Crazy Lessons!

Feliz Navidad!

How are you all doing? First off, next Monday I will not be writing an email because we are doing our p-day for next week this Saturday instead because we get to go to the Manhattan temple! I'm so excited. We are taking off way early in the morning to hit the 6:30am session in Spanish! I have missed going to the temple so much. We only get to go here once in December and once in June so I have got to live this up. The strength that I get from the temple is amazing and going there as a missionary, I feel like I just learn so many things each and every time.

This week, we had some CRAZY lessons. It was pretty funny, actually. We taught this old Mexican lady named Maria who, apparently, majored in music and performed back in the day for some big name Spanish performers. She writes her own songs on the guitar and sang some for us (don't even fret, she gave us a tape recording). One of them was quite catchy all about the Virgen Maria being our defensora and conquistadora. And then she told us the story behind these songs...you know, like having visions of Jesus and the 12 apostles and the virgen Maria sitting at her kitchen table having dinner with them and her being like Moses commanding the hurricane to flee, and it did. :) Another crazy lesson, I am pretty sure we taught some pastor of some church and he just loved what we were saying about the Plan of Salvation. I have never had someone ask so many questions about agency but he was just loving it! We have a return appointment this week. :) Oh, and also, we went to go do a follow-up appointment with this one guy, Julio, but he wasn't there. So we taught the guy who answered the door who livevs in the basement. By the time we finished with him, Julio got home and brought a friend for us to teach as well, so then we taught them. And then when we finished with that lesson, the guy who lives in the front of the house came and stopped us on our way out to our car and wants us to teach him. Yeah, wild, but amazing. The way the houses work here is each door you knock on leads you to basically a different family so when we go contacting, we knock the front, the side, the basement/back door, and usually yell up at the top floor windows too. Love it. :)

Last Wednesday, we had the annual mission-wide zone conference here in Morristown. It was so good and rejuvenating! President Bahr spoke to us about the talk given in General Conference several years ago called "Come What May and Love It." That is our new mission motto to just help us get through things when they get tough. Hna Andrews and I have loved applying what he taught us. There are 4 things we can and should do to conquer discouragement: Learn to laugh, Keep an eternal perspective, Remember the law of compensation, and Trust in the Lord. Sometimes, people just stress too easily but really, as long as we are being obedient and doing what we can, we have no need to be getting discouraged. But don't get any wrong ideas from this tangent, we're not getting discouraged right now. The Lord actually blessed us with an amazing week, for which we are so grateful. So many little miracles each and every day.

On Saturday, all the sister missionaries were invited to the mission home to have a Christmas brunch with the Bahrs. It was so nice. Each companionship had to make an ornament for the Bahr's Christmas tree that represented them/their area. So Hna Andrews and I got quite creative. We discovered that together, our name is Andrew Jackson. So we had a lady in the ward print us off a picture of Andrew Jackson and we made this scene of him getting baptized. Ok, so I didn't explain it very well but it was awesome, trust me. :)

Oh, and to anybody reading this who is thinking of going on a mission, learn how to paint houses! I'm not even kidding. I am so glad Dad taught me a little about that because that is probably the most common thing members ask us to do for them. Two weeks ago, we painted a bathroom and last week we painted a living room. Haha, creates for some pretty good times, that's for sure!

Anyway, I guess that is about all. I can't wait to talk to you at Christmas time. I can't believe it is coming up so fast. This transfer is going by really fast and it's sad because I am loving things! Maybe there's a correlation...haha, I don't know. :) I miss you tons but I love you more!

Love,
Hermana Jackson