NOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!WHAT HAPPENED?????

i got the "dear john" D":
i need a hug



JACKIE B.

hmmm just some info

i really don't know what to type so i will just let you all have a list of where i have served and my companions as well :D

Transfer 1- Lakewood/Bridgeport branch
Elder Jones 6 weeks
Elder Loaiza 6 weeks
Elder Zika 6 weeks
Transfer 2- Lacey 1st and 2nd
Elder Mero 6 weeks
Elder Lethco 6 weeks
Elder Ostergaard 6 weeks
Transfer 3,4- Yelm/Deschutes River/Mckenna
Elder Palmer 12 weeks
Transfer 5,6- Dungeness
Elder Benard 12 weeks
Transfer 7- Spanaway
Elder Harris 6 weeks
Elder Reeder 6 weeks
Elder Palmer 6 weeks
Transer 8,9,10- Lakewood/Bridgeport branch
Elder Hill 6 weeks
Elder Lewis 12 weeks
Elder Prueitt 12 Weeks
Elder Palmer 6 weeks
Elder Schull 6 weeks
Transfer 11,12- Lincoln
Elder Hepler 6 weeks
Elder Boyack 6 weeks
Transfer 13,14,15- Kingston
Elder Kleinman 6 weeks
Elder Beus 12 weeks
Transfer 16,17- Toledo/Morton
Elder Kimmons 6 weeks
Elder Larson 6 weeks

The Brazilian Heat........errr....I mean......

well i guess i shouldn't really complain because i am sure it is much hotter in hurricane right now, but it is probably more humid here :/ time here in tacoma has really started to slow down, which is going....cause it gives me time to think haha :D tacoma is a lot different than lakewood...mostly because it isn't filled with ghetto apartment complexes with humbled people....it is more like a lot of houses with old fogeys who have been around for 50+ years and are set in there religions :/ so i really have no idea what to say right now, so I'm just throwing in some random things lol :) I am serving in the Lincoln Ward in Tacoma as the Senior Companion to Elder Hepler...he has been out for 8 months I believe and he is a really good and motivated missionary, who was trained out in Forks (thats vampire land for all the girls out there) <_<....>_>.....^v^ lincoln is a bike area, but unfortunately i have to borrow another missionaries bike cause the bike i own is broken now :/ i guess i should have given heed to all the reviews that were on the internet when i got the bike haha... but it's ok, i should be able to get it fixed within the week or so :D

Jackie B.

TACOMA!!!!!!!!!

so i guess it has finally happened....i have gone to serve in the heartland of the mission....Tacoma Washington.....it is way different that lakewood...it is like 20 times bigger that lakewood, and there are so many ghetto houses crammed onto every street...i am guessing that i will probably be serving in the tacoma area for at least 4-6 months...so probably till about 20 months total :D which will probably fly by. not much really too exciting is happening though right now, except last week end we baptized 2 women who were supposed to get baptized with 3 other people a few weeks ago so that was exciting


215 S. 40th ST.
Tacoma, WA 98418

Week 6 of the 10th transfer

So i really have no idea what i wanna say in this blog, but i geuss i should say something since i didn't type one last week.....not much is going on here and things in lakewood have really started to slow down, which kinda is bad cause we don't have many baptisms coming up in the next couple of weeks...transfers are this monday (19)
and I have no idea if i am staying or leaving...i have been here for a very long time and i am starting to get burnt out of the area, i am very curious about what the next 9.5 months will be like....i know it is going to go by really fast, and i hope that i can continue to see success in the area i go to....right now i have been in washington 59 weeks and i have 33 baptisms which means i have an average of a baptism every other week which is really good and above average for most missionaries here....i would really like for me to hit weekly though, and come home with 104, but that won't probably happen haha, but we'll see. i guess that one thing worth noting and will probably be mentioned in my homecoming is that we have a homeless guy living with us at the moment haha (we got permission from the landlord)
so now we have a homeless guy, a less active drunk member and the landlord with his wife at our place, plus us 4 missionaries makes 8 people haha.

i really hope to hear from all of you soon, cause i miss all of you so much!!!

