Week 44: The Nutritional Value of a Twinkie

November 27, 2017

Hey!! What's good in the hood?!

Things are real good in this hood; it's been a solid week! We've been working our tails off!

Looking fly on Thanksgiving

To start off, I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! It was hilarious because we had mission choir practice on Thursday morning, so the whole mission got together...and we all looked so FLY!! Haha you know you serve in a biking mission when you're used to seeing one another covered in bike grease, sweat, and the classic dust of Arizona. It was fun to see how everyone "really looks." Sister Utsch and I managed to survive the three dinners we had...although we were not able to eat anything for like three days afterwards haha. Our first dinner was with a half-active, half less-active family in one of our wards. It was a pretty awkward dinner because half of the family was super excited to see us, and the other half was pretty stand-offish...but we were grateful that we were able to bring the Spirit into their home! Nothing is a coincidence, and I know that they needed the Spirit of missionary work for some reason on Thanksgiving!

Comps looking fly on Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving with the F family

Snowball fight AZ style

Our second dinner was with a part-member, recent convert family in Sister Utsch's last area. They invited us and their current missionaries to come and have Thanksgiving with them. It was so fun; I've only met the family once but I was amazed at the way that they welcomed me into their home and made me feel like part of their family. We got there, and they had us put our names into a "raffle for who says grace," and then they asked us to grab gloves. The mom knew that the four of us missionaries are all from places much colder than Arizona, so she went to Bahama Bucks (a super delicious snowcone store in AZ) and bought a case of snowballs so we could have a snowball fight!! It was so sweet. It was 100 degrees here on Thanksgiving Day, so she goes "I knew that it would be weird for you to be somewhere so hot for Thanksgiving, so this is my solution of how to make it colder!!" Haha and then we went inside and K (the recent convert) wanted to do crafts with us. And then, it was time to eat. No lie, probably the best Thanksgiving food I've ever eaten in my life. The dessert was caramel apple cheesecake; need I say more?? Once we were fat and happy, the mom pulled out this game called "Who said it: The prophet or a princess?" SHE IS LITERALLY NOT A MEMBER OF OUR CHURCH!! It was amazing. She had found ten quotes from various prophets/apostles or Disney characters and we had to determine which quotes were from the prophets and which quotes were from the Disney characters. It was actually really hard haha. To top off the dinner, they gave us gift bags with blankets, candy, and chapstick! As we were leaving, they were SO thankful that we had come. They said "It's usually only the three of us at Thanksgiving...so it was really nice to be able to share it with people who mean so much to K." :')

On our way to three Thanksgiving meals

If you thought that was it, you thought wrong!! Because we still had one more dinner! Our last dinner was with an active family in one of our wards, the J family. Sister Utsch and I love this family so much. They are the kind of people that just make you feel at home in their home. They are also hilarious. They made probably the best apple pie of my life...which is a miracle because ever since I was in the MTC I've wanted apple pie and I've never been served it on my mission...until Thanksgiving!! We had a great time with the J’s, and Sister J was especially grateful that we came over because her daughter is serving a mission right now and she was really missing her on Thanksgiving. When we went to leave, they also pulled out gift bags for us! It was like Christmas! They've picked up on our weird love of matching with each other and bought us two matching t-shirts...which means that Sister Utsch and I now have 7 matching t-shirts. This is what happens when you're companions for four months. All in all, it was a great day and it was a fun change in pace, while still being a productive day of work!

Kickin off the Christmas season

On Friday Sister Utsch and I had the opportunity to work at the opening night of the Mesa Temple Lights. What a way to kick off the Christmas season!  It was BEAUTIFUL. The Spirit there was so strong. We were able to talk to so many different people; both members and nonmembers alike and testify of the reason for the season; Jesus Christ. Christmastime softens people's hearts and I know it's because we are more focused on the Savior of the world than at any other time throughout the year. He truly is the light of the world; which is why the Church's Christmas initiative this year is #LightTheWorld. We saw the launch video a couple of weeks ago and we've been eagerly awaiting the worldwide release so we could show everyone and we've already seen miracles from it!

