August 27th

Hello!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
  The work is going great! We have 5 investigators with baptismal dates now! One of the part members we are working with is set for September, then our friend the pastor has set a date for September 22nd!!!!! and then Emily and Matthew are working for October 6th, and their son who is about to turn 8 really wants to get baptized so we set him with the same day. SO a lot of good things happening here. We got transfer calls yesterday and Elder Chipman is getting transferred this week, but I am not training just getting another companion, It was kind of a relief, because I was pretty nervous to train. Sam is the new Assistant to the President, and he called to let us know about transfers so that was pretty cool. I told him to use his authority and authorize an exchange to come out and work with me in Braun Heights! haha.

  The coolest thing that happened this week was definitely setting Stuart with a date. We had a great lesson with him on Tuesday night and he started off the lesson by saying something like this: "So when y'all are teaching someone and they feel they have studied and prayed and find it to be true, how do you go about bringing them into the church or baptizing?" So we were kind of awe struck and just explained that we bring them to church and then we set a date and baptize them. We then taught and committed him to be baptized on the 22nd!!! The member we took with us is the same one that has been working wih Stuart the whole time and he was super excited! Stuart said yes to the invitation to be baptized and then said "Well, i'll need to come to church." and I was just like "yeah you will!" But the bad news is that he didn't come on Sunday! He was so committed and then something must have come up yesterday and he didn't make it! We haven't been able to conact him yet but we are going to stop by tonight and see what happened. I'm still confident that he will be baptized and come to church, but we just have to help him feel comforable coming to church because it is a really big change. He is a great guy though, one of the  most Christ-like people I have ever met. That lesson was really just a testimony for me that when people take the promise of the Book of Mormon with an open heart and real intent they will recieve an answer! Every time! It works! So that was really cool to see. Then the other girl we set with a date with was the daughter of a less active member and she was super happy! She really wants to get baptized. And us coming by and teaching has helped her mom come back to church. They are doing great and it is great to see the change in the daughter's life. She is really happy now about the decision that she has made. She has been struggling wih some stuff in her life, but she is really improving and doing great. The Gospel is awesome!

  Other than those awesome lessons we found a couple new potential people to teach who were really cool so we will see how that goes this week. But everything is going great! I am loving studying the Atonement and still learning every day. This week I had a light bulb click for me about why works are neccesary for our salvation. We have so many people talk to us about grace and how we lesson the effect of Christ's Atonement by doing good works but it finally made sense to me this week. I was reading 2 Nephi 9 for probably the 5th or 6th time and as I was reading about how our bodies will be delivered from the grave and our spirits from hell and be reunited to be judged it just clicked. Christ's sacrifice unconditionally saves us from the effects of the fall in that we are resurrected and brought to be judged according to our works and desires of our hearts; So physical death is conquered just like that, and then we have our own sins to take care of and Christ gave us the way to "recieve" the gift of grace and forgivness and it is by following his gospel and example. SO an illustration that I made for myself that helped me visualize it, and something I think I have seen before is how we are in a fallen state and Christ's sacrifice is a staircase (some people believe that it is an escalator and there is no requirment of us but to get on) and we have to walk up the staircase by excersizing faith, repenting, being baptized, recieving the gift of the Holy Ghost, then coninueing in serving others and loving others and repenting as we make mistakes. Then when we are resurrected and brought to be judged we will have "endured the crosses of the world and despised the shame of them" and we will be "saved by grace after all we can do" (2 nephi 25:23) I had heard all these things before but this time it really made sense to me. There is so much more that I wish I could express about how it made sense but I don't have room. Just from reading in 2 nephi 2 and 2 nephi 9 though a lot of things made sense. I love the scriptures, no matter how many times I read something I always grow in understanding and knowledge each time I read it.

  I hope y'all have a great week, thanks for the prayers and all that you do to support me. I'm where I should be and i'm loving it! I love you all soooo much!!!!!!

