Last Letter Home!!!

This is Jesse's last letter home! He will be flying into the Redmond Airport on Monday, November 23rd at 9:00pm. Any and everyone is welcome to join us at the airport as Jesse arrives home! We will all be in Oregon for Thanksgiving week. Thank you for your thoughts and prayers!

Hello family!

Well I do not really know what is going on in the life of all of my friends but I did get your letter from Elder Rau and I got a good laugh out of it when he says that being a zone leader cuts his time out haha. I am really glad to hear that he is learning so much and having so many experiences. So I have now been on the mission more than two years and I still love it so much. There have been so many stories that I would love to tell but there is just never enough time. I was going to send you the pictures of the last four or five baptisms that we have had (we just baptized Daniel and Lourda this last Saturday) BUT i FORGOT THE CORD TO MY Camera. Oh and you would never belive the story behind that. So we travel a ton these last weeks and we never sleep more than 6 hours a night. So anyways while we were traveling I left my backpack in a taxi ahhhhh. It had my triple in spanish and my camera ahhhhh and as you can suppose things like that are always lost forever. But I had some pictures that are really important on my camera and I prayed and told that lord that I really wanted the memories from the camara and my triple. Then I went to the bus station and put in a lost claim aaaannnnnndddddd BOOOMMM!!!! two days later it was turned in hmmmmm need we more evidence that God listens. Speaking of that I had another experience the other day when I was in a baptismal intereview and the man told me that he had smoked the morning before. Normally I never pass anyone that has done something like that but really felt different with him so I want into the bathroom and prayed. The Lord helped me out a lot. It was a great experience and he got baptized later that day. There have been so many experiences that just help me out so much. But I would like to share the greatest of all of the experiences. Sunday I was in Aceuducto which is in Morelia and was my area about 3 months ago. So I got to go to church. As I was there I saw a ton of converts cone to church. As they walked in I can not even begin to tell you the great feeling of joy that filled my heart. Well as I said I cant even begin to tell you but I will let Alma explain it... Well I love the gospel and I know that I will miss this work like nothing else. I had a dream the other night that I was home and crying because I wanted to go back to the mission. I do know know exactly what to feel but I just have to keep really focused on the work. well I love you all a ton and will see you all really soon.

letters home

September 14th, 2009

Hello Family,
What a crazy world this is. Sometimes I have such spiritual experiences and am so grateful for these times and the fullness of the gospel here and then other times I leave the house and see the wickedness in the world and just ask myself how long the Lord will tolerate it. These are really troubled times. I see so much work to do and so few workers. The Lord really is calling all able hands it is sometimes discouraging to see how few people respond to the call of the lord. I have been reflecting a lot lotely on the miracles that I have seen on my mission. I really have learbned a lot and I know that the best is yet to come. I do not really know how to feel with the change of presidents. I love the gospel. There is nothing more important. Nothing. To answer your question......Mexico and central america
Love you all a ton.

letters home

September 21st, 2009

Hey everyone!
Well it has been one of the craziest if not the craziest week of my entire mission. It has been a really hard week to complete and there have been so many mixed emotions and so many head aches and now I am a little sick so it is all just throwing me through a loop. It all started off when President Davidson left. I was trying to write this experience in my Journal but it is impossible to explain. There were so many mixed feelings but when I saw him leave I could not stand it. He has been my best friend here in the mission and I feel like I owe him so much. The new President is President Jespersen. He is very different because he has a family and is a lot younger. He is very energetic and loves missionary work. I think the mission will do just great with him. Such crazy things are going on right now in the mission and it has been very hard to keep up with everything. But I know that everything is working out this way with a great purpose. I love you all a lot and tell everyone that I love them a ton and will see them very soon. By the way if you could please post on the internet that pouch is no longer in service so in order to write me they have to do it through mail and that is really hard so if everyone wants they can just wait until I’m home

August 27th, 2009

Hello Family,

Well that sounds like a crazy house and just think there are people here that do not even have houses and that do not have food to eat. What a crazy week. So last week I spent almost the whole week on divisions and was working with elder Paleta. We baptized one but I did not have anything to do with it haha. So now my new companion is elder Sosa but he will be leaving in two days so I will have another companion. President Davidson is still here. I am really glad that he has not gone yet because I know that we will feel the difference. Well Tuesday we went to the Temple and it was really good. So I am now extended. It is oficial. I wll be getting home the 23 of november so only two weeks later. Its not much but it will be great. I love the Gospel and love the mission. It is hard and sometimes I feel like overwhelmed but I know that God is always guiding us. So Have a really great week. Oh and ya I am in the office again. I will be here until I go home. There is a senor couple that are secretaries so I am trying to help them out a little.

love,
Elder Mckibben

Letters home !

I know I have been slacking when it comes to Jesse's blog. However there are times when Jesse write home and says "I don't have time to write now love you" and that is it! So forgive me if I don't post those emails. Here are his most recent emails however that have been a little more meaningful and informal! Enjoy!!!!

Megan

June 29th, 2009

Ok well I need to write in about 10 minutes or less so this is going to be really short but some cool stories to put on the Blog. Ok the Sunday the ward is going to divide. It was Insurgents and now coming to a house near you will be the Ward Acueducto. We are going to be in this ward. It will be really cool. So right now we have a few really good people we are teaching. The Castro family (Elena, Mago, Alejandro, and Gabby.) We also have Edgar, Rosario, and Marta. They are all really good. So now we have another two missionaries in our house. They were in another place but a drunk tried braking into their house with a knife, told them that he was going to kill them and later punched one of the Elders. So they had to leave that area. The President is still here and mentioned the other day that this crazy man that tried to kill them is racist. President said that he would send me there to take their place but that I look pretty white too. I told him that I could paint myself and ya everything would be fine. He got a good laugh out of that.
So one of our investigators named Roberto told us a really cool story of one time when he got into a fight with 20 guys and the beat him up and stuck his head in a barrel of water. It was funny because he said that they pulled him out of the water after a while and he was so beat up that he could not talk or move. Then he heard them say ¨I think we killed him¨ He then said that he thought ¨whooo I am dead¨ haha then they carried him a long ways and threw him into a big canal that they call here Black waters. You can imagine why. Then he woke up in the canal and some how was holding on to a few plants with his hands. It was crazy his story. Well it was cool to see pictures of all the youth or young women. It is crazy how much they have all changed.Well I love you all a lot.

