Week 19: "Sister Taylor" and Her Testimony

June 7, 2017

Hello friends and family!!

Happy Wednesday!!? Man it sure feels strange to have a p-day on a Wednesday. In my interviews with President Wheeler a couple of weeks ago we talked about how missionaries are on a cycle; we're trained to expect p-day on Monday, District Meeting on Tuesday, full work days on Wednesday and Thursday, Weekly Planning on Friday, Progress Record distribution on Saturday, Church on Sunday and then the whole thing starts over again! And we're trained to do this for six weeks and then to expect some sort of a change--whether it be a transfer in your companionship or the companionships around you. We talked about how anything other than this feels wrong and it drives everyone CRAZY...that's why seven week transfers are so difficult! And then this week we didn't have p-day on Monday and we've definitely felt ourselves unwind a bit haha...but no worries! All is well now :)

Plethora of Protein Bars from Home

Last Monday was an awesome day! The member whose house we emailed at was having a BBQ with a bunch of their friends and INSISTED that we stay and celebrate Memorial Day with them, so we were able to have an awesome lunch and a great Memorial Day thanks to their generosity! Then that night we stopped by E’s, the 10 year old girl who has the foster-kid RC living with her...and she told us that she's been reading the BOM every day and LOVES it!! Huge miracle!

Tuesday evening we had FHE with our investigators, B and A, and their fellowship. A is B's mom and he's having a tough time right now.  He's 16 and he is just kinda lost...but that's what the gospel of Jesus Christ is for! And that's why we're missionaries, because we KNOW how much the gospel can change his life and how much happiness it can bring to him. B didn't end up coming to FHE, but A and her other son, E, came...and we had an AWESOME evening with them. We had a delicious dinner, and had a wonderful conversation...it was PERFECT because it was a member dinner and the members were asking tons of questions about missionary work/what it's like being a missionary/why we came on missions, etc. and A and E were just conveniently there. Most of our answers she was like, "Wow, I didn't know that missionaries did THAT!!" She was amazed at the sacrifice it takes to come on a mission. It led perfectly into our spiritual thought. We read portions from the tree of life (1 Nephi 8) with her and testified further that the reason why we're missionaries is because we're like Lehi, we've tasted of God's love and we know how sweet and rich it is, and we want to share that with as many people as possible. Halfway through the lesson she started crying and the member started crying and they started sharing spiritual experiences with one another about times where they've felt God's love. A admitted that recently she's had trouble feeling like He's there, and we committed her to pray and ask God if He loves her. It was an awesome lesson, and when we stopped by her house later this week she expressed her gratitude to us for sharing such a perfect message for her.

I Approve of this Message

A few nights later we stopped by S's house to follow-up on their BOM reading. He wasn't home, and his family couldn't meet...but they gave us water and on our way out the door we asked his daughter if she's been reading the BOM and she smiled and said "Every day!!" and we were STOKED. We were super bummed we couldn't sit down right there and talk with her about it but we told her we'd set up a time and come back and she was really excited! So that's exciting.

Sister Ogawa, the Van, and Me

We had a MASSIVE miracle that just popped up out of nowhere...we were knocking doors one night and no one was home and we were just like man...where does Heavenly Father want us right now?! We decided to go stop by this one less-active/part-member family we've never met...and when we got there we saw that there was a woman outside at the top of the driveway holding a potted plant. We called out to her, "Hello!!" and she SCREAMED and dropped this plant and it went everywhere...we totally scared her haha. Definitely the worst first impression! But she was super nice and invited us in. We walk into the house and the first thing we see is blood and gore on the television, just this super violent movie haha. She had us go into the backyard and there were beer cans everywhere and cigarette butts and all this stuff and Sister Ogawa looked at me with a look of panic and in my mind I'm like oh no we're in the belly of the beast they don't want us here and there's no way out haha...and she introduced us to her husband and he was super nice and he introduced us to his kids and we had a nice conversation, and then he told us we needed to leave haha so we left. BUT on our way out, his wife was out planting flowers again and she stopped us and was like, "Are you going to take the kids to church?!" and I was like, "...Do you...want us to?" and she was like, "YES!!!! PLEASE!!!" Haha let me tell ya...that threw me for a loop...that literally NEVER happens haha. I was like, “...Yeah we can definitely do that.” And she went on to explain that she is a devout Catholic, and her husband was LDS growing up but decided that he didn't want to live the LDS lifestyle when he got older...and as a result he doesn't teach his kids any values of any kind. She was almost in tears and she explained to us that she's concerned for the well-being of the kids, and asked us if we could help. We told her that we'd definitely come back haha.

A few funny stories this week:

"Americanized" Sushi from Temari

On Friday night a member, bless her heart, wanted to give Sister Ogawa a "taste of home" for our dinner appointment. She was super excited because she told us that she found a "super authentic" sushi restaurant within our mission boundaries! So we were really excited to go eat some nice sushi for dinner. Haha we roll up to this restaurant, we walk in and the first thing I notice is that it's playing some nice 80’s music. Hmmm...THEN we open the menu and the first thing I see is a sushi roll titled "The American Roll." Hmmm....I keep looking through the menu and there are all these rolls like "The Awesome Roll," "The Las Vegas Roll," "The Phoenix Roll," "Hot and Saucy," etc. etc. Literally I don't know how much more Americanized this place could have gotten. I think the most Asian thing was the chop sticks we were using. They bring us the sushi, and it was good food...but definitely not authentic Japanese, and this member was like "There!! We're practically in Japan!!" Sister Ogawa was just dying. When we left she was like, "I can eat Japanese food. I can eat American food...but Americanized Japanese food.....that's just insulting" Hahaha we had a pretty good laugh.

