Facebook Photos

These pictures were copied from Jackson's Facebook page:

Transfers this week

So Elder Hill and Jackson have been companions since the MTC as you may recall.  Also, really exciting that they have a baptism date for Shelly.

¿Que tranza? 

This week has been one of the longest weeks of the mission since the looming day of transfers was coming upon us quite quickly (but also not really). 

Monday was not all that eventful, for pday we went and played basketball with some other missionaries. Which was fun, just made me realize that I suck at basketball, but I will get better. Then we taught a lesson with our extremely solid investigator and it went extremely well and we were able to extend a baptismal invitation for the 25th of November and she accepted it. So she is going to get splashed!

Tuesday not much happened.

Wednesday we had a really weird lesson with a Bible loving Mexican who was just talking straight gibberish. He started saying that he knew everything about our church because of a show he watched on Discovery Channel, so it got just a little bit frustrating, but his Spanish is really easy to understand so there was at least that. President Innes also called late at night that night and talked to Elder Gerardo for about an hour. Elder Gerardo then informed us that one for us was transferring next week, although he didn't know which one, so to say the least, it was hard to sleep every night after that.

Thursday was a busy day, we had a couple of lessons, and 3 dinners as well. We ate dinner at our place and then the two places we went after that also fed us unexpectedly, so that was cool, but the lessons went good after that.

Friday was a normal day filled with more lessons. We taught Honduran Máximo again and that went well.  I can kinda understand his Spanish now so that's cool too. We also taught Shelly again which went well.  She is super excited to get baptized and also commited to follow the law of chastity and word of wisdom which was super awesome too. Friday night we were all super anxious since we would find out which one was leaving the next day

Saturday we woke up and not so patiently waited for the transfer text to come in. At 10:00am it finally came in, and drum roll please🥁🥁🥁 Elder Hill is transferring 😭😭. We don't know where though, but we are speculating that he will be going to Spartanburg. One of the APs is going home this transfer as well so that has been some mission wide speculation too. After all that excitement was over we taught the neighbor of one of our members, in which I got absolutely roasted. In the middle of while I was teaching him, he interrupted me and asked Elder Gerardo why I was talking to him in English - just to let y'all know, I was not talking to him in English but it was indeed in Spanish. So that was a confidence booster for my Spanish 😓. We also helped a family that is moving, by helping them make their house look a lot more presentable. So that was fun too. And in the night we also had a fun altercation with a drunk guy🍺🍺🤢😆.

Sunday not a whole lot happened, we had a stake wide priesthood meeting which was super awesome. And all the stake presidency gave super good talks.

That is all, probably going to play some more basketball today. 

Have fun all, and make sure to rely on the Lord. 

Elder Bertoch

18 But before ye seek for riches, seek ye for the kingdom of God. 

19 And after ye have obtained a hope in Christ ye shall obtain riches, if ye seek them; and ye will seek them for the intent to do good—to clothe the naked, and to feed the hungry, and to liberate the captive, and administer relief to the sick and the afflicted.- Jacob 2:18-19 

Also, here is a reply to his dad's e-mail which I think is worth sharing.  His dad asked for a faith promoting experience.

One thing that we did this week is that we went to give a little baby a blessing since she was in the hospital with a high fever and pneumonia. So we gave her a blessing which was really good and the spirit was so strong and everything. Then we left and hadn't heard from them since, this was like on Tuesday. Then we show up to church and there they are, with a healthy baby being all happy and crawling around and everything. So that was super cool to see.

Something else that happened was during 3rd hour with everybody gathered, Presidente Acosta straight roasted the branch because of our home teaching and visiting teaching percents. If you ever think your numbers are bad, they aren't. Last October the branch had 95% VT and 12% HT. This October we had 0% VT and 0% HT. So that is no bueno. But presidente did a really good job pumping people up about getting it started again so that was super good. 

Last week we had 13 lessons so we teach quite a bit. Any other time is spent knocking doors usually. We do all our service in the morning and visit members during meal times usually. 

I think that is all, love you. 

Elder Bertoch 

101 Fever. Yikes!

I believe dm is district meeting.  Unfortunately Jackson got sick this week, but it sounds like he got over it pretty quick.   As he says, great show of faith :)  I asked him to clarify a couple of things:  he said the zone leader fell asleep because they were speaking Spanish and he didn’t understand anything; and the car they are using overheats unless they put coolant in it every morning.  I also checked to be sure all the fried food (really - fried Snickers) he was eating wasn’t causing him to grow out of his clothes, but he says he is still skinny.

Highlights of this week.