One of the miracles we've already seen from #LightTheWorld happened as we were biking through a park in our area one day. We saw a lady sitting on the end of a slide with her son, and they appeared to be in pretty rough shape. We stopped and started talking to them, and she told us that she had just gone through a messy divorce, she didn't have a job, she had just moved here, and it was time for her to take her son back to his dad's for the week and he didn't want to go. In addition, she told us that she is a member, but hadn't had a chance to move her records into our ward yet. As we were talking with her, we found out that she had moved into a house kitty-corner to ours! We were able to give her a run-down on all her neighbors, and tell her when and where church was, who the bishop was, and things like that. We asked her if she'd seen the #LightTheWorld video yet, and she said no, so we pulled out one of our phones and showed her and her son right there in the park. She started crying and told us how grateful she was that we had run into her, because she had been feeling really alone and she needed to know that God was aware of her. As we left, they got up and started playing on the playground, and overall they just seemed much happier. I know that we were supposed to see her that day, and I know that we were supposed to share the #LightTheWorld video with her. It gave her hope...and helped her to know that God loves her. If you haven't watched the video yet...I would strongly invite you to watch it...and then share it with someone else, and look for ways to reach outside of yourself this holiday season and serve others as the Light of the World, even Jesus Christ would. You can find the launch video on my Facebook page, mormon.org, or via lds.org.

On Saturday Sister Utsch and I were excited because it was our first full proselyting day together in a loonnnggg time. We planned out the best day ever, and set a goal to boldly invite everyone that we contacted. We have a few part-member families and less-active families that we've been working with on and off that are really close to formally and regularly meeting with us that we've been too scared to be bold with, for fear of scaring them off or offending them. But this week Sister Utsch and I read a talk that said something along the lines of "there's not enough time to not be bold." and we felt called to repentance, so we decided to focus on being bold all day long. Everywhere we went, we talked to everyone we saw, we asked for referrals from everyone, we knocked lots of doors...and not many people were home. We weren't letting anything get us down and we were working so hard...we were determined to find new investigators and help others come closer to Jesus Christ. In the evening we were biking down the street and we saw a potential investigator we've been trying to get in with outside putting up Christmas lights, so we started talking to him! We established that his name is J and that his lights looked good so far...and then he told us that he needed to grab something inside but he'd be right back. We waited on his driveway for five minutes....then ten minutes...then fifteen minutes...and it became pretty obvious that he wasn't going to come back outside. That was the straw that broke the camel's back. We were both so frustrated as we left his house, we biked over to a neighborhood park, and we sat down on the curb and just started crying together. At this point, it had been close to two really tough weeks, with a lot of encounters similar to that one...and we just didn't know what to do. We were like "What are we doing wrong?! We're doing everything we're supposed to be doing, we're being obedient, we're working hard, we're trying our best...why does it feel like everything is culminating against us?!" We said a really fervent prayer, and then got back on our bikes and got back out to work for the last hour of the day. We talked to a few more people, with no luck, and then stopped by a member's to get water...and as we were walking up to the door, our phone beeped. We checked the message and saw that we had just received a new referral from the Mesa Temple Lights. It said, "Met him and his small family, doesn't think it was a coincidence he met the missionaries here, wants to meet with the missionaries where he lives, very curious and willing to convert." We started crying again, but this time out of gratitude. We haven't been able to get in contact with the referral yet, but we are so excited for the opportunity to hopefully teach this family! As I was writing in my journal on Saturday night I reflected on Stanley G. Ellis' talk from this past General Conference. In it he says, "We see that hard is the constant! We all have challenges. The variable is our reaction to the hard." I know that life is sometimes hard, and that sometimes we don't understand everything that happens. I know that sometimes it would be easier to quit and give up; I can assure you that Sister Utsch and I sure felt like quitting when we sat on that curb in the park, but I know that Heavenly Father does not want us to quit. I know that He gives us challenges and trials because we can handle them and He trusts us to be able to maintain our faith in Him despite the difficult times. I know that as we choose to have gratitude through our trials that we will receive more blessings from Him and in turn we will be able to trust Him even more.

