Week 53: Key Lime Pie

January 29, 2018

Hola!!!

I hope everyone has had a great week! It's been another busy one here, and unfortunately this week Sister Small's immune system failed her. She woke up a few days ago with a ton of congestion and her throat is killing her; she hasn't been sick in a few years so she says that her body is finally catching up to her haha! We're surprised that it took her so long to get sick, especially since I was sick for three weeks straight and the majority of our mission has been sick these past few weeks. Luckily I have a plethora of cold medication so we can take care of her!

This week we had zone conference! Some of my favorite memories from my mission are zone conferences; I always look forward to them. This zone conference was based off of Elder Lynn G. Robbins' talk "Be 100% Responsible." (https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/lynn-g-robbins_be-100-percent-responsible/) We read that talk for MLC a couple of months ago and it's seriously one of the best talks ever! President Wheeler told us that if we can learn how to be 100% responsible then we will be 100% successful and 100% happy. That's a pretty cool promise! This week Sister Small and I have been focusing on how to be more responsible in our proselyting efforts, with our stewardship, with our day to day tasks...basically everything! It's hard but it's also a valuable skill to learn.

Someone thanked us for helping?

You're welcome?

On Tuesday night we were biking through the neighborhood on our way to contact a potential investigator and we saw a lady walking her dogs smoking a cigarette and drinking some wine. We said hello as we passed, but we both felt like it was a pretty awkward situation to try and talk to her so we kept biking. We literally passed her, and both of us looked at each other and were like "We hate ourselves. This is a prime opportunity to contact her." but we still felt pretty awkward so we kept biking to the potentials house, only to realize that the address didn't exist. We decided that this was the Lord telling us clear as day to go and talk to this lady, so we turned around and went and talked to her. She was a little closed off at first, and kept saying "Have a great night!" but we kept finding things to talk about. Eventually we got on the subject of trusting in the Lord. She told us about the leap of faith it took for her to move to Arizona, because she left everything behind in Michigan. She told us that her family thought she was crazy for moving to Arizona, but now, four months later, it's the best decision she's ever made. And then she told us that a few years ago she'd gone on a humanitarian expedition to a little country in Africa, and while she was there war broke out in the country. She told us of a few of her experiences while she was there, and how she was lucky to escape unscathed, and how she knew that the Lord was protecting her because she was participating in a righteous cause. We had a great conversation about how the Lord places His trust in us, and when we act on our faith, He blesses us as a result. By the end of our conversation she was like "Please come back! I'm free again next Tuesday, definitely stop by the house!" So we are going back tomorrow night to hopefully teach her.

We had a lesson with L this week! I love that girl so much. She just loves her institute classes this semester and I swear every time we meet with her she's had another spiritual experience! She told us that she'd gone to the Bible study class with her mom and that it had been an awesome experience. She told us that it was different from our religion, and that she even noticed a difference in the Spirit that was present there! But she told us that the discussion question was "What is the purpose of life?" and she wasn't sure what to say, but then she remembered Elder Uchtdorf's devotional from a couple of weeks ago in which he talked about trusting the Lord in the present and then looking back at the end of your life and seeing all the different dots connect, so she made a comment like that, and everyone was amazed! She said that everyone in the group kept referring back to that comment! I felt like a proud mom listening to her tell us this story. We spent the majority of our lesson talking about how God is the source of all truth, and how when we receive answers from God we can trust that they are true. Then we talked about the Book of Mormon, and how it is another source of true doctrine. We talked about all the lessons we can learn from the Book of Mormon, and then we read 1 Nephi 3 and 4 together and applied it very directly to her life. I was pretty bold, I was basically like "I've been here for six months. I was here the first time you had a baptismal day, I was here when all the opposition arose from your family the first time, I was here the second time you had a baptismal day, I was here when all the opposition arose the second time, and I know that it's been discouraging, but I also know that the Lord won't give you anything that you can't handle. He WILL provide a way for you to be baptized." and the Spirit was really strong. I pray every single day that her parent's hearts will soften, because I want her to get baptized so bad and receive ALL of the blessings that the Lord has in store for her. I feel of the Lord's love for L so powerfully every lesson we have with her and I know that she does as well, I can only imagine what the Spirit will be like at her baptism when she is finally able to make that sacred covenant with the Lord.

