February 20, 2017
Hello hello!
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| 1 Month Old |
Everybody put your party hats on
because as of Saturday....I'm officially one month old in mission years! It's
simultaneously been the fastest and slowest month of my LIFE…but also one of
the most amazing. How blessed am I to get seventeen more just like it!?
So I don't have a ton of time...all
of the libraries are closed today because it's a holiday so we’re emailing at a
members house. If you sent me an email this week and don't get an individual
response back then just know I read it but didn't have time to respond. I have
tons of time to write letters though, so if you send me a letter then I can
almost guarantee a response back. And just know that it's killing me to not be
able to respond to everyone and tell you all the details about my week!
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| Weekly Planner Cover |
To start off...this week we saw a
lot, and I mean A LOT of miracles. On Tuesday we were biking around, and we
decided to stop by a member’s house to get the names of some less actives...but
this member wasn't home. So we just kept biking, and like five minutes later we
were biking past a park and who was there?? This member we were trying to
visit! She flagged us down and told us she needed to talk to us, and told us to
wait a minute. Well a minute turned into fifteen...and tbh I was getting a
little frustrated. It started to feel like we were wasting precious proselytizing time.
She finally came and talked to us, and then we went on our way. We decided to
drop by an investigator and some other people...but none were home. At this
point, we were getting really frustrated. Nothing was working out and we were
going to be late for a lunch meeting because we were far away from our house.
So we started biking back....and as we were biking back this man came out of
his house. We stopped and started talking to him. He was waiting for his
landlord to show up, and was very interested in talking about religion! He is
actually a former investigator....he used to meet with the missionaries when he
lived in California. He asked us to come back sometime this week, so we will go
and visit him for sure. As we were leaving we realized that if we had biked
past his house thirty seconds earlier or thirty seconds later then we wouldn't
have met him. It was so cool to see that the Lords hand is in
everything that we do...we had to be delayed at the park and none of our
investigators had to be home so we could meet this man at just the right time.
The next one is with our YSA
investigator, E. She is going to get baptized...but she moved to Vegas on Friday,
so we made the decision to send her as a golden investigator instead of a
recent convert...because it will be better for her in the long run. We took her
to the Mesa Temple Visitor’s Center to watch the Joseph Smith film and she
loved it. Afterwards she had lots of good questions...mainly having to do with
why Joseph Smith would endure so much persecution for the Book of Mormon.
We told her it was because the book was true, and he really was a prophet of
God. I told her to look up a talk, and sister Sorenson told her to look up
a video. The next day we saw her, and she told us she was reading the talk and
loving it, so Sister Sorenson asked her if we could show her the video right
there. We watched it and as we were watching it I realized that the video was an
excerpt from the same talk I told her to look up!! It was so cool because we
realized that the Spirit had told us both that this was EXACTLY what E needed at
that moment. Anyway, she's in Vegas now and we'll probably never see her again
but it was an awesome experience to have, ha-ha.
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| Cheese or Peace, Your Pick |
The third one is CRAZY. We had
correlation with one of our WMLs on Friday night, and then had an evening full
of visiting members and meeting people, when we got a text from the Mongolian
sister we live with. We took one of our wards from her, and we have asked her
multiple times if she's given us all the information we need for the ward...and
multiple times she's said yes...and multiple times she's come to us with MORE
information. It's been frustrating. Anyway, she texts us and gives us this
address and tells us to go and visit them because she promised the man who
lives there, T, that they would stop by that night. Sister Sorenson and I
were ticked...and we were like, “No we’re not going to do that because we don't
have time tonight.” So we were working in our other ward...and we were looking
at the list of names we were going to stop by, and none of them were popping
out to us. We stopped by one house, but they were not home. At this point, we
said a prayer and both of us felt strongly that we were not supposed to be
working in that specific ward. We said another prayer...and immediately we felt
like we needed to be visiting the person Sister Bolormaa asked us to. So we
biked back to our car, loaded the bikes in, and drove like another fifteen minutes
to this other ward. We knocked on the door, and this woman answered. We asked
her if she knows a man named T and she says that she's never heard of this guy
before. Her name is K though...and she was super pumped to see lady
missionaries, ha-ha. She's a labor and delivery nurse and she is so interested
in learning more about our religion and what we believe in. We left a Book
of Mormon with her, and she asked us to come back at the beginning of this
week. It was the craziest experience...we still have no idea who T is but all
we know is that we were led to K for some reason and we are excited to continue
teaching her this week.