Pano of AZ sky

This week we also went on an exchange with Sister Bolander, who is in her first transfer in the mission! She's in a trio so it was kinda fun because she got to come into our area with me AND Sister Utsch. It was fun to be on an STL exchange with my STL companion haha. It was a sneak peak of what's to come the two weeks before Sister Utsch goes home, when we'll be in a trio. We had a good day! We were able to help a less-active member decorate her home for Christmas and share an uplifting message with her about having hope through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. I love being able to help people find hope!

Taught our 1st Skype lesson this week!

Due to Thanksgiving, we weren't able to meet with the majority of our investigators this week, which was a bummer. However, they all still came to church yesterday which was exciting! It was T's first day in her real ward and we were so proud of how the ward fellowshipped her. They did a great job! We haven't been able to meet with L in two weeks...so she probably will not be getting baptized December 2...which makes us sad, but we just want her to be baptized when she feels ready. We know she's ready, but she needs to gain the confidence that she's ready...if that makes sense? We're excited to meet with her this week. We also met with K this week and had a brief lesson on the Restoration...all these solid investigators!! I felt like she was teaching me the Restoration for real haha.

The monthly theme for primary is "I can be a missionary now!" and at the beginning of the month we told all of our primary presidents that we would love to help in any way that we could...and they all procrastinated....so yesterday we made appearances in both junior and senior primaries for all three of our wards! 6 presentations yeah haha!! We got to talk to the kids about ways that we prepared for our missions, things that we wish we'd done differently, and how they can be missionaries now. It was so fun! I remember being a little kid and thinking the missionaries were rock stars, and I remember so clearly those days that the missionaries came in and taught us. I hope that they see us as rock stars and remember our lessons yesterday!

Our sink has been leaky for months

I heard a cool fact/analogy this week. It has been scientifically proven that if you were to eat only Twinkies, then you would eventually starve. You could eat and eat and eat until you felt like you were going to pop, but you would still starve because of the lack of nutritional value in a Twinkie. If you were to eat only Twinkies you would eventually die, and it would be no one's fault but your own, because you failed to change your diet. Far too often, that is the way that we are with the gospel. We read our scriptures, say our prayers, and attend our meetings, and we have spiritual experiences--we all come away saying "Wow that was so spiritual." But the application isn't there. We receive promptings from the Holy Ghost, yet we do not act on them. We can read and read and read, or pray and pray and pray, and feel the Spirit multiple times, but until we APPLY the things we read, or ACT on the answers we receive, we are guaranteed to starve spiritually. If your testimony is withering, or the flame of your faith is dying, then that's on you. Change your diet. It is not enough to merely go through the motions in the gospel, or to treat the gospel like a monotonous checklist of "do’s and don’ts." This gospel is not a gospel of knowing things, it's a gospel about BECOMING...in order for us to become who God needs us to be, and therefore reach our full potential, it is absolutely essential for us to apply the things that we learn. I know that with the help and the guidance of the Holy Ghost, we will be able to identify and make changes in our lives and thereby become spiritually full.

Thank you for all the love and support, I truly feel every prayer! I love you all!

Sister Jacobson

Thanksgiving with the F family...

...RC in Sis. Utsch's last area

Getting wrecked by Sis. Sperry's snowball

Week 43: “What Manner of Men Ought Ye to Be?”

November 20, 2017

Hello everyone!

