Sister Jacobson's Glimpses of Gilbert: 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