Sister Jacobson's Glimpses of Gilbert: Week 57: Breakin Hearts and Breakin Ankles

February 26, 2018

Helllllllooooo!

Transfer 9 in the books

It's been a quick few days since I last emailed, but we have truly been blessed these past couple of days! Sister Small and I are ending this transfer on a high note.

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

Last night we were striking out with everyone we planned in and we felt like we weren't doing what the Lord wanted us to do with our evening, so we stopped and said a prayer. In the middle of the prayer, a name came into my head clear as day. The name was the name of our ward mission leader's family. I was a little bit puzzled, we see them all the time! And when the prayer ended I turned to Sister Small and I was like "Call me crazy...but I think we need to go to the Buchholzers right now." and she was like "Really? Because me too." So we hopped on our bikes and headed over there. On our way we saw a man walking his dog and we stopped and talked to him. His name was J. It was a pretty chilly evening last night (It's been dipping into the 30s at night here) but he stopped and talked to us for a good ten minutes! We had a great conversation about his beliefs and about his faith and we were able to invite him to the Easter pageant! He wasn't interested in learning more about our message at this time, but we know that we were sent to the Buchholzers to find J along the way. When we made it to the Buchholzers they weren't even home, but because we were inspired to go there we were able to meet J and help him feel of Christ's love!

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

Well...to end...yesterday Sister Small and I got the worst news in the whole world. After 7.5 incredible months I am being transferred from Desert Ridge! I knew it was coming, and honestly, it's probably time, but it still doesn't make it any easier to leave. I feel like I was made to serve in Desert Ridge, and the people here feel like family! I cannot imagine my mission without these months in Desert Ridge, and I am so thankful for all of the people who I have been able to meet in this area. It truly is the forgotten promise land. Also as if being in emotional pain from leaving D-Ridge wasn't enough, this morning at zone sports I got trucked by an Elder and hurt my ankle so now my ankle is swollen and hurts. I've never been hurt physically on my mission before so this should be fun! Anyways, I am brokenhearted to leave Desert Ridge, and apparently broken ankled as well, but am excited for the future! I love you all!

Sister Jacobson