Week 13: The Cure for Heavenly Homesickness

April 24, 2017

HELLLLLLLOOOOOOOO!

Another week, another email! I'm not sure how much time I have today...it's going to be a wild week but I'll just jump right in.

This week was AMAZING down here in Queen Creek. We saw so many miracles!! First story, last p-day we got back home from emailing and we started deep-cleaning our house. We found this 90’s version of Pictionary...so we sat down and started playing. It was SO fun. Some of the words are so 90’s and they're hard to guess haha...like "compact disk" and "turn table" so it's fun to try and draw them so our millennial brains can guess correctly! We had so much fun that there was one night this week all four of us didn't have a dinner appointment so we spent our whole dinner hour playing Pictionary! And today our zone is getting together for a Pictionary tournament!! I'm so excited.

Sis. Ludeman & Me...Boise Represent!

This week I went on an exchange with Sister Ludeman, who is from Meridian! She graduated from Centennial. It was so much fun to sit down and talk all about Boise with her. We have multiple mutual friends and it was also really fun to make different connections and exchange stories about the various people we knew! We were in her area and we had a really fun day and we taught a lot of different people. When we're on exchanges we just ride each other's bikes so I was riding Sister Rowley's bike. Let me tell ya, never underestimate the difference a correctly fitted bike will make. I'm about five inches taller than Sister Rowley and I was dying all day on her small bike haha.

While on exchanges, we got a text from Sister Sorenson saying that her and Sister Rowley had tracted into this less-active/part member family and had found SIX PEOPLE who wanted to be baptized. WHAT A MIRACLE!!! The dad of this family is a member and he recently moved here for work, his family had been taking the missionary lessons in their old area but for one reason or another just hadn't connected with us…And then we tracted into them! They all want to be baptized in the near future, so we're hoping to put them on date for the end of May.

The Last Supper ft. Bro. Mitchell

Friday night was easily one of the best nights of my whole mission. Literally, if every single day on the mission was like Friday night then everyone would be coming on missions. I had a lot of cool experiences with the Holy Ghost.

First, we had an amazing dinner with the Mitchell family (the Joseph Smith actor family), who had volunteered to feed us last minute. We had a super awesome spiritual thought with them, and Brother Mitchell made the comment that "the gospel of Jesus Christ is the cure for heavenly homesickness." That phrase really resonated with me and as we left it was on my mind. As we were biking to our next appointment, we saw this lady sitting outside of her garage watching her daughter so we biked up to her and started talking. She recognized that we were missionaries and started asking us a lot of questions. We asked her if she'd ever read the Book of Mormon and she told us that she had watched “South Park” and had heard a lot of different things about the Book of Mormon from that...and usually when that happens we get anti-d and it's just a bad situation, but then she told us that she didn't think South Park was a reputable source and has always wondered for herself what the Book of Mormon is all about. That opened the door for us to teach her briefly the Restoration of the gospel and about the Book of Mormon. Sister Sorenson told her about the first vision, and recited it...and if there's one thing I've noticed so far on my mission it's that the FASTEST way to bring the spirit into any conversation is by testifying of Christ or merely saying the words "I saw a pillar of light." It was about 100 degrees outside and I felt chills all over my body as we were standing there on the street with her. When we handed the Book of Mormon to her, I felt really strongly that I needed to tell her about the testimony of the three and eight witnesses, and about how many of them turned away from the church at one time or another but none of them denied their testimony. Not typically something you teach during an initial contact, but I told her and she was like "Really? That's amazing. I'm going to go read this right now." And we set up a return appointment. Super cool.