Love Elder Jackman

August 20th

Hey!
Last P Day was a bummer because Elder Chipman got sick Sunday night and was throwing up all night so on Monday we just took it easy and didn't get to do anything.  While we were there I ate some pizza we had in the fridge and then about an hour later I was completely sick and throwing up as well. The pizza had gone bad or something, but we both got food poisoning from it and it was the worst day ever! We are all recovered now and doing well.

This week was great! We had a zone meeting on Wednesday and Elder Chipman and I gave a training on "QGC" (Quality Gospel Conversation).  It is a number we record in the mission and it just helps us track how many people we are talking to and testifying to each week. We trained on why we do it and how it helps us fulfill our purpose. It was a fun training and I think we did a good job. We had some people come up and we did some role plays that were funny. I have found as I have been out here that I really love teaching people. Whether it be teaching our investigators the gospel, or like we taught an English class in Riverside, or giving that training. I love teaching people and helping them understand things, it is so great when you can see a lightbulb click on and they get it.

Our investigators are doing great! This week we started teaching 2 part member families and they are both very receptive and really nice. The non members in both familes accepted a baptismal invitation and now we just need to set them with a firm date and continue to teach them. We are having a lot of success in teaching people right now, and we can see that a lot of baptisms are going to be happening in the next couple transfers. It will be really good especially if I get a new missionary because he will start his mission teaching a lot and seeing baptisms! We only have Emily and Matthew (the parents of the boys who were baptized) with a date right now. But are planning on setting dates with our other investigators this week. We keep planning to set people with dates but they keep cancelling lessons, or things come up. That is something that is very hard, because I feel like whenever we find people to teach satan just attacks and puts all these obstacles in our way of teaching them. But as we continue to work hard and push forward we are able to overcome and continue.

At the beginning of this week we had a lot of things come up that held us back. We had a ton of lessons cancelled and reschedule and I got a flat tire, and we were sick... blah blah blah and I was a little down and thinking why is all this happening!? We are being obedient, we are on the Lord's errand and yet we still have all these setbacks! So as I studied it out the obvious answer came that "there must needs be an opposition in all things" (2 Nephi 2:11) but I continued to study and just found over and over that the blessing come after the trial of our faith. So I just said Alright just keep going! And then on Sunday we got the blessings! We had 4 lessons, and made some real progress with our investigators and just had a great day. and now we are starting this week with a great attitude and high hopes. I also feel like the setbacks we had last week were a little to humble me as well, because I was thinking "hmm we are doing really well" When really we are just doing the work and the Lord is blessing us.

Some cool stuff this week. Usually with Emily and Matthew we teach their two sons the new member lessons on like Thursday or Friday, then we teach them on Sunday afternoon. SO this week we taught the boys the plan of salvation and we all drew pictures of the plan. We then shared what we drew and why. Emily walked in and said she really liked my picture so that was cool. But then when we came back on Sunday they had put my picture up on the fridge!!! It was great I was so happy, haha I felt like a little kid that got his art work put up! Other cool thing, yesterday for dinner the couple we ate with are super cool. He is just Texan to the bone, and he always tells us about how much he is looking forward to September 1st because dove hunting season starts. He made us jalapeno dove bombers, which are pretty much jalapeno poppers with dove meat. They were so good!! and just hearing him talk about hunting and being tough makes the dinner better haha. OH and I had some trouble with my bike this week but i just fixed it myself! ha! I am learning a thing or two from all the stuff that has happened to it.

I think that is all for this week. I love you all and hope you have a great week! I just have one thing to say to everyone, I think it is my favorite quote I have ever heard.

"The Church is true, the book is blue, what more do you want!"

That is what I want to tell people sometimes :)

Love Elder Jackman

August 13th

Family and Friends!
It is super hot and still isn't cooling down a bit. The hottest time of the day is at about 5 to 6 o clock. Everything has been just soaking in the heat all day and by that time everything is just emitting heat so it comes from everywhere!

