Past the Heat

 I've successfully made it past the hot season. It should go down a little bit. But it continues to be too hot for comfort. We had a little cita with the bishop's wife to help her with something. So we went over to cut up some animals. It was insane, and in church clothes. It was so fun! It's Cuy. Then we ran to the chapel for an interview and she didn't come because of her husband. Then it was a sad day. She wants to get baptized, but her husband is a little aggressive. 

I did learn this week how to kill flies! With my bare hands! It was pretty fulfilling. There was no bread on Sunday, so our pensionista served cake with fried eggs on top for breakfast. She might get fired. She was pretty upset this week because we had no electricity. But we got it fixed now. It only took 5 days to have power again. 

Stake Conference

 This was a crazy week. We have a Multi-Zone Conference on Friday with half the mission. President came down here to Chimbote to get on us for not being smart, and then blew our minds talking about the Plan of Salvation. Then we had Stake Conference this weekend and the Stake President is crazy. President Rios was there and spoke and left. It was really good. Then this goon gets up and goes off about Pure blooded horses and a lot about the devil and how he wants to eat us like snakes eat fireflies. He was crazy! But the First Counselor got up and gave a killer talk on the family, and then I was sad. You guys need to reactivate everyone! 

In the beginning of the week, our pensionista started making soup for the first time. And everyone got really sick; I couldn't walk. So we told her we are all very sick. She told us it was because our stomachs froze from eating ice. NOTHING CAN FREEZE WHEN I SPEND ALL DAY WALKING IN 90 DEGREE WEATHER!!! Soup is poison here. Or maybe she is poisoning us. I'll think about it. We are out of power again; all the time it just goes out. One day we were on the streets a little before 8pm and everything went black. It was a little scary because it was a bad part of town and I was a little weak in the stomach.

But it's all great down here. My new companion's name is E' Arevalo and he is from Ecuador, a city named Guayaquil. He is a lot more mellow and nice. It's a lot of fun. We made some commandments for the room because his fingers are a little light and he is drinking everyone's water, but that's all over. It's all good. Miss you guys, thanks for writing those that do! Work hard and I'll do the same!

Mom's note: In January 2020, Jackson's companion from Ecuador arrived at the Guayaquil Temple with his parents and siblings to be sealed together. Not knowing the connection, I said my congratulations as they proceeded out the front door for pictures. Jackson sent this picture to me the next day. 

Happy Valentine's Day

 It was a weird Sunday in the ward. In Elders Quorum they had everyone stand up and give hugs to all the dudes. Their kinda unique. But it's been very different with a new companion. I'm the only one that knows the people and the area and still, I'm not that smart. It's been a new challenge, and I'm getting through it. One weird thing now that I'm out of training is proselyting at 11am after language study. And people really don't like being woken up from their naps at that hour. We went to contact a reference and I knock on the door and this women runs out and screams at me saying, "What are you doing knocking so loud!? You're going to wake up the people? What do you want this early in the morning?!"

And I though about how I could say we have a message that will make you happy without sounding sarcastic. She said we shouldn't come back. I love these people! 

We went to visit a member family and her nephew was there with his huge nerf gun. But is wasn't working. So we being smart teenagers took apart a spring weapon and maybe lost a couple pieces. Then the little boy proceeded to cry a lot. There is a lot more learning I need to be able to deal with that. But I'm not trying to learn from these people down here. We were teaching a family yesterday. The kids were outside playing and we were teaching. Then in the middle of the lesson, the 6-year-old ran in to the 4-year-old and said he was saying bad words. The grandma took him by the arm and he was screaming, "Please no! Please no!" and we heard a lot more screaming and beating coming from the back. 

Anyway, I'm learning a lot. Have fun at home! 

Última Semana

 I've made it 11 weeks in the field and about to finish my training. But that doesn't make sense because I still can't speak Spanish. I'll figure it out. We had a pretty good month, it's just been crazy busy all the time, and a little too hot. My bishop told me that on Wednesday it got up to 36 degrees. That's hot I think. 

While we were walking to an appointment in the afternoon, this guy sitting on his quad calls us over. We go and chat for a second and he asks us what our mission is about 4 times. So we tell him a little of what we do. Then he goes off on us when we said something about prayer. He told us we need to be perfect to pray. He was a little aggressive at this point. Then he asked us who our leader is, obviously looking for Joseph Smith, and we told him a dozen times, "It says it right here on our plaque, JESUS CHRIST! He is our leader." His responds, "But who is your leader?" After a little more of that, we got a phone call and my companion took it and I gave him our number and said if he wants to talk, he can call us and we'll chat. And he didn't like that and we can come over and clean his toilet, which is some kind of slang. And we left. He was interesting. 