Yet another week has come and gone! This week wasn't quite as exciting as last week, but that's okay...sometimes the Lord needs to humble us. ;) 

Me and my bike

To be honest, this week was really tough on multiple levels. Sister Utsch and I had a period of like four days where we didn't talk to anyone. No joke, every door we knocked on no one was home. We would try to talk to people on the street, and they would ignore us or pretend like they didn't hear us. And as if that wasn't difficult, no one was texting us back! We were texting all of our investigators, trying to get appointments, and none were texting us back. We were texting recent converts, just checking in on them to see how they were doing, and none were texting us back. We even texted the ZLs with a question and they didn't text us back!! It was so frustrating. How the heck are we supposed to do missionary work if we can't talk to anyone or teach any lessons?!?

Something else that was a bit disheartening...the only people we could find that seemed to want to talk to us this week were antis! So as a result, this week I talked to more antis than I have my entire mission. And I think overall, the antis I talked to this week were the meanest, nastiest ones I have encountered. I will spare you all the details, but let's just say that I have never been more personally attacked. It was pretty awful. Sister Utsch and I weren't necessarily upset about the things that were said to us; if you worried about every little thing that is said to you as a missionary then you wouldn't last in the field very long haha. We were more upset about the people that they were coming from. The majority of the antis we talked to were members of different faiths, claiming to be Christian people.  Something that has surprised me my whole mission is the sheer amount of people who tell everyone they're Christian and then turn around and do something un-Christ-like. The idea of being Christian is to emulate the Savior in all that you think, do, and say. I highly doubt that Christ would yell at a person for merely believing differently than Him. In 3 Nephi 27:27, Christ poses the question, "What manner of men ought ye to be?" And I think He meant it as a rhetorical question, because He immediately answers, "Verily I say unto you, even as I am." In order to be as Christ is, we must become better at accepting others as they are, instead of imposing our own personal judgments upon them. Just some food for thought. 

Exchanges with Sis. Klinke!

This week I had an opportunity to go on exchanges with Sister Klinke! She is in her third transfer and is an incredible missionary. Literally, you will never meet anyone happier than Sister Klinke! We taught a lesson to a super golden investigator of theirs. It was their second lesson with her, and she'd already received an answer about the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith. Her biggest concern was feeling accepted and we were able to testify of God's love for all of His children and put her on date for baptism December 18th!

We picked up a new investigator, K, this week! She came to a lesson with L a few weeks ago, and she used to investigate the church a few years ago, and she is super awesome so we are excited to be able to teach her again! She told us that she has lost much of her testimony as a result of not attending church, not praying consistently, slacking on scripture study, and not meeting with the missionaries. We decided to start the lessons over with her. We talked about God's love for us and how He hears all of our prayers and she committed to pray to know of God's love for her. 

We had a lesson with D this week, but I was on exchanges so I missed it. Sister Utsch taught dispensations in great detail and said that he still doesn't understand it. In addition, she says that she is unsure if he has real intent. She said that at the end of the lesson she asked him if he had any questions and he said, "Why are Mormon girls so pretty?" Haha...so now we are trying to decide if he's just saying that, or if it's legit a problem. Stay tuned haha. 

Spot the dog

We also saw T for the first time in a LONG time this week! We stopped by her house briefly and talked with her and her husband. She apologized for being MIA, and promised to have us over for dinner soon. We were able to share a scripture with her and her husband, and he was totally engaged in the conversation! He had a bad experience with religion when he was younger so every time we come over, he's either at work, or leaves the room. It was massive progress that he was present in the room, let alone conversing with us! Little baby steps!

We had another lesson with T (not to be confused with the previous paragraph’s T) this week! The Mesa sisters tried to send her teaching record to us, but they didn't have her complete address...so the teaching record is lost in cyberspace somewhere. Good times. We had to plan our lesson with no teaching record, with no idea what she had/hadn't been taught, so we decided to teach about temples! It was a great lesson. She is so awesome. She was so excited to be able to go to the temple following her baptism! She explained to us that she wants to be baptized the first week of January to start the new year off right, which is a pretty good reason, so we are probably going to leave her baptismal date in January. 