The work is fantastic! The parents of the two boys that were baptized are doing great! They have been reading and doing their part to gain a testimony! And their son got the priesthood and ordained to the office of a teacher yesterday which was awesome! He asked me to do the ordination so that was especially cool. Other than them our other great investigator dropped us this week :( She called me when we were on exchanges on Thursday and said that she read and prayed and decided that it isn't best for her right now, and she wants to stay with her church and Bible study. So that was a dagger to the heart! But our Pastor friend is just the coolest person in the world! We taught him one more time this week and he read the chapter we left him and loved it. We left him with some other really good chapters in Mosiah that he should really like. He has some real potential though. I asked him in the lesson what it would mean to find out that the book of mormon was true to see if he was comprehending everything and he said "Well I would have to leave where I am now and change some of the things that I do and I would probably go do what y'all do. I would have to tell everyone about this other testament!" SO that was amazing! We were super excited. I really think that he will get baptized. With his attitude and his current situation it just looks great.  If he got baptized he would definitely bring others. He is just a great guy though. Our other pastor friend is doing well, we haven't taught him again but we stopped by and he said he started reading a little, but didn't have time to talk. We will try back to see how he's doing. That is about all with the work though.

The Atonement study is still awesome! I have found that the more that I study it the more I want to teach it. That is originally why we started this study because Preach My Gospel says that learning about the Atonement will increase our desire to share the gospel. We have been studying some great stuff, and it is amazing and humbling to think about our nothingness and Christ's love to do what he did. This week I have thought a lot about will power. We read in the Bible the parts right before Christ went through his suffering in the Garden of Gethsemane and he asked 3 times if there was any other way but there wasn't. Then he voluntarily went forward and suffered more than anyone can possibly imagine. It makes me feel like a loser haha because I don't even have the will power to get up and do push ups each morning! But it has definitely made me work harder and try to be better. As we were studying this week Elder Chipman looked at me and said "Man! The Gospel is so true!!" And it is, the more I study the more it works out and proves itself over and over again! It is true!!!!!!!
  I hope y'all have a great week and I love you so much! Thank you for your support and love and prayers, they help a lot! Love you!!

Love Elder Jackman 

August 6th

Dear Family and Friends

 

  This week has been awesome!! We had President interviews last week and he has really been pushing us to meet mision standards in how many lessons we teach a week, and how many people we talk to and those numbers. So this time in interviews he told us that they are no longer standards but requirements. He told us that he wants every companionship to accomplish the mission standards on contacts and first lessons. So Elder Chipman and I worked super hard this week to do that. We had a great week as a result. We met some new people that we are now beginning to teach and we made some really good progress with the investigators that we already have.

 

  With the people that we found there were two pastors!!! The first one was really nice. We knocked on his door and said hello, and one thing that we have been doing for door aproaches is inviting others to allow us to simply come in and offer a prayer to bless them and their families and thier home. That has been working great so we made the invitation to him. He answered with a question, "I'm fine with prayer, but how do y'all pray?". We answered and told him how we pray and that we do it in the name of Jesus Christ because he is our way to the Father. So he let us in. We came into his living room and his wife looked appauled that we were there haha. We sat down and saw that he had about 5 Bibles sitting on the coffee table. We asked him about it and he told us that he used to be a baptist minister, then he moved to a non denominational, and now he has a home church, which is pretty much just a Bible study group. He also told us that he was previously a co-pastor with John Hagge!! I don't know if y'all know who that is, but he is one of the biggest Christian Pastors in the world. So Bud (that was this guys name) starts asking us a few questions and we answer them. We had thought we were just going to have a prayer, but he continued to ask questions. So we ended up teaching a great lesson about the Book of Mormon and what it was and how it doesn't take away from the Bible and how it fulfills Bible prophecies even! HE loved it. At the end he said "Well your not going to convert me because I have studied far too much; but, I will make an exchange with y'all. How about you give me your book, and i'll give you mine." We agreed and he gave us a book that he had written with some of his personal ideas, and we gave him a Book of Mormon which he agreed to read and study with his Bible. SO we will go back and check up how he is doing in the next couple of weeks. It was such a cool lesson that the Spirit lead 100% We were prompted in what to say and what scriptures to quote and look up with him, and we definitely brought the spirit to him and testified of the Book of Mormon, I hope he studies it out and continues to feel the spirit.

