Sister Jacobson's Glimpses of Gilbert: Week 55: Too Much Sun Makes a Desert

February 12, 2018

Hello hello!

Sk8 is lyfe

Which is drier, the desert or my week? You decide. I hate to say it, but it's been another really, really rough week here in Desert Ridge. We honestly had a string of like four days where the only door that opened was our dinner appointment, and where no one was outside. It's crazy, because this is the NICE time of year in Arizona, usually everyone and their dog is outside...but this week was seriously a ghost town. Or, if they were outside, they were anti and not pleased to see us. Good times. A while ago I heard a phrase that says, "Too much sunshine makes a desert," and I've thought about it a lot ever since. Here in Arizona, we are super duper familiar with the desert...and with the hot sunshine that creates the desert! If you think about places like Hawaii, they're full of lush, tropical greenery but also plenty of sunshine. The greenery couldn't exist without vast amounts of rain, because if Hawaii was sunny all the time then it would just be another Arizona. However, the rain mixed with the sunshine creates a perfect vacation spot! If you place the analogy in the context of our lives, then the desert would represent a life filled with too many good things--to the point where it wouldn't even be good anymore because it would be the norm, and the Hawaii would be a life filled with both "sunny", or good, days/weeks and "rainy", or bad, days/weeks. Personally, I would much rather have a life filled with good and bad, that way I can recognize and better appreciate the good when it comes! So even though this week was really tough, I know that it is just a rainstorm and that beautiful greenery is ahead.

Exchanges with Sis. Foster

We went on two exchanges this week. The first was with Sister Foster, who has been on her mission for nine months. We stayed in my area and had a day full of knocking doors! We knocked on a member's door and they gave us a couple of referrals, but none of them were home. We ended up knocking on a potential's door, who I had met a couple months ago on exchanges but had never been able to meet again, and he was home! We were able to give him a BOM and invite him to read it. He said he wants to come to church, so I told him the place/time of the YSA ward. Come to find out like three days later that he is 100% married with a baby...so that's awkward. We haven't been able to get back in contact with him...and he wasn't at YSA yesterday haha so we'll see what happens.

Exchanges with Sis. Diebold

The second exchange was with Sister Diebold, who has been on her mission for four months! She is an ENERGIZER BUNNY, let me tell ya. We had a really fun time working together in her area. No doors had opened the entire time we were together, and it was like twenty minutes before we were supposed to exchange back, and we decided to stop by a random potential from the area book. As we got to the house, the potential had just gotten home, so we waited a minute or two before knocking on the door. The lady was pretty stand-offish at first, but we told her that we knew she'd talked to missionaries before, and asked about her experience with them. She was surprised to see girl missionaries haha but told us that she really wasn't interested. We told her that that was okay, and we asked her religious background. She told us she was raised JW and right away I was like...awesome...this is gonna end in a bash. But we kept talking to her and found out that because she was JW she was an outcast growing up, and she has a lot of negative feelings towards organized religion as a result. We were able to testify to her that it doesn't have to be that way, and we testified to her that Jesus Christ accepted everyone regardless of who they were. It was a really spiritual interaction, and it ended with her inviting us to come back to teach her daughter about Jesus Christ! It was an awesome miracle!

Sister Small and I taught one lesson this week to the K family. CK met with bishop last week and had a great visit with him! She left feeling uplifted and inspired, as opposed to two months ago where she was ready to bail ship after meeting with him haha...so it's huge progress! We read Ether 2 and 3 with them, and talked about the Brother of Jared. This is MK's favorite story in the Book of Mormon so he was PUMPED. We focused a lot on faith and how faith can become knowledge if we nurture it enough. MK's favorite part is in verses 19 and 20, where it says, "...he had faith no longer, for he knew, nothing doubting. (20) Wherefore, having this perfect knowledge of God, he could not be kept from within the veil; therefore he saw Jesus; and he did minister unto him." We talked a lot about how God has ministered to them individually and how He has helped them come closer to Christ. It was a spirit-filled lesson, and it ended with us inviting them to read President Oak's talk from the October 2000 General Conference, "The Challenge To Become," (https://www.lds.org/ensign/2000/11/the-challenge-to-become?lang=eng) which is an awesome talk, if you've never read it I highly recommend!

Other than that...as I said in paragraph one...super dry. It's been a very humbling week. I feel like my weaknesses are just glaring and the natural man in me has been really apparent this week. I am so impatient, and I've been so easily frustrated this week as appointments and things have fallen through, and things haven't gone as planned. Mosiah 3:19 has been on constant repeat in my mind this week: "For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father." I've been reminded this week how much this work truly is the Lords, and if we think for even a split second that we are in control, that we can handle it by our own merits, then we are 110% wrong. EVERYTHING in this work is the Lord's timing, and it is our responsibility to be worthy servants and vessels for His Spirit to reside within us, and it is our responsibility to submit to His will in ALL things, even if it is contrary to our will at times, because the truth is, He knows His children and He knows what's best for them.

The good news is, with the absence of gigantic, glaring miracles this week we were able to look for little miracles and small tender mercies. Here are a few:

1. One night we were about to go on splits with one of our ward auxiliaries. We were sitting in our car for a few moments before going to the door, when we saw a lady standing outside the driver's window wearing a neck brace. I rolled down my window and she says, very disappointed, "Well...you're NOT the Chinese delivery man." No, we are not. Sorry to disappoint. Haha.

2. Last night we were treated to a Tongan feast. One of our Relief Society President's is married to a man from Tonga and he and his mom were SO EXCITED to have us over for dinner and give us Tongan food! We ate a variety of tasty food, and also a variety of not so tasty food...but it was an experience I won't forget! Their son plays volleyball and may or may not be more obsessed than me, so he updated me real well on the BYU men's team this year and didn't think it was weird that I casually knew so much about men's volleyball. So that was exciting.

Wearing the pony cause it's hot

3. Sister Small and I went to lunch after exchanging back one day and were getting our drinks when we hear a guy go, "Sisters!!" We turn around and it was a summer sales bro. He says, "I didn't even need to see the tags, I'd know those skirts from a mile away." Rude. Haha but we had a good laugh, I guess ugly sister missionary skirts are universal in all missions.

4. Last night we stopped by a family who has left the church. Sister Small used to visit them all the time when she was in this area before, but since I've been in the area we haven't visited them at all. I was pretty nervous, because I've heard some sketchy stories about them...but we just asked if we could use the bathroom and thirty minutes later were having an awesome conversation about the gospel! They asked us how we decided to serve missions, and we shared a few scriptures, and then he started telling us about his mission. He served in Japan, which was perfect because I randomly have so many connections to Japan (family members serving there, been there, previous companion from Japan, etc.)! At one point he was telling us a story and he was like "My companion and I were out working...we were..." and he stopped and was like "Man, I don't know the English word for it..." and I was like "Is it dendo?" and he lit right up and was like "YES!!!" You should have seen the look on Sister Small's face when I turned to her and said, "So they were tracting..." hahaha she was so surprised that I knew what word he was looking for. Shout-out to all my friends serving in Japan that have used the word “dendo” in their weekly emails for the past year or so! Anyways, the spirit was definitely there and it was an awesome encounter! We are hopeful that it touched their lives!

That's my week! We are going to the temple next Wednesday so Wednesday will most likely be our p-day. I love you all!

Sister Jacobson