February 26, 2018
Helllllllooooo!
Transfer 9 in the books |
To start off, on Friday we had a lesson with L! We planned
to teach a lesson on faith in Jesus Christ and focus on how exercising our
faith helps us increase our faith. As we were planning for the lesson, Sister
Small and I were trying to determine what commitment we needed to extend to L.
We prayed and asked Heavenly Father what commitment He wanted us to extend to
her, and to our surprise the answer we received was, "Invite her to be
baptized on a specific day." Sister Small and I were shocked. We were SO
nervous heading into the lesson, but the Spirit was with us! We read President
Uchtdorf's talk "Fourth Floor Last Door" (https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2016/10/fourth-floor-last-door?lang=eng)
and had a great discussion about faith in Jesus Christ and why it's
important/how it can help us in every aspect of our lives. We talked about how
developing hope leads to faith, and we brought a recent convert with us who has
had a similar conversion experience as L. The Spirit was really strong. When it
came time for us to extend the invite to baptism we were so scared; we were
worried that L would feel like we were pressuring her or that we didn't care
about her concerns--all of which are far from the truth. But we felt so
prompted to invite her to baptism that we trusted in the Lord and invited her
to be baptized on March 24th. I think it definitely surprised her; I don't
think she was expecting that commitment from us...she got pretty emotional and
Sister Small and I could tell that she was so nervous, especially to talk with
her parents...but she committed to prepare for baptism on the 24th! I know that
this commitment was inspired from the Lord; I know that He wanted us to invite
her to baptism, and I know that even just accepting a date for baptism is a
huge leap of faith. We told her that her desire to be baptized, and her working
towards this date is her exercising her faith and that Heavenly Father is proud
of her. The Spirit was so strong. Please, please pray for her...we love her so
much and she could use all the prayers she could get!
Friday night we had dinner with a
family in our area who is a big-time volleyball family. The first time I ate
dinner at their house they asked Sister Utsch maybe two questions (1. Where are
you from? 2. How long have you been out?) and the rest of the time was spent
grilling me about volleyball. There was some serious bonding that took place
and now they love me. So anyways, we're about halfway through dinner with this
family, the Hursts, on Friday and I made a comment in passing about how my dad
served his mission in Japan. Brother Hurst stops me and goes, "How old is
your dad?" So I tell him and he says, "Well hold on, my dad is the same
age...I'm going to call him right now and ask him if he knew an Elder
Jacobson!" and I was a little bit like...okay but Japan is a big
place...there's multiple missions...the odds are pretty low. But Brother Hurst
calls his dad and sure enough his dad is like "Elder Jacobson? Yeah I knew
him! He was an Assistant to the President..." and starts rattling off
these other specific details about my dad's mission! It was crazy! And then
like five minutes later, Brother Hurst goes "yeah and my birthday is March
30th..." and I was like....wait wait wait...YOUR birthday is March 30th??
MY birthday is March 30th! Haha we were laughing so hard! Crazy!
Saturday morning we had a lesson with the K family. Right
now our biggest struggle with them is we want to teach their kids, but MK and CK
have some pretty big concerns that we can't just...ignore haha. Planning for
lessons is difficult because we're trying to plan things that will help both of
them. However, we decided to focus our lesson Saturday mainly on the kids. We
taught the Plan of Salvation again. Sister Utsch and I had taught it once a
long time ago, but we thought it would be a good refresher for the kids. We
used Sister Small's Plan of Salvation cutouts and had LK and DK put the pieces
together as we taught a super short-like 10 minute Plan of Salvation lesson. It
was so cool to see how much the kids have remembered, even though we haven't
taught the POS in a while! They are doing great, and we love them so much.
Picture wall at Persimmon palace |
Yesterday at church we had a killer miracle. Sister Small and
I have been working our butts off this transfer and we haven't seen any huge
miracles or anything like that, but yesterday was awesome. In the beginning of
January Sister Small and I were trying to contact a potential investigator in
the area book and met these two ladies who had recently moved in named S and M.
They invited us in, and we were able to visit with them for a little bit. In
the course of our conversation it became really obvious that they were
well-acquainted with the church so I asked them how they knew so much. They
said, "We used to be members, but had our names removed from the records
because it brought so much discord in the family." We had a nice visit,
and we invited them to church, but we gathered that they were not too
interested in coming back at that time. These ladies could not live in a more
perfect location. They live directly across the street from the stake
president, right next door to a member of our bishopric, down the street from
our recent converts and another family in the ward, and their babysitter is
another one of our investigators! So after our initial visit with them we
walked across the street and invited our stake president to take his family
over and introduce themselves. We didn't think much about it, but a few weeks
later a family in the ward told us that their kids are in the same class as M's
kids and M told them how much she loved our visit! These past few weeks Sister
Small and I have been thinking a lot about S and M and their family, so we
decided to stop by and invite them to church again. We've knocked their door
probably three or four times these past two weeks and hadn't ever gotten back
in...so we were kinda like ooh maybe we're NOT feeling inspired? Maybe we're
just being annoying? But on Saturday we felt really prompted to drop by so we
went, and M answered the door!! She invited us in and her kids did a talent
show for us! While we were there, M told us that her brother passed away
suddenly two weeks ago and it had been a really tough time for them. She said
her mom, S, wasn't taking it too well. She also told us that the Wold's (stake
president's family) had been awesome about watching the kids and the house and
helping them through this difficult time. We shared the classic 2 Nephi 26:24 (“He
doeth not anything save it be for the benefit of the world; for he loveth the
world, even that he layeth down his own life that he may draw all men unto him.
Wherefore, he commandeth none that they shall not partake of his salvation.”) and asked them how they feel Christ's love for them. S got
emotional and left the room, and it was really pretty awkward....so we left
them with our testimonies and left without an invite to church or anything. We
were both really worried that we'd done more damage than good, but we trusted
that the Spirit was there.
So Sunday morning rolls around and Sister Wold comes running
up to us as we're greeting at the door. She goes "Sisters! M texted me this
morning and asked what time church was, said they were getting ready, and said
they would be here." We were floored! We were totally not expecting that!
Sure enough, they came, and stayed for all three hours! What's better, it was
ward conference yesterday so Bishop spoke about the importance of yoking
ourselves to Jesus Christ so He can help us carry our burdens. Also President
Wold spoke on the importance of being a good neighbor. It was an awesome talk,
especially since he was speaking in his home ward...so the people were
literally his neighbors, and especially since S and M...as close as neighbors can
get were there! Literally we watched the stars align perfectly and there is not
a doubt in my mind that the Lord's hand was in all of this. Seriously, Heavenly
Father knew that Sister Small and Sister Jacobson would be looking through the
Mountain Ranch Ward Area Book in January 2018 and would decide to contact a
potential who had moved, but He knew that S and M would have moved in. He knew
that they had been going through a tough time, so He prompted us to pay them a
visit, and He knew that we would feel uncomfortable inviting them to church so
He let the Spirit work on them so they could find a way to come on their own!
It was awesome to see everything work out, and it was awesome to see the ward
reach out and welcome them with open arms! I had so much Mountain Ranch Ward
pride yesterday! The Lord truly placed prepared people in the paths of prepared
servants.
Z sports with Marvets, Diebold, Small & me |
Sister Jacobson
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