Then we got to our next appointment, which was with this Less-Active family who has an over-age youth son, L, who isn't baptized because he's afraid of water. We were struggling with trying to plan this lesson because we were like "how do we casually ask if we can baptize their son..." haha but we had prayed earlier and felt that we needed to share with them the story of Alma the Younger and read from the Book of Mormon. As the lesson began we were telling the kids all about the story, and then we read from the Book of Mormon. Halfway through the chapter I looked over and the mom was crying, usually a good sign. After we finished we asked what she thought and she said "earlier this week I was looking up 'sin' on lds.org and I was directed to this story. It's crazy to me that you picked this story to teach on this evening because it has already been on my mind so much this week. Every time you come over I'm reminded of this hole in my life that I don't know how to feel." Brother Mitchell's words came back into my mind and I said "The gospel of Jesus Christ is the cure for heavenly homesickness" and she was like "Wow...you're right." and then she opened up to us about all these various trials in her life that have popped up in the past year and we had this amazing lesson all about repentance and how we can be forgiven of our sins. We weren't even going to bring up the question of baptism, but right before we closed she said "Oh, by the way, L's decided that he'll be baptized in July, when his brother is, because he doesn't think the water will be as scary if his brother is there with him." We left and were like wow, the Lord has blessed us significantly this evening.

But then! We had another lesson. This was with another over-age youth, H, who we took to the Easter pageant. She is awesome. I love her so much, and we decided to read from the Book of Mormon the story of the Anti-Nephi-Lehies and talk about the importance of "burying our weapons of war." She loved it and the lesson went really well. We closed and were getting ready to leave, but as we went to stand up from the couch Sister Sorenson and I looked at each other and sat back down. Then Sister Sorenson just straight goes "H...why aren't you baptized??" and H really opened up to us about her dad and about how she's scared to even ask him if she can be baptized because she knows he'll be angry with her and maybe not talk to her anymore. It was so heartbreaking, because she really truly wants to be baptized but she's scared of what will happen to her if she is. We comforted her and promised her that her dad's heart would be softened and she would one day be able to be baptized.

So yeah, Friday night was amazing. When we got home I was writing in my journal and I wrote the phrase "the Lord is far better to us than we deserve." Earlier in the day on Friday, Sister Sorenson and I had been a little frustrated because none of our investigators were texting us back and we were just tired of being ghosted. When we went out to work that evening we didn't have the best attitude, but we showed just a little bit of effort and He rewarded us BEYOND comprehension. Man...it's like you give the Lord a piece of bread and he gives it back as toast...and then you give that back to him and he gives it back BUTTERED. No matter what you give to the Lord, He will always bless you with far more than you deserve.

However, Friday night was also a little bittersweet. I mentioned earlier that I had a lot of cool experiences with the Holy Ghost. Many of these came in lessons, but after every lesson I heard, clear as if someone was talking to me, the words "You will not see the fruits of these labors." I just brushed it off and kept working, but it made me a little uneasy.

2 1/2(ish) Months as Companions

I had known that there was something stirring in the waters this week because of various news traveling around the mission...but Saturday night the answer to this prompting came through a call from President. He talked on the phone with Sister Sorenson for a while and then she handed the phone to me. When I answered he said "Sister Jacobson, I'm going to ask you to do something very difficult for me," and then explained that he wanted me to forgo my last two weeks of training in order to be a part of an Emergency Transfer. And I agreed.

So what's happening is pretty complicated, but basically across the mission there is a Sister who was visa waiting and she found out her visa is never going to come, so she was reassigned to a different mission where she could speak her assigned language. Her companion is from Japan and doesn't speak English very well. So I'm being transferred to be this Japanese sister's companion. Sister Sorenson will be a solo missionary for a week; until Sister Bradshaw leaves for Jamaica (she got her visa!!). When Sister Bradshaw leaves, Sister Baggaley and Sister Sorenson will be companions for the last week of the transfer and they will cover all six of our wards together.

After I hung up the phone from talking to President I just started crying. I didn't realize how much I'd grown to love these wards and these people until I knew that I was going to be leaving them. And then yesterday at church I didn't realize how much the wards loved me until they found out I was leaving. It was brutal. I knew that the odds of me staying in Bella Vista for another transfer were slim, but leaving two weeks early is super sad. But I know that it is right, and I know that it's happening now for a reason. Yesterday President called again to make sure I was still on board and he told me that all four of the Assistants, himself and Sister Wheeler, as well as Sister Ogawa and Sister Warner had all prayed about it and felt right about it, and I told him that Sister Sorenson and I felt right about it as well. Knowing it is right though doesn't change the fact that I'm still sad about leaving the area. That's the hard thing about trusting the Lord; knowing it's His will and having to humble yourself enough to be willing to follow Him.