This week we weren't able to meet with L. She was crazy busy this week...but we saw her at church yesterday! She's definitely struggling with telling her family about her baptism. It's so heartbreaking because she wants it so bad, and she's so ready, but she wants her family to support her decision. I can't imagine what it would be like. It would be so hard to continually maintain the faith in an environment that is unsupportive.  Overall, I think that she's just feeling pretty alone right now...I wish that she could see all of the people that are behind her! Every Sunday, Sister Utsch and I are blown away by the amount of people that come up to us and ask how she's doing, and ask how they can help her, or tell us how awesome she is, or tell us how impressed they are by her testimony. Throughout the week even, we have people asking us how she's doing. I know that Satan is really working on her right now because she is going to be such a force for good in the world. Please, please, please keep her in your prayers! 

This week we received a hilarious text from the K family. It was the devil emoji followed by the middle finger emoji. We were pretty confused, and then three minutes later we got another text that said, "Sorry. Wrong person." Hahaha, when we met with them last night they were SO embarrassed. Turns out, MK was trying to send that to CK, because apparently it's an inside joke. We had a pretty good laugh together. Last night our lesson was on the Ten Commandments. The Spirit was so strong. That family is amazing. They are progressing SO well. LK is going to be able to be baptized soon.

AZ being AZ

I love seeing the application of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The change that this gospel brings in people is indescribable. This isn't something you can make up; no human being could conceive a pattern of belief as universal as the gospel of Jesus Christ. This gospel is from God. I know it. There's no other logical explanation for it; He loves us, so He provided us with a way to change and to grow. Sister Utsch and I read a talk from a 1980 Thomas S. Monson talk this week, and this quote was found right towards the end of it:

"Many of you have traveled long in a personal quest for that which rings true. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints sends forth to you an earnest appeal. Open your doors to the missionaries. Open your minds to the word of God. Open your hearts, even your very souls, to the sound of that still, small voice which testifies of truth. As the prophet Isaiah promised: “Thine ears shall hear a word … saying, This is the way, walk ye in it.”

Africa living room

I know that the Lord is constantly reaching out to us; He wants nothing more than for us to return and live with Him someday. I know that this gospel is truly the way the Lord has given us to walk back to Him. This knowledge is a blessing, and makes me happy beyond belief. 

We are so excited for Thanksgiving this week! We aren't allowed to proselyte, but we can visit people if they invite us, so we are going to eat three dinners haha. I think I am going to stop eating tomorrow in order to prepare my body. Haha, just kidding. We are eating with a less-active family in our area, with a part-member recent convert family in Sister Utsch's last area, and an awesome active family in our area! We are humbled by the generosity of these families in inviting us over to share their Thanksgiving with them! We are so blessed to be able to serve such amazing people. 

I love you all! Have a great week and HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!! :) 

Sister Jacobson 

AZ being AZ

Africa living room

$10 6' tree and a floating head

Week 42: Blessed with the Best

November 13, 2017

HEEELLLLLLOOOOOO!!!!

Best comp

9.5 months later & still kickin it!

Alright everyone buckle up because tons happened this week! I can't believe it's only been a week since I emailed last; this week we were crazy busy with miracle after miracle falling from the sky. Multiple times this week Sister Utsch and I were blown away by the miracles the Lord handed to us. Sister Utsch and I are coming off of a few really tough weeks and some pretty discouraging things...but I know that the hard weeks we've had helped us appreciate the miraculous and wonderful week that we have just experienced!