 

  The next Pastor we met was another door approach where we offered to say a prayer with him. He agreed and we came in and it turned out that has gone through some hard stuff and the prayer really helped. After we prayed Elder Chipman noticed an award on the wall and he asked what it was. Stuart told us that it was an award for being an Outstanding Mentor. We asked about it and found out that he was Reverend Stuart! He had a degree in Religion, and was a co pastor along with being a child mentor/counselor. We went back a couple days later and had a great lesson with him and he definitley felt the spirit and is going to read a chapter we left him in the Book of Mormon. He said he is excited for when we come back. We are going back tomorrow night. He is a super great guy and we look forward to teaching him. When he gave us his number he gave us his Pastor card from his church and said "That is probably surprising a Pastor giving you his number!" It was great.

 

  Studying the Bible has really payed off because those guys knew it backward and front! But the Spirit helped us out A LOT.

 

  Other than those two experiences we taught our current investigators and with one we talked about setting a baptismal date and she agreed. We are meeting with her tomorrow to set that. Then the parents of the boys that got baptized set a baptismal date as well!!! So things are really going great in our area. We are having a ton of success, and I really attribute it all to our hard work. Our mission president told us to get these numbers and we did so the Lord is blessing us with people to teach who are ready for the gospel. It is great.

 

  As well as the success in the work I am learning so much. The Atonement is amazing it is so much more than any of us even can understand. In our study program we are doing we are on day 6 today. And we read a talk by Neal A. Maxwell that was incredible. It was titled Testifying of the Glorious Atonement. He talked about how in order to truly repent and have the atonement work in our lives we not only need to turn away from sin but we need to change our innermost desires and thoughts. When I thought about this I realized what a big ordeal repentence actually is. One example: Last week as Elder Chipman and I were working really hard we were doing a lot of knocking and finding in the hot sun, which as y'all can imagine isn't the funnest thing in the world. So about halfway through the week we had a member invite us over for ice cream. Going to a members house to eat ice cream is not a sin, but we should have been working and we just said to ourselves "well his family is out of town, and he just wants the company, and we can share a messege with him, etc..." We were justifying our actions. We went had the ice cream talked with him and wasted about an hour and a half of our day. When we left we both looked at each other and said "We aren't going to do that again." So when we got home that night in our prayers we repented and asked for forgivness for wasting the Lord's time and then we thought about what we can do to avoid situations that waste our time in the future. We decided that we were just going to have to say no. When we take members to lessons and they fall through and the member just says "Well just come over and we can have some ice cream" or when other oppurtunities present themselves where we could justify that we aren't wasting time but in reality we really are. So since then we have had a couple oppurtunities to waste time, or to stay at an appointment for a little longer. And we have really changed that desire. We have changed that behavior so we have repented of that wrong.

 

  In his talk Elder Maxwell talked about how we first correct actions to a point when we no longer have the desires to make those mistaked again. And he talked about how we need to let our belief and faith in Jesus Christ and his Atonement grow into us emulating Jesus Christ and becoming like him. It was a great talk and I recommend reading it.

 

  I love the Gospel and I Love this Church. It is true and brings more happiness into our lives than anything else. I love studying the scriptures and learning the mysteries of God. I love you all so much and hope you have a great week. Thank you all for the support and all your prayers.

