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!