To start off, on Tuesday we had zone conference! We were able to receive some awesome training from President and Sister Wheeler, and Sister Utsch and I won first place for best maintained car for the third transfer in a row! That was exciting. The only time that L could meet this week was Tuesday afternoon...in the middle of zone conference...so we had to get permission from our Zone Leaders, the Assistants to the President, AND President Wheeler to be able to leave zone conference for an hour so we could have a lesson with her. The ZLs and the APs were like "Ehhh...might not be a good idea to leave in the middle of zone conference. Ask President." And then when we asked President he was like "Yeah?? It's better to DO missionary work than TALK about missionary work right??" Haha I love President Wheeler. We weren't exactly sure what to teach L because we had been feeling like the past couple of lessons were good, but that she wasn't progressing as well as she could have. We decided to go over the restoration again and we read Joseph Smith History. The Spirit was strong, and it was a good lesson. Before the lesson, Sister Utsch and I prayed about a date to extend for baptism, and we felt pretty strongly about December 2nd. We also felt strongly that if the desire didn't come from her then the baptism wouldn't happen. So we decided to extend the date for December 2nd and then invite her to pray about it and get the confirmation for herself. However, during the lesson, we didn't extend the date. We merely invited her to pray about a baptism day. Afterwards we both felt like we had followed the Spirit but we were really nervous because sometimes when you invite investigators to pray about baptism days they decide on a day like five months in the future and then it never actually happens....

I'm at church not an art gallery

Fast forward to Wednesday, on Wednesday we had district meeting and then Family Home Afternoon with one of the senior couples. Afterwards, Sister Utsch and I went on exchanges with the sisters we live with. I was with Sister Cordon and we were in her area, so we biked to a church building to do companionship study. LITERALLY 30 minutes into the exchange I get a call from Sister Utsch on Facebook messenger. I answer the call and I'm pretty confused...we don't typically communicate with one another on exchanges, and we NEVER call one another on Facebook messenger haha so I was like this must be an emergency. Sister Utsch goes "SISTER JACOBSON L JUST TEXTED US AND SAID THAT SHE HAD A PROMPTING TO MEET WITH US AND WANTS TO MEET AT 4:30!!!" I was like "Today?!" and she's like "YES!!" and I look at the clock and I'm like "IT'S 4 OCLOCK!!!" and she's like "I KNOW!! We can't go on exchanges. I just know that we both need to be at this lesson. Sister Ultzi and I are climbing in the car right now and coming to pick you up." Haha it was crazy. So we exchange back super quick, and then Sister Utsch and I went to the church building to wait for L. We were terrified. We were like...this is going to go one of two ways...either she's going to say she wants to be baptized...or she's going to drop us and say she's not interested anymore. We said a couple very fervent prayers, and read a couple chapters out of the Book of Mormon together...and then L walked in....and she was smiling!! That was a weight lifted off our chests. She goes "Sisters today I had an opportunity to share the gospel." and proceeds to tell us this story of how she invited a high school friend to the institute building at ASU to study with her and they started talking about God. Her friend, M, felt like God had abandoned him during a hard time in his life; L testified to him that she knew that God was there and that if he asked God in prayer if He loved him then God would answer him. M said he would pray, and then he said "But how will I know that I'm receiving an answer?" And she shared Doctrine and Covenants 9:8, which says, "But, behold, I say unto you, that you must study it out in your mind; then you must ask me if it be right, and if it is right I will cause that your bosom shall burn within you; therefore, you shall feel that it is right." Too good. A few weeks ago in gospel principles we talked about praying and we practiced teaching someone how to pray. She said that that practice helped prepare her to teach M! And he committed to pray! Then she said "Sisters...I just feel so happy because I know that he's going to pray and he's going to get an answer and it's going to be the best thing ever...is this how you feel ALL THE TIME?!" and we were like...yeah basically! Haha and she was like "And I just needed to tell someone about it...and I knew that you two would be excited so I decided to text you!" and then she said, "And on my way back from ASU I just wanted to keep the Spirit with me, so I turned on some Hymns...and then I realized that I hadn't kept your commitment from yesterday to pray about a baptismal day, so I started praying about a baptismal day." AND THEN SHE SAID, "And as I prayed I realized that these past couple weeks I haven't really been progressing...and I know that the reason why I haven't been progressing is because I need to be baptized. I realized that if the Lord can use me as an instrument to share the gospel NOW, without the Holy Ghost, then He'll REALLY be able to use me once I have the Holy Ghost. And I also realized that I hadn't kept your commitment from a couple weeks ago to write down my testimony...and the Lord knew I wasn't going to do that...so He gave me this opportunity to BEAR my testimony, and when I bore my testimony to M I realized how important this gospel is to me. Sisters...I want to be baptized December 2nd." Sister Utsch and I were blown away. We got teary eyed and we were SO excited for her!! It's amazing because this came 100% from her. We had felt like December 2nd was the day, but we didn't tell her that we'd felt that way. This is a prime example of the role of the Holy Ghost in conversion. Imagine if Sister Utsch and I hadn't extended the commitment to write down her testimony a few weeks ago, or if she hadn't have invited her friend to the institute building, or if we hadn't have practiced teaching someone how to pray in gospel principles, or if she hadn't kept the Spirit with her as she was driving back from ASU. There are so many puzzle pieces that had to fit just right...I've often said on my mission that this isn't our work; it's the Lord's. Trust me, if this was our work we would have messed this up a long time ago. The Lord knew exactly what He was doing prompting us to extend that commitment, and prompting L to invite her friend to the institute building, and prompting the gospel principles instructor to plan to practice teaching someone to pray, etc. We are SO excited for L and SO excited for December 2nd. Keep her in your prayers!

