December 28, 2015

I hope everyone had a good Christmas! It was nice and hot over here! Christmas eve rained so hard and we were soaked!!! But it was so cool! When am I ever going to have a Christmas like that again ever?!?! NEVER!!!! We made it fun and lived it up!

Alright so we had a great baptism of brother dale!!! I can honestly say he was probably the smartest person I have ever taught! Him and his family are as close to an American family as they get! Its way nice! He is working hard to become the valedictorian at his school which is way nice to see here! A lot of people here are pretty comfortable in their situation. Its nice to see people with dreams and goals to improve their lives!

OK well we have the most golden investigator in the whole world and her name is Christia! She is 24 and is relatively a very wealthy 24 year old! This whole situation is like almost too good to be true! So she just heard about the lds church and that it was focuses around families. So she just decided by herself to come. She didn't know any members or missionaries she just came! That was about 3 weeks ago! She met a member from a branch about 5 hours away from here and she invited Christia to the branches Christmas party! SHE WENT. We were also there and had no idea she was coming. President and Sister Aquino were also there. So we asked them if they could give her a ride home back to Iloilo. So our investigator spent a 5hr. car ride with our Mission President and his family!!! Then we get a text that night from President Aquino inviting us to his house for dinner. She came and guess who was there??? CHRISTIA!!! So she stayed and had dinner with us, President Aquino and his family! We were just so shocked! She is one of the first people that has said "I want to investigate this church" She is just so friendly and yesterday just spent all day at church talking with all the old ladies! Usually when investigators come to church we try and find them fellow shippers to show them around. But this time she just finds her own fellow shippers. It has been so perfect. And we talked to the ward and have scheduled appointments to teach her at the houses of the members! It’s been such an ideal situation. Where the members are really doing most of the work!!! Its so sweet!!!

It was way nice to skype you all on Christmas!!! You are all doing so so good! I cannot believe that 2015 is almost over! What a great year! A lot has happened to me and I have learned so much! 2015 is the only year that I have spent 100% of my time to the Lord! I am also really excited for what will happen to me in 2016! Its going to be a big year and I am so ready and so excited!

Have a Happy New Year everyone and have fun at the Cabin!!!!

Love,

Elder Jackson Erik Craythorne

December 13, 2015

O ya!!!! I probably won't be able to email really anything today! Today is going to be crazy! Things are going good! I love you all so much!!!!

December 7, 2015

Hey everyone!!! This week was another amazing week with a lot of different kinds of meetings! Like my president always says "We believe in meetings, we hope all meetings, we have endured many meetings, and hope to endure all meetings!" Ha ha President Aquino is awesome. We inviting him to work with us this week so we set up an awesome night with all our best families...and guess what we got punted left and right and couldn't teach a single one of them which was a big bummer. We were so excited for President to work with us but...I guess this was just part of the plan!

Probably one of the coolest things about this week was on Saturday we had a meeting (yes another meeting) with President Aquino, an area 70, and all the stake and district presidents on this island. Which is 4 stakes and 2 districts in case you were interested! We presented a plan for 2016 which will boost the progression here! It was really sweet! We made a nice prezi everyone was pretty pumped afterwards! Then after the meeting each stake scheduled a meeting with all the Bishops and ward mission leaders and invited us to present the same thing to them so that everyone can be on the same page this 2016. A lot has changed here in the mission now the next step is getting the members to catch the same fire and rise up with us! THIS IS SO SWEET!!!

That is for sure our next focus is just use the members as much as we can! All of our families have come from tracting and its has been difficult to help them build relationships with the members here! So last night we got an active family pumped about helping a family come to church and we made a goal with a member that in 2016 a family would be baptized in their area and now they are so pumped. So we gave them the Aliparo family who the dad is ready to get baptized but his wife still has some doubts which is totally understandable and normal! They are awesome I think I have said this before but the parents of that family love each other and its so cool to see! You don't see it very often here and its always a breath of fresh air when you see them two!!! Oh I love it!!! Anyway we are going over them tonight then the member family will visit them on Tuesday night without us and just talk with them and find their concern and just be friends with them! So we are excited to see what comes from this! This member family is the Ortega family and he is hilarious! When my parents come we will for have a family home evening at his house!!!

This week is going to be crazy because next Monday the whole mission is coming down for a Christmas Conference. All 180 missionaries here and we have quite the night planned! I will just say its going to be crazy! This is President Aquino's last Christmas and he wants it to be big! 

Well its been a blast. So exhausting but so worth it! I miss you all so much and hope everyone is having fun during the Christmas season! Enjoy it! I am going to enjoy my last Christmas here in this island paradise! I love you all so so so much!!!!!

Love,

Elder Jackson Erik Craythorne