I'm a native!

Mi familia! Como estan? Um...I don't know why my mind is blanking on Spanish right now but it is...all I can think is Chinese, which is weird. Anyway, so guess what? I got my first comment that someone thought I was a native!!! Yeah, that's right. :) We were making contacts in the street the other day and I walk up to this group of gangster looking people and started talking to them (they were from the DR, and they often look gangster, haha) and telling them about the gospel and one guy was like, "Hey, where are you from? Argentina?" Woohoo!! That was definitely cool. I was like, no sorry, I'm actually from California. To which he replied, "Really? Because you have an Argentine accent!" Haha, I love it! And we've been doing language study with different members in the ward this week and they've all told me that I speak really well and have good grammar and pronunciation and stuff, just the main thing I need to work on is understanding people, which will come with time. That made me happy. Anyway, yep, it's good.

So this week was AMAZING! Talk about blessings from the Lord for pushing through last week. We got 9 new investigators and had 19 lessons with a member present (and the mission standard is 5). Yeah, we have just been praying so hard for the Lord to help us because when we started this week, we had about 4 people in our teaching pool, which is so rough. But now we already have most of this week scheduled out. I am so grateful for that. I needed this week big time to help me see that I am supposed to be here doing this work. I just can't even begin to explain the miracles we've seen this week, but I'll try. :)

First of all, one of our investigators, Maria Del Valle (different from the other one...we're teaching about 4 Maria's... :) is awesome. She only speaks English but is taking the lessons from us because her husband's whole family is in the Spanish branch (her husband is inactive). So we were trying to get her to go to the English branch and handed over to the English elders so she can actually learn and progress but she called us the other day and she's like, "You know what, I want to go to the Spanish branch with my family so...I think I'll just learn Spanish." Haha, I was like what the heck?!? She is awesome. She has been taught by the missionaries for years but never made any progress until now! So we were talking to the branch president about her and he says, "Ok, perfect. We can have her work with the Young Women because their class is held in English and then she can learn as she teaches." Life is good.

This other lady we started teaching, Maled, is pretty golden too. Her daughter is a member and so was her mom, who just died about a month ago, but she isn't. But her daughter told her that in order to see her mom again, she needs to get baptized. So Maled called us up to take the lessons! We brought her a Book of Mormon and she wanted to start reading it right there with us. She opened to the very first title page and started reading, "'The Book of Mormon'...Who is Mormon?" Then we explained and she continued, "'Written by the hand of Nephi'...Who is Nephi?" Anyway, it continued like this until we read the whole title page, and introduction, and then she wanted to read the testimonies of the 3 and 8 witnesses...Haha, I loved it. And everything she was just like, "Ok, yeah, that makes sense. But I don't really know yet so I'm going to have to pray about this and keep reading." Haha, who says that? It was cool. I am really praying for good things to come out of this one.

I did my first split yesterday away from my comp, which was kind of cool (I mean, I love my comp, but it was nest to know that I could teach a lesson and handle it in Spanish without her as a crutch). I went with a 16-yr old girl in the ward, Selena, who is awesome! We taught the little lady, Victoria, who has cancer, all about the 10 commandments and the sabbath day, which was fun. I loved it. :)

Anyway, I think that's enough rambling from me. I want to hear from you! I love the name you chose for Claire! I bet Mom was crying, huh? :) I can't wait to see pictures of it and Kiley's wedding. Tell Kiley congrats and I love her tons. I'm so grateful for this opportunity I have to be serving a mission. I'm excited to hear how you're all doing and how school is going! I miss you tons but I love you more!

Love,
Hermana Jackson