Thursday, September 25, 2014

9-15-14 I Lost 8 Pounds in a Day, ¿Mbae piko?‏

This week was great. Full of ups and downs. The best part was that a lot of good things happened. I'll start with the first.

District Activity: We had a super awesome district activity. We played soccer...(we always play soccer), but we decided to mix it up a bit and we cooked too. We went super chichi and made Asado (a type of beef), hamburgers, sausages, and mandioca!!! It was super good. I ate quite a bit and we had a super fun activity. It will probably be my last one here in Tayuasape, but it was also one of the best ones. In the picture we have my companion and I, Elder Guitarra, Elder Ward and the the 4 sisters. Hermana Huanca, Hermana Weeks, Hermana Cevallos, and Hermana Boley. 
They are all pretty awesome. Thanks to Hermana Boley it all got competitive. She played soccer before her mission and challenged us, but no one got hurt!!

9-11-01: 
This week was 9/11 remembrance day. 
Elder Hampton and I sure did remember singing the song.
I'm proud to be an American
Where at least I know I'm free
I wont forget the men who died
Who gave their life for me
And I will stand up Next to you
And defend her till the end
Because there ain't no doubt I love this land 
GOD BLESS THE USAAAA!!!

I LOVE America. We took some pictures to celebrate our love. Don't ask me where I got the tie, but it is pretty awesome. I hope that America had a great 9/11 remembrance day because I sure did. God bless the USA.

Friday and Saturday: My dear family and friends I would like to tell you how I found the best diet and the worst diet in the world. If you want to loose weight get sick. If you want to feel like dying for a couple of days, get sick. What happened is that Friday morning after my exercises I got super sick. I think the exercises lowered my defenses and the disease got me! Friday and Saturday I was in bed all day. Didn't eat, didn't drink, didn't move, didn't talk, didn't do ANYTHING. It was pretty rough. I had a fever of 104 degrees and a lot of diarrhea and vomiting. It must have been from something I ate, but I'm not too sure. Yippee for third world countries. I'm perfectly fine now (don't worry mom). I'm a little weak still but today is my Preparation Day so I will rest again. It is the first time in my mission that I have been so sick, so I'm thinking that my course was about due. I lost 8 pounds too. Great diet, but don't do it. It was pretty terrible. I was bummed that we didn't leave for 3 days this week due to sickness, but in The Book of Mormon, the brothers of Ammon couldn't leave to work because they were thrown in jail by the Lamanites. At least I wasn't thrown in jail by the Lamanites. I love bright sides :D.

We had 2 investigators in church and they should be getting baptized by the end of this month. We are working with a few investigators and we hope to keep finding more.

I had the sudden realization today that my mission here in Paraguay is coming to an end. It freaked me out, not going to lie. Then I thought back and pondered on all the spiritual experiences that I have had in my mission and there are to many to count. I'm so grateful to be here. I'm so happy. Every second has been worth it, even the sick ones haha. If anyone who is reading this is thinking about a mission and going I invite you to JUST GO!!! The Lord will bless you beyond what you ever thought was possible. I love you all and hope that you have a great week. :)

Elder Jessop


9-11-14


Me SICK





Elder Guitarra, Elder Ward and the the 4 sisters. Hermana HuancaHermana Weeks, Hermana Cevallos, and Hermana Boley, Elder Hampton and me









Friday, September 19, 2014

9-8-14 / September

Hello Family and Friends. Cool things have been happening here in Paraguay. The week went by fast, like always... It is getting harder and harder to type in English, but I keep giving it a try. The week was spectacular and I am super happy and I hope you all enjoy my letter.

We did service this week! We cut down a tree (for those of you who don't know, I'm deathly afraid of heights). Elder Hampton went up in the tree and started cutting it and I just gathered all the stuff he cut and put it in piles. Then the family of which we were doing service started to laugh at me because I was afraid of heights. SO I mustered up my courage and climbed the tree to cut some branches off, I only got up to the lowest trunk there was, BUT that is an accomplishment. It took us about one and a half hours to cut the tree and it was super fun. We then ate lunch with the Ortega family and went on our way. We were pretty wiped out the rest of the day, but service projects are awesome. We are trying to do one at least once a week.

I also did a division with one of the elders in my zone from Columbia. His name is Elder Mejia and he has a little more time than I have in the mission. This same day we had Ward fun night and we brought a couple investigators. We had a family home evening as a ward and it was super fun and we ate hot dogs after!! Straight America right there. 

