Trebol, Cambio 11 Week 4/5

Some of her audio recordings got a little mixed up/repeated so I combined week 4 and 5

Week 8 Cipresales

me with the baptism caledar we made for Maria and Nery (the bapism cant be the 24th anymore because they missed church yesterday (they have to attend 3 times before being baptised) but thats okay, we will move everything back a week. hopefully we can have the baptism the same day as conference! cool!

me on our street/ally with 2 little packages and a letter from craig that i got this week!!! woohooo!!! im so happy!

me in san juan (it is a literal hike every single day!!!)

Family!

So our investigators Nery and Maria (Familia Ramirez) with the baptismal date didnt attend church yesterday. They said they had to do something to do with voting or something like that... so I am a little sad because that pushes their date do the following saturday.. which is general conference so we will have to see if we can work that out. Earlier this week we made them a calendar with all of the things they need to do before their baptism. It has their baptism and confirmation days marked, as well as the two days they needed to attend church. (now we will have to move the days one week later but its okay). It also has a little checkbox for each of them to check off their reading and prayers every day, and a little pic of sister missionaries to move to each day we are coming over. It is hanging in their room next to a large picture of the guatemala temple and pictures of Jesus. They are really on track and I hope that this week with them goes well. I think that Nery really has a strong desire to be baptised, and Maria knows she wants to be married for forever. 

We did have two investigators at church yesterday: Anna and her boyfriend Pedro. Their situation is extremely compliated because Anna is married to another man who wont divorce her, so they both live in the same house each with a separate man and woman. It is a giant mess. She is extremely evangelica and still whispers her own prayers to herself when we pray but she really likes reading the book of mormon (she is on 1 Nefi ch 10). Pedro cant read so during our last lesson, Hermana Molina worked with him using the Learning-to-read materials that the church makes. He is very receptive to the lessons as well.

We had 4 less active families attend church yesterday! Famila Vargas, Familia Pixtun, Familia Hererra, and Edga!Well i guess they arent families because the papa didnt attend with most, but with the famila hererra the dad came too! Woohoo! So I am very happy because we have been working a lot with them all.

Yesterday I listened to 7 hours of the April 2011 conference and it was awesome! (thank you daddy!!) I am so excited for conference this year! I learned once that in order to receive revelation instead of repetition during conference time, we need to be studied up on past conferences.. and i want revelation!

I love you all so much and thank you for praying for and loving me! My spanish is definitely benefitting from your prayers and i am definitely benefitting from your love. i love you all!

Week 7 Cipresales

Familia!!

We had a wonderful week and have 2 baptismal dates set for the 24th of September!! Its a young married couple we have been working with for weeks and weeks since last change and they are definitely ready! Their names are Maria and Nery and they have an 8 month old baby. They are excited to be baptised together and they are going to love being members of the church. We warned them that the next 2 weeks will be very challenging but that they will reap tremendous blessings in the long run.

We had a wonderful lesson this week before we set the baptismal date, with maria and nery. We had a great lesson about the gospel of Jesus Christ then asked Maria to play outloud while we all kneeled. She said the most humble and sincere prayer I have ever heard. She asked her father in heaven if he could tell her if what we were teaching them was true. As soon as she started her question, the spirit was so strong. Her prayer was so genuine because she really wanted to know and she knew she would get an answer. Then she paused... and the spirit practically knocked me over. When she ended her prayer, she just kneeled there and cried. I was crying too. It was so beautiful. Then last night after we set the baptismal date, Nery prayed in the same manner, while holding the baby on his knees. He received a similar answer. This family is golden!

We have some possibilidades also that we are excited to continue teaching. The ward has really started to get involved since our ward meeting about the ward mission plan and this week we received quite a few referrals! I am excited to contact them all this week! We have a new goal to work with the members more and schedule more lessons with members. It wont be easy because it requires more planning to get all of the people together at the same time, but it is definitely possible.

Thank you for your prayers!! I am safe and my spanish is definitely getting better!

love Hermana Jacobsen

me in cipresales in my rain boots

me with home made cafe rio!

me with a new investigator johnny. he was making these pinatas while we taught him! its yoshi from mario

Week 6 Cipresales

sandals (geanas) i bought last p day! for in the house. and my cute toes i did this week!

me with a member of our ward. she was the very first lesson i ever had my very first day in the mission field! this pic was taken yesterday though. i also talk about her on the audio files this week or last week and the nacho libre picture above her bed.(i think)

me with hot chili pepper in my eye!!!