Tuesday I woke up and felt like death. I had a 101 fever and was feeling pretty dang sick. But I still went to dm where everyone made sure to comment on how I looked like I was going to keel over at any point in time. It also just so happened to be the day that we had exchanges. So instead of going with Elder Hill with one of the zone leaders I just stayed at our place instead. Once we got back I took a 3 hour nap with a lot of meds in my body, and woke up and felt a whole lot better. So we started knocking doors and ran into to this one super humble guy named Pedro. We had a great lesson with him where the English speaking zone leader fell asleep, but besides that we were able to put Pedro on date for the 25th of November. So great show of faith on my part to go out and work even though I felt like death.

Wednesday was uneventful a lot of knocking doors and uninterested people.

Thursday we had service at the state fair where we were supposed to push old people around, but by the time we got up there there were no more old people. So we just walked around and ate a lot of fried food like fried snickers. So that was a good time.

Friday we dropped our car off at the dealership to fix something and got a replacement car that also doesn't work so...  We also had a great lesson with a progressing investigator where she opened up to us about her awful past that is just so bad that we all still can't wrap our minds around it. So we are now seeing her 3 times a week. But we are extremely confident she is getting baptized in November.

Saturday nothing happened. 

Sunday was not all that eventful either, we had one investigator at sacrament and had a good time at church. 

That is all.  Have a good week. I love you all. Since Thanksgiving is coming up next month here is a good scripture about being thankful. "Counsel with the Lord in all thy doings, and he will direct thee for good; yea, when thou liest down at night lie down unto the Lord, that he may watch over you in your sleep; and when thou risest in the morning let thy heart be full of thanks unto God; and if ye do these things, ye shall be lifted up at the last day." Alma 37:37

Elder Bertoch 

Paint Fight!!!

Results after a paint fight.  Jackson definitely got the worst of it like he says in his e-mail.

Pasoli dinner at a member's home

Highlights of the week:

Our first Skype lesson was on Tuesday. We were able to get one of our investigators to open up a lot more through a screen so that was awesome.  We can really help her out now. We saw a less active husband of a member family on Wednesday and that was awesome, big miracle that he was super open with us and receptive to our message because he apparently wasn't like that before. 

Me and Elder Gerardo and Peitau had a paint war at a service painting thing. I got teamed up on and got got. Spanish is ok. I feel as if I can talk and get my point across and be understood but I just cannot understand most people's Spanish at all. I ate lunch with Máximo the Honduran and had the worst thing I will ever eat on my mission with him, some type of like pure fat to the point of it almost being whale blubber.  But I ate some awesome food with the 2nd counselor and an investigator after we taught a lesson with them. One of our strongest members of the branch is moving to Utah though so that's a bummer.  We'll be losing a Young Men's president and a Relief Society president. So our branch will be weakened a bunch by that. Hopefully we can baptize a lot before they move. 

Yesterday was the primary program and if you ever feel as if your program will be bad or is bad just go to a Spanish branch and see theirs, you'll feel a lot better about it. But it was still the cutest thing ever and was really entertaining. We also had dinner with a less active family and had the biggest dinner I will ever eat. Pasoli in a salad bowl. It was ridiculous. But I ate it because it was so good. Then me and Elder Hill taught the parents in Spanish while Elder Gerardo went off with the kids, and the lesson went really well. Elder Gerardo usually takes control of lessons so it was pretty exhilarating to teach a lesson by ourselves this time. Transfers are in 2 weeks, every 6-7 weeks. We also didn't get any investigators to church this week either even though we commited about 12 again so that blows. 

That's all for now. I love you all have fun and be strong.

Elder Bertoch 

Now on Facebook

I'll just be giving a short summary of this super amazing week. This week was full of new investigators and new changes.

One thing I'll say about Monday is that we went to the in and out or iceberg type place of South Carolina called cookout. Very good but also very unhealthy. I got a bacon cheeseburger with a quesadilla and a lot of fries. And it was all so good.

Tuesday we had our first appointment with a new investigator which was so awesome. It's was such a humble meeting since we all just sat on the floor while teaching him, plus we scheduled a date for baptism on November 4th.

Wednesday we had the big zone conference where the new changes with Facebook and smartphones were made. On Facebook we are not able to post anything really but we really only use it to get to know our members and investigators better and to contact them through Facebook messenger. So we're not really using Facebook as a social media tool, but more as a tool to receive information. And smartphones are one for a Companionship and I'm not sure what to say about them.  Another thing that happened that day is we had an appointment with one of our progressing investigators and had an amazing lesson with them on the Book of Mormon and committed them to come to church as well.

Thursday we had three different lessons one with Maximo the Honduran that is impossible to understand, a less active named Gustavo who is a super nice grandpa type of guy, and with one of our investigators who is getting baptized as soon as she has her passport to get married. We also committed her to come to church, so all in all it was a good day.

Friday we had two lessons with a less active and an investigator who my trainer had thought had moved to Kentucky but ended up not. We were there for like 2 hours talking and teaching and learning all about them. Their lesson was cool though because it was acquired over Facebook where we had realized they did not actually move and we could keep seeing them. We also had a lesson with Jesus again where he had a friend and all his kids over as well, and they all participated in the lesson, and we committed Jesús and his kids to come to church.