However, I'm going to Sister Sorenson's old area!! I'm going north to the Gilbert Zone, in the smack dab center of Gilbert. Sister Ogawa is from Hiroshima, Japan....the only Japanese sister in our mission! I've heard that she will change my life. People in the mission say "try and be like Sister Ogawa...because being like Jesus is too hard, we need stepping stones." Also Sister Sorenson trained Sister Ogawa, so it'll be a pretty smooth transition. I'm so excited to be her companion, and I've heard amazing things about this area. My guess is that Sister Ogawa and I will stay together next transfer, but we'll find out in two weeks!

So yeah, that's my week…pretty amazing, and pretty crazy as well! This week's going to be even crazier! I love and miss you all!

Sister Jacobson

Baby Bird Rescue w/Less-Active Member

Baby Bird Rescue w/Less-Active Member

Missionary Humor w/Sister Rowley

Week 12: Lice and Food Poisoning

April 17, 2017

HELLLLLOOOOO!!!!

It's been another FANTASTIC week here in Arizona!!

Bella Vista Zone Sisters at the Temple

This week I had my STL exchange with Sister Cedeño. We were in my area and I led out. We saw a super cool miracle! I was SHOCKED because every single time I've ever led out in my area we've spent the whole day knocking doors and never getting in anywhere and it's like the longest day of all time. It's kind of a complicated miracle to explain but I'll do my best. So I felt prompted to stop by this Former Investigator, M, we've been trying to get in with for weeks...and we knocked on her door and she let us in! When she invited us inside I about fell over I couldn't believe it, that was seriously my first time ever getting in with anyone while leading out in my area, haha. We spent some time getting to know her and figuring out if she was interested, and we invited her to baptism! She told us she had some concerns but if she found out that the church was true for herself then she would be baptized. Score. We invited her to the Easter Pageant and she said that she had already promised Sister Olsen (a sister who served in my area for nine months and who got home from her mission in November) that she would go with her, because Sister Olsen is in town visiting! We were like okay well we'd love to go too...and she said she'd talk with Sister Olsen about it. I was really frustrated and I was like man I just wish we could talk to Sister Olsen!! But we set up a return appointment and got her phone number and left. By this point it was getting to be time to bike to our other ward for dinner...but I kept feeling like it wasn't time to leave yet. I had no idea who else to stop by...I kept looking at the Ward list and looking at our plan for the day and just no one felt right. Finally I just felt the Spirit go "pick an address that's south and head there." and I was like okay...we'll do that. So Sister Cedeño and I start biking and within maybe fifty feet there's two people sitting in their garage, so I decide that I need to go talk to them. As I'm pulling into the driveway I hear someone go "MISSIONARIES!!" and I was like what the heck?? This never happens! And I look closer and it was SISTER OLSEN!! She was sitting in this garage talking with this Less-Active/Recent Convert, who we've been trying to get in with since the beginning of our time here in Bella Vista! I was so pumped, but I played it cool. I told Sister Olsen about M and told her to text her and figure something out about the Easter pageant, and then let us know. Then I spent the rest of the time talking with this LA/RC and getting to know him. It was awesome! This was such a testament to me that the Spirit is in charge of everything in this work.

What 30 min of AZ Biking Does to the Hair

Diclaimer: We did not actually get lice, and we did not actually get food poisoning. Haha here's the story....this week when I was with Sister Cedeño, her and Sister Sorenson had ZLC in the morning, so I was out proselytizing with Sister Showalter, Sister Cedeño's companion. (Sorry if this is confusing) When Sister Showalter and I got back from proselytizing, Sister Cedeño and Sister Sorenson were freaking out because during ZLC Sister Sorenson had found a bug in Sister Cedeño’s hair! Sister Sorenson had lice at the beginning of her mission and she was like "This bug looked like it was lice." So all four of us went home and Sister Sorenson checked all of us for lice, and we were all panicking, haha. Luckily, there were no more bugs and it was just a fluke....but we were all really concerned for a good hour or so.

Face Masks & Bonding

And then food poisoning...I don't know what it was but I think it might have been worse than food poisoning. I've been so sick this week. We had dinner Friday night with this awesome family and they fed us hamburgers. But they were like everything hamburgers...they had the bun, the onions, the cheese, potatoes, and eggs all inside the meat. It was so good! After dinner we went to the Easter pageant again with a different investigator and halfway through the pageant Sister Sorenson and I were dying. Our stomachs were NOT happy. Driving home from the pageant we were SO sick. We went to bed and in the middle of the night I woke up and I was really nauseous so I went and threw up...but didn't feel any better. That's never happened to me before!! Usually when I throw up I feel fine, but I could literally just feel this burger sitting in my stomach. When we woke up on Saturday, Sister Sorenson was fine but I was so, so sick. Luckily we had a service activity that was indoors so I didn't have to be outside for too long, but all day proselytizing I was in so much pain. I didn't eat anything for like two days and it was hard for me to even drink water...it was bad. But I think I'm on the uphill...at least I hope I'm on the uphill! Haha. 

Where is Alexa Gray?

The Easter pageant again on Friday night was awesome though! As missionaries it's really easy for us to pull strings to get better seats for our investigators...so we got really great seats for our investigator, H, and then we sat a little further back. But that actually ended up being super legit because we sat directly behind ALEXA GRAY. Man, my volleyball mind was going wild…but my missionary mind told me to play it cool. I took a sneaky picture to prove it though. Some things never change. Haha, in all seriousness, H had a great time! She's an OAY, and her dad is anti, so that's why she's not baptized. On Saturday night I felt like we needed to stop by her house and Sister Sorenson was worried because the last time we'd tried to stop by we'd accidentally woke her mom up...but we had an awesome lesson with her and followed up with how the Easter pageant was. H told us her favorite part was "how much she could feel Christ's love" and we were like "shoot our favorite part was the sheep." Haha, just kidding, my favorite song Friday night was when Jesus healed all the people. But we invited her and her mom (who's less-active) to church yesterday and they came!! IT was really exciting. Actually, this week we set a comp goal to get four investigators to church and we met it! We had four investigators at church yesterday and it was AWESOME. 

Sorenson & Me at the Gilbert Temple

We also got to go to the temple this week! That was crazy because we were told we'd get to go to the temple every other transfer, but apparently it's once a quarter...so we got to go again! I love the temple, and I love the peace it brings into my life. :)

That's about what I got...have a good week! Love you!

Sister Jacobson 

Sassy at the Temple

Bunny Run Over by Sorenson & the Malibu

Week 11: Don't Touch Cactus!

April 10, 2017

Helllllllooooooooo!!

Two Months as Companions!

It's been another good week in sunny sunny AZ! It's been another weirdly busy week...we haven't had too many appointments but I feel like we're ALWAYS doing something.

For example...last Tuesday we got a phone call from our vehicle coordinator and he asked us to come in on Wednesday morning to exchange cars! We were nervous because our car was old...but nicer than some and we'd been really stingy with miles and we thought we were going to get an even older car. But we rolled up to the office and the vehicle coordinator handed us the keys to a brand spankin' new 2017 Chevy Malibu!! Ooooh we were PUMPED. It's the nicest car in our mission right now! It had like thirty miles on it when we picked it up, and it's really high tech. It was definitely an upgrade. So that was super exciting; our whole zone is really jealous.

At the Mesa Temple Easter Pageant

Wednesday night we had the opportunity to go to the Easter Pageant with our investigator, R. He's in the process of being adopted by this family in our ward so once his adoption papers go through he'll be baptized! He's awesome. It took him a bit to warm up to us but we're tight now. His mom was so funny...she kept saying "in twenty years when you're talking about your mission you're going to say 'Oh yeah we went to the pageant...and SISTER C took us!!' You'll never NOT remember me now!" Haha, but just in case that wasn't enough to make us remember her...she went ALL IN. When we got there we just went and threw blankets down and then went and walked around the visitor's center. Our seats weren't too bad but they were definitely back pretty far...but when we got back from the visitor's center Sister C went and found an usher and was like "um, excuse me how do we get better seats" and he told us that at 7:30 if the seats up front weren't claimed then they'd open them up to the general public. So Sister C like sat in anticipation and as soon as the usher opened the seats up she pounced, so we ended up with seats in the very center of the audience on like the fifth row. It was amazing! The pageant was so well done, and the attention to detail was incredible. Some scenes brought the Spirit so strong, and I had goose bumps at several points. My favorite number was this one where it was just the Jesus Christ's actor and then a bunch of children on stage; it was all about how Christ LOVED children and wanted them to come unto him! At the end of the number there was this little kid sitting on Jesus' lap and he was talking to him...and you could tell that the Jesus’ actor was trying hard not to laugh. I loved it because it personified Christ. I think that too often we forget that Christ is our older brother...so we're like afraid of him...when in reality he loves us so much, more than our mortal minds can comprehend and wants to be a part of our lives so bad! Anyway, it was a great way to celebrate Jesus' life. I love this Easter season and how much it brings Jesus Christ into the center of everyone's focus!

This week I was riding my bike out of a member's driveway and I lost control of my bike momentarily...but I didn't crash, I regained control. However, when I had lost control I accidentally hit one of my pedals into a cactus...and my foot took the majority of the blow. We biked a little ways and then I had to stop because my foot was hurting so bad. It was night so we shined our bike lights on my foot and there were all these little tiny spines sticking everywhere out of my foot. Holy moly it hurt haha. I sat there in the street and got as many out as I could and then we went home and I got the rest with tweezers. That was not fun. So that's my lesson this week...don't touch cactus!

Scary Stump Found on Exchange

This week we had our first exchange of the transfer! I went with Sister Baggaley (one of the sisters I live with) in her area and we had a long but fun day. It was the first time on my mission that I went tracting and didn't want to die...improvement yay, haha! We talked to lots of people and had lots of rejection but also lots of potentials...that's Arizona for ya, haha. We had a good exchange, and I noticed that exchanges this transfer are going to be a lot more manageable now that they're not in Spanish. ;)

We had stake conference this weekend! It was awesome. Our mission president and his wife spoke and they dropped straight wisdom, as always. My favorite thing that President Wheeler said to the stake was "Do you know how lucky you are?? This stake has three sets of Sisters, and one set of Elders! Don't tell the other stakes...they would kill me if they knew this stake had three sets of Sisters!!" Haha I'm just kidding, that's not my favorite thing that he said...but I thought it was pretty funny that he got up and said that in stake conference. In all seriousness, my favorite thing he said was "Do you know how good you really are? And do you know how good you can BECOME?" He went on to explain that all of us are inherently good, but through Jesus Christ we can become more than we ever could alone. He also told us that relying on Christ will never be easy, and will often require us to stand alone. Moroni 1:1-3 came to mind, where Moroni is saying that he really didn't think he'd be writing, because he thought he'd have died by that point because the Lamanites were hunting the believers down. The end of verse 2 and verse 3 get me every time, "...because of their hatred they put to death every Nephite that will not deny the Christ. And I, Moroni, will not deny the Christ; wherefore, I wander whithersoever I can for the safety of mine own life." Moroni stood alone for 36 YEARS! I put myself in his shoes and honestly wonder if I could have been so steadfast. Moroni is a stud. Seriously, he’s a fantastic example for us in our lives. If he stood alone, then so can each of us.

Mission Easter Concert

Mission Easter Concert

Finally, we had a choir concert last night! We were all really stressed about it because we didn't have many rehearsals but it ended up coming together just fine. Blessings from the Lord! I'm so glad Sister Barrott sent you that video; hopefully it sounded good haha. That's the first time I've sung in front of people since I graduated high school! I'm trying to be better at putting myself out there and not hiding my talents as much and this concert was a good way to start!

Anyway, that's my week! We had no crazy miracles or no crazy stories...but there's a few of my insights. :) Also...make sure and check out the #PRINCEofPEACE videos! I've seen the kick-off video probably about thirty times and I'm not in a technology mission...so y'all out there walking around with a computer in your pocket have NO EXCUSE. Watch it!! You won't regret it!!

I love you! Happy Easter! :)

Sister Jacobson

"Trunky Planner" for Soon-to-Leave ZL

New Dress! (Notice My Tan Legs)

Week 10: Mission Super Bowl

April 3, 2017

Hello!!

This week is exciting because I'm finally in the double-digit weeks! Actually, I think this should technically be week 11 because I missed a P-day when traveling to the field...but it's okay, I'm in the double digits now for sure!

6 of the 8 Bella Vista Zone Sisters

Man, let me tell you. I'm on such a spiritual HIGH right now. This week we had Zone Conference AND General Conference. We had ZC on Tuesday, Fundamental/District meeting on Wednesday, Weekly Planning on Friday, and then General Conference on Saturday and Sunday. So much spiritual nourishment in such little time! This week was really good for me because I felt like I had a chance to process everything that I've learned these past few weeks as well as pinpoint exactly what I need to be working on.

Our only full proselytizing day was Thursday, which also happened to be my birthday! Not going to lie, it was a rough day. On Wednesday we got a call on the way home from district meeting and it was our dinner for Thursday night, cancelling. When we got home I went into the bathroom and cried lol that was our only set appointment for Thursday. I was suuuuper bummed about not having a member dinner on my birthday. But I got over it and I was like whatever looks like I'm having pb&j on my birthday (we never buy dinner food because we always have dinners so I only had lunch food). I was sad on Thursday but I realized that I was only sad because I was comparing it to my birthday last year...halfway through the day I was like, "Sister Sorenson...you mean to tell me that a cute boy doesn't sing to you EVERY year on your birthday?!" hahaha. The most trash moment was when we street contacted someone who was like, "I wish that you Mormons didn't exist...in fact I wish both of you were never born," and I was just standing there, on a day that people usually celebrate my existence, having someone tell me they wished I didn't exist and was just feeling really sad. So that was pretty rough, but then we went home for dinner and Sister Sorenson knew that I was sad because of that street contact so she made me an Arepa (a traditional Venezuelan pancake) and we put a candle in it (but we lost our lighter so we couldn't light it lol) and she sang me happy birthday and I opened all my presents. It was really low-key and really quiet, but it was still a good birthday. I gained a really big appreciation for my companion. I was really, really grateful in that moment that Sister Sorenson and I are more of friends than companions, because she's a huge reason that my birthday ended up being so great!

My Birthday Crown

Thanks for the Toblerone, Callisters'

Wearing my new Birthday Dresses

Also on my birthday we had a miracle!! There's this 12 year old girl in one of our wards whose parents are divorced and her dad won't give her permission to be baptized. So the miracle is that her mom called us and was like, "Her dad dipped out of the state without paying child support and we don't know where he is so he's out of the picture and we want to baptize her." So we're going to start teaching her this week...and hopefully she'll get baptized!

I don't have many proselytizing stories...but on Wednesday night we felt inspired to tract this one street...and we ran into this super awesome member and he told us to go knock on this one door. So we did and the guy has been less active since he was like 15 but he's been asking a lot of questions about the Book of Mormon so we were able to answer a lot of his questions. We will meet with him this week, and he has a daughter who is a potential for our YSA ward! Funny story with him though: he was telling us that this spirit lives in his house...and he goes, "I know it's the Holy Ghost. One night it was making noise and I told it to knock once if it was the Holy Ghost and it knocked once!! And then later it JUMPED on me and pinned me down!!" Haha…We were like...shoot how do we tell him that the Holy Ghost does not do things like that...we got to get the Elders over here hahaha. We'll clear that up in the near future.

Clancey, Our Tour Guide at RRR

Miner's Town at RRR

Rockin' R Ranch

Another funny story this week....we have a family in one of our wards who is a co-owner or something of this place down here called the "Rockin’ R Ranch" and they've been begging us to let them take us there. So we just assumed that it was this restaurant, and they fed us Saturday night so we were like sure take us there. We roll up...and it's this COWBOY RE-ENACTMENT!!! Yeah...definitely something we should only go to on p-day...but they'd driven us there and they are like actors in this thing so we couldn't leave!! We were panicking! Haha but we prayed and we were like...okay this will be my birthday present from the Lord. Haha It actually ended up being really cool. It was one of the best cowboy re-enactments that I've been to...I'll take y'all some day! The dinner was awesome, and we left before the show and were able to stop by a few people before curfew so the night wasn't a total bust...but this just goes to show that we're good missionaries and are obedient!! Haha

One more funny story about obedience...we had dinner with a family this week and their sixteen year old son tried to hug me and I about had a panic attack....I like ran away haha.

