Sister Jacobson's Glimpses of Gilbert: Week 2: I Broke Out of the MTC

February 2, 2017

HELLO HELLO!!

Has it really already been a week?! Man time is flying by!

So I did tell you about Dear Elder before I left, but it doesn't surprise me that you forgot...we were busy with a lot of other things ha-ha! So I can receive DE's any day of the week, but I can't respond until P-day, so any questions you asked I couldn't reply to until today ha-ha. And DE's only work in the MTC. This week I got so many letters! Quite a few DearElders came in, and I got the letter from Jess this week...and a fun little envelope showed up from Japan this week! I’m really feeling the love. :) Thanks so much everyone!

Also don't worry, not all my emails will be as long as last week's ha-ha, it had just been over a week and a lot had happened in that one week and I wanted to make sure to tell you all about it! :)

Companions

Glad to hear your lesson went well, Mom! I definitely understand feeling unprepared to teach. Sister Donaldson and I were asked to teach on Sunday, and we didn't receive our topic until Saturday night. Good times in the MTC. I will say though, you don't give yourself enough credit. You spend so much time preparing and giving thought to your lesson. Have a little more faith in yourself, as well as the spirit. When we're asked to teach, it's not as much what we say but more how we make them feel. In the English buildings, if a teacher hears us say that we're not good at teaching then they tell us to repent. It's pretty humbling, actually. They've drilled it into us that we are not the teachers, the Spirit it. I think the same definitely applies to Sunday School and Relief Society teachers as well. Check out Exodus 4:10-12 and PMG pgs 3-4. We can do so much more with the Spirit than we could ever do on our own.

This being said, our lesson went really well. We taught on obedience. We showed a video on LDS.org called "Obedience" (weird, right ha-ha) and it was all about Jesus Christ. My favorite quote from the video was "We don't need to be perfect; we need to be good at getting better." I told everyone about how you always sign off your emails with "work hard and be obedient" and also about how you told me about how it takes 21 days to break a habit and how I'll be in the MTC for exactly 21 days. Everyone loved it. On Sunday night we had a devo in which the speaker said "Start right, stay right, finish right." Afterwards, someone brought up what I had said in the lesson about the 21 days to set a habit in conjunction with this quote, and ever since it's been a motto for us.

Sister Donaldson and Me

Remember how I mentioned P? Yeah, she didn't show up to our second or third lessons. So up until Monday of this week Sister Donaldson and I had only taught ONE real lesson! We were kinda laughing....can't even keep a follow up appointment in the MTC....where they PAY the investigators ha-ha. Nah but really, P was sick so it wasn't our fault...it was just a bummer for us.

We taught another PI named A. We struggled with her. We felt pressure to teach the lessons instead of to her needs...so we didn't really follow the Spirit. But on our last lesson with her we went in with the desire to teach according to the Spirit and we ended up inviting her to baptism and she accepted. 0-100 real quick, am I right?? Ha-ha it was just a role-play but it's still so crazy the difference teaching with the Spirit makes!

We taught our last TRC yesterday. Her name was A and her husband was a member but she wasn't. She was interested in learning about how the gospel could bless her family. PERFECT, right? So we spent our whole first lesson telling her about the different ways the gospel blessed our families, and we invited her to hold FHE. She did! And then our lesson yesterday we taught the Restoration and invited her to read the BOM and pray and she said she would. She also said the closing prayer of our lesson, which was super special. Unfortunately, we won't get the chance to teach her again. The next time I teach a real lesson I'll be in AZ!!!

This week I saw Elder Brown!! Remember him?? It was so fun. He's been reassigned to Maryland, and he leaves in just a few days. He was loving the MTC, but definitely missing the field. Every time I see him he's all "SISTER JACOBSON!!!!" and we have a nice little chat. :)

Also this week...I found an Elder from Gilbert!! And guess what!!! HE PLAYS VOLLEYBALL!! AND HE’S GOOD!!! His companion is pretty good as well, and Sister Small and Sister Haggerty from my district are good as well! So we've actually played some decent volleyball this week. The Elder from Gilbert gave me his mom's number and told me that she would feed us whenever we wanted, and he also told me that there's plenty of people in Gilbert who will talk volleyball with me. :) Speaking of, how's the BYU team looking?? Somebody update me....any chance of the natty this year?

Found a Puzzle at the Doctor's

I'm sure you've all been anxiously awaiting the explanation of the subject of my email so here it is. On Monday, Sister Donaldson woke up very sick. She's had a bad cough and stuffy nose. All day on Monday I was just feeling like she needed to go to the doctor, but we both kept saying that it was just a viral infection and it needed to run its course. But then, after lunch she was in PAIN. So I went...okay we need to go to the doctor. We went to the MTC doctor and they took one look at her and said "she needs to go the ER immediately." so we're like FREAKING OUT because they didn't give us any more information and we didn't have the chance to tell our district or anything...we think that they were worried she had appendicitis. So long story short we end up in this little van with a driver named Tino and off MTC campus. It was crazy because we roll up to the ER and they're playing music AND the TV is on...plus everyone looks at us because we're suddenly not with missionaries anymore and this black tag just screams "Hi! I'm different!" Ha-ha. It's crazy, we've been here for two weeks and it was SO weird hearing music and the TV being on! We spent all afternoon in the ER. Turns out she has a bladder infection and it's a really good thing that we went. How grateful am I that we ended up going to the doctor. It could have been really bad, and she might not have ended up coming to AZ if we hadn't have found out what was wrong with her. So we've been joking all week that we broke out of the MTC ha-ha.

Battle Wounds!

Also, I had my first bad mission injury this week. On Sunday we were leaving devo and running back to our classroom to grab some things and we were running late and it was cold...so we were RUNNING. And I stubbed my toe and completely ATE it. Like on a scale of 1-10....definitely like a 10. My scriptures and journal went flying into the air and my skirt was above my head...totally flashed the Elders behind me ha-ha, my bad. I skinned my knees pretty bad, as well as bruised them REAAAAL badly. MIRACULOUSLY my tights didn't rip! I've been grateful for long skirts this week because my knees are so ugly. Every time during exercise time someone is like "what happened?!" and I'm like "I WAS CLUMSY." In all my years of volleyball...I've never had bruises this bad. I'm very blessed though because I've heard stories of people doing things very similar and having to delay their departure time.

Alright...that's about it. This week we got travel plans! Tuesday morning at 3:50 we leave the MTC. Our flight leaves at like 8:20. Mom, I'm not sure what time I'll call from the airport but it's going to be early. Probably like 6 or 7-ish. Can't wait to talk to you and to hear all about Arizona! Also, I'll miss a p-day so it's going to be like eleven days before I email you next.

This week we watched this awesome devotional by Elder Bednar about the importance of following the Spirit. He told a story about him and Elder Packer back in the day. It's hard for me to tell y'all to watch these things because so much of the MTC media is only available to missionaries. However, Elder Bednar said that Elder Packer gave a talk on it a few years ago entitled "The Twenty Franc Note" or something like that. It's when Elder Bednar was a missionary in Germany and Elder Packer was a new apostle! It's so great...look it up if you can find it!

I love you so much!

Sister Jacobson