 

Love Elder Jackman

July 30th

Hey,

SO sorry still no pictures. Elder Chipman and I will take some this week so y'all can see him and see the area and stuff.. The work is soooooo awesome! We have great investigators that are progressing and keeping commitments so that is wonderful. We are actually teaching a man from the Democratic Republic of Congo. He only speaks French so we are working with a member that translates for us. We gave him a french Book of Mormon yesterday and he is excited to start reading. I haven't taught him yet but we have a lesson Wednesday night so i'm looking forward to that. We are having a lot of success right now.

 As a mission we are starting a study on the Atonement so I am looking forward to that. I'm sure it will make me want to work harder and appreciate my Savior even more. I am loving life right now, I think the only thing I would possibly change is the heat!! It just beats down on those bikes! But I do have an Awesome Farmers tan! So that is pretty cool.

I hope y'all have a great week! Everything is great here for me. Thanks for all the prayers and support. I love You!

Love Elder Jackman


P.S. We have had a lot of flies getting into our apartment so I have been practicing my ninja skills. The count is up to 5. I have caught 5 flies right out of the air with my bare hands. Call it what you want... I'm a ninja. OH and other good news the other elders in our district have a ping pong table in their apartment So that is like the best thing ever! and i'm still champion...

July 23rd

Family and Friends,

My new area is Braun Heights!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm down in San Antonio now! I'm in the West part of San Antonio in West Zone. My area is full bike area so that is just my favorite :) Our area is fairly small. I would guess about 10 miles from one side of our area to the other. And it is Suburbia!! It is all just residential neiborhoods and streets.  We have a lot of houses to knock. Not apartment complexes like Riverside. My companion is the coolest elder in the mission!!! He is definitely my favorite companion. His name is Brody Chipman he is from Holladay Utah and went to Skyline. He played football and Rugby at Skyline. He is about my same size and we get along great. We would have been good friends in high school. So it is just like hanging out with a good friend all the time! I love it!

 So far I really like the area, the ward is awesome. Knocking on doors here people are definitely not as open as they were in Riverside we get a lot more rejection,  but we have one family right now that we are teaching who two of their sons were baptized last month, and the parents are still deciding. They are super cool and it will be fun to teach them and help them get there. It's an all English area so I will take a break from the Espanol.

Leaving Riverside was hard, but I told everyone I would come back and visit after the mission and I will so it's all good. The change is awesome. Me and Elder Chipman are going to do great together. We will probably only be together for this transfer because this is his 4th transfer here. He was trained then here for one more now he is here with me for another. So if I follow the mission trend I will probably be with him this transfer and then train a new missionary next two transfers. But who knows that is just what usually happens. But this is going to be a great transfer I am super excited. The work is going well so far! I hope y'all have a great week. Love you!!

Love Elder Jackman

July 16th

I am getting transferred!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And I am going senior companion wherever I am going. I will find out where I am going on Thursday at transfer meeting.

This week has been good, we are teaching a lot of lessons but we just can't seem to get people to come to church! They say they will come we have people ready to pick them up, we call them to help wake them up in the morning and we even go knock on their door. Then they tell us.. "I slept in..." It is pretty rough.  We just have to keep teaching them and help them gain a testimony of the truthfulness of it all so they will have their own desire to come to church. They are all reading the chapters we leave them with so they are moving forward that way.  They just need to make that decision to come to church!

I have really grown to love the people here in the ward, and our investigators so it is going to be hard to leave. I will be doing the same work somewhere else. Change is fun and I always look forward to it.

The weather here has been a little cooler this week just because we have had a lot of rain. Yesterday we were caught in a flash flood on bikes! We had to come home as fast as we could. And on the way up the hill to our apartment a little river formed and it started pushing us back down the hill!!!! so we had to cross to the other side of the street and continue up! It was intense!

Everything is going well though! I hope you all have a wonderful week!!! and i'll send my new address and everything next week. Have a good one!


Love Elder Jackman

These are some pictures of the district and then some from when we took a zone picture at a meeting we had...