Note: Jake comes home August 25 so Missionary Jake is not quite complete. I hope to post weekly updates from him during August to complete the story of his mission.
This is part ten of a ten part series chronicling Jake’s Mission. It is told mostly in his own words using excerpts from his letters and photographs sent home.
June 2008
Attached are pictures of the Brito Perez family. They were baptized and confirmed yesterday.
We are also going to baptize a young couple and another small family in the coming weeks. Sometimes we are so tired from climbing all of the department buildings knocking on doors and talking with everyone that we hardly even sleep from the fatigue. Truly the Lord renovates our bodies so we can keep on working. I remember that every time I have gotten sick in my mission, if I have faith and believe, it only lasts a single day. The next day I am always ready to give it all. Seeing the Brito family and others that we have found ready to be baptized and follow our Savior makes all of the work worth it. The ward keeps growing, when I came here we had an average attendance of 120-130. We set an attendance record of 204 in sacrament meeting a month or two ago. The past two weeks have been 194 (ward conference) and 177.
Mom, now that you recognize many blessings, remember that every blessing is received based on our obedience to the law which governs it. You can backtrack from the blessing to your righteous action that triggered it and learn to repeat it. When the stake president set me apart as a missionary he blessed me so that I could serve a full 24 months without any health problems. I imagine that when I am released I will suddenly have a heart attack because of the all spicy food I am eating.
I don’t really eat cereal for breakfast anymore. Do not worry about my account or transferring money or anything. If you want to send a package I will send a member’s direction where I am at so it will get here faster.
We found the Gutierrez family knocking on doors. She asked “Where is your church? I want to go.” Before teaching her anything she asked “What do I have to do to join your church?” She had read about the church on the Internet (I assume the church’s website) and was really interested, but the missionaries had never knocked on her door. The others are her husband and her mother.
This week we baptized Claudia and Arat. I taught them when I first came to the area, but her husband didn’t let her be baptized at that time. Last week he went to church with her and said that he liked it. He then gave permission for them to be baptized.
Let me know where Daniel is going [on his Mission]. I will ask this week what they searched for and what site they went to.
