First Week - 27 Jan 2015

Ola meu Familia!

Wow this has been the longest, best, more exhausting, happiest week of my life. It all seems like a blur now, but each day seemed so long and jammed pack with so many things. 

The first day was crazy. My favorite part was walking in a getting my name tag! I love it! I love putting it on every day! 

My companion's name is Sister Andersen and she is the cutest thing. She reminds me a lot of Alison Jones, one of the sisters from Pageant. We get along super well and she knows Spanish so that has helped us a lot in learning Portuguese and learning how to teach. My district consists of 8 Elders and 6 Sisters. I love them all. Four of them got their visas yesterday so they are leaving next week! Elder Markem is going to Joao Pessoa. Everyone else is going all over Brazil! Our teacher Irmao Sears is so nice and is a great teacher. He does not speak English to us which was hard at first, but is getting easier. 

On our first day we sang "The Armies of Helaman", but the words were changed to "we are NOW the armies of Helaman" and it was so cool! I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY ALREADY!!!

Portuguese is hard. It is coming slowly. I am learned a lot, but it is still overwhelming at times. I have learned out to pray and bear my testimony which are my favorite thing to do. Portuguese sounds like French sometimes its weird. But i love it already. 

We have started teaching already, like after our second day. Our investigator's name is Larissa and she is from Brazil and speaks no English. The first night we went to teach her, I just stared at her because i had NO idea what she was saying or how to even respond. Haha. Oh it was terrible. But it is getting better. She is reading the Book of Mormon and has committed to come to church with us. It is fun to teach her about Jesus Christ because she already has a strong belief in Him. We talked about Joseph Smith's first vision last night. I got to recite, as much as i could by memory, the first vision. It was SO COOL!!

Sundays here are the best. They are a little crazy because we have so much to do. Church, relief society, devotionals, study time, a district meeting, food, a temple walk, choir practice, and a million other things it feels like. One of my favorite things is to sing in Portuguese! I just bought a Portuguese Hymn book so that i can start learning more hymns especially the ones only in the Portuguese book. 

P-days are great already. it was so nice to wake up and be like "TODAY IS PDAY! I GET TO EMAIL MY FAMILY!!" I miss you guys so much! I already have shown my picture of us guys to sisters and told them all about you. :) Do you think you could put together a small photo album of pictures of our family?? And include a picture of my baptism? That would be the greatest thing!!

So question, did Lovde get bapitzed in Cosovo before she came to live with us? This lady during relief society told this story about a girl that sounded just like Lovde, but i was too young to really remember everything about her, but did she go to BYU and then get married? Did dad have anything to do with her baptism if she was baptized in Cosovo? Just wondering. 

So a few things that I have learned this week are from a talk by Elder Bednar he gave in the MTC called "The Character of Christ". He talked about how the character of Christ means to turn outward when the natural man would turn inward. For example, when Christ was on the cross, even during all his pain, he still took care of his mother and asked forgiveness for the people. So i have been trying to work on that. He prophesied that "according to our desire and diligence of studying about the character of Christ, all the gifts of the Spirit would be given to us"! That is the best promise ever!!!!

This has been a great week.  A very long week, yes. Hard at times, but so good. The food is okay, and gym time is my all time favorite thing!! I have never been so excited to run two miles or bike ten miles or play four square or do yoga. It is the best stress-reliever!! 

I wanted to thank you for all your support! It was so great to get emails this morning!! THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!

So, I didn't have this until a few days ago but my MTC address is:

MAR02 BRA-JP

2011 N 900 E Unit 201

Provo UT 84602

I don't know if you know what dearelder.com is but they print those letters off daily if you want to use it :)

I don't have Nana and Papa's or Grandma and Grandpa's emails so if you could send those to me that would be great!!!! 

I love you all so much and I just can't tell you enough how grateful i am for you and how much I love you!!! 

Have an amazing week!!!!

Love, Sister Jacobson 

3 Nephi 27:27 "What manner of MISSIONARIES ought ye to be? Verily i say unto you, even as I am!"