Week 5 Cipresales

Yesterday we had investigators at church that stayed for more than sacrament meeting! The Familia Pixtun came (mom is a member, her husband is not, and they have 3 boys of which the oldest is baptised) My companion promised Hermano Pixtun on saturday night that if he sacrificed 1 hour of work to go to church with his family that he would receive more work for the rest of the day. (he drives a tuktuk) So he stayed for a little over an hour then when he went to leave... his tuktuk wouldnt start in the church parking lot! I know its secretly a blessing that looks like a trial, and its a gigantic teaching opportunity. Tonight we are watching the Joseph Smith, Prophet of the restauracion with the family and it will be a wonderful example of how even when we are making good choices, satan isn´t happy and wants to make life difficult. We also had our new investigators Hermana Alma and her two sons at church yesterday. She was asking my companion questions about the book of mormon in the street because she´d read parts of it years ago (she thought the King Noah in the book of mormon was saying that the Noah in the Bible was bad) So set an appointment and taught her the first lesson with her kids. She had all of the same questions Joseph Smith had before he prayed to ask which church was true so it was wonderful to teach her and i really felt like i contributed. Oh and gave a talk in church yesterday as well (all of our investigators were late enough that they missed it.. but we had 6 menos activos at church yesterday and they all got to hear it!) so that went well! Our bishop seems to speak in church quite a bit. I dont know if thats normal here in central america or not but it kind of reminds me of a pastor or priest or something. I was wishing it was member giving a talk and bearing testimony instead of him talking yesterday when our investigators arrived.

some of the ward and our mission plan

me in san juan ouside a house we found new investigtors in this week! theres a waterfall in the background! (with dirty water but its still a waterfall :) and this is the place i am talking about in my recordings when i talk about kimberly and her mom and my favorite lesson ever that we taught on the ground ouside her house.

me in my house with my new blanket and a package i got from craig this week!

me with our new ward mission plan progress record that we presented last night... a guy in our ward made the print and my comp made the mock up. we presented it last night to the ward.

me in san juan with a view of all of the cement slums

Week 4 Cipresales

Dear Family, So this week was a pretty good week, our baptism won´t be happening on Aug 20th next saturday because our investigators havent been to church 3 times (Maria and Nery) so i am sad about that. But her parents (adrian and Estela) came again this week woohoo!! so now they just need to get married. It costs $30 to get married here civally, and thats a lot to the people here so thats kind of hard. But we are teaching them to have faith and everything will fall into place. We have a new investigator this week who is the grandpa of a less active family. We still have Carmen and Michelle too but didnt have lessons with them this week so theyve each only had one lesson each but have a book of mormon. My spanish definitely got better this week! i fasted again the past 2 sundays and prayed for the gift of tongues. I definitely am picking up more about the conversations around me and i have even caught myself thinking in spanish!! woohoo! now i just need to start dreaming in spanish :) I have realized that i just need to say what God puts in my mind during the lessons. At first i used to hold back because i thought it sounded dumb or i wouldnt be able to say it in spanish... but now i just blurt it out. The scriptures say to speak the thoughts he will put it into my mind and i will not be confounded before men. its so true! i also used to think that when i didnt have words to say that it meant i couldnt feel the spirit enough to know what to say... but now i think its because maybe nothing needs to be said right then. maybe the investigator needs silence. i am really learning to notice and pay attention to the spirit

outside my house after walking home in the rain without my umbrella

me in the nicest neighborhood here with chocolate strawberries (i LOVE them)

me learning how to make tamales!

me learning how to make pupusas

 

 

 

 

Audio Letters Week 4

Hola! Hermana Jacobsen is nearly finished with her mission! and we have gotten very behind on updating her blog! The reason is because she has been sending all her letters as voice recordings. She has a little hand-held voice recorder with a memory chip, so every week she uploads those recordings and sends them to us via email. Ever since she started sending audio letters (back in week four in the field!) I have been trying to figure out a way to upload them to her blog so everyone can hear them! And I have finally figured it out! ( A LOT later!) So here is week four and I will do my best to get them all uploaded asap! So you can listen to them before she comes home beginning of December! (so soon!) Every play box is a different audio recording from the same week! I hope you enjoy hearing the voice of your favorite missionary!