The fourth and final miracle is also
super cool. We were biking around, street contacting people, and not having a
ton of success. It's hard to street contact in this mission because EVERYONE
knows who the missionaries are and there are a lot of churches around here that
teach anti-lds literature as doctrine. We were talking to this one guy...when
suddenly this other guy comes up to us and says, “Hey can I leave my number
with you guys? I want to start meeting with you." so of course we were
like, “YEAH YOU CAN LEAVE YOUR NUMBER WITH US!!” Come to find out, he's a less
active member who wants to start coming back to church but hasn't been in a
long time and has a ton of questions. He's YSA age so we referred him to the
elders who co-cover the YSA ward with us. Super cool experience!
Those are the big things this week!
However, we were biking through the back fields this week at night...and I was
looking at the stars and had several thoughts. 1. Swan Valley has ruined me
from other places with "good stars." Swan Valley is the standard of
excellence for stars! 2. Why do we spend so much time comparing ourselves to
other people? We are preordained and destined to become like God, not become
like man. Comparison is the thief of joy, and the only way we will find joy
from it is if we are comparing ourselves to God and asking ourselves how we can
become more like Him.
I used these thoughts to write a
talk for Sunday. Yes, we spoke again...in a different ward. I spoke on pride
and humility, and I felt like it went well. I'm going to be a pro at speaking
by the end of these eighteen months.
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| CTR Ward Party |
Also...update...we did eat with the
Joseph Smith actor family. They fed us on Wednesday ha-ha and we had a picnic!
We didn't ask him about being Joseph Smith...but we’re actually really good
friends with the family now because we helped them with the ward activity on Saturday
night. We taught the junior primary the story of Nephi and the boat. We had
them act it out and draw pictures about good choices they make. It's funny
though because we recruited our zone leaders to come and help us with these
children and they became obsessed with Brother M...the Joseph Smith actor ha-ha.
Sister Sorenson and I were playing it so cool but have been high key freaking
out this week about how much time we’re spending with the family and long story
short the elders asked him if he would teach our zone about the restoration and
share his experience about acting as Joseph Smith with us and now we're going
to have FHE with them next week! And they have bloopers from the Joseph Smith
movie!! I'm so excited. Also, I found out the reason why his hair is so long is
because Salt Lake keeps him on retainer in case they need to film new
movies...apparently he's also played Jesus Christ!
Last night we took M, our recent
convert, to the new member fireside. We listened to recent converts share their
testimonies and their conversion stories. It was so cool. I'm super worried
about M though...she's in such a bad situation. Y'all I need you to
understand...it's scary walking up to people on the street and having them yell
at you about why your religion is wrong....it's scary giving a talk in
church....but NOTHING is as scary as looking into the eyes of your recent
convert as she cries and says "I don't know how long I can do this."
It is SO scary watching someone come close to the Savior, and knowing how close
they are...and then watching them waver. I just want to take away her pains and
help her feel like she can do anything. I guess I know now just a little taste
of what our Savior feels every day for us. He wants nothing more than for us to
come close to Him so He can ease our burdens, and He is standing with wide open
arms just waiting for us to ask Him for help. Please keep M in your prayers
this week. She's amazing and has been through so much and could greatly benefit
from the gospel.
I love and miss you all! Thanks for
all you do...have an amazing week!
Sister Jacobson
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| Meridian Rd. in AZ? |
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