We're #1!

On Tuesday we received a call from a member in one of our wards. She told us that they have a nonmember living with them who is interested in learning more about the church! His name is D and he is from the Philippines! Two weeks ago his wife died, and two days after she passed away, he suffered from a stroke. Fourteen years ago he met with the missionaries, but he wasn't ready. But as you can imagine, he is pretty humble right now. So we went over and taught him on Tuesday night....and long story short we had four lessons with him this week!! We taught him the Restoration, the Plan of Salvation, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and had a lesson focusing on the importance of Priesthood authority and prophets. There's a little bit of a language barrier, and his speech is pretty slurred as a result of the stroke, but we're getting better at understanding him! He's an honest seeker of truth and this week we've seen him make little changes in his life. The first time he prayed out loud with us on Tuesday he was really hesitant and he prayed to Jesus Christ. But then last night he was excited to pray with us, prayed to Heavenly Father, and closed in the name of Jesus Christ. In addition, his prayers have become more fervent. He told us last night that he doesn't want to ask for anything from God unless he truly feels like he needs it; which is why he didn't ask God if our message was true the first time we met with him. But the past two times he's asked very sincerely if our message is true. He is also reading the Book of Mormon and he came to church yesterday! He told us that he loves our church because everyone is so nice and actually lives our religion. He is super big on true conversion, from the heart. He always says that true conversion changes the way that we are...it's pretty cool to see how important that is to him! He's the sweetest man and we have loved getting to know him this week! So far the biggest challenge is helping him understand the importance of Priesthood authority. His big thing is that he and his wife were baptized in the Jordan River like fifteen years ago--he's very proud of it, he loves talking about it! And it is pretty cool; not many people can say they were baptized in the Jordan River haha...but he thinks that because he was baptized in the same river as Jesus Christ that he is good to go, so it's been a little bit challenging trying to help him understand that the person who baptized him did not have the authority to perform that ordinance. We're excited to keep working with him! 

The AGM sisters invited to help at the Mesa Temple lights

This week we had a meeting up at the Mesa Temple for all the sisters who have been asked to help out at the Christmas lights! It was so fun! I seriously felt like I was in a police briefing room or something haha. They had a blueprint of the temple grounds with all of the places where the missionaries would be mapped out, plus there are different code phrases we need to know in case we get in a bad situation, and Sister Utsch told me that last year they had pictures of people to avoid. It was very serious. I was half expecting them to pull out red string and start drawing lines between clues to solve the mystery haha just kidding. 

This week Sister Utsch and I also met so many solid potentials. We had a lot of moments where we "happened" to be biking past someone's house right as they "happened" to come out of it and we stopped and talked to them and they invited us back, purely for the reason that it was so "coincidental" that we were in the same place at the same time. I'm tellin ya, there are no such things as coincidences in the eyes of the Lord! 