On Saturday it was a lot more finding, we had a lesson with a member in the morning and also did service at the lawn mower guys place, unfortunately it was raining a ton so I didn't bring my tablet with me to take a picture. Next week though I'll get a picture. Then we just started knocking doors and getting return appointments with some former investigators all over the place. We also visited a former investigator and committed her to come to church.

Sunday we were all very excited if everything played out perfectly we would have 9 baptismal age investigators at church. But only one family of the 4 that we had committed showed up. But it was okay because she brought friends. So we had 5 investigators at church. Plus we got texts beforehand from one family that let us know why they weren't going to be able to go. So at least we know that they wanted to go. So we'll have to see Jesus about why he didn't come. But then we had dinner at a members with an investigator as well as taught a lesson to an awesome less active couple. So that was alright.

Alright well I said that I'd make the email short but it just didn't happen. Probably because this week was so jam-packed.

Adiós,

Elder Bertoch 

New photos!

Got a couple more photos.  I'm guessing the first one is a group picture of the Spanish speaking missionaries in Jackson's mission.

Not sure who all is in the second photo.  I believe the missionary to the right of Jackson is his trainer Elder Gerado.  His other companion, Elder Hill is on the far right.  Update:  The other three are the musical group Gentri that Jackson talks about in his e-mail.  His companion translated for them.

Second Week in the Field

After I left off on Monday last week we went and played basketball at the church with some other missionaries and then we came home took a p-day nap and went out to do some appointments. Unfortunately 2 of the 3 appointments fell through. But we had a very good lesson with a member about teaching and introducing his friends to the church. The member is super solid and has a very strong testimony with a lot of desire to share the gospel, so basically a missionary's dream right there. Then we knocked some doors to fill in the holes of our schedule.

Tuesday was our first district meeting where we had good lessons by our Elder Gerardo (the district leader) and a sister who had just gotten here last transfer. We then roleplayed and that was that. Then we had lunch and 3 hours of study and then we went to knock some doors until an appointment we had with another member where only there 17 year old son was there so we just taught him the importance of serving a mission. Luckily most of the kids around here speak English so we are able to speak some English when we go to teach some times. Then we had English class where no one showed up again and that was that.

Wednesday we taught a lesson with our investigator that is the hardest to understand again, but we usually just read a chapter of the book of mormon with him so we don't have to understand him all that well. Then we had lunch and more study. Then we had dinner and had 3 more appointments but 2 of them fell through yet again. But the lesson we did teach was with an investigator and we taught our first restoration, which went really well and they seemed really open and receptive. Then later we knocked doors yet again and that was that.

Thursday was the very anticipated day of Spanish conference where all of the Spanish missionaries in the mission gathered in the same place for a conference for the first time ever. There we learned of the Spanish conference, learned how to have effective language study, and went through some possible changes that could happen just to the Spanish missionaries. It was really cool and really good, definitely met all of the expectations with it. Then we had another appointment that fell through, but then Elder Gerardo had to translate for a devotional concert that was going on, so we got to listen to some good music by the Gentri Brothers and have a good time there.

Friday we had more service with Joe, the lawn mower guy who says he collects the lawnmowers but really he just hoards them. When we help him out we just clear out some leaves and stumps and organize the lawn mowers and other random things that he has all out in the forest. These lawnmowers also aren't small either (although some are) they are like the big ones that you ride on and everything. I'll take pictures on Friday once we go again. Then we had lunch and an appointment where we taught another investigator the importance of Jesus and the book of mormon. That went really well, she seemed interested. Then we had the long haul of weekly planning again. Then we went to knock doors again where we found some new potential investigators and then we had coordination with the ward mission leader and the hermanas in our ward as well, and then that was that. 

Saturday was general conference day where we went to the church to watch it. And that's all we really did that day.

Sunday was also conference day where we watched at the church yet again and then we knocked doors and had the spirit tell us not to knock a specific door so that was pretty cool and then that was that day as well. 

Question time:

In the 3 pack we always just take turns when knocking doors. We are only in Spanish companionships. Teaching is really easy with a three pack as well. There are 7 people in our district, us, two hermanas, and two other sisters. 

When we knock doors we have to knock in an area where another member or investigator lives. But we are pushing member referrals a lot more this month. We won't know what we are doing with facebook and smart phones until zone conference on Wednesday. We aren't allowed to go eat at a members house unless there is a less active or investigator there, so we usually only eat with them at large gatherings like at conference yesterday.  I usually eat quesadillas or eggs or cereal when I eat here. Scripture study is going great. It's easy to read when you have an hour just for reading the scriptures. 

Okay,

Love you all,

Elder Bertoch

Here's some pictures of Jackson's first apartment: