Week 61: Back on the Farm

March 26, 2018

Exchanges with Sis. Schwab

Howdy folks!

Well it’s been another great week out yonder in the great AGM! We had a lot of great experiences this week and a few more cultural experiences as well!

This week we had interviews with President and Sister Wheeler--seriously the best day of the transfer! I always walk away so refreshed and ready to go out and get some work done. There's so much I have learned from President and Sister Wheeler and there's so much I still have left to learn from them!

This week we had the opportunity to go on two exchanges. The first exchange I was with Sister Schwab, a sister who has been on her mission for five months. She is a stud! She is in the middle of her fourth transfer and she is whitewash training. Our exchange was spent visiting lots of potentials and we taught a couple of lessons. One of the lessons was after a service for a former investigator and this lady now wants to go to the Easter Pageant with the sisters!

Exchanges with Sis. Foster

The second exchange I was with Sister Foster in my area! Well...sort of. We had a service with the Queen Creek zone bright and early Saturday morning so Sister Rowley and I both just slept over at the sisters house, and then we had service until Saturday afternoon so we really only had a few hours to work in my area. We still had an awesome time together and even though we were exhausted after being in the sun all morning we still saw miracles!

Milking the goat

So our zone leaders live with this super old rancher. They live in a tiny shack in his backyard and help him take care of his property, and every morning they have chores they need to do before leaving. They always come to meetings and zone activities with the best stories from all their ranch experience! This week some of the goats this rancher has had babies, and the kids were struggling eating, so our zone leaders were telling us about how they kept having to milk the mother goat and then feed the baby goats. They were telling us how exhausted they were, how time consuming it was, and about how they were worried their area was going to suffer since they were having to take care of the goats for so long. We decided to help them out so they could get some missionary work done so one night this week we went over and helped feed the goats! We milked them and then fed them, and we even got them to latch onto the mother so they could feed themselves! It was a highly cultural experience and we were both very excited to have gained some ranch experience.

On Wednesday we had another lesson with A. We talked all about what she'd felt on Sunday night and how overwhelming it was. We also talked about ways she could tell her mom about her desire/decision to be baptized. We focused on making it a really spiritual experience for her, so that she could remember what she had felt on Sunday night, and she told us that ever since Sunday she'd been so much more sensitive to the promptings of the Holy Ghost. We had a member there who provided some awesome insight and helped make it an all around great experience for A.

Mesa Easter Pageant with A

On Thursday night Sister Rowley and I had the opportunity to go to the Easter Pageant with A! We drove with her up to Mesa and on the way there she told us that she'd talked to her mom that morning. She said that it went better than expected, and that her mom said she would support her in the decision, although she did not agree with it. She told us that they talked for an hour and her mom listened to her and the things that she was saying!  Then she told us that she had decided for sure, she wanted to be baptized April 5th! Ever since then she's just taken the bull by the horns. She is planning everything. The program is already done, she made an event on Facebook, and she's inviting everyone! It's so cool to see how excited she is for this, and she is all-in. Sister Rowley and I have both never had an investigator take the initiative like this before so it's really neat to see her plan her own baptism. It's going to be a really great day!

The pageant was awesome! It was my third time seeing it (twice last year, once this year) and it's still just so good! My favorite part is the song depicting the ministry of Jesus Christ. I feel the Spirit so strongly every time I see that scene. I love how that song brings in so many different miraculous events from Christ's life, and the music that is behind it is just filled with so much love...just like the Savior has for us! I'm sad that this is the last year for the pageant for a little bit! (The temple will be going through a major renovation so it will be closed until 2020.)

We also had two lessons with our investigator C this week. At our first lesson with her she told us that she has received an answer that Joseph Smith is a prophet! We were pumped, and we asked her if she'd thought any more about her baptism. She said that she had, but that she wanted to wait until the end of the school year. We tried to convince her to move it sooner, but she told us that she wanted to wait so she could focus completely and 100% on her baptism and not be stressed about school on top of that.

But then later in the week we had a video lesson with her over Facebook messenger and she told us that she'd been praying about when to be baptized and she just knew that she needed to be baptized April 28th! She was so excited and she told us that as she was praying she realized that school ending wasn't going to make her life any less crazy, and that she just needed to get baptized. She also told us that she started to pray with the intent of picking a day in May, so April 28th like blindsided her but she felt so confident and so good about it. Woohooo! So, so far, for next month Sister Rowley and I have two baptisms that we are pretty confident will happen! Blessings and miracles!

That's about what I got, there was more that happened but I think those are the main points! Sorry for a little bit of a lame email! But I love you all!

Sister Jacobson

Goat milking ft Bro. Jensen

Baby goat with Sis. Rowley

Go Cardinals!

No one wanted their picture taken

Service with the Queen Creek zone

Picture with the "Dayton's Legs" family

Week 60: K Got Baptized

March 19, 2018

Hello hello!

Blockin out the haters

Right on par with the other weeks of this transfer, this one breezed by. Sister Rowley and I are staying SO busy this transfer and the Lord has really opened up the windows of heaven and given us so many blessings! There is not enough time in the world to talk about all the miracles we've seen this week...but here are just a few highlights:

Exchanges with Sis. King

This week I had the opportunity to go on exchanges with Sister King! We were together in my area, and I led out this area for the first time! I was really stressed, but we had an awesome day together. I've served around Sister King a lot, and she's been in my stewardship several times but we've never been on an exchange together. We were excited for the opportunity to spend the day together! She goes home at the end of this transfer so we were able to set goals and make plans for her to be able to finish her mission strong. A little bit of a silly story: We were trying to contact this potential investigator living in the apartments in our area, and we ended up meeting this guy named C. He was just getting home from the grocery store and wasn't in the mood to talk to us, so I just ended up asking him if there was anything we could do for him and to my surprise he goes, "Actually yeah...know any good steak recipes??" Haha but then it was his turn to be surprised because I was like, "Yeah! Throw some soy sauce, pepper, and pressed garlic in a bag and marinade the steak for like fifteen minutes, cook the steak four minutes on each side and you'll be golden!" It was awesome! I've been told by several people I make tasty steak, so I'm glad I was able to help him out. A little bit of a silly story, but it was a good reminder to me that it is truly inspired that we are in our specific areas, contacting these specific people!

K's baptism

This week was also K's baptism!! This was an event that Sister Rowley and I were really looking forward to because we knew that the Spirit would be super strong. It did not disappoint! K was SO excited for her baptism. She was baptized by her nephew, and as he said the prayer, K started bawling. She was SO excited to be able to make that covenant and come closer to Jesus Christ. The Spirit flooded the room, and I just know that Heavenly Father was so proud of her. Teaching K made repentance and forgiveness so real for me. She had strayed off the path and had made some not-so-good decisions, but she was still able to come back to the fold! Watching K be baptized boosted my testimony of the fact that our Father in Heaven and our Savior are always reaching out to us, even beckoning us to come home! It was definitely a special night.

Sister Rowley and I taught C and M again this week. M has been investigating the church for a while now, and C has recently started investigating. We decided to teach a lesson entirely 100 percent on the Atonement of Jesus Christ. It was one of the most powerful lessons of my mission. We realized that our investigators cannot draw strength from the Atonement if they don't even understand/know what the Atonement is. One of my favorite conference talks is Bruce R. McConkie's "The Purifying Power of Gethsemane," (https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1985/04/the-purifying-power-of-gethsemane?lang=eng) and in this talk he says, "The Atonement of Christ is the most basic and fundamental doctrine of the gospel, and it is the least understood of all our revealed truths." I know that to be true! There is so much about the Atonement of Jesus Christ that we do not understand, but what we do understand is that Christ suffered and died for us, so that we might repent and be able to return to our Father in Heaven. We can never study it enough. We started with the most basic of the basics, down to explaining what the Garden of Gethsemane was. C in particular really enjoyed the lesson, and we are looking forward to building upon what we talked about last week in this upcoming week!

Exploring ASU!

Some very exciting news: the ASU Polytech campus is in mine and Sister Rowley's YSA area and this week we found out that we can proselyte on it! Our whole mission’s accepted truth has been that proselyting wasn't allowed on campus, but we think that no one ever asked and that everyone just assumed that we couldn't proselyte there. We met with the institute director this week and found out all the dos/don'ts, and then we went and explored campus! This is seriously uncharted waters for our mission and we are super nervous but also super excited...the closest we'll ever get to opening a new area haha! It's gonna be a YSA goldmine!

Parking detail like a boss ft BofM giftee

This week we had the opportunity to do service at the Roots and Boots Rodeo. It was a four hour long service....and we were assigned to parking detail. Sounds super lame, right?? WRONG!! We were assigned to parking detail with four teenage guys, and all of them were juvenile delinquents. I'll be honest, at first I didn't have the best attitude, and I was a little bit afraid of them haha but we struck up a conversation with them, and it turned out that they had tons of questions about missions and our religion! We ended up teaching them the restoration as we were directing traffic! The Spirit was surprisingly really strong, and at the end we were even able to give a Book of Mormon to one of them. He said he would read it, because at the very least we had piqued his curiosity! Also, while we were there with them I felt a very strong amount of gratitude for the influence of the gospel in my life. Every single good thing in my life I can attribute 100% to the gospel of Jesus Christ. The gospel has provided me with such a sure foundation, and has given me an eternal perspective. These guys were so kind, and have so much potential, but at the present have just lost their way a little bit. Their foundation for their lives isn't quite as sturdy, and seeing first-hand how badly they need the gospel lit a fire under me again to work as hard as I can to bring this gospel to all of God's children!

Best part: there's no camera!

This week we also picked up a new investigator! We met with T twice this week. He's the one that came to church last week and was finished with 1 Nephi. Our first lesson with him was definitely not our best. The Spirit was super strong and Sister Rowley and I were both teaching in unity really well, but T was definitely overwhelmed. He told us that he has autism, and in our lesson it became pretty clear because he had a really difficult time communicating with us. We would seriously ask him a question and then sit there for like three minutes waiting for him to answer. When we figured out that the questions were making him uncomfortable, we just ended up teaching the lesson with minimal questions (literally what we're not supposed to do), testifying, and closing. That night we sent him a message inviting him to read 2 Nephi 31 before our next lesson with the question in mind: What was the example that Jesus Christ gave us? The next day he responded and said, "I read the chapter and the example that Jesus Christ gave us was being baptized. What else can I read??" So awesome! We sent him some additional things to read before our next lesson.

On Saturday night T was seriously a different person. He apologized for our first lesson, and said that meeting new people makes him really nervous. He opened up so much more, and the lesson went significantly better! We taught him the Plan of Salvation, and really focused on how this was God's plan for Him. Right at the beginning of the lesson I felt really prompted to share Jeremiah 1:5 (Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.), and basically just testified super simply that God knew T and loved him. T's response literally broke my heart. He goes, "That's really nice to know...because that tells me that I'm not a mistake." In that moment I felt so strongly the love that God has for T. I know that He knows T personally! And I know that T is definitely not a mistake. I am a firm believer that understanding our divine identity as children of God changes everything about our lives. So many of our problems can be solved by the knowledge that God is our Father in Heaven, He loves us, and nothing that we or anyone else does can ever, EVER change that. We only made it halfway through the Plan of Salvation, and T loved it! He's completely fascinated by eternal families, and by the idea that God has a specific plan for each and every one of us. Haha this part is funny: At the end we invited him to baptism, and he goes "I've been doing some research on my own...here let me show you." and Sister Rowley and I were like oh great he's gotten into anti stuff, but then he turns his phone around and he literally had Preach My Gospel, Chapter 12 "How Do I Prepare People For Baptism and Confirmation" pulled up and had read all of it. We were DYING haha! He goes, "based off of the qualifications for baptism listed here...I am not currently ready to be baptized, but I would like to be led in that direction and would like to work towards that." He’s literally so golden. We are so excited to keep working with him!

We had two lessons with A this week! The first lesson we read the Book of Mormon with her, which was super cool because she was at 1 Nephi 8, the tree of life. We were able to read with her and explain the symbolism, which she loved. She told us that she feels the Spirit so strongly every time she reads the Book of Mormon and she also told us that the peace that the Book of Mormon brings into her life is unlike any other she's ever felt before. We were super bold and testified to A that this was her answer that this was true, that this is Christ's church restored to the Earth, and the Spirit was really strong!

