Well hello there friends and family. This is coming a little late this week because we had Sisters' Conference on Monday and Tuesday and so we are just now getting to our emailing. So sorry if you were worried. I am still alive... barely. :)

So Sisters' Conference was awesome. We went to Bacolod on Monday afternoon and did activities at the mission home: games outside, a make-up demo, cooking demos, dinner, the Emma Smith movie, and then we stayed in a hotel for the evening. The next day we had a long day of training, but it was awesome. I LOVE my mission president. He has such a care a concern for us all personally and he is also so concerned with our spirituality as well. He is one of the best men I have ever known, for sure and I am SO grateful for him. We are all quite sure he will be called to be a general authority after he's done here in Bacolod. Here's hoping! Anyway, the training was great. There is this new simplified curriculum for Preach My Gospel and so we went over a lot of that stuff. President spent a long time teaching us about how we need to focus on the Doctrine of Christ and all of our teaching should revolve around. We also talked about the Holy Ghost and all that that entails. We did some practicing as well and it as great. I had a headache for the most of the day, but I still loved it and learned so much. Seriously, we have the best leadership in the world in this mission. I am blessed.

So this last week, I'm sorry to report was not the best. I was sick with some weird digestive thing that still hasn't completely gone away, but it took me out of commission for a couple of days. I'm feeling a lot better now, but it was definitely rough. I did get a lot of time to study while I was stuck in bed though, so that was nice. Unfortunately, we didn't get to go out to visit people as much as we wanted, but since we only have 2 real investigators it wasn't quite so bad. We did get to go teach them. We're excited for our new investigator Ricky. I don't know if I've mentioned him yet. He is the brother of one of our branch missionaries. He is just so excited to hear about the gospel. He is definitely one of those that the Lord has prepared. And he's 28! We finally have a male investigator (so priesthood) who is over the age of 12! We're pretty happy about that. He eats up everything we teach him and he absorbs so much. He reads everything hungrily and always has something to report to us about what he learned. We extended baptism and of course he accepted. It was way funny actually. Sister Stadler extended the commitment for Dec. 11th. He said, "Yes, what time?" Hahaha. Who does that? We laughed at that, but he seemed genuinely concerned about what time it would be at. Haha. He's great. Definitely an answer to prayer. Now we just need some more of him. Pray for us. We need investigators and especially priesthood candidates.

Well I hate to say it, but that's really all there is right now. It was a tough week, but I'm hoping this next one will be better, well all that we have left of it with sisters' conference. I hope that everyone is doing well and healthy. Keep me posted on your lives!

Love you all!

Sister Jackson

PICTURES!!!! ( in order)

#1 This is Canlaon, the volcano that is near our area. It is pretty awesome, just thought you'd want to see.
#2 Me next to a banana tree. They are EVERYWHERE!
#3 Me with all the Relief Society sisters on our way to the funeral on Sunday! I love those ladies!
#4 A GIANT spider that was on the wall outside. It's not that big for here, but was still huge. Stretched out it was the size of my palm.
#5 Okay, so this was sneakily taken while riding in the front of a jeepney in Bacolod. Yes, that is the gas can... right at my feet... yeah....
#6 The UGLIEST dog I have ever seen in my whole life. Seriously, it looked like it was going to drop dead any minute. It also looks more like hyena then a dog, but all dogs here are ugly for the most part, so this wasn't too much of a surprise.
#7 We decided to make a surprise candlelit dinner for the other sisters. It was awesome!
#8 The dead snake that we came across just randomly in the road while we were proselyting.
#9 Sister Vaipulu and I at Sisters Conference
#10 The coolest man ever... President Tobias who whipped out his saxophone and threw on a Santa Hat for sisters conference. HAHAHA! I Love him!
#11 Yeah, he also plays the guitar. He is amazing.
#12 The Ocean. I just snapped this one on the bus ride home today, thought you all would like to see what it looks like here on the other side of the world!