Last night we picked up a new investigator from the Mesa missionaries, T! We had a hand off lesson with the Mesa sisters at the Mesa visitor's center and we got to teach T! She is on date for baptism for January 6th but she is BEYOND golden, and beyond ready to be baptized, so it will likely be moved sooner. She is so awesome. To name a few things...she's been going to church for eight months consistently (we are so confused how she is not baptized yet) and she has a solid testimony of the Book of Mormon. Oh, also she attended this past General Conference. T was floored when we told her that we live three streets North of her, that there are awesome members that live on her street, and that we can meet more than once a week since she doesn't have to drive all the way to downtown Mesa to meet with us! Everyone, THIS is why you don't teach people outside of your area (or your mission, for that matter...)...because it is going to be far, far better for T's long-term conversion to be attending the ward she lives in. Not gonna lie, Sister Utsch and I are pretty ticked that the Mesa missionaries didn't pass her off months ago like they should have, because now she is attached to their ward...which is about a 45 minute drive from where she lives, and because if she had been able to meet bi-weekly with the missionaries then she would have progressed a lot quicker. Luckily T is so prepared and so ready to go that she is willing to attend our ward and be passed off so close to her baptism! The past is in the past and Sister Utsch and I feel so blessed and so grateful to have the opportunity to teach T at this time! 

Exchanges with Sis. Ultzi

On top of the crazy amount of lessons we taught this week, we also threw in two exchanges! Obviously, we had to reschedule the exchange with the sisters we live with haha, so we did that on Thursday. I was with Sister Ultziduuren in my area and we had an awesome day! She's from Mongolia and is probably one of the sweetest people I've met in my entire life. We knocked a lot of empty doors but it was great getting to know her better! 

Exchanges with Sis. Jensen

The second exchange was with Sister Jensen, also in my area! Sister Jensen is in the middle of her third transfer and is an awesome missionary! We had a couple of song practices and meetings to attend so we didn't have much time to proselyte on the exchange; but we did have the opportunity to eat some bomb cinnamon rolls at a YSA new member meeting so Sister Jensen told me it was a successful exchange in her book haha. 

A few funny stories from this week:

During one of our lessons with D, we invited him to church and he said "I cannot promise I will be there." So Sister Utsch and I started testifying about the importance of church and trying to follow the Spirit to resolve his concern, we asked the members how attending church has blessed their lives, etc. and like fifteen minutes later we invite him to church again and he says "I cannot promise I will be there." We were like...D are you kidding us? So we go "What would be holding you back??" and he says "What if an emergency happens and I end up not being able to go and you're there looking for me?!" and started laughing so hard. We felt pretty silly haha...that's not a concern we're used to dealing with!

With my mom & my sister :)

We had a member lesson this week and at the end we asked the question, "Do you know anyone in your lives that could maybe use the gospel?" and their little girl pipes up and says "Satan!" Hahahahahaha it was priceless. Sister Utsch goes "Ooh I'd hate to be his missionary." Too funny.

On the way back from the Mesa lights meeting I was driving and made a wrong turn and got hardcore lost in downtown Mesa. We didn't realize it for a while, but eventually we were like "We should have hit the 60 a long time ago...where are we?!" and we looked it up and realized we were so far away...haha I've never driven in downtown Mesa before…especially not in an Arizona Gilbert mission car! Haha but we made it back alive...phew! 

Anyways...those are the major highlights from our eventful week! Our week was filled with massive miracles like these, as well as little miracles. That's the amazing thing about the gospel; we are constantly being blessed, even if we've already been blessed! The Lord is so eager to bless us with the very best that he has to offer and I know that we in the Arizona Gilbert Mission are truly blessed with the best. I love this work and I love being a missionary! I love that the Lord can use me as an instrument in His hands notwithstanding my imperfections and weaknesses. 

I love you all!!

Sister Jacobson 

1st place in car maintenance...

...3 transfers in a row!