We had a couple lessons this week with a couple of our investigators. Here are the following: Deisy, The Salguiero Family, Celia, The Cabrera Family, Julieta and the Rosly family. Deisy went to church on Sunday and is planning on getting baptized in the short future and she is awesome!! The Salguiero family is having some trouble with fulfilling with their commitments. They love seeing us and sharing with us and they want to go to church, but when the day comes the advisory gets them and they don´t go. It is an awesome family and we might stop working with them for a while so that they can recognize the difference of when they feel the spirit and when they don't. Celia is a girl who is deaf and can't talk, but luckily her sons all can talk to her using sign language!! It really made me want to learn sign language. Her husband died about a year ago and they are struggling as a family to find refuge from that loss. THEY NEED THE GOSPEL!!! The Cabrera family is awesome. We always go there and help them peel garlic and then we teach. Christian is from this family, who got baptized last week and now we are working with his family members. The Rosly family are old investigators that are super interested in coming back to church again. Julieta came to church this Sunday and shared her testimony with the congregation. She is 11, our investigator, and a star. She will be getting baptized shortly as well :))).

There was a thunder storm this week and it was super strong. We spent it cleaning the church for Sunday :DDD. That is all.

I love the mission. I'm learning more and more everyday how to love and be more like Christ. I have never been more tired, stressed, or happy. It is all worth it. My time here is shrinking and I am happy that I have had so many spiritual experiences and times in my mission. I love my God. I'm so far from perfect, but I am getting there. Jesus Christ lives and loves us. May we all be able to accept that love and follow the example of Christ and walk how he walked. If we do it, we will be able to enjoy our place with him in his kingdom. I love my family and I cant wait to get sealed to them in the temple when I come home. Have a great week!!! I love each and every one of you and I hope my letters show that.

Elder Jessop







Friday, September 12, 2014

9/1/14 - I Hope They Call Me On A Mission...... (and that it never ends...) hehe

Hello, Family, Friends, Loved Ones, and all those who may be reading this email. I hope that you might feel the joy and love that is being sent from me to you, through a lovely computer screen here in San Lorenzo, Paraguay. I love love. Love makes the world go round. I'm tired a little. I had to wake up early today to go to a conference this morning and my eyes just want to shut haha, but don´t you fret! :) Now to get onto the week.


Tuesday: We had our district meeting. The elders and the sisters in the district are pretty awesome. One of the sisters goes home in October. We had our last district meeting before the changes and we decided to take a picture! The picture is like lop sided, but that is what happens when you put a timer on the camera and it takes its own foto. Also, Elder Hampton and I had to go to the hospital because I punched him in the face.... No just kidding, Elder Hampton had a big red bump on his face and everyone thought that I punched him haha. He got an infection and his face got super inflamed and red so we went to the doctors and he bought some pills and he is good as new :) I promise that I did not hit him. ;)


Wednesday: I am trying to remember what we did. I'm looking in my agenda to remember and it looks like we taught a couple of lessons and we met a guy named Paulino. Paulino is a guy that smokes a ton. Like 40 cigarettes a day. We invited him to be baptized and he accepted and showed a desire to stop smoking. We helped him put goals and plans so that we could help him stop. We hope to follow up with the goals but according to what we know, he has already dropped from 40 to 20. PROGRESS!!!! We also got two new sisters in our Zone. Hermana Boley from Alpine Utah and Hermana Weeks from Saint George Utah. Hermana Boley is the new Sister Leader Trainer in our Zone. We have 3 sets of Sister Leader Trainers in our mission. For those who don't know what a "Sister Leader Trainer" is all I know is that they help the sisters with planning & stuff. Doing divisions, studying, and helping them like a normal Elder Leader, just sisters. Hard to explain haha.


Thursday: We invited one of our investigators, Daisy, to get baptized on the 6 of September. She said yes and we are praying that everything goes well!! She is reading in the book of Mormon and Sunday we will verify how it is going. She has plans to come to church with her grandma!! We also had our Ward fun night and a ton of our investigators came. Mostly kids from 10 to 20 years old, but who doesn't like to play soccer. The missionaries don't play, but it is fun to watch! Christian also had his baptism interview. He passed it!! He is planing on getting baptized this Saturday!


