September 4, 2017
Hello!! Happy Monday! But most of
all, Happy Labor Day!
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| My creativity coming through |
I've learned that it's really
difficult to deal with non-missionary things as a missionary. This week I've
been feeling a little under the weather, and as a result haven't been sleeping
too well at night. I've been so exhausted every day this week and haven't
really felt like myself...but! We found a blackout curtain in one of the
closets in our house and hung it up over one of the windows in our room and
ever since I've been sleeping much better...blessings come in all shapes and
sizes.
This week one of my biggest fears as
a missionary happened. We stopped by a new YSA investigator we picked up a few
weeks ago named R. He was SUPER promising and we were so excited to go visit
him again! His parents opened the door, invited us in to get water...and when
we were inside their house started ripping us apart. We discovered that his
family was really anti--like really anti--and we were trapped inside their
house with them just throwing incorrect information about our religion at us.
It was awful. It's one thing to not be interested...that I can understand;
we're all given our agency for a reason! But it's another thing entirely to
deliberately degrade the moral character of another human being...and that's
what antis do. The hypocrisy of it all astounds me...but that's life, I guess!
Long story short, we survived, we dropped R, and we were super disheartened and
sad--as is to be expected after something like that!
So the rest of the day Sister Utsch
and I were struggling to remain positive and upbeat. It was crazy how much that
one thing destroyed our spirits! We were saying so many prayers in an effort to
align our will with God's, and figure out where God needed us to be so we could
further the work in this area...and we eventually found ourselves at another
investigator's, T's, home. We've been kind of puzzled on what to do with T,
we've been wondering if she has real intent, and if she's even fully interested.
But anyway, T let us in and invited us to sit down, and then she started doing
her dishes. We offered to help but she refused, and about ten minutes later she
asked us to help her son with a school project. At this point we'd been there
from probably 20 minutes or so and Sister Utsch and I were kind of looking at
each other like...what are we doing here?? Is this even fulfilling our
purpose?? We were both thinking the same thing...that we needed to drop T. It
was devastating!! We were like...are you kidding me...we just had to drop R and
now an hour later we're going to have to drop T as well?? But eventually T came
and sat with us, and we started talking about the gospel. She hadn't read from
the Book of Mormon, but she had read from the “Plan of Salvation”
pamphlet that we had left her. We started talking about the Plan of Salvation,
and we got halfway through...and T interrupted us and said "Sisters. I
feel like I need to tell you something." and we were both like...oh man
here it comes, she's going to tell us she's not interested--like we were
literally braced for the worst. And T goes "After you left last time...I
was thinking about what we were talking about...and I realized that you two are
SO close to God!! And I thought...maybe when you're that close to God...you
don't need a drink of alcohol to unwind after the day, because you have God to
take that burden!" The Spirit flooded the room and we were able to testify
of the truthfulness of that statement. After we left, Sister Utsch and I were
overwhelmed with gratitude, and humility. All day long we had been feeling like
we were swimming upstream, like we were doing this work alone without any
heavenly help...and it was really frustrating, when in reality...the Holy Ghost
was way ahead in the stream, preparing T while we were out working elsewhere.
The scripture John 14:18 came to my mind, it says "I will not leave you
comfortless: I will come to you."
We had a brief scare with L this
week. When we extended a date for her to be baptized a couple of weeks ago, we
were not planning on extending a date...so we were unprepared and the date we
extended was actually a Tuesday. We can technically have a baptism on any day
that there isn't a conflict at the church, but as we were asking around the YSA
ward we found that not many people would be able to attend her baptism. So we
decided to move her baptism date to a Saturday. When we asked L what day she
wanted, she threw out a day in November and would not budge!! We were
like....no!! Bad idea!! And then we were worried that she would just say forget
it, it's not worth it...but eventually we knelt down and prayed with her right
there and she felt strongly about September 30th. That was a relief. We are so
excited for her! Keep her in your prayers--she still needs to tell her parents!
This week we had an amazing mission
conference with Elder Neil L. Andersen of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.
Sister Utsch and I got there early and sat in the very center of the front row.
He came down off the stand and walked around among us, and several times I was
worried he would trip over my feet. To be able to sit at the feet of an
Apostle...it was awesome. This week I realized how blessed I've been in the
past three months of my mission--I've been trained by three general
authorities!! I've learned so much from each of their visits. What stood out to
me this time was the fact that these men are normal guys, with an incredible
mantle and an incredible calling...and they have the Spirit with them so
strong. They know what they're talking about. And they're FUNNY. Just because
they're old men doesn't mean they're "out of touch." Elder Andersen
had us all laughing pretty hard for the whole two hours that he was there...and
the jokes he was making are like jokes I would make with my friends. At one
point he had his iPad plugged in to show us a video and as he was looking for
the video he scrolled past many normal movies--like “National Treasure” and the
“Pink Panther.”
Elder Andersen shook every single
one of our hands. It was so cool to have just a few moments to talk with him,
to hear him say my name and to receive a very personal witness that these men
are who they claim to be--Apostles of the Lord Jesus Christ. Over and over as
he was speaking I received this confirmation. Haha when he shook Sister Utsch's
hand he said "Utsch....what a fascinating last name!" He was so
humble!! At the end he said "Anyone have any
comments...questions...concerns...corrections??" and we were all like...please
as if any of us would have any corrections for you!!
He spoke a great deal about the
future of missionary work--how much of it will be done online. He gave us some
counsel and some guidance on how to be effective missionaries, and effective
return missionaries as well. It was super cool! My favorite part was his
testimony. I have never heard a testimony so powerful and full of so much
conviction. You just know that he knows that this gospel is true. At one point
his eyes got HUGE and he said "I never thought I would have the
opportunity to see beyond the veil..." and the Spirit was so strong.
Obviously this church is run through revelation...but it's not very often that
you get to hear it phrased like that...by an Apostle...in that intimate of a
setting. It was amazing.
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| AZ skies at it again |
Anyway...that's what I got!! Have a
good week! I love you!
Sister Jacobson
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| Killed 56 flies in our kitchen this a.m. |
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| Found my brother's picture in an old Ensign |
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