This week we were talking about one of our investigators, K, who we haven't been able to get in with recently. Her grandma has been in and out of the hospital and it's just been a really rough time for her. We've texted her a few times but haven't been able to meet, and haven't wanted to be insensitive by just being like "hello can we pls meet with you?" Haha so we were brainstorming other ways of contacting her and decided to take a treat to her house! We went to Cafe Rio and picked up a key lime pie to take to her. The worker tried to put whipped cream on top, but he forgot to shake the can, so the whipped cream was legit liquid and soupy on top of this pie, but we were like...it's fine...it'll still taste good even if it looks weird! Haha. We always meet with K at the church because her parents want her to wait until she's eighteen to be baptized, so we've never been to her house. We were a little nervous, because we weren't sure how her parents would react. But we went to her house anyways, and it was like 8:45 at night, and her house was all dark, but her car was outside...so we knocked pretty quietly on the door...and no one answered. So we knocked a second time, but Sister Small somehow managed to stumble when she stepped forward to knock on the door and ended up crashing into the door and making a HUGE commotion, so we were super embarrassed, but we still waited. No one came to the door so there we were, standing on our investigator's doorstep...with a key lime pie that needed to be refrigerated so we didn't want to just leave it haha. But we didn't know what else to do...so we left the pie on the doorstep, and then we went to our car and called her...and she didn't answer...so we texted her and were like "CHECK YOUR DOORSTEP!!" and she replied! She was so grateful and opened up to us a little about how she is going through this really hard time, and she wants to meet this week! We have an appointment with her for Wednesday and we are so excited to help her see more about how the gospel can help her.

Exchanges with Sister Olsen

This week I went on exchanges with Sister Olsen, a sister who's been on her mission for thirteen months! She serves in Queen Creek, so it was my first time going back to the southern half of our mission for proselyting since my first transfer. Her area actually borders my greenie area so the whole day I was biking and I felt like I was reliving my first three months on my mission, because directly across the street was where I learned how to be a missionary! We had an AWESOME exchange, probably one of the best ones I've ever been on. We had an awesome contact with a potential investigator and he was so enthusiastic about having us come back the next day. Then right towards the end of the evening nothing we had planned felt right so we prayed, and she felt like we needed to drop by one of their investigators. As we were walking up to the door Sister Olsen was like "She's usually really busy...so I don't think we'll be able to get in and sit down with her." but she opened the door, was so happy to see us, and invited us right in! We visited briefly, and then she told us that in her old neighborhood she had always seen the LDS people walking to church together on Sunday and she'd always wanted to go with them, but no one had ever invited her. We were able to invite her to church and she was SO excited to find out that she could come with us; she literally had no idea that anyone was welcome! Super cool. The next day we had a service project and it was legit manual labor. We were building raised gardening beds for a part-member family and it was a lot of lifting blocks, digging trenches, shoveling manure, raking hay, and mixing dirt. My back is still sore! But it was really cool to see this family's hearts softening as we served them.

Queen Creek zone sports

While I was on exchanges, Sister Small followed up with someone who Bishop had brought to church on Christmas. We hadn't been able to set up a return appointment with her at Christmas, and we weren't sure where she lived...but then this week we saw her in her car at a stop light...and then as we were biking through the neighborhood we saw the car, so we guessed it was her house haha. Divine design! But anyways, this lady is beyond golden. She was SO excited to see Sister Small and gave her a huge hug and was like "I can't wait to come to church again!! I want to learn more about Jesus Christ!!" But unfortunately, she is moving this week to Apache Junction, so we will not be able to teach her. :( She's supposed to come to church this week though so keep her in your prayers!

Last night we went to a potential's house who I met two months ago. He was SO nice, and we helped him rake leaves, and he told us to come back....in January when he got back from being out of town. I didn't have a ton of faith that he was actually interested, but then we went by last night and had an awesome conversation with him and he wants us to come back later this week to sit down and talk with him! We are so excited!

Anyways, I gotta run! I love you all and hope you have a great week!

Sister Jacobson 

Someone didn't like my park job