Sister Jacobson's Glimpses of Gilbert: Week 48: Merry Christmas

December 26, 2017

Hello!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas! It's been another great week in Arizona--the Christmas season is truly a special time of year! It's been a season full of miracles and I'm sad to see it end.

Mission-wide games!

Baptism Balloons!

Last Monday we had a special Christmas zone conference from 3-9 PM. It started with a super nice meal, and then the senior couples passed out Christmas presents for all of us. Then we had about an hour and a half of mission-wide games. It was minute-to-win-it style games and we discovered that Desert Ridge is not very good at minute to win it haha. Then we had a mission-wide gingerbread contest, where we sent up two representatives from our zone at a time for about a minute each...and we were so ready to win....until the Elder who was sent to start the house forgot to put icing down in the tray and our house collapsed 30 seconds before we were supposed to be done. Haha it's all good...it made for some fun memories! Then we had a Christmas devotional from President and Sister Wheeler. My biggest take-away was that there is more to the Christmas story than what meets the eye! We read Luke 2 and hear it over and over during the Christmas season but there is so much more to learn from reading between the lines and understanding the historical context. To finish zone conference we released balloons for every single person that was baptized this year in the Arizona Gilbert Mission. We watched a video of all of the baptism pictures from this year and it was so cool knowing that six of those balloons were the H family and four of those balloons were the P family. T, L, K, and the K family will all be part of next years balloons!! :) The Spirit was so strong as our whole mission gathered together and sang “Silent Night” as we watched the balloons float away.

Sis. Small and me

Our tri-panionship

Tuesday morning bright and early we had to say goodbye to Sister Utsch. That about killed me. It was a blessing that we said goodbye so early because it didn't really feel real...but I've definitely felt her absence this week. It's weird spending 24/7 with someone for almost five months straight and then abruptly...not spending time with them haha. But Sister Small and I have seen miracles this week! And we already work really well together so we are excited for the future. Tuesday was a rough day because we said goodbye to Sister Utsch, and then we found out that our miracle baptism that was supposed to be happening this weekend was actually going to happen in a different area, and then a few appointments fell through, so we were feeling pretty disheartened but then a huge miracle fell from the sky. We were biking through one of our wards and we saw some people putting up Christmas lights. We stopped to talk with them and they were super friendly. They introduced themselves as "the D’s" and I about fell off my bike. They are a part-member family with a couple of OAYs in their 20s (AKA YSA potentials!) and the entire time Sister Utsch and I were together we knocked their door multiple multiple MULTIPLE times and they never once answered the door. We introduced ourselves as the missionaries and they were like "let us come and properly greet you!" The daughter, K, told us that she'd been praying for guidance recently because her grandpa died last week. She said that she felt strongly that she needed to get involved with the church. We were like...yeah...that's kind of our whole job. And she was so excited! We exchanged phone numbers with her and are looking forward to meeting with her after the New Year! I know that God placed us in her path that night!

We had the opportunity to go to the temple as a mission this week. I love the opportunities to gather with my entire mission!! Perks of a small mission! I'm tellin ya, stateside, English speaking, tiniest proselyting mission (so basically the only option left is the AGM) is the WAY TO GO. There was such a special spirit having our whole mission in the temple.

Exchanges with Sis. Baker

Blocked driveway

We went on exchanges this week. I was with Sister Baker, who has been on her mission for ten months, in my area. We had a great exchange! We were able to talk to a ton of people and found a lot of new potentials. Haha she forgot her helmet so we were unable to bike, so we were in the car the whole time...and we came out of the house in the morning to find a huge moving truck blocking our driveway. The workers were unloading HUGE furniture from the moving truck to our neighbor's house so we set off on foot from our house to do some work in the neighborhood! It was a first for us, we're so used to being on bikes!

We finally had another lesson with T this week! We taught her the word of wisdom, which we were slightly worried about, and she accepted it no problem at all. She is seriously golden beyond belief. She told us that she's been living the word of wisdom for a while now, the only thing she struggles with is coffee. We decided to move her baptism day back to January 20th so more of her family and friends could come. She is so solid and so ready for this next step! We are excited for her.

We also had another lesson with the K’s. We went with their home teacher, who is conveniently our ward mission leader and he read them the children's book "You Are Special." Back in the summer, Brother Buchholzer told them about this book and CK LOVED the idea of it. After that lesson the K’s started progressing much faster and it was all around just super inspired. Well, this week, he actually read the book with them and at the end he pulled out a bow, put it on the book, and gave it to the K family. They were so excited!! Then we all went around and shared how we know that we are special to Heavenly Father. We talked about how Heavenly Father knows us individually and Jesus Christ ministers to the one. The Spirit was really strong! It was a really nice break from the more contentious lessons we've been having with them recently. We love their family so much! They specifically planned to go to Mesa Lights on a night that we were working and went out of their way to find us...seriously I wish that everyone could know the K family!

Christmas Eve we spent the majority of the day in church. We narrated one of our ward's Christmas programs, which was fun, and then after church we had about an hour before dinner so we went and made some visits. Every single person we visited, someone from the ward was there. It was amazing; five out of the five houses we knocked on! We are so blessed to serve among such great members, people who are willing to spend their Christmas Eve going and ministering to the lost sheep! I want to be that way when I come home! We had hot wings for Christmas Eve dinner...which was very messy but also very delicious, and then starting at 6 PM it was appointment only. We tried to set appointments but failed, so we went home. By 6:30 we were in our pajamas, with our faces washed...and we were like...now what?! Haha we don't know how to have free time! So we played battleship, ate some food, and found a ridiculously difficult puzzle in our house--which consumed the rest of the evening.

Mini-family reunion

Skype!

Christmas Day was appointment only as well. We got up at 6:30 a.m., opened our stockings, and then we sat down and did more of the puzzle for an hour. (We are probably only 1/3 of the way done with it) And then we opened our presents! We got to Skype our families, which was so great and so fast, and then we ate lunch with the members whose home we Skyped at. Their kids were so excited that we got to talk to our families, during the Skype call they kept poking their heads into the room so they could see our families. I think they were more excited when we finished Skyping though because that meant that they could show us all of their presents. One of the daughters was so excited because she got a phone that "matched ours" and she wanted our help setting it up. Haha it was so cute! We had another appointment with a family that struggles a bit, and they really outdid themselves with the food they gave us. It was probably one of the best meals of my mission. To conclude the day we worked our final shift at the Mesa lights, and my aunt and uncle who live in Mesa came and found me walking the grounds! It was a fun little reunion and it was exciting to be able to see them...I knew it would happen at some point on my mission! :) We got to meet some really awesome people and talk to tons of people about the light of Christ. Christmas as a missionary is the best!

Pres. & Sis. Wheeler

Our mission president's Christmas present to us missionaries was that we got to watch a PG or G movie without any romance, so our zone watched “Moana”! It was so fun, especially since the majority of the missionaries in our zone hadn't seen it before. It was fun to hear their reactions to certain scenes, almost like being in a theater and seeing it for the first time again haha. All in all it was a great Christmas filled with loads of fun activities, but also filled with the Spirit and the true meaning of Christmas. I hope that everyone had the opportunity to think about Jesus Christ yesterday and remember the remarkable gift that He has given us.

I love you all! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! P-day is Tuesday next week as well.

Sister Jacobson