April 9, 2018
Hello hello hello!!
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| Cute companions |
What is good?! It's been another week full of miracles and
tender mercies. Last night transfer calls came in and we found out that,
against all odds, Sister Rowley and I are staying together for another transfer
in San Tan!!!!! We were so surprised. Usually we have a pretty good feel of
what's going to happen, but this totally blindsided us. We have twelve weeks
left on our missions, so we aren't sure what's going to happen next transfer,
but we are so excited to have the opportunity to work hard together for these
next six weeks! We already have a great transfer lined up.
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| Transfer 10 in the books |
This week we had another opportunity to teach T. He is
really stressed out about school and graduation and stuff, so we had a short
little lesson all focused on the covenants we make at baptism and the blessings
we receive once we're baptized. It was an awesome lesson. Sister Rowley and I
were so unified and the Spirit was so strong; she shared scriptures I was
thinking of and said exactly what I was thinking and vice versa. The
progression he's made since he first started meeting with us is unreal. T is so
ready to be baptized; he just doesn't see it yet. He told us that he kinda
wants to move his date back, but we know he can still be ready to be baptized
on the 21st! We will keep working with him and probably decide this week if the
21st is still a go or nah; keep him in your prayers.
This week Sister Rowley and I had a ton of finding miracles.
All transfer long we've been teaching tons and seeing teaching miracles, but we
haven't seen a ton of success with finding...until this week. We picked up four
new investigators this week! The first one is an OAY in a less-active family.
His name is J and he is ten years old. His family situation has recently become
pretty rocky, and his mom is a lot more open and receptive to the gospel than
she's been in the past. We got in this week and they committed to read the Book
of Mormon and to let us come back this next week!
The second one is another OAY in a returning less-active
family that we've been trying to get in with foreverrrrr. They currently live
out of our area, but have family in one of our wards and will be moving into
our area in a month or so. It's a little bit of a time commitment (and mileage
commitment) to go visit them, and all the times that we'd gone to visit them
they hadn't been home...but last night we felt inspired to go by around 8
o'clock. The mom had JUST gotten home, and told us that if we'd come any earlier
that we would have missed her. We got in and finally met both of her kids, B
and L, shared a brief message about God's love for them, committed them to say
daily prayers, and set up a return appointment for Wednesday.
The third one is ANOTHER OAY!!! Sister Rowley and Sister
Donaldson set up an appointment with this family like two months ago...and they
kept it!! We had dinner last night with this kid named N and his family and
shared a super general message about Jesus Christ. Their family situation is
also really rocky, so we have to be a little careful here, but he is excited to
keep learning!
The fourth one is an YSA referral. Our neighboring zone's
Zone Leaders had a lesson yesterday with someone in our area and then passed
him off to us. Apparently he's super open to learning more and is a super cool
guy. We are excited to meet him!
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| Jump starting - a first |
On Wednesday Sister Rowley and I were in the right place at
the right time. It was the morning, and we were visiting some potentials and
some investigators in the apartment complex in our area. We knocked on one of
our investigator's doors, but she didn't answer, so we kept walking further
into the apartments. As we were walking through the parking lot, we saw our
investigator, cleaning out her car! We asked if we could help, and she told us
that her battery was dead and that she needed a jump. Sister Rowley and I told
her we could jump her, so we went and got our car....and then we realized that
neither one of us has ever jumped a car before. Haha smooth moves. Luckily our
District Leader is a car guy, so we called him...but he didn't answer. We got
desperate and ended up searching on Facebook "How to jump start a
car" and found a 90 second video explaining it to us. Thank goodness for
Facebook right?? Long story short, we successfully jumped the car, and no one
was electrocuted in the process!
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| A's baptism |
Thursday was an awesome day!!! A's baptism!!!! Ahhhhh! So
exciting. Haha I have never had more things go wrong than what went wrong at A's
baptism. Holy smokes. First, the font in the YSA building is HUGE and takes
forever to fill. We got to the building at 3:15 and it barely filled in time
for the baptism at 5. Then, A showed up at 4:30 with the baptism program...as a
link on her phone. She'd forgotten to print it out, so we had to scramble to
find a way to print it. There was someone in the institute with a printer, so
we were able to print it out....but then the formatting was wrong...so we had
to fix that...meanwhile it's like 4:45...and then the photocopier took forever
to turn on...so it was like 4:55 and we were still trying to get the programs
taken care of haha. From there it was smooth sailing!!! That is, until it was
time for the ordinance to be performed. Her boyfriend was the one to baptize her,
he'd never baptized someone before, and he is just returning to activity. The
baptismal prayer wasn't hung up on the inside of the font, and he couldn't
remember it. He seriously struggled so much to say the prayer perfectly. Sister
Rowley and I were holding our breath haha, but he got it right and she was
baptized! Haha there were other little things that went wrong, but all the
hiccups aside, it was a really great baptism. The Spirit was so strong and
there were tons of people there to support A. Her family wasn't there, but it
was awesome to see the ward and her boyfriend's family rally around her to
support her in this decision. T came and afterwards he told us he'd felt the
Spirit really strong, and it was a really sacred experience for him. Ahh
baptisms are the best!
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| Missionaries who taught A |
And then yesterday at church, right on par with the rest of
the baptism...her confirmation had to be redone because her boyfriend's dad
forgot to say one thing as he was confirming her. Haha after her second time
being confirmed she goes, "NOW am I a Mormon?!" It was pretty funny.
It's interesting because I think it's very easy to say "Oh these things
are just little details...it doesn't matter," but in reality it DOES, it
matters to our Heavenly Father that all things are done in order! He is a God
of order and if He ceased to have order He would cease to be God. It's a
testament to me of the necessity of the Priesthood and proper authority, and is
also a testament to me of the reality of God's love and attention for each of us.
We also had a BOMB lesson with C
this week. We taught the law of chastity, but felt inspired to teach it using “The
Family: A Proclamation to the World”. (https://www.lds.org/topics/family-proclamation?lang=eng&old=true)
We'd both never taught it that way before, but it was so inspired. The Spirit
was 10000% there as we were planning the lesson. Here’s a list of miracles that
happened during that lesson:
1. Her RM boyfriend left the room
right before we started teaching the law of chastity, meaning that she could
talk openly and honestly with us without feeling awkward. It also made it less
awkward for us teaching!
2. The fellowship member we'd
brought with us had been pondering earlier that day about the importance of
commandments and how they show God's love for us, therefore she was able to
bear powerful witness of the truthfulness of what we were saying.
3. “The Family: A Proclamation to
the World” was the first thing that Cassie had ever read from our church. She
told us that it was what initially got her interested in the church, and she
told us that the families that she sees in the church are the type of family
that she wants.
It was way cool! She was crying and the Spirit was really
powerful. We are still on for the 28th! We are so excited.
And then, to close the week, all of our investigators came
to church yesterday. It is the greatest feeling when someone you were expecting
to be at church actually shows up, and it's so cool being able to sit back and
recognize that all of the speakers and topics are exactly what your
investigator needs. There are no coincidences!
Anyways, I love you all! I hope everyone is having as great
of weeks as I am! Haha thank you for all the love and support!
Sister Jacobson
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| Exchanges at the mission home |
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| Cleaning out the car |
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| Cool car we found |
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| The fab 4 at lunch |
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