went to the beach with the Ruiz family.  It was the best!  We stopped by the biggest museum of trains in the world.  It was cool because you could climb up into the engines and take a bunch of pictures.  There was a restaurant in one of the booths but we didn´t stop to eat there.  When we got to the beach, it was breath-taking!  The sky seemed to roll on forever!  And to the right, there was a big cliff about 50 ft tall that was beaten smooth by the waves.  We took cool pictures on the beach then climbed to the top of the cliff and snapped photos of the skyline, the mountains and rivers.  Apparently barges from Japan pass by at times but we didn´t see any when we were there.
 
Despite all the pictures we took, I´m afraid I can´t send any......the cyber cafe erased all of my pictures while I was transferring them from my SD card to my pendrive!  Nothing was saved... I´ll see if I can find some pictures from my companions.  
 
On Tuesday, we travelled to Concè (Concepcion) for Return and Report. It`s a conference for all the newbies and their trainers to see how they`re doing and how they`ve progressed.  It was great to hear the experiences of other trainers; their concerns, joys and questions.  I realized they everyone worries if they`re doing a good job training.  I want Hermana Bentley to have the best experience ever and help prepare her the most that I can in the last 4 weeks that we have together. For lunch we ate Hawaiian Haystacks (YUM!).  President Bluth and his wife drove us back to our sector after Return and Report.  What a blessing because we didn´t have to suffer through the heat of the bus for 5 hours!  We reached Padre Las Casas in time to visit a few investigators.  
 
The other day we were walking in the street and a drunk man was walking down the other side yelling ¨CHINA! KUNG FU! HAI-WAAH!  and sending flying kicks into the air.  Chile never ceased to amaze me! 

I was reading a little book of inspirational stories this week and I found one that I would like to share with you all  it´s called ¨The Starfish Thrower¨


Once upon a time, there was an old man who used to go to the ocean to do his writing. He had a habit of walking on the beach every morning before he began his work. Early one morning, he was walking along the shore after a big storm had passed and found the vast beach littered with starfish as far as the eye could see, stretching in both directions.

Off in the distance, the old man noticed a small boy approaching.  As the boy walked, he paused every so often and as he grew closer, the man could see that he was occasionally bending down to pick up an object and throw it into the sea.  The boy came closer still and the man called out, “Good morning!  May I ask what it is that you are doing?”

The young boy paused, looked up, and replied “Throwing starfish into the ocean. The tide has washed them up onto the beach and they can’t return to the sea by themselves,” the youth replied. “When the sun gets high, they will die, unless I throw them back into the water.”
The old man replied, “But there must be tens of thousands of starfish on this beach. I’m afraid you won’t really be able to make much of a difference.”

The boy bent down, picked up yet another starfish and threw it as far as he could into the ocean. Then he turned, smiled and said, “It made a difference to that one!”


Sometimes we think that we can´t make a difference; that our efforts won´t change anything and there are too many things we have to do.  But every small act of kindness has an impact.  Every person has been given the ability to shape your future and the future of others.  Maybe on a world scale it doesn´t feel like your act of kindness has accomplished anything but in the world of the one person you helped... it makes all the difference. 

Remember the worth of souls is great in the sight of God and by small and simple things are great things come to pass!

Love you all <3

Hermana Jakob

Monday 4 January 2016

Going to the Beach!

Hola Familia! (Hello Family!)

Today we´re heading to the beach with a family... so I´m afraid that we don´t have very much time to write today. 
 
As we begin the New Year, it looks like the leaders of the Church would like us to focus on the basic doctrines of the gospel. I read an amazing talk by Elder Holland about the trinidad (Trinity/Godhead) in the Liahona (Church magazine) this week.  I invite you all to read it! It´s very enlightening and helps us to understand why it is important to know the true nature of God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost.  If we don´t understand the nature of our Heavenly Father, how can we understand our divine nature and our potential?
 

Love you all lots! 

Hermana Jakob
 
Mom's note.... Sorry there are no pictures this week.  She is having difficulties uploading pictures because of viruses that constantly erase her SD card from the public computers she writes home from.  Needless to say, she is very frustrated about it.