Then last night...the coolest thing happened. Every month our mission has a new member fireside, where three or four recent converts are selected to share their conversion story and testimony. We brought A, and it was so packed that we were unable to sit next to her. We had her and her boyfriend sit down and then Sister Rowley and I sat a few rows ahead. The fireside was awesome, as it usually is, and when it ended we turned around to see A BAWLING. We were like...shoot what happened?? We went up to her and asked her if it was a good cry or a bad cry, and she said it was a good feeling in her heart. Then she told us that she had never felt anything so powerful before, and she told us that she was confused as to why she was crying and couldn't stop. We testified to her that it was the Spirit, and she said that she knew it was. We asked her what the Spirit was telling her to do, and she said, "I need to tell my mom that I want to get baptized." and then we said, "And how do you feel?" and she said she was scared. Sister Rowley and I both bore testimony that God and Jesus Christ were with her through this, and that Jesus Christ had walked this path alone so she didn't have to. We promised her that God would help her know not only how to bring it up, but what to say, and she said that she knew He would. It was seriously so awesome. It's not very frequent that you get to see your investigator receive their answer that the church is true and that they need to be baptized, but last night we were able to experience that with A. I love being a missionary! You can't make things like this up! The gospel of Jesus Christ is REAL and it is the greatest thing in the whole entire world.

I love you all! Thank you for the love and support and prayers; I truly feel every one of them!

Sister Jacobson

Playing ball with a 7 year old

Playing ball with a 7 year old

Roasting dawgs at FHA

S'mores!

Week 59: The Gospel is Not a Buffet

March 12, 2018

HELLLLOOOO!

Top Golf

What a week! Sister Rowley and I have been busy, busy, busy. It feels like we've hardly had time to breathe. It's been a week full of meetings, lessons, spiritual experiences, and exchanges!

To illustrate how busy this week was, on Wednesday we had eight lessons scheduled. We were supposed to have lessons at 10, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8! We were feeling really stressed. We had to cancel our dinner because we realized we'd overbooked ourselves haha. We were prepared to have the most intense companionship study of our lives, but then four of our lessons cancelled. We were disappointed, but we still had four lessons so all was well!

We had zone conference on Thursday! I'm always amazed at the revelation I receive at zone conference. This time around zone conference was focused on teaching skills and relying on the spirit as we teach. It was one of the best zone conferences I've been to! The rest of this transfer I'm going to focus on simplifying. I realized that I've been over-complicating a lot of things; the gospel is designed to be simple for a reason! I realized that the message doesn't always need to be eloquent; most of the time it can just be a simple, heartfelt testimony.

Across the room Skype PPI's

This week we had four lessons with a lady named K. She is getting baptized tomorrow night and we are so excited for her! Our lessons with her have been some of the most insightful, spiritual lessons of my mission. She has great things to say and her commitment to follow the Lord is clear by the way she understands the doctrine. She is going to be a re-baptism, so she is not technically an investigator/convert baptism, but in my book, any baptism is worth celebrating! The last time I went to a re-baptism the Spirit was so strong, because the person being baptized wanted it SO bad and knew exactly what they were doing...so I'm really excited for tomorrow night. It's going to be a really special night, and I can't wait for her to receive the Gift of the Holy Ghost again. :)

This week we taught lots of people struggling to keep the commandments. It is heartbreaking to see the chaos and confusion that enters a life when someone chooses to live contrary to the commandments. It was unreal how many people were like, "Oh I can just keep these few commandments, and not keep those ones...Heavenly Father will understand that those ones were too hard for me to keep!" The gospel of Jesus Christ is not a buffet! We don't get to pick and choose what commandments we keep based off of what looks nice/convenient to us and what doesn't. That is contrary to the will of the Lord! From what I've seen, disobedience to the commandments is a result from a fundamental misunderstanding of the purpose of commandments. God gives us commandments because He loves us! It doesn't get much simpler than that. I can definitely remember a time in my life where I thought the commandments were restrictive and inconvenient, but the older I've gotten and the more I've learned, the more I've realized how much of a blessing the commandments are. Mosiah 2:41 explains that those who keep the commandments of God live in a "blessed and happy state." It goes on to describe that those who are obedient to God are "blessed in ALL things, both temporal and spiritual." I LOVE that scripture, because it doesn't say that we are blessed in some things, it says that we are blessed in ALL things--meaning that every aspect of our lives is blessed as a result of choosing to be obedient to the commandments given to us from God. That scripture ends with an awesome promised blessing, that those who live the commandments will "dwell with God in a state of never-ending happiness," which to me sounds pretty great. Spiritual happiness > Temporal (AKA Temporary) happiness!

