Week 18 (6 month mark!)

Hello Everyone!

It feels like it's been a long time since I have actually written something to you all. This has been a great week! Yesterday we had a baptism of the best 12 year old boy ever! His name is Jeffrey and he just came in to church one day and said that he wanted to be baptized. He would amaze us in every lesson we taught with him. He has already made friends with all of the youth in the branch. His mom is a member but was really less active. She has been coming to church with him now and I love them both. She bore her testimony yesterday which brought tears to Jeffrey's eyes. The spirit was so strong there. My camera was dead yesterday (I think it keeps getting turned on inside my bag) so I had to use an elder's camera, so I don't have the picture yet. 

The weather has been really nice here and we drive around with our windows down. We just have to be careful with some of the crazies walking around. haha just kidding. Sheila! We have our very own "Dizzy!" He is well known for dancing at a certain street corner. I will have to get a video of him. I am still here in Lynn for another 6 weeks! I am not going to know what to do if I get transferred to a different area. I will feel like a greenie all over again!

I got a nice compliment yesterday. This lady asked me how long I have been learning spanish and I said 6 months and she said wow you speak really well, I thought it was 3 years! That made me very happy. I understand most of what I hear, and I can say what I want for the most part. How is the Greek coming with you guys? Do you think anyone in Greece speaks Spanish? haha. Well I love you all and hope you are doing well! 

Week 17

Hey everybody! 

I don't have a lot of time but I just wanted to send you some pictures! We did something called the freedom trail a couple weeks ago where you walk around boston and it shows you a bunch of historic sites. 

The Declaration of Independence was read from this balcony and it's also where the Boston Massacre happened.

I am now a mother of 2 green missionaries... She actually went to Lone Peak and graduated the same year as me but we didn't know each other. (Referring to the sister in the middle)

Week 16 - Boston Marathon

Hello Everyone!

Today was an interesting day. This morning we went to the temple and it was great! I was so happy for the opportunity to go, I haven't been able to go since the day I got here in December. The Boston temple is so pretty! There was a revolutionary war reenactment this morning in Lexington but we didn't go because we would have had to leave at 4 am and that would have destroyed me for the rest of the week. My district leader wants me to tell you all that I was too lazy to get up at 3 am to go to it haha. Anyway, after the temple we decided to hang around and go into boston with a group of other missionaries. We came upon the end of the boston marathon, just a couple blocks from the finish line. We would have kept going closer to the finish line but 2 of the Elders in our group got lost finding bathrooms and we were looking for them for like 30 mins. By the time we finally found them we decided it was about time to start heading back to the T station (the subway) to get back to the stake center in Cambridge. Just when we decided this and started pushing through the crowds and runners who had just finished, we heard 2 explosions and felt the shock wave of it, kind of like how you can feel in your chest a big firework exploding. We looked up and saw smoke just a few blocks away. Everyone stopped and stared for a few seconds and then continued on. No one was completely sure of what exactly happened, I was thinking since there was no one freaking out that maybe they had a few cannons at the finish line or something. So we continued walking, and then we saw a few people sobbing. One of them was running away, and everyone was looking at her like she was crazy. And then the sirens started and that's when I knew for sure that something was wrong. We asked someone who was sobbing what happened and she said that bombs went off at the finish line and they are now clearing everyone out. So we left and followed the throng of solemn people back to the boston commons where the T station is but there were police guarding it say all trains were shut down. I saw police going down into the station with dogs. We decided it was best to just get out of there and start walking to cambridge. We walked a good ways and found that the trains that were above ground and a little bit out of the city were still open so we took that the rest of the way. I have never heard or seen so many cop cars and ambulances before. It seemed like all of them in the whole city came, and surrounding cities. I took this picture of a big line of cop cars speeding past while we were walking. We called the other missionaries and they were all ok. Another group would have been there too but like us, they had 2 elders that had to go to the bathroom and they left. The Lord kept us all safe by working through the bladders of 19 year old boys haha. The mission President told us to stay in for the rest of the night so we are heading home now. I'm alive and thank you all for worrying about me. It was defiantly a memorable experience! I love you all, take care!

Love,

Hermana Jacobsen

Pictures! - Week 14

"There are a lot of barber shops around, I think this one is my favorite haha."

"Sister Guzman's food is the best! haha"

"Sister Figueredo extended her mission by just a couple weeks so she has just been bopping from comp to comp to help them out and we went to the prudential building last week for p-day and there is a restaurant on the very top." 

".... and that is the pumpkin cheesecake I got!" 

Week 14 & 15

Hello everyone!

I don't have a lot of time because we are doing a zone activity today and we have to take off. Conference was awesome! Being a missionary gets you used to sitting and paying attention to someone for long periods of time. We had a meeting with the mission president last week that was 5 hours long, with a brief break for lunch. So watching conference was nothing for us. Thankfully I got to watch it in English, if I had to watch the whole thing in Spanish it would have felt really long. Who heard the shout out to the Boston Mission sunday morning? woot woot! We are awesome, I know :D. We are doing a lot of things to reach out to more people, it's amazing. I realized that conference will mark my mission. This conference was in my 6th month and the next conference will be about my year mark and then the one after that will be right before I go home. Crazy huh? We have so many sisters coming in it's ridiculous. In may we have 19 missionaries coming in and 18 of them are sisters! The Lord's work really is going on boldly, nobly, and independent. What a great work to be involved in! All of you can be involved in it too! Missionary work is to help other to come unto Christ and EVERYONE needs that in one way or another. Strengthen each other, support each other in the gospel, and wear the name of Christ on your heart. I love you all! Have a great week! 

Con Amor,

Hermana Jacobsen