Friday: I don't remember what happened on Friday..... Sorry.... All I've got written down in my agenda are the 6 lessons we taught. We taught Paulino, Christian, Oscar, Jose, and I don't remember the other two. I´ll do better next week :)


Saturday: I do remember everything that happened on Saturday!!!!!!! Christian got baptized!!!! It was an awesome baptism! Christian is the first of his family to get baptized. He is 13 and he is inviting all of his brothers and sisters to go to church and all of his friends go with him to the ward fun night. He said that he quit playing soccer on Sunday to come to church! He is awesome and it was a very spiritual day. We also had, in the morning, a youth activity in the stake were all the missionaries in the whole stake and all the teenagers in the whole stake got together and went out proselyting! It was fun. That is all :)


Sunday: Great day. Had 4 investigators in church. Paulino came!!! The one who is trying to stop smoking!! Daisy came to with her grandma!!!!! Christian came to get confirmed. Two other investigators came also named, Julieta and Yeison. We are helping them to. They both believe that the church is true, but there are little problems, but everything will work out the way it should.


Today: We had a meeting of leadership. Twice a year all the zone leaders, district leaders, and herman lideres entrenadoras get together with the mission president and we have a meeting. Every other month it is just zone leaders and sister leader trainers. It was a great meeting!!


I love being a missionary! It is going by fast. I'm enjoying it to the limit. There are no limits!! Celestial glory or nothing!! haha. I love you all and to all fare well!! Untill next week.

Elder Jessop

1.Our leadership meeting, all of us got here in the mission of the same day.
2.The same picture but with an Elder who wasn't in the first one
3.My old companion Elder Arrington





1. My companion drawing on the chalkboard.
2.Christian!!!!
3.Christian and friends!!!





1. District. We had changes.
2. I made Hamburger Helper (thanks mom and dad)
3. Me and Elder Guitarra.




Friday, September 5, 2014

8-25-14 RE: The Fruits of Love....

Hello. I would love to start of this letter with a big giant happy birthday wish to my mom, Rebecca Jessop, from her son, Elder Jessop. I will start with a song.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU
HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEAR MOMMY
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!!!!
I love you mom. Miss you a ton and I hope that you enjoyed your birthday month.
This week was an awesome week. The heat is beginning again and it is still winter time.

Monday: We had a ice cream and brownie party!!! Just 4 of us. 
It was awesome and after that I started a diet plan hahaha. The diet plan always begins after pigging out. It was a great brownie and the 5 big dots are things called Alfahores. You can look it up on the Internet if you want, unless you're a missionary haha.

Tuesday: I went on a division with one of the district leaders in my Zone named Elder Vanegas. He is from Columbia and goes home in October. It was a great division and I learned a ton from him. I'm definitely enjoying the mission. The time that I have spent here has been worth every second and I'm happy.

Wednesday: Today we had a meeting with the district leaders and we have to present a giant presentation in a Leader Council. 2 times a year in our mission, the district leaders go with the zone leaders to the leader council and in this council we have to present something about district meetings. Instead of a normal Leader Council with just the Zone Leaders and the sister leader trainers, we will have all the district leaders there too.

Thursday: We met a girl who is a member named Sixta Vera. 
She got baptized 11 years ago and is from a place called YpacaraĆ­. She is a little sick and hasn't gone to church because the leaders told her that she had to go to a different ward, but it is a miracle that we found her. We have investigators next door and they told us that Sixta wanted to meet us. We didn't know that she was a member. She came to church on Sunday with her two granddaughters and the neighbor that is our investigator!!! It was awesome

Friday: We had two great lessons that I want to share. One with Christian. We taught him the Word of Wisdom and he accepted it and came to church on Sunday and is getting baptized this Saturday!!!! He is a teenager and is awesome. We had another lesson with the Salguiero family and felt that we really had to focus on the Book of Mormon. It turns out that they are not reading it and we decided to read a little with them and we marked 1st Nephi 1 and it turns out that when we went back Sunday they had read it!!! We have plans to go back today!!! They have a baptism date but they need to go to church 1 more time before they can get baptised. They are awesome!!

Saturday and Sunday: We had Stake Conference! It was awesome. I've said the word awesome allot. We got to here from Elder Bednar. Yeah the apostle Elder Bednar. It was awesome and he talked to us about repentance and the importance of it. It was a very powerful talk. We also had 4 investigators in church, which got to see the apostle, Elder Bednar. They really enjoyed it and they are coming back next Sunday!!
I learned a lot this week about the importance of love. Love makes us do and want to help. The pure charity of Christ is what we must develop to enter into his kingdom. The Atonement of Jesus Christ is based on the principles of the love that God and Jesus Christ have for us. My goal is to love and always love. I love each and every one of you. I appreciate your letters, love and support. Sorry for the English. It is getting pretty bad, but that doesn't change my love :)
Elder Jessop