We had our ward council yesterday and for the first 10 minutes the bishop went off on the Young Women's President saying she needs to teach her jóvenes how to use a bathroom. He had a woman say to him that was the worst thing she had ever seen. But that seems like she's taking it too far. That was a good highlight  for that meeting. 

Anyway, I guess I'll write again next week. Let me know what's going on and all the cool things happening. The taxis like to lie and tell us there is a lot of wars in the US and bombs and terrorists and all kinds of crazy stuff, so I actually have no idea. Love you guys, let me know what's up.

Birthday Week

 Happy birthdays. My zone leader is from a Carolina, and a new elder that showed up four weeks ago is from the same ward and now the same zone. But they're about 6 years apart. I've decided to work at the temple when I get home. But everyone will be older and you'll have a new presidency. 

We found out that Elder Uceda changed his mind and we get to go to the temple at the end of this change, so in two weeks!!!!!!!!! I'm so excited!!!! I miss the cold mom. I can't enjoy the heat. The weird thing is it's hot but I don't notice it, I only notice that I'm sweating all the time. I'm NOW excited to go out with the elders and do the work of salvation, there is so much I didn't know, and now I'm ready to make things happen! But I'll first spend a little time with these guys down here. 

Make sure everyone knows I miss them and think about what I learned from them. I was just thinking about a talk Sister DeFreese gave about the sabbath day and how she didn't have her daughter buy the things she needed. If we can do everything on Saturday, we can more fully sanctify the sabbath day. Love you Mom! Good Luck with the job and the talk! And Happy Birthday! I remembered as we walked out last week... And I can't type and spell anymore. It says everything is wrong and I'm running through this!

Worldwide Transmission

 Yes, we had the transmission on Wednesday. They even said in our meeting that the 30 gringos could watch it in English! But that was a lie. Nobody showed up to set it up, so we spent some time fiddling with it and only could get it in Spanish. So we just dealt with it. We did accomplish one thing: Segregation. But of what I saw, it was awesome. Loved the way they did it and how similar it was the last time. Learned a lot which is good at the beginning. But other than that, we had a busy week. We had the Assistants over for our meeting and then they came to our area to do splits. I learned a lot. He was a gringo from Oregon, so he was chill. I finally got the taxi ride with the one Jetta in town. Its a mark 4 Black hunk a junk, but it was awesome. I felt right back in the back seat of the red Jetta. 

It's been a crazy hot week more steadily in the 30's. And our neighbor had a pool out for their kids. We went over to pick up on the the returned missionaries to make visits, and I watched this kid sitting in this pool at 2pm eating ice-cream! Needless to say, it was a tough day. We also had a few minor difficulties with some electricity. A member of the mission presidency came to install thermas in our showers so after two months out here, we could take warm showers. But he installed them and left. So we got up in the morning all excited and accidentally had them both going and completely fried the wire and then we had no electricity for about 3 days. So we took a nice cold shower that day. But the next day, we ran out of water and went back to the bucket showers of 5 gallons a day. I love it. But we got it all fixed, we just have to take very fast turns.

But it's been a great time out here! We're having lots of success and still finding new areas that we didn't know existed. There use to be only two elders in this area and they are thinking about putting in two more. That would be six elders in a ward. The members just need to be a little more supportive. So please support the missionaries at home, I wouldn't know anyone without members. So take the missionaries to everyone you know, This isn't me saying this, it's the scriptures! Good luck with everything you're doing.  Love you all and hope you're staying warm! 

Cerro de Paz

 We went to a hill of peace last Monday as a zone. It was quite hot and eventful, I'll send pictures. We had a good week. We were proselyting with a returned missionary from Argentina and went to visit an investigator. When we got to the door, the neighbor was playing that sax song that everyone knows on their speaker. Then we started teaching. And this was the most difficult lesson ever. They played in order these songs: Total Eclipse of the Heart, Hotel California, and Sound of Silence! The RM wasn't helping either. How can you talk about prophets in Spanish with that in the background. It was hilarious though. We've been moving a long nicely. Until next week.