We're gonna drop them like a FLOJO!

Haha, don't ask about the title...it was just something Hna Cornish and I came up with this week and it made me laugh.

So we have TRANSFERS tomorrow...last one! Hna Cornish is packing up and heading out and I will be getting a new companion to finish off my mission. I LOVE change because it keeps me energized so don't even fret, no worries of trunkiness here. :) My new companion is bound to be another repeated companion because I've already been with all the Spanish sisters except 1, who isn't transferring, and the one new sister coming in, who is being trained by my hija (Sister Evens)! So yes, I am officially a "grandma" now.

I can't believe I'm on my last transfer. It's...I don't really know how to explain it...but whatever, I'll write my thoughts in my journal and figure it out. This transfer is going to be a transfer of MILAGROS! I'll just ignore that the other day when we were knocking doors someone essentially told us we were going to Hell! He was trying to "save" us and preach to us all his doctrine and we just stood quiet and stared at him until he was done...then we said, "Cool. Do you know of anybody that speaks Spanish around here?" Haha, it was so funny! I love being a missionary.

Claudia and Larry came to church yesterday! Claudia is a 16-yr-old girl from Oaxaca, Mexico we've been teaching who has a baptismal date for Nov 14. Her uncle is a member in New Brunswick and gave us her name as a referral. She is so amazing and has come through some huge trials in her life to get her to where she is today. But all the YW at church loved her and invited her to mutual and everything. Yay! As for Larry, we didn't end up getting to meet with him all week because he couldn't get the webcam hooked up but I talked to him a couple times over the phone about his reading assignments and everything. The people in the ward LOVE Larry! Yesterday at ward correlation meeting, they were telling us about how wonderful his comments were in gospel essentials class and how much he seems to just get everything. I know he will get baptized so soon, it's just a matter of when. He reminds me of Miguel in Morristown and Maria DV in Paterson...haha, I get really stubborn investigators!...probably because I'm just as stubborn back to them. Haha, love it.

My testimony of the Plan of Salvation was strengthened a lot this week and the importance of the temple in our lives. Last Tuesday, Borther Weller, a man in the ward who had been battling with cancer, passed away. I never got to meet him because he had been up in the hospital in Morristown for the last couple fo months, but I frequently heard updates on him from members of the ward and there were a lot of prayers offerred in his behalf. On Friday, we went over to talk with Sister Weller and help her pack up her things to move into a retirement home this week and then on Saturday morning attended the funeral. I got to thinking a lot about God's plan for each one of us as His children. It is a plan of love, of mercy, of justice. It is a perfect plan that allows each one of us to use our agency to choose whether to follow Him or no. But then once we choose, it's not done. We must keep choosing day after day, to follow Him -- that includes the big decisions and the little ones. We choose to keep the commandments each day, even the little things, which reaps the blessing of being able to choose to enter the temple and make covenants with our Heavenly Father, which we must choose to keep. If it weren't for the temples, the plan would be pointless. So He hasn't just created this plan for us, but He has put in our paths all the necessary steps we need to take to be able to follow it. But we must choose, every day!

That's all I have to say for today. I'm trying to decide if I'm going to write less this transfer to save some stories for when I get home but I'm kind of using my emails as a journal so...we'll see. "THANKS. GIVING. is coming." yep, be ready. I miss you mucho but I love you mas!

Love,

Hermana Jackson

Ready, Set, GET ACTIVE!

Hey, how are you? This week, I actually have somewhat an idea to the answer to that question because I got a letter from Malcolm, Chris, Dad, Mom, and Nana in the last week or so. I loved every one of them, so THANK YOU so much for writing. It strengthens me to hear each one of you and how the Lord is blessing your lives. I can't tell if I got lots of letters because of my accident or because everyone figures that if they don't write me now, they will just wait till I get home or what :) but either way they are appreciated. :)

Wasn't General Conference so good? The 2 main scriptures that kept sticking out to me like crazy were Alma 41:10 and 2 Nefi 2:27. And the 3 main themes for me (which are all inter-related): agency, the Holy Ghost, and following the prophet. So so good. We watched the first session on the internet at a recent convert's house, Melissa, with her 3 daughters. So it was in Spanish and there were lots of distractions so while I understood it all, I wasn't able to focus a ton...I'll have to read that one. But let me just tell you that the Saturday afternoon session was just for me! I loved the talk by Elder Richard G. Scott all about developing true character. It comes down to our agency as well. He reminded us that Satan's destiny is fixed; we already know that in the end, he will LOSE. So now we have to exercise our agency to choose to follow Jesus Christ, who will WIN, develop faith in Him, and thus our character will form. He said that character is an evidence of how well we are using our time on earth. The better we use our time, the more our character is fortified, and then we can exercise faith -> repentance -> obedience -> self-less service.

Everything we do is a choice. Jesus Christ was not forced to do anything in his life, rather he chose to submit his will to the will of the Father because he knew of the eternal consequences it would have for all mankind (Elder Robert D. Hales). I know that as we choose to submit our will to the will of the Father, and remember the eternal perspective, we will be blessed with the happiness that was intended for us. His plan is a plan of happiness, freedom, agency, and salvation. As we choose to follow him, that is what we get. Satan's plan is a plan of misery, bondage, destruction, and "endless wo," which we will receive if we choose to follow it. "Wickedness never was happiness."

Basically everybody here watches conference at their house but we decided that we wanted them to be able to watch it with our investigators at the church at least for the Sunday morning session. So we invited all the little Hispanic members to come and to bring some food so we could have a potluck between sessions. It was a great success. One of the recent converts, Christian, was telling us how he was just going to watch it at his house but he was so glad we invited them all to the church because he was able to listen to the power President Monson's talk without any distractions. It was his first time watching conference, along with many other members, and they all truly felt the power of the words of a prophet of God.

We have a baptism coming up this Sunday, Jorge. He is from Peru and he is so awesome! He's been pretty easy to teach...already follows basically all the commandments...he's just been really prepared by the Lord. I'll send pictures next week.

Thank you again for all the prayers offerred in my behalf. My recovery is still going really well. I'm not using the crutch anymore and actually today I put on a normal shoe! We're being blessed lots. The work is still going forward. I miss you mucho but I love you mas!

Love,

Hermana Jackson