JACKIE B.
ps. if anyone is going to send a letter this week then send it to the mission office

4007 Bridgeport Way W. ste-d
university place, WA 98466

miracle baptism

so a few weeks ago there were a couple child of record baptisms...which don't count for missionaries...well apparently one of the kids that got baptized was never blessed as a baby and was actually living with his aunt...so it turned out to be a convert baptism, so im really happy about that :D not much else is going on...sorry i don't write any letters :/ i will try to write one this week and let people know a little more about what has been going on...i hope everbody is doing great and just wanna wish my sister a big HAPPY BIRTHDAY

MISS YOU ALL VERY MUCH

JACKIE B.

The Habanero Challenge!!!!!!!!!!

have any of you ever been in a time in your life when you think that nothing could possibly get any worse? that you have gone through so much pain and agony and suffering that the only thing left to do is hope that it miraculously goes away? that happened to me.....when i took the HABENORE CHALLENGE!!!! this was no small task....the habenero is a mexican pepper that is ridiculously hot (DO NOT EAT ONE!!!) they are gross and extremely painful...for about 4 hours i was sitting in my apartment in so much pain that the only thing in my mind was "i wanna kill myself" it hurt so bad, that i think i can honestly say that my appreciation of the atonement has grown dramatically. to give you an idea of how hot and painful it was here is a quote from a missionary after he took the challenge "i would rather have my arm cut off rather to have ever eaten that stupid pepper!" ~elder manuele

manuele just happens to be from st george so i give him mega props :D

not much else to crazy is going on right now...just the usual mission stuff :D i did go to coldstone for the first time and i just have to say that it was the greatest ice cream place i have ever eaten :D

hope to hear from you guys soon :D MISS YOU ALL!!

JACKIE B.

bummed yet pumped

so i am really sad to say that all 5 baptisms did not go through :( but at least 2 of them did so i am really happy about that :D transfer calls came last saturday and i found out that i was yet again staying in lakewood for another transfer, which blew me out of the water yet again....not to mention the new companions i got...first one is elder schull who actually lived with me and palmer in yelm....speaking of palmer he is also my companion AGAIN!!!! i served with palmer in yelm then i left for 2 transfers then we were comps in spanaway then i came to lakewood for 2 transfers now he got transferred to lakewood an i just happened to stay so this is our 3rd time together and will make a total of 6 months after this 6 week cycle.

My success as a missionary here in the great town of lakewood.

so this week end our companionship has 5 people on date for baptism...which will put me at a grand total of 34 (well i guess i should say "grand total" cause i still have 10 months left haha) but i realized that after these 5 baptisms i will have doubled my converts on my mission since i came back to lakewood 12 weeks ago. and i was wondering why it took me 7 transfers (42 weeks)to get my first 17 baptisms and only 2 more transfers (12 weeks) to double it to 34... and i really believe and know that it is because of my excitment towards being a missionary, not that i wasn't excited before, but i feel that i had other things on my mind that were slowing me down (things like home, family, what i want to get into for schooling and stuff). when i came back to lakewood it really hit me about how fast 2 years goes by. so i have been really focused on the people i have been teaching and progressing them rather that worrying about my own personal things that don't even need to be thought about at this time. hopefully i can keep this excitment up as i get transfered to new areas :D

i love you all and miss you guys so much

JACKIE B.

WeEk FiVe of the 9th TRANSFER

So if this week 5 is anything like all the other week 5's of my mission then it is going to fly by so fast....every transfer i ask myself..."what happened, why is time going so fast?" not that it is a bad thing, it's just that my mind cannot comprehend it. we had the baptism of the family that i mentioned in my last post. it was one of the best baptisms i've had on my mission, and the first family that i have baptized :D transfers are in 2 weeks (the 7th) and i have decided that i am not going to make any predictions on whether i am staying in lakewood or not...cause i seem to be bad at those kind of predictions haha. a part of me wants to stay, but i kinda want to go to a new area :D

miss you all

JACKIE B.

miracle baptism this weekend :D

so two weeks ago my companions and i had only found 1 new investigator, but we average 6-8 every week so we were really bummed out that sunday had come and we didn't have new people to teach.....until......elder lewis went in to the clerks office to grab a pair of scissors, he met the ward clerk in there who told lewis that there was a message on the phone that we would might want to hear. apparently that was i family that used to live up in the puyallup south stake in washington who was taught by the missionaries, but had moved to cali...they eventually moved back up to washington and moved here to lakewood...they were supposed to get baptized the thursday they were going to move up here, but the missionaries in cali told them to wait until they got to the ward they would be living in :D so we are having a baptism of a 3 piece family this weekend which was an absolute miracle :D

PLAY BALL!!!!!!