On Sunday there was a lull in the testimonies in one of our wards. My first fast-Sunday in the mission field there was a lull and Sister Sorenson and I didn't do anything about it and afterwards we got chewed out by the high-councilor because, as he put it, "it's the job of the missionaries to give the rest of the congregation inspiration to bear their testimony." So after that I promised myself that as long as I was a missionary I wouldn't let a lull happen in a fast and testimony meeting ever again. I got up and bore a brief but sure testimony and went and sat back down--didn't think too much of it--did my job, y'know? But this lady gets up after me and in tears is like, "I just want to thank the sister missionary for her testimony...I'm forgetting her name right now, but I'm pretty sure it's Sister Taylor. Thank you Sister Taylor, for giving me the courage to stand before you all today." And I was sitting in the back with Sister Ogawa and our WML's family and all of us were like...that's not my name haha. But then every other person that got up was like "Sister Taylor's testimony really touched my heart today." or "I'm so grateful to have missionaries like Sister Taylor." I was sitting in the back like ohhhhh noooo. Afterwards someone came up to me and was like, "I thought your name was Sister Jacobson??" I was like that's probably because it is...so now half of the ward is calling me Sister Taylor and the other half is calling me Sister Jacobson haha.

This Monday we had Zone Conference with Elder Pearson from the Quorum of the Seventy. It was AMAZING. Holy moly. If I could write 1/1000 of what he talked about and what revelation I received then I would be writing for a lot longer than a few hours on p-day. Elder Pearson's nickname at church headquarters is "the finder." He is a master in finding people to teach the gospel, something our mission definitely needs. He is also really big on the image of a missionary, and he's super bold and straight to the point. He got up and started speaking to us and was really complimentary of our skills as missionaries and our effectiveness in teaching and baptizing but then absolutely demolished our mission's ability to find people to teach. He was literally like, "You're not good enough!!! Be better!!" and then gave us a bunch of training on improving our attitude and outlook on talking to people. I loved it because he didn't just come in and say, "Stop tracting, stop street contacting--do this instead." he was literally like, "You're doing all the right things, and you're good missionaries who know what you're doing...but the problem is YOU." He basically told us that we're not good enough and that we need to increase our own faith before we can increase the faith of the people we talk to. He kept saying "God doesn't ask about your ability or inability--He asks about your AVAILABILITY. And when you increase your dependability He will increase your CAPABILITY." Elder Pearson also told us several stories from his mission in Finland, and every single one of them had us in tears. Before Elder Pearson spoke, President Wheeler got up and told us a story from a really famous speech called "Acres of Diamonds." Basically this man drives himself insane looking for diamonds all over the world, and the guy who bought his house from him finds millions of diamonds in his backyard. President posed the question: Why do we go looking for diamonds in places other than our own backyard?? And all of Elder Pearson's training kept circling back to this idea. He told us that it's our job to find diamonds in our areas and that it's possible no matter where we serve--because more often than not WE'RE the diamond and the Lord wants at least one convert to come from our missions, even if it's just ourselves. It was one of the best meetings I've ever been to in my life. We were all required to prepare a five minute talk and then at the meeting he picked four missionaries at random to speak...and Sister Ogawa was chosen! She did awesome!! She was super nervous but her English was literally flawless and her talk was AMAZING. That's my comp :') Then I was called on to give the closing prayer! I was so nervous haha I was like I can't pray in front of a General Authority!! But then I did and afterwards Elder Pearson came to me with tears in his eyes and thanked me for giving him a "perfect end to a perfect day." So that was super cool.

One thing I've been thinking a lot about recently is the price we pay for our conversion to the gospel of Jesus Christ. In preparation for Zone Conference we had to read a couple of talks by Elder Bednar. Both talks explored the idea of being converted vs. having a testimony. One of the talks asked us to consider the story of the ten virgins. Each of them had lamps, but only five of them had extra oil. Elder Bednar relays the story and at the end talks about how when the bridegroom came, the five foolish virgins only had their lamps [of testimony] but the five wise virgins had their [oil of conversion]. When the five foolish virgins ask for more oil, the five wise virgins refuse, because they know that conversion cannot be borrowed. It is something we must work for ourselves. So a question I've been asking myself a lot this week is what is the price we are willing to pay for a priceless knowledge? And what are we willing to sacrifice to gain this knowledge? Is it a few meager hours of our time on Sunday? Is it a trip to the temple once every few months? Is it a couple minutes spent half-heartedly studying the scriptures? Is that really all we're willing to sacrifice for a personal relationship with the Savior of the world? Because He was willing to sacrifice a whole lot more for each of us. We can fake a lot of things, but we cannot fake being a disciple of Jesus Christ.

But anyways, as you can see it was an AWESOME week! And we're getting really excited because in TWO WEEKS Elder Bednar is coming to the Gilbert Stake Conference!!!!! I feel like this is the Lord throwing me a bone because I missed the Boise East stake conference with Elder Anderson haha. I feel like He's saying, "Oh, you missed an Apostle coming to your home stake because you're serving me?? Well, I'll just send your favorite Apostle to the stake you're serving in!" Haha in all seriousness, that's going to be an amazing meeting and I feel very blessed to be able to attend!

I love you! Have an amazing week!

Sister Jacobson