Week 40: Summer Sales Is Not My Thing

October 30, 2017

Hola!

My "child" & "grandchild"

It's been a crazy week. It was one of those weeks where we were crazy busy and constantly moving all week long but looking back it's like...uhhh...what actually HAPPENED this week?! We had a lot of weird meetings and service activities and things that prevented us from going out and hitting the pavement like we wanted to this week, but that's okay, this is the Lord's work and evidently He had other plans in store for us!

Last Monday in the middle of the day we received a phone call from our YSA Bishop. The conversation went a little something like this:

Bishop: “Sisters! I just received an email that there will be two nonmembers who will be attending our FHE this evening.”

Us: “Bishop that's awesome...how did they find out about FHE?”

Bishop: “Well in her email she said that she had worked with LDS people for a while, was impressed with the people, recently moved here, and both her and her daughter are interested in learning more about the church...so I invited them to FHE and they responded saying that they would both be attending!” 

Us: “Wow...that's...SUPER...awesome. Have you called the relief society president to let her know?”

Bishop: “Yes! She is all ready to go with fellowship and everything!”

Us: “....alright good work bishop...we will see you tonight!” 

YSA WML freehanded this

My starry-starry night

It was literally a miracle that fell from the sky. When Elder Anderson came to our mission back in August he promised us that as we worked with the youth and as we worked with the young single adults that we would see miracles and a direct increase in baptisms. Recently our YSA ward has seen the fulfillment of this prophecy, because investigators are literally appearing out of thin air. Yesterday at church we had three investigators! That's a ton for an YSA ward! FHE last week was awesome...it was so cool to see the ward step up to the plate and fellowship K, and make her and her mom feel so welcome! We were able to meet her and talk with her a little bit, but we only spoke with her for a few minutes because the ward was so involved with her and helping her get integrated. This whole situation is the DEFINITON of member missionary work. I think often times we, as members, get discouraged with trying to share the gospel because we don't see the big picture. More often than not we are never going to see the fruits of our labors. Imagine if K's mom hadn't been impressed with her LDS coworkers. Would she have emailed our bishop and asked for an invite to an activity? Probably not. The coworkers probably didn't even realize that she was watching them, and perhaps they were even discouraged when she wasn't interested right then and there in the gospel. I highly doubt that they even considered the possibility that a number of years down the road she would seek out the gospel for herself. Our examples carry more weight than we realize. There's always someone watching and waiting to see what choices we will make. Our choices carry eternal consequences for not only ourselves, but often for others as well. I think this is the very reason why Elder David A. Bednar is so big on being an agent to act instead of an object to be acted upon. (2 Nephi 2:26:…and because that they are redeemed from the fall they have become free forever, knowing good from evil; to act for themselves and not to be acted upon…”) I know that as we strive to make good choices, and to behave as the Savior would if He were here today, that we will be blessed for our efforts and the Lord will make us to be instruments in His hands. We are so excited for the opportunity that we will have to hopefully begin teaching K!

We had a great lesson with L this week. We showed her the Mormon message "Where Justice, Love, and Mercy Meet" and we talked about the Atonement of Jesus Christ. Every time we teach L I am reminded by the Spirit how real the gospel is. Her testimony of the Atonement made me cry during our lesson. We were worried about her when she went out of town, because oftentimes investigators going out of town is what causes them to stop meeting with the missionaries, but L told us that her vacation made her realize how much she wants the gospel in her life and in the life of her future family. It was so beautiful. :') We also read Ether 12:6 (“…faith is things which are hoped for and not seen; wherefore dispute not because ye see not, for ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith.”), and talked about what it means to have an anchor in the gospel of Jesus Christ. We asked L what her "anchor of hope" is, what keeps her coming to church week after week and what keeps her meeting with us despite the opposition that she faces, and she had literally like four or five different things. (Also a very beautiful moment. :')) She also told us that she is planning on talking to her parents again about baptism...keep her in your prayers! We know that she can do this with the Lord's help and the enabling power that comes from the Atonement of Jesus Christ. 

