Simplicity and the Professor's Final Exam

This week was really good!  Heavenly Father blessed us in many ways.

Cristian , our investigador (investigator), is golden.  He´s searched long for the truth.  He has studied with the Catholics, Adventists and Evangelicals and has a lot of knowledge of the Bible. He came to church again and loved the 5th Sunday devotional.  He is so excited to be baptized!  His family says that he talks about it everyday.  They´re really good in helping answer his questions and doubts.  His cousin said the other day, he was reading about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and yelled ¨Are you kidding me!  It´s that simple!  Everything I´ve read and studied finally makes sense!¨  

In that it is true.  I know that the doctrine of Jesus Christ is simple, easy to be understood.  We don´t need to make it complicated.  

I´d like to share a story with you all that I heard.  This week in the ward, there was a focus on serving your fellow men.  

In his monthly ward newsletter a young bishop wrote of a group of religion instructors at a theological seminary who were taking a summer course on the life of the Saviour, -one focusing particularly on the parables.

When the final exam time came, the students arrived at the classroom to find a note on the table stating that the exam would be given in another building across the campus.  The note also said that the test must be finished within a 2 hour time period that was starting from that very moment.  

The students hurried across the campus.  As they ran, they passed a little girl crying over a flat tire on her bike, an old man hobbling painfully toward the library with a cane in one hand with spilled his books on the sidewalk.  On a bench, by the union building, sat a shabbily dressed bearded man with a sign: ¨I need money to eat. Please help me.¨

Rushing into the other classroom, the students were met by the professor, who announced that they had all failed the final exam.

The only true test to whether they understood the Saviour´s life and teaching, he said, was how they treated people in need.  Their weeks of studying had taught them a great deal of what Christ had said and done.  But nothing they learned in class was as effective as the lesson they learned from the professor´s exam.

We can read and study and grow in our knowledge of Jesus and his teachings but it doesn´t serve a purpose unless we apply what we've learned.  Jesus taught not only to be heard but to be followed. 

I feel like I have really grown this cambio (transfer) to have a heart full of charity.  I love all the people I talk to! Even if I don´t know them!  I thank Heavenly Father for all of ways he has blessed my life and for the opportunity I have to be His hands and help bring blessings to His children here in Chile.

Love you all lots!  Hope you have a good week!

Hermana Jakob

We found wigs in a member´s house and had a little fun!

Leaving La Marina or is That a Mistake?

So I thought that I would get transfered today.  I already have 3 cambios (transfer periods of 6 weeks. 3x6= 18 weeks in La Marina) in San Pedro and it´s really rare that people stay here for more than 3 unless you´re a Zone leader or Hna Cap (sister trainer).  Surprise!  I get to stay in la Marina with Hermana Lockling!  It´s going to be a great cambio!  We have a lot of plans.  Things we´re going to change, things we´re going to improve on, like how we´re going to work more diligently with the members.  We´re going to see a lot  of miracles!

Speaking of miracles, we saw a miracle yesterday.  Familia Jarpa (The Jarpa family) brought their cousin to church yesterday.  Before I tell this story, I have to say that we have been praying a long time now that Heavenly Father could lead us to someone who has a desire to be baptized.  Anyways, we introduced ourselves to Cristian and he started to share his life story.  In every event of his life, I could see the way the Lord has prepared him in many ways to be where he is today, to hear of the message of the restored gospel.  We invited him to be baptized and he said yes! 

Word of the week: I don´t know if I sent this one but the word is ¨Rascapoto¨ In Chile they have a lot of slang here.  This is a slang word for a slide in the park.  Literally translated, it means ¨Butt scratcher.¨ I laughed for a long time when I heard a kid yell it in the park. 

On to the serious...

We´re studying the life of Jesus Christ, Hermana Lockling and I, and there are so many wonderful teachings in the New Testament.  Jesus taught simply and directly - there was no crossing His words. I´m going to be direct now.

The only perfect human, Jesus Christ, established His church in perfect form.  The church is perfect. The people, not so much.  All of us are on the road to perfection so of course sometimes we´re going to make mistakes, our leaders make mistakes. People are going to offend us. However, the power of Christ's Atonement is always there to help us change and improve; to help us repent of our mistakes, and to help us forgive the people who have done us wrong.  The Saviour paid for their sins and mistakes too. When we don´t forgive, we are rejecting His sacrifice.

Heavenly Father knows you, loves you and knows your potential.  We have the tools we need to become like him. Obedience to the commandments is the only way to bring felicidad duradero (lasting happiness/joy) in this life and the next.  

Jesus te amo! Yo también! (Jesus loves you! So do I/Me too!)

Hermana Jakob

Picture of all the missionaries serving in my zone.

Lagunas and Blessings

This week was a lot better than the last!  For one, I wasn´t sick!  YAY!  We also found a family of gold!  They live in the sketchiest part of town but for a long time now I have felt that there was someone there that needed to hear the gospel.  It was the Ortega Ramirez family!  I love them so much even though we just met!  The dad has just started to change his life around.  He stopped using drugs and is completely focused on his family.  His family is the most important thing for him and he wants to be a good example for his hijito (little boy).  Rosa (mom) is looking for God in her life. She can feel that something is missing and wants a good, safe foundation to raise her kid.  The Lord has really prepared them to accept the gospel.  We invited them to attend church and right off the bat, they agreed to come.  Unfortunately, they had a family emergency and couldn´t come this Sunday but we´re going to visit them and see how they´re doing.  

Today, we went to a laguna chico with a member from the San Pedro ward.  She has connections so we got to visit a private park!  It was so beautiful!  It reminded me a lot of Canada with a deep lake surrounded by pine trees. It had a ¨olympic sized pool¨ which was more like a section of the lake closed off by a floating dock.  The cool thing is you don´t have to worry about waves or currents and get to swim in lake water at the same time!    

We took a lot of pictures and our member friend brought her professional camera.  When she send me pics, I´ll send you some more.  

We also has a capacitación de Hermanas (training for Sisters).  We had a big focus on patriarcal blessings. En Verdad (In truth), patriarchal blessings are personal scriptures for our life. It´s like a letter of love that the Heavenly Father has given you personally to help you understand the path back to Him and the plan that He has for you. Just like how we should read the scriptures often, we should read our patriarcal blessings frequently.  

If you continue to live the way you are living, will the blessings in your patriarcal blessing be fufilled? 

 

I invite you all to read your blessings, to study it and make a list of the gifts, blessings and conditions of those blessings.  I promise that you will come to a greater understanding of your purpose and understand the strengths that you have.  You´ll also come to see the way that Satan attacks us and the lies that he uses to make you feel less than you´re worth.  

Love you all lots! Until next week!

Hermana Jakob

Nice sunsets.

Mediating with our new mission sweat shirts.

Tropical Storm!

Hola queridos! (Hello dear ones!)

This week was ummm...interesting to say the least.  I´ve been sick since Wednesday that started out as the stomach flu.  Apparently it´s been going around.  But I continued to have complications for about five days, three of which we had to stay in the house because it was impossible to leave the house in the state that I was in.  I asked for a blessing of health from one of the members and afterwards he said that he felt I needed to go to the hospital.  We went and they medicos (doctors) set me up with some medication to take and I´m doing a lot better now!  Don´t worry!  I´ll be fine. It wasn't fun to lose valuable time to work. I don´t like being stuck in the house all day.  It made me very frustrated but I did have the opportunity to study the New Testament more, together with Jesus the Christ (a book on his life and mission).  

One thing that I noted the most during my studies of the life of Christ is that he does not like hypocrites and chastised the Sauducees and Pharisees many times for not practicing what they preach.  It made me think about my actions, thoughts, words and habits.  Am I practicing what I preach?  Are there things I need to change?  

This week we had a tropical storm!  I have never seen so much rain or wind at the same time.  It was almost a hurricane!  The neighbour´s tin roof was sent flying and it sounded like our was going to follow suit!  Hermana Lockling´s umbrella turned inside out and she was pretty upset about it but bought a new one today.

Last week we also got hoodies stamped with our mission logo and our names.  We´re such nerds!  jajaja!  I can´t wait to pick them up and see how they look!

Matís, our investigator, is doing really well.  We visited him to see if he had read the Book of Mormon and said that he gets a feeling of peace when he reads it.  I invite you all, if you havent already, to develop a habit of reading the Book of Mormon every day.  It will bring into your life a peace and help you come to know Jesus Christ and the plan that God has for you aún más (each one).

Love you all!  Until next time!

Hermana Jakob

 

Following the Spirit

Hola mis queridos!  (Hello my dear ones!)

Esta semana fue genial (This week was awesome!)!  Matís, our new investigator came to church this Sunday!  He´s a 15 year old youth with a lot of profound questions.  It was cool because we were sharing the story of Joseph Smith and he said ¨Wait! I have the same question!s Why are there so many churches and which out of all the churches is true?¨ I know that a lot of people have doubts and questions like Matís.  A lot of times we´re scared to voice them or feel that no one can answer them but there is one person that can.  That person is Heavenly Father.  He is the source of all truth.  I promise you that if you ask Him your questions, voice your doubts in search for an answer,  He will respond.  Through feelings in our heart, through reading the scriptures and through the words of inspired leaders (profetas, obispos, padres/prophets, bishops, fathers) He speaks to us.
 

This week was also a big boost of confidence.  We had an intercambio (exchange) with the Hermanas capacitadoras (trainers) and it was my turn to work in their sector.  I shared my struggle that I have with the language here and Hermana Arce was giving me some council as we talked about how the most important thing is that we teach with the Spirit because the Holy Ghost is the real teacher. Luego (then), we were in a lesson with a less active member and her kids.  She was sharing the problems and doubts that she had and I felt inspired to bear my testimony of the First Vision and how I came to receive it. I prayed in my heart that they would understand and I began to speak.  I thought that I talked for about 30 sec-1 min and I saw in their eyes a kindle of light and everything grew still and quite. The Spirit was so strong in the room.

After the lesson, Hermana Arce and I were walking and she said that I had talked in perfect Spanish, without an accent for about 5 minutes straight. El don de lenguas es real (The gift of languages is real!)! I know that Heavenly Father blesses us with these spiritual gifts with the goal to use these gifts help bless others .

 

Here I have a picture of what we did for an activity.  It´s call (roughly translated) Indian with a tattoo or mark.  It´s lots of fun. You sit in a circle and every person has a number.  You have to call out the number of a person in the circle and the number of marks on their face.  If you mess up, the person gets to draw on your face with a marker (washable I hope).  This is the outcome of our game.

 

This is a pic of Matís, (another Matis) the son of a member.  He is 5 years old and takes selfies.  He also stole my rubber boots...jajaja!

 

Love you all!

Hermana Jakob

Moving Houses!

This week was a little crazy but we saw a lot of miracles too!

On Thursday, we moved houses.  This one is a lot bigger and a lot nicer for the same price!  Members of the ward here built it with the missionaries in mind.  It has three huge bedrooms.  We all sleep in one room and study in the others.  It also has a wood burning stove, which is a luxury in the mission.  It´s really humid here because we´re so close to the sea and it´s impossible to dry anything without a wood stove (gas stoves do nothing). Our old house was so full of mold that the walls were black!

Unfortunately I don´t have any picutres because something happened to my SD card (again!) and I have to find someone who can save all my picutres. I´ve now learned to valuable lesson to back-up everything on a pen drive. 

This week we decided to pray to find someone who needed help from the Lord.  On Tuesday, we knocked on the door a youth named Matis. Through the window we could see that he was praying on his knees in the living room.  He got up to answer the door and when we introduced ourselves, he let us in and told us that he´s searching for a proposito de la vida (purpose of life).  We shared about the love Heavenly Father has for him and he had a bunch of questions about Mormons.  He´s a really smarth youth and wants to come to church.

I´m running out of time but I promise I´ll give you a lot more updates next week!

Love you all! 

Hermana Jakob

 

 

(Mom's Note... *sigh!*  More blackmail photos this week!)

 

Picture from her mission photo shoot.... innocent trouble!

Winter 2012 - Hermana Jakob and her friend Jess soon to be Sister Baker who will be leaving us in less than a month to serve her 18 month mission in Edmonton, Alberta.  Congratulations Jess!

Cactus Roses in full bloom from the neighbour's garden.  They are gorgeous when they bloom!

Modismos and a New Companion

We had transfers this week!  I´m with Hermana Lockling.  She´s from Santiago Chile!  Woohoo!  I´m with a Chilena!  I´m working on brushing up my accent.  Sometimes our district leader can´t differenciate between us, jajaja!  She´s also teaching me modismos (jargon) so I can communicate with people a little better.  Here are some of them:

 

 

Pato malo:  sitting duck

Ando pato:  I´m broke

embarao: dumb

I´ll send more as I learn more, LOL.  In the end, I´ll be able to talk to all the flaites (gangsters) in our sector!  

This week was a test of our faith.  I´ve learned a lot about the meaning of paciencia y amor (patience and love) over the past 3 months.  My campanion, poor thing... we had the worst ¨Welcome to La Marina¨ ever!  I think every person we contacted yelled at us.  It doesn´t bother me anymore.  I´ve come to understand how the Saviour felt when He was teaching the Pharisees and the Saducees.  They yelled at Him and rejected Him too.  I feel that as representatives of Jesus Christ, we sometimes have to pass through some of the same trials as He did with the end to become more like Him and to develop the love that He has for all of us.  

Despite the difficulties, we met a woman named Elsa.  Her mother was Mormon and she has a lot of interest to learn what her mom believed.  She lives alone without any kids but loves her brothers and sisters a lot.  She´s a really sweet lady.  

This week we have the challenge to teach as much as we can with the members here. It´s going to be a lot of fun to have them help us out!

I invite you all to read ¨Finding Joy in the Journey.¨ It´s a talk that helped me out a lot.

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2008/10/finding-joy-in-the-journey?lang=eng

Love you all lots.  Until next week!

Hermana Jakob

 

 

 

My new companion Hermana Lockling