Well family, unfortunately I am not bearing the best news today. Of course for you all it won't seem quite so tragic, but my whole life is about my mission, so you know... Well, today were transfer announcements and I am transferring. We were so sure that my companion was going to be the one to go, usually President keeps people in their first area for awhile, but apparently the Lord has other plans for me and so I will be leaving La Carlota. I would be lying if I said I wasn't bummed. I'm actually kind of devastated. I love the people here and I feel like this place is my home. It's just hard because this is my first area and I feel very attached here. But I have faith in the inspiration of my mission president and so I will go where I am assigned to go. I still don't know where, I won't find out until Friday at the transfer meeting, but there are a lot of possibilities. Please pray for me that I will be able to adjust to a new place and to a new companion...

This last week was pretty uneventful, sickness again kept us both from working too much this week. It was pretty frustrating, but we were still able to witness some tender mercies. With our one solid investigator, Ricky, we had to push back his baptism a week because we didn't feel like he was really prepared. He is doing well and following all commitments but he doesn't really understand everything fully that we have been trying to teach him, so we decided to make it more simple and it turned out great. We had to go over some things again, but we both felt better about it. I am super bummed that I will miss his baptism, but I know he will make a great addition to the branch here.

I can't believe that it is December!!!! It never ceases to amaze me how fast the time flies here. In one week I will hit my 5 month mark as a missionary and 3 months in the field. It is so crazy! I can't believe it. Honestly, I don't feel like it would ever be possible to do enough in such a short amount of time, but I am going to try my hardest. I am still progressing with the language. My companion tells me things all the time that I am doing amazingly and that she can't believe how fast I get it, but you all know me, I am a perfectionist and I never think it's good enough. I am trying to practice more confidence in my abilities. I would always appreciate your prayers, especially for the language.

So I thought I would just share a bit about what I have been studying lately on the off-chance that maybe one of you is looking for a new study topic and you would like to join me. I've been studying about discipleship in the scriptures. As a missionary I am a representative of Jesus Christ everyday, it's my entire purpose and so I decided to start researching everything I could about it. I went through the scriptures and found all the places that the Savior has said that if you do something specific you are one of his disciples. It's amazing how many things there are. Now I am researching individually each thing and how I can learn more. I cannot tell you, it's probably the best experience I have ever had with the scriptures. There is so much to learn about being a disciple of Jesus Christ and it is something we should all attain to. I will share one of my recent insights.

I was reading about what it means to be a light to the world. It says that repeatedly in the scriptures and originates when Jesus gives the Sermon on the Mount. So I started looking into what it means to be a light to the world and found a lot of scriptures and alluded to being a good example and helping to lead people to Christ. I felt inspired to look up the parable of the 10 virgins. I have always loved this story and was always inspired by the need to be prepared and focused on what is important, but this time I found a different application. It wasn't just about the fact that the 5 foolish virgins were excluded from the marriage festivities, although that was incredibly tragic. But they also gave up their opportunity for discipleship. In Jesus the Christ, Talmage talks about how with marriage customs, it was necessary for the people in the wedding party to carry a lot of torches and lamps (it occurred at night) so that they could light the way and other people would see and know when they should come to meet the bridegroom and be admitted into the party. The lights of the 5 wise virgins provided them admittance but it also was a fulfilling of their responsibility to light the way for others so that they would be able to say that the bridegroom knew them. Basically if we are unwilling or unprepared to be disciples than the Savior will not know us because we did nothing to prove ourselves to him. This project has been wonderfully insightful and I have found so much application. If you're interested I highly encourage the project.

Well, that's all for this week. Next week I will be emailing you from a new area. I could use all of your prayers this week! Love you all and miss you!

Sister Jackson