Madison Madness

HI dear ones,

Sister Jarvis arrived excited and psyched to go this week:) She is from a tiny town in New Mexico will 11 in her graduating class. We are hitting the ground running in Madison.

I laughed my head off the other day. One of her first lessons broke her in quite nicely. It was a lady that we had contacted on the street a week or so ago and when we got to her run down cylinder block apartment she yelled "who iz it?!" ( everyone yells that here when you knock and no one knows who it "iz" when we say the missionaries haha) She said "open the door so I can see yo face." We walked into another world in there. It was dark only lit by the t.v screen. Sandy just laid on the couch talking and would yell across the room every so often to a random man who was asleep next to us. Roaches EVERYWHERE. Sister Jarvis sat down next to a bucket on the floor that was filled with black and yellow liquid. Soon to find out that every so often Sandy would lean over and spit up foul liquid. As we hugged her and left she was crying and pleading to get away from the life she lived. The Book of Mormon fell straight into the bucket of bodily fluid and we stood there and smiled hahaha. She dug it out and whipped it on the rug and continued talking. Haha these people make up a good population of Madison.

I had another tender experience with Kathryn's family. We had all got together to discuss the funeral and share a message with them. We thanked the family for letting us teach Ms. Kathryn as we all sat around in a circle. I began to cry when Cedric asked me to speak at her funeral. I never would have imagined the feelings you feel on a mission.

I love the life I live and I'm so grateful to be here. I spoke on missionary work in Sacrament last sunday and had the chance to teach both youth sunday school and Y.Ws. And talking to the youth is MY favorite. They are AWESOME. I look back at where I was before I came out here and who I was and see so many similarities as I talked with them.I would never imagined being who and where I am today. God is good to his children.

I love you all so much. Keep reading. Keep praying. He knows you.

Sister Jackson