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