Sorenson & Me at BYU...try to find me

Another CRAZY STORY THIS WEEK!!!!! SISTER SORENSON AND I FOUND A PICTURE OF US AT BYU WHERE WE'RE BOTH IN IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'll send it home in my picture email! 

Now for the good stuff...we had Zone Conference this week and it was all about developing the faith to find new investigators. I love President and Sister Wheeler. I know that a huge reason why I'm called to serve in this mission is because of President Wheeler. Zone Conference was amazing...we talked a lot about filtering all of our actions through the Doctrine of Christ, and developing faith to find, even unto miracles. We talked about how our mission is a "high expectation, high love mission" which means that we will experience miracles if we have high expectations for our investigators and we love them as much as we possibly can. There was this really cool graph that he showed that shows what happens when we have high love and low expectations...and basically it's just a social club. And then going the opposite way when there are low expectations and low love there is rebellion. High expectations and low love leads to deviance and disobedience. I didn't do a very good job of explaining it but it was an awesome training.

Bella Vista Zone

General Conference!! I hope everyone had a chance to watch it...it was amazing. It was super fun watching it on the mission...it's like the closest thing we get to the Super Bowl!! Haha all the missionaries in our zone gathered together to watch conference in the stake center and it was super great. It really did feel like watching the Super Bowl...we would cheer any time anyone mentioned the full time missionaries, and when the Pocatello temple was announced I was SO EXCITED I jumped out of my seat and I was jumping up and down. Haha but seriously, conference was super great. The messages that were shared were truly inspired. There was so much about Jesus Christ and the Atonement, the Plan of Salvation, and following the Holy Ghost. It's significant that these are the messages that were shared at this conference, because I can't think of three things we need more in this life than Christ's Atonement, the Plan of Happiness, and the Holy Ghost. I had a lot of favorite talks (although I'm still salty that Elder Bednar spoke at Priesthood)...Elder Mark A Bragg, President Uchtdorf, Elder D. Todd Christofferson, Elder S. Mark Palmer, Elder C. Scott Grow--just to name a few! Saturday Afternoon really just hit the ball out of the park for me. Elder Gary B. Sabin's had our zone on the ground laughing, Elder Jeffrey R. Holland's metaphor was ridiculously good, and Elder Anderson's talk about turning away from the natural man really touched me personally.

Just this week I told someone that one of the most important things we can learn to do is reject the natural man and learn to be in the world but not of the world. They said, "You're only saying that because you're a missionary." haha and I was like no!! I'm majoring in advertising when I go home...I literally will take a swan dive straight into the natural man and the world. It's important. And I'm not just saying that because I'm a missionary. Sure, as a missionary we're placed in a little glass box as far away from the world as we can get. I literally feel like the world is in a box and I'm in a box and we're just staring at each other. I feel like I'm this objective third party and I can just stand back and watch all the sneaky ways that Satan works...and it's important to recognize so we know how to reject it. I loved how often the scripture was shared that says "be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." That is EXACTLY what Christ's Atonement is all about...He suffered so we don't have to.

Another huge take-away that I had is that I need to gain a bigger heart. I need to be like the Grinch and have my heart grow three sizes too big, haha. I just need to work on loving people more! Life is so much easier when you love everyone without asking questions. I also really want to take Elder Nelson's advice and study the 57 entries about Jesus Christ in the topical guide. If it made an Apostle of the Lord a different man...then imagine what it could do for an apostle of the Lord like me! :) (Fun fact...there are only a handful of full-time servants of the Lord: the general authorities...and the full-time missionaries. Our call to serve is the same, they're just Apostles with a capital A, we're apostles with a lower-case a.) :)

This week we get to go to the Mesa Temple Easter pageant with an investigator!!! We are soooo excited. I'll make sure to write all about it next week. :)

Anyways...that's what I got! Not too crazy of a week...a lot of personal reflection and growth though! I love you!

Sister Jacobson

Cute Bunny Caught by Our Investigator