August 3rd, 2009

Hello Family,



So another week has gone by and it was a lot harder then the other last few weeks. I was on divisions all week long and did not get to spend much time with my companion Elder Martinez. I was actually with an new Elder called Smith. It was a good experience but I am happy to be back with my comp. However once again we are going to do more divisions and I will be in another place for a week. Well I thought that I had told you this but by the letter I got from you all I suppose that I never mentioned it. Our new mission president had health problems and will not be coming for at least another week or two, so President Davidson is still here. I talked to him about what you wanted and he said that I can just get it off the inter net so I think that I will do that.Well I got a lot of pictures that I will send you later. Everything has been really crazy lately and I have never had time. It really is crazy how all the days just start passing by so fast. Still not sure about extending but who knows. I do not know how this is all going to work out with school. When would I be starting?? because it would be nice to do a one week trip down here to Mexico.hmmmm who knows. Well I love you all a lot.

August 10th, 2009

Hello family,



Well the mission has been really hard these last few weeks. I have been out of my area and doing divisions all week long. It has been really hard and I really needed to rest today. which I still have not done. It has been really hard lately because sometimes I just want every one to do things my way and obviously my way is not always the best or right way. So I have just been trying to get everything going well in the Zone here. I know that the Lord will help us out if we just put our part in. I am sure that you have heard about Morelia on news. It seems to be getting pretty bad here with the drug families. Well I do not really understand all of this with the school work and stuff but I am sure that it will all work out good. Something really good happened this week. Our converts got callings. wooohoooo about time. So we are working really hard this week so that we can have at least one more baptism here in Morelia before this change ends. Lets see what else is there.....well I think that I have said everything really note worthy. Ok so I love you all a lot and hope you can find work soon. Oh and one thing more. Some of the members just got back and told me that they went to Oregon and even to Bend. I cant believe that they did not let me know that they were going to go. ahhhhhh

Letter's Home

~May 2009~

Hey Family,

What a crazy week. I was so glad to hear about what is up with all of these people in Bend. I was also glad to hear that Gabe is doing good. I have also been wondering about Kimberly Lund. I hope everything is well with her.
That is so crazy that the economy is in the pitts. It is crazy to think that in 4 months I will have to be worrying about that type stuff but I know that if I pay a full tithe and keep the commandments there will never be need to fear anything.
Well that is a bummer that you could not see Joyce Taylor. I will be really glad to see her again. I sometimes am just so grateful to have been able to know so many great people through out the course of my life. I am what I am because of them.
So this last week there were changes in the mission and my good friend elder Jasso left. So two other elders came in. My companions are elder Martinez and elder Villalobos. They are really cool. We also just got done with moving from our old house and we have a new one now. It is a really cool house.
So Norma is a complete powerhouse I do not know if you all remember her but she was the first one that we baptized here in Insurgentes. She is so powerful and this last Sunday for the first time ever her Husband came to the church.
I have been really worried about the Tovar family because the Dad salomon drank again and now is not coming to church. Well the world just seems to get a better hold on us every day but we just have to keep on the job and work hard.
The truth is there is so much revelation in the church. There are so many things that we can learn every day. I was just reading in Corinthians the other day Chapter 1, verse 17 I think. Paul says that Christ did not send him to baptize but to preach the gospel. What a great lesson. So like always there are hundreds of stories from the mission and not enough time to tell all of them.
I love you all a ton and would love it if you could start looking into BYU Idaho. I have really been thinking about what I would like to do but every time I start to think about it I tried to remember that it is not over yet and that I have to keep on keeping on.

Love you all and say hello to everyone.
Elder McKibben

Letter's Home

~ May 11th, 2009~

Hey Family,

So I have a Boston Accent. That is cool. I have been working on trying to say things good in spanish but sometimes it is really hard to pronounce things right. But I am a ton better than I was before. It is really cool becauseright now I am living with a few elders and one of them is Elder Toone. He has about a year in the mission and I help him out a little bit with spanish. It is crazy to see how much I have learned in 18 months. What is even more amazing is how fast I can pick up on things. I remember before it would takes days to learn one word and I would have to say it again and again. But the Lord has really blessed me and not I can memorize things almost in seconds. It is so carzy to see the blessings of God. Even when we do not have a lot of faith or as Alma says even when we only have the hope to beleive. That is good enough and the Lord will do the rest. So I am going to send you some cool pictures of Scorpions that we have been finding in the house. This is the 5th one we have found. They move really quickly, climb wall, and are dealy if you do not treat yourself quickly. haha actually I think it is pretty funny how much freak out about them. They are called alacranes here in mexico. So other than that nothing else has happened oh but also right down the street from us three people got killed about two days ago. It is really intresting because as a missionary I just always fell like I have a protection if I am doing what I should be doing. Sometimes I think that it must be really scary for those that have asked for there names to be removen from the church rolls. I imagen that one must really feel alone when they do not have spirit as a companion. Well I ove the Gospel so much. I love seeing converts become so strong. I love seeing people that come to know the truth of the gospel. What great blessings.Ok well I love you all. Here are some pictures of Salomon in his baptism and all some other pictures.

Elder McKibben