So today we (about 20 missionaries) went to a baseball game....it was the Tacoma Rainiers vs. the Las Vegas 51's. I of course was cheering for Vegas cause i love it there plus that is where one of my comps is from haha. the score ended up being 6 to 2 for vegas which was really exciting, though the game it self was a really slow-paced game. haha i should have worn a jacket to the game cause it was really cold, but i guess i can't complain.

as for missionary work things are going fairly good...we had a baptism last weekend and we had a miracle happen on sunday.... there was a guy who moved up from california who was visiting the missionaries down there and was going to be baptized last thursday, but the missionaries told him that he should wait to be baptized in the ward that he was going to be moving to...so i guess that means a free baptism for the Lakewood area :D

that's all
JACKIE B

EATING MY OWN WORDS

So i guess i have been blown away yet again by my transfer call last saturday...president bowen has been trying out some crazy stuff in the mission, but now that i think about it, he is like the smartest man in the western hemisphere....i would laugh except it's true. i really don't know why i am with the zone leaders again, but i guess i can learn a whole lot from them that i can apply in my own life. I am super excited for this transfer cause it is looking to be amazing...even better than last transfer, we have a goal for 12 baptisms this transfer and it is looking extremely possible. not much else to say right now, but i hope to hear from you all soon :D

JACKIE B

The UT-STG Mission

I found out that St George is getting it's own mission this year which is really exciting for me cause when i get home i can just help out the elders there while i get used to the home life....but i guess i still have a year so i won't think too much of it haha :D So i got a letter from a member in my home ward, sending me a pretty random "how are things going" letter. He asked me if i knew about the new mission in utah and mentioned that the hurricane stake had gotten a whopping 23 baptisms last year.....i first looked at that number in absolute DISGUST...then i thought about it a little more and i realized that Hurricane isn't really "booming" with non-members....unlike the WA-TAC where the stakes roughly average 20 to 30 baptisms a month so 240-360 a year (just a little more than the Incredibly small 23 of hurricane) but then again the WA-TAC mission has a pretty high reputation. another reason i realize that hurricane got so few baptisms is that i recall not really ever seeing the elders very often in hurricane....maybe like once every couple of monts... so i'm sure that the numbers will go up once missionaries are in the area :D miss you all so much, but don't worry...i'll be back :D ......in a year that is.

ELDER JACKIE B.

LakeHOOD

so life back here in the city is pretty crazy...after spending the last 10 months in the country and the northern booneys you begin to feel that the world couldn't hold very many people....but now that i am back here in lakewood i realize that there can be a boatload of people crammed into a tiny place. being here again really forced me to get out of my comfort zone and start talking to everybody, which is still hard sometimes, but i guess nothing bad will come from it (hopefully)...don't worry no guns have been pulled on my yet but i have been threatened many a times. sorry if that scares anybody :/....but im still alive and kicken :D life is so different but it feels the exact same.....i know i'm about to hit my "hump day" but being back in the Hood makes it feel like month 1 again, but i guess i will only be here for 2 more weeks (yes i will get transferred..i just don't know where yet). anyway probably should get going soon..hope to hear from you all :D

seeya

ELDER BARTLETT, JACKIE B, MANGO, HURRICANE!!, BBQ, JUNIOR BACON.
(lol just a couple of the nicknames i aquired haha :D)

11 months

so these last eleven months have been indescribable...i never thought that my whole life could change so fast.... it is like i am a completely different person. i remember when i got the call from the post office just like it was yesterday, and was pretty much freaking out that i was finally going on a mission. words cannot tell how these last 11 months have been, they have just gone by so fast, but so long at the same time, and it is just hard for me to comprehend that i will be coming home in a year.....it is almost like i have gotten to a point where i don't really wanna come home :/ i have no idea what i will do with myself when i am back, I really like how my behavior has dramatically changed while i have been out, i'm really glad that st george is getting its own mission, cause i probably would go crazy not doing any missionary work when i get home haha.

well i will try to post a new blog every week or other week if i get done emailing in time...and i hope to hear some comments from you all ( probably because i will be more blunt about how i am really feeling, rather than just telling you guys that things are going good )

miss you guys lots

ELDER BARTLETT