This week we had multiple service opportunities. Two days this week Sister Utsch and I did service for a part-member family in our area. We helped them move items from a room in their house to the garage. The room was really cluttery, like hoarder-level cluttery, and they have lots of cats, and I am allergic to cats so it was pretty brutal for me, but they were so appreciative and grateful that we came to help them. In addition, at the ward party, one of their non-member kids came up to us and gave us huge hugs and asked us if she could hang out with us! She's getting so comfortable with us and recently we've been feeling like we are being placed in her path, as well as her family's path, in order to help bring them closer to Jesus Christ. 

Fashionable selling outfits

On Saturday our whole zone had a massive service activity at a Special Olympics car show in Gilbert! We rolled up (literally, bc it was a car show...ha...ha...ha) and they gave us these yellow shirts to wear over our dresses, and then we had to put on these super cute Home Depot money aprons on top of the shirts. Our whole zone was cracking up because we looked so goofy and I was like "Zone, we have literally never looked better." It was definitely not the most flattering outfit. We spent the first hour of the service walking up and down the various aisles of old cars trying to sell water to people for a dollar. It is official…I am not cut out to do door to door summer sales. Hahaha you would think that I would have learned some sales skills from knocking doors as a missionary but nope...definitely not. In one hour Sister Utsch and I literally sold two water bottles. Haha if I can't be successful in selling ice cold water for $1 in ARIZONA then I don't know what I would be successful in selling as a salesman. Thankfully, after one hour, Sister Utsch and I happened to be in the right place at the right time and were able to switch jobs so we ended up sitting under a tent collecting voting tickets for the last three hours of the service. We definitely lucked out, because at ZLC that night both DLs and both ZLs were sunburned pretty badly from walking around trying to sell water in the sun for four hours. 

Also this week five separate people, including a former companion, asked me if I dyed/highlighted/lightened my hair. So just to clarify: no. The beauty of the Arizona sun and a missionary hard at work.

The finale of Sister Jacobson and the Sitting Skeletons is this week. We saved the best for last. I want you all to know that this week we saw a direct increase in the amount of skeletons placed outside people's homes. Unfortunately, we did not have much time to stop and take photos this week of all the skeletons but I got some really nice pictures with the S skeletons (for all you hocus pocus lovers out there), a corpse bride, and a skeleton who got a little too high for his own good. Some honorable mentions not pictured: An entire skeleton pirate crew complete with a pirate ship, a corpse couple, a skeleton riding a motorcycle, and a skeleton family having TV dinner. You can't make this stuff up. It’s official: skeletons are the best Halloween decoration. There are so many varieties of how to decorate with skeletons the possibilities are endless! I'm sold. I’m definitely investing in some when I get home.  

House selfie

Not gonna lie, other than that, this week was pretty slow. We were hard at work every day, every possible second that we could, but still didn't have many opportunities to teach people or to testify of this restored truth that we love so much. This week the majority of the people we talked to were pretty rude and definitely not interested in the message that we have to share. It's caused Sister Utsch and me to reflect deeply on our missionary efforts. My whole mission I've been absolutely fascinated by the basic gospel principle of faith. We know that faith in the Lord Jesus Christ is a principle of power, and that faith can make things happen that wouldn't otherwise happen, but on my mission I've truly seen that the purpose of faith is not to change God's will, but to EMPOWER us to ACT on God's will. Faith is an action word, and faith motivates us to do things we wouldn't otherwise do, so in the case of Sister Utsch and me, our faith motivated us to come on a mission. Our faith is what motivates us to get out of bed every day at 6:30 and have thirty minutes of exercise, plan for our day, and have a full hour of studies. Our faith is what motivates us to leave the house at 10 AM and not return until 9 PM, despite the slammed doors, thrown objects, and fingers of scorn. Our faith is what motivates us to work our very hardest all day every day, seven days a week, in the hopes that we can find just ONE person willing to listen to our message. And even though we have the faith to find this one person every single day, and we have the faith to have a baptism every single weekend, sometimes the Lord's will is otherwise. One thing I've learned about Heavenly Father is that He is truly our Father! James E Faust once said, "Noble fatherhood gives us a glimpse of the divine," and I LOVE that quote. When I think of my own father, the famous Blaine Jacobson, I think of someone who pushes me to be the very best I can be, someone who won't just hand things to me because I want them, or maybe even deserve them, someone who lets me experience things for myself so I can learn from experience. Our Father in Heaven operates in the same way. He doesn't give us experiences because we want them, or even deserve them, but because we NEED them to become more than we are right now. He knows that the best way for us to learn for ourselves is by experience! He doesn't see us for who we are, but for who we can become. And that is why He demands so much from us. He knows that it's hard to keep the commandments in the world we live in today, He knows that it's hard to maintain faith in Him despite all the challenges that beset us, He knows that it's hard to be continually putting our best foot forward every single day of our lives, but He also knows that this is the only way for us to become the people He needs us to be. It requires a certain level of sacrifice, but Joseph Smith said, "A religion that does not require the sacrifice of all things never has power sufficient to produce the faith necessary [to lead] unto life and salvation." So this week was hard, yes, and we didn't find any new investigators despite our best efforts, but this week, instead of giving us what we wanted, the Lord gave us what we NEEDED; an opportunity to learn and grow and increase our faith in Him and His plan for us. I love this work. And I am so grateful that the Lord is able to use imperfect servants like us to help in this glorious work.

Have a great week. I love you all!

Sister Jacobson

Biking home with popcorn

Weekly planning

Taking after my Mom

Baymax at a ward party!

Week 39: Sister Utsch and Desert Ridge for Life

October 23, 2017

Hello!!

Best comp 💕💕

It's been another fantastic week doing the Lord’s work! Ups and downs as always, but the ups always, always, always outweigh the downs. Last night transfer calls came in and I am STAYING in Desert Ridge with Sister Utsch!!!!!!! We were screaming we were SO EXCITED!! This will make Desert Ridge my longest area thus far hahaha. Both of our zone leaders are also staying and this will be their third transfer together as well so the four of us are really excited to have another transfer in the forgotten promised land of Desert Ridge.

Desert Ridge - best zone in the mission

We saw some awesome miracles this week. Last Monday as we were planning for our day we both felt like we needed to be in one of our wards, but then every name we planned for was from a different ward!! We were both like man what is going on here?? But we went with it and it ended up being one of the best proselyting nights of my mission. We talked to three people but all three of them were genuine seekers of truth and wanted to learn more! One of them was a man named J. We talked to him and his kids in the park and he mentioned that he's been studying religion for a few years and is now a preacher in his church. He invited us to doubt our faith, to which we invited him to doubt his doubts. The longer we talked to him the more open he got, and we eventually became friends on Facebook and are planning on having dinner with him sometime next week (TBD) to talk more about faith and what it is! Not gonna lie, I’m a little bit nervous he'll try to bash us, but he's a genuine seeker of truth so I don't have a problem with answering his questions. The second person we talked to was a massive miracle. A few weeks ago a member in one of our wards brought a neighbor to a ward party, and he had a great time so we tried visiting his house afterwards but the people we talked to there said that they were not interested. We were pretty bummed. Well, as we were biking along on Monday night we ran into a man smoking a cigar at the bottom of his driveway. It was the man who came to the party! Turns out the member had the address wrong the whole time. We talked to him for a LONG time. He told us about the various trials he's encountered in his life recently and we testified that the gospel can provide healing and support. He wouldn't commit to a return appointment but here again; he is an honest seeker of truth, on a search he is not even aware he is on yet! The third was an accident. We went to visit a name on the ward list we didn't know and found out that the family that used to live there had moved. We met a girl in her 20s and talked with her super briefly. Her faith in Jesus Christ is everything to her! She invited us to come back and now we are working to set up an appointment with her and her family. Miracles happen when you follow the promptings of the Holy Ghost!

Last week I told a funny story that happened with the K’s, about when we were standing around the trash can talking to his neighbors. This week we stopped by their house and M K told us that after we left his neighbors just started dragging us through the mud and tearing us apart. M K goes, "Don't worry sisters. I set them straight. I told them that you were servants of the Lord and it would do them well to respect you and hear you out." We were like yes M K!! Then he told us that since they had to miss church last Sunday they had decided to read Jesus the Christ in its place, and they were already on chapter 11. Y'all I've been reading that book my whole mission and I just barely started chapter 11. What the heck haha. He sounded like a lifelong member, but he's not a member! He started bearing his testimony to us and testifying of the power of the Holy Ghost to change the hearts of men. At the very end he gave us permission to teach his 10 year old son and start preparing him for baptism. It was beautiful. We had a lesson with him on Saturday and ahh I just love that family! The progress and the growth they have made is amazing. I'm so excited to see what's in store for them in the future.

Writing letters like

We were on YSA splits one night, and typically YSA people are really hard to catch so YSA visits are usually a lot of driving, a lot of knocking doors, and not a whole lot of face to face action. However, we were able to meet a sister that the ward council had been trying to meet for YEARS. We were just in the right place at the right time because she had a baby barely a week ago so was obviously at home haha. We were excited to learn that she is also married, and the bonus is that she lives in our family ward boundaries! We transferred her records to the family ward to be able to give her better fellowship, and were very optimistic about the opportunity to teach her husband about the gospel!

This week L also came back into town. Yesterday at church she was wearing the same shoes as me. :') Investigator/missionary goals if I've ever seen them ;) haha and she goes "Sister Jacobson!! Your blog didn't update!" Hahahaha amazing. We are so excited to have another lesson with her this week; we've missed teaching her these past few weeks!

Salt n Pepper

Also it's the holiday season which means ward parties out the wazoo. This weekend we had two 

Costumes on a budget

Halloween parties. We manned a snow cone booth at one with our ward mission leader AND a former investigator. It was amazing. We had two hours of solid interaction with this former investigator and we became friends with him! If we were to see him on the street then we could talk to him and it wouldn't be weird...we are really excited to build a bridge off of our positive interactions with him on Saturday. Also, Sister Utsch and I went as salt and pepper and it was a big hit. Some people thought we were "P.S." but most everyone got our costumes.

Last night we had dinner with a family that was all about volleyball. It was beautiful. I don't think the conversation strayed from volleyball for longer than 3 minutes the whole time, and I think the whole conversation sailed over Sister Utsch’s head. I've grown accustomed to playing it cool and toning it down when it comes to the amount I know about volleyball...but this family was matching my level of passion and enthusiasm about the sport. It was amazing! Afterwards Sister Utsch was like "I've never seen you more fired up about anything" and then on district calls she told our district leader that the family we had dinner with was actually in love with me because of our conversation at dinner haha. They told us that every Tuesday/Thursday some ladies in the stake who played volleyball in college get together and play, and a lot of the time there are nonmembers there. If nonmembers go then I can go...potentially a cool opportunity! I'm pretty excited.

Another exciting thing is the continuation of "Sister Jacobson and the Sitting Skeletons"!!!! Look for the pics!!! 

I 💓 The Book of Mormon

This week I hit my nine month mark as a missionary! I cannot believe how fast the time has gone and how much I have learned and changed and grown these past nine months. I am not the same person as I was when I left on my mission. Before my mission, I had a testimony of this church and this gospel, but being a missionary and seeing the application of gospel principles firsthand has caused my testimony to deepen significantly. If you glean anything at all from my emails as a missionary let it be this: that I KNOW with my whole heart that Jesus Christ is the Savior and Redeemer of the world, that he suffered in Gethsemane and died on Calvary for not only our individual sins, but for our pains and our sorrows and our afflictions and our weaknesses and our inadequacies and our imperfections. Everything you could possibly ever feel, Jesus Christ felt as well, so you would never have to endure anything alone. He is my Savior and I have come to know Him and have a personal relationship with Him on my mission. He is everything. I love Him, and I am grateful for Him.

On that note...that’s about all I got! I love you all!

Sister Jacobson

9 months had me like

9 months had me like

Tryna stay fit on my mission like

AZ skies at it again

AZ skies

Zone pumpkin carving

Zone pumpkin carving

Zone carvings

Sitting skeletons

Sitting skeleton

Sitting skeletons

Accidental selfie

Week 38: Sister Jacobson and the Sitting Skeletons

October 16, 2017

HELLLLLLOOOOOOOOOO 

Holy toledo the weeks just get faster and faster. Time flies when you're stressed out and over-exerted!! Haha just kidding, time flies when you're having FUN...and that's exactly what Sister Utsch and I have been doing this week!

Exchanges with Sis. Jensen

This week we had another exchange! This time it was with Sister Cammon and Sister Jensen! I was with Sister Jensen, a cute sister who is towards the end of her second transfer in the mission. I was with her in her area and we had an awesome day together. We taught three lessons and took an investigator on a church tour! It was a really eventful exchange. Also, we went tracting in an apartment complex and I was so excited because I'd never tracted an apartment complex before! We tracted this whole building and no one answered, and I was pretty disappointed....and then we realized that the entire building was VACANT!!!! I was so mad!! Oh well, next time. 

Sister Utsch and I had a really cool lesson with T this week! Her dad was in town and she wanted us to come over and meet him. Her dad was reactivated about four years ago and is super awesome. His testimony is rock solid and he is the current young men's president in his ward in Nashville, Tennessee! We had a super spiritual lesson about the importance of prayer and the Holy Ghost, and T talked a lot about the difference she's felt in her life since praying daily, and the difference she's noticed in her son's life as they've been praying together every day. She also told us that she and her dad had been having a lot of gospel conversations since he'd been in town, which we were super excited about. It's every missionary's dream for your investigator to come with built-in fellowship! While we were there, Sister Utsch and I both received the distinct impression that T will be baptized someday, we just don't know when, but it's our job to be here for when she's ready. It was really comforting because T isn't progressing as well as we would like her to, and missionaries are not professional naggers, so it doesn't do any good to follow up on commitments that she's not keeping...but she is progressing slowly, so our plan is to just keep in contact with her and be there for her when she's ready! 

Pumpkin Party Selfie

This week we were invited to a neighborhood pumpkin carving party hosted by one of our members! They invited their whole cul-de-sac and there were well over 30 nonmembers there. It was awesome! We were able to talk to so many people and we helped tons of the neighborhood kids carve their pumpkins. It was a huge success...we didn't get any return appointments, but we felt really strongly that we needed to be there that night. It was good for the people in this neighborhood to see that missionaries are real people, with real personalities, and real lives! We're not just robots that show up on their doorstep like clockwork every six months. So much of missionary work is planting seeds...I realized this week that members get frustrated with member missionary work because so often they don't see the end results! Having the big picture makes missionary work so much easier...if you have the knowledge that every little touch makes a difference then suddenly it doesn't feel like a waste of time to spread the gospel, even if no one listens right away.

We have been feeling pretty strongly that we need to work with our members better, so this week we made a list of YSAs that we don't know and set a goal to visit every single person on that list. So far we've seen tons of miracles! Usually when doing YSA visits no one is home, or they've moved, or they're just super busy and can't talk...but this week it felt like every YSA visit we made was inspired! We visited this one girl who said she's "not exactly active" anymore but asked us to come back this next week, she even set a reminder for herself in her phone! It was awesome. Then we talked to another girl who's been going through a really hard time and she prayed that someone would bring her something good...and then we showed up on her doorstep. The icing on the cake that is YSA miracles this week though is that yesterday this girl walked into church, introduced herself in Relief Society, and said that it was her first day back in six years! We don't know what prompted her to come back, we're going to visit her later this week, but it was so cool!

Rash from a mosquito bite

We also saw tons of little miracles this week, little moments to reassure us that the Lord is right here with us in this work. A couple months ago on exchanges I stopped by a part-member family in one of our family wards to ask for water...and they told me that we couldn't get water from them. In Arizona, it's against the law to not give people water if they ask for it...so I was like wow yikes they do not want us coming over. Not gonna lie, I was pretty salty. Sister Utsch and I took them off our focus list and essentially washed our hands of it haha. Well, this week we were biking down the street...and we saw someone outside their house. We started talking to him and he was SUPER nice!! We had an awesome conversation with him, shared a few laughs, and he invited us back this week to come and meet his family! Miracles, I say, miracles!

We dropped by another part member family this week and they opened the door said "No." and started to close it...and Sister Utsch was like "wait wait wait!!! We just wanted to drop by and say hey!" and he stopped, opened the door and was like "Okay, come on in." It was so surprising haha. But he let us in and we had a great conversation with him! We were able to talk about the gospel a little bit and they even gave us water haha. When we left they walked out to the edge of their driveway and waved goodbye to us until we were out of sight. It's amazing how far a little bit of friendship can go!

Finally, we dropped by yet ANOTHER part-member family this week and the nonmember answered the door, was so excited to see us, and practically begged us to come back in a few days. We went back and his wife was going through a tough time and they both sat there and listened to us give them a lesson on maintaining faith through trials. Sister Utsch said that that had NEVER happened before...he'd never sat in on any of their lessons. Little progressions are worth celebrating! Moments like that are what build your faith.

A couple funny moments:

Last week we had a lesson with the K’s on the iron rod and clinging tight to the word of God. This week we saw the K’s outside next to their trashcan talking to their neighbors. We went and started talking to them...and the K’s were suuuuuper drunk. It was one of the wildest conversations I've ever been part of. During the course of the conversation this metal bar rolled off the top of the trash can and landed loudly on the ground. M K about lost his mind, he goes "SISTERS!!!! THE IRON ROD AM I RIGHT?!?!!??! OHHHHHH!!!! GIVE ME KNUCKLES LOOK AT THAT CONNECTION!!" Hahaha we were laughing SO hard. It was easily one of the funniest moments of my mission. 

This week on exchanges I was trying to be a really good example for Sister Jensen by talking to everyone we saw. We were biking along, and she was probably like 20 feet in front of me and I saw this house with tons of Halloween decorations. The front yard was designed to look like a graveyard and there were zombies coming out of the ground and dead brides walking through it and all that stuff, but there was this person wearing jeans and a t-shirt and it just looked like a guy doing yard work...and Sister Jensen wasn't stopping to talk to him so I was like...alright this is it. I will be a great example and I will OYM (street contact) this guy. So I call out "Hey! How's it going?!" and we get closer...and I realize that this guy is 100% a Halloween decoration. It was so embarrassing. Sister Jensen didn't say anything...so I'm not sure if she didn't hear...or if she was just trying to preserve my ego...but in any case I'm sure she was like "wow, worst STL ever." Haha Sister Utsch and I had a good laugh about it once we exchanged back. 

In other news, people in Arizona go hard with their Halloween decorations. It's been pretty impressive. I've seen more skeletons this week than ever before in my life. I started taking pictures with all the skeletons we saw but it got to be too much so we decided to set some parameters on the kind of skeleton photos we would take...we decided that the skeleton has to be sitting. So I've started a photo essay that I will entitle "Sister Jacobson and the Sitting Skeletons" Please enjoy the photos. :)

Haha I love you all! Have a great week!

Sister Jacobson 

No wrapping paper? No prob!

Gifts for our stewarships