We had another lesson with A this week! This time around we really focused on helping her identify the ways that the Holy Ghost speaks to her in her life. We taught the Doctrine of Christ, with an emphasis on the Gift of the Holy Ghost. As we were talking about the Holy Ghost she started telling us about various times in her life that she knew she'd felt the Holy Ghost. She told us that she feels the Holy Ghost when she reads the Book of Mormon, and to her that tells her it’s true. It was awesome! She knows the message is true, and she can feel that what we're teaching her is true, and her faith is increasing bit by bit. She's still scared to talk to her parents, but we know that when her faith outweighs her concerns she will have the courage to tell her parents about her desire to be baptized.

Last Monday we had an awesome miracle! A little bit of a funny story...last Sunday Sister Rowley and I had an appointment scheduled with a potential investigator. She was really promising, and we were like...oh we gotta make sure we get to this appointment! But with the baptism and all the chaos that accompanies baptisms...we didn't make it over to her house. So Monday night we planned to drop by and apologize for missing our appointment...but when we showed up, she let us right in! She thought our appointment was Monday night haha, so we just went along with it and had a little lesson. Her name is S and she has two kids, D, and D. S is such an honest seeker of truth, and she has never met missionaries before! And D LOVES going to church and learning about Jesus Christ. They were floored about the Book of Mormon and were so excited to learn more! So we picked up D and S as new investigators and will be going back this week to teach them more!

This week one of our wards had an activity for the primary. Our ward mission leader really wanted to make it a missionary activity, so there was a big push that all the primary kids invite their friends and their families! We were there to greet people at the doors, and show them around the building if they wanted. There wasn't much interest haha, but we had a cool moment where this YSA girl who is dating one of our YSA investigators brought his little siblings over. Her name is T and we started talking to her. We had a great conversation and it was pretty obvious that she wanted to talk to us. We kept talking, and invited her to stay, but eventually she left. Sister Rowley and I were standing there for a few minutes, and we both were like...man we should have done more. I go, "Well maybe it's not too late...maybe we can still catch her!" So we literally ran out of the building and start running down the street, but she was gone. We decided to get in the car and drive to her boyfriend’s house--by this point we both thought we had to be out of our minds crazy haha like we felt so creepy...but at the same time we both really felt like we were following the Spirit and that we needed to be there. When we got to his house, she was there! She didn't think it was weird that we casually showed up, and we were able to get her phone number. She might come to YSA FHE tonight! Very exciting!

Mucking that horse stall!

On Saturday we had exchanges! I went to Ironwood with Sister Tingey, a sister who has been on her mission for almost six months. Ironwood is a whole different world. I had probably the most cultural experience of my whole mission haha. We did service at one of their member's homes, and this member lives on a farm. It was a little bit of a struggle, I have learned that whenever I say I'm from Idaho and I'm on a farm people expect me to know everything about farm life and I'm like...lol, no...I grew up in the city. So we mucked out their horse stalls, and she showed us around their property! They breed dogs so they currently have two pregnant dogs, and one brand new litter! Also, their pig just had babies so there were tons of little piglets, and they have one pregnant goat and one pregnant cow. So many baby farm animals about to be born!! As we were about to leave, she told us that she was going to need to reach up inside the pig and make sure there were no more piglets inside and she asked us to help...I straight up said no haha that is one experience I can live without! All in all, it was a great day! We had tons of fun together and we saw tons of miracles.

Lunch-time game with Sis. Tingey

Yesterday the coolest thing happened! After YSA a random member not in our ward came and found us and introduced us to one of her friends, T! Apparently she had a class with him in college and he asked her about institute, so she invited him to come with her and he ended up signing up for the class. Then, she gave him a BOM and he started reading it. He's done with 1 Nephi and wanted to learn more, so she invited him to church. She brought him to his correct ward and introduced him to us! T is really interested in learning more, and we have an appointment with him this Thursday. So far he seems pretty golden, and we are so excited! Members doing missionary work!! It's the best!!

Man it's crazy because all of this is just the tip of the iceberg, it's really been a great week here! We are teaching loads and seeing lots of miracles. I love my mission!!

I love you all!

Sister Jacobson

Cultural farm experience

Piglets!