Sister Jacobson's Glimpses of Gilbert: Week 64: The Many Miracles of San Tan

April 16, 2018

Hello everyone!

STL meeting with Sister Wheeler

This week has gone by both fast and slow at the same time. The first week of the transfer always feels this way haha. Sister Rowley and I had an awesome week! Out of all the STL companionships in the transfer, we are the only one that survived the transfer. It's been so nice to be able to jump into this transfer ready to go!

We had a lesson with C this week. So C is the sweetest lady of all time who suffers from extreme anxiety. A little over a year ago her oldest son was killed in a tragic automobile accident, and she has told us multiple times that she feels like her trust with God has been broken. She told us that before the accident she felt like she had great faith in the Lord, but it really hurt her when her son didn't get a "miracle" and survive the accident. Teaching her is slow, and takes a lot of love and repetition, but I've already seen her make progress in the last six weeks! We've decided to teach her one gospel principle at a time, and use each lesson to build off of the last. So the last time we went over we had a powerful lesson on the Atonement of Jesus Christ, and then this week we focused 100% on the first principle of the gospel--Faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement. We talked about how exercising our faith, ACTING on the things that we hope and believe, allows us to reach the healing and strengthening aspect of the Atonement. We focused a lot on scripture study and prayer, and C told us about an experience she'd had a week or so ago where she said she literally felt the Lord sustaining her and strengthening her and telling her to trust Him. It was so tender to hear her say that for the first time in over a year she was able to trust God! And then at the very end of our lesson she prayed out loud with us! She was really nervous, and she didn't want to do it...but we promised her that God would see her exercising her faith and that she would be able to feel His love and she did it!! It was such a tender and sweet prayer. I remember in the MTC my teacher told us that some of the sweetest memories on our missions would be hearing an investigator pray out loud for the first time…and it's true! Those are among some of my favorite moments.

Baby goats!

We had another awesome miracle this week! On Tuesday night we felt impressed to stop by this investigator named A. A is 76 years old and has been investigating the church for a long, long time. She hasn't really progressed too much since she's been meeting with the missionaries, because she doesn't retain information too well. We had a lesson with her a couple of weeks ago and we felt like we finally made some progress with her, and then last Sunday she came to church! We dropped by Tuesday night and she was SO excited to see us and SO excited to tell us that she'd read the introduction to the Book of Mormon...and SO excited to tell us that it had piqued her interest, so she went ahead and read the introduction to her Bible! She was like "Sisters, I had NO idea how many different translations there were of the Bible!" It gave us the perfect opportunity to testify of the need for prophets, and of the divine nature of the Book of Mormon. We were able to talk with her about how the Book of Mormon fills in some of the doctrinal gaps in the Bible, and we just watched it all click in her mind. After ages of hearing the same thing from other missionaries...she finally got it! We set up an appointment for Friday, and when we went by on Friday she had read up to 1 Nephi 7 and actually internalized what it was saying. The specific details she remembered were crazy! We could tell that she had legitimately read...and she loved it! It was so cool...it was one of those moments where we knew that we were fulfilling our purpose and doing what we've been called to do. Then on Saturday we saw a missionary who has been home from his mission for about seven months now who was trained in our area. We asked him if he'd ever met A and he was like "Oh the one in the apartments? Yeah, my companion and I found her!" We were like "No way!! She's progressing!" and he couldn't believe it. He was like "A is progressing?! What a miracle!" So two and a half years in the making...but it's all in the Lord's timing! We are excited to keep working with her.

Our Mini-missionary, Sis. M

Cactus cookies ft Sister M

We had a mini-missionary with us this weekend. Her name was Sister M and she was from the Gilbert Spanish Branch in the Gilbert Stake (the 2nd stake I served in!!). She was awesome! Sister M is the fourth mini-missionary I've had on my mission and it's always amazing to me to see how different each mini is. Each of them decide to serve a mini-mission for a different reason, and each of them glean something totally different out of the mini-mission...but it's cool because whatever they get out of their weekend is exactly what the Lord needs them to get. We had a super crazy weekend filled with service, ward ice cream socials, baptisms with investigators, and of course the classic 8 hours of church...so not exactly nitty-gritty missionary work, and we felt bad because it wasn't a "true" indicator of what a mission is like, but it was exactly what Sister M needed! The Lord's hand is in everything!

Yesterday was awesome. We have a recent convert in one of our wards, Ar, whose husband is Atheist and has no interest in joining the church. The ward has offered a lot of prayers on his behalf, and I know that Ar would love him to join the church, or even express interest in joining. So to mine and Sister Rowley's surprise, he came to church with Ar yesterday! He'd never been before! Ar was so excited. He stayed all three hours, and the majority of the meetings were centered on service and families, two aspects he really connects to. Then last night was the New Member Fireside and Ar spoke...and he came!! It was beautiful. Man, I'll tell ya, you cannot beat the Spirit at those New Member Firesides. I've been to so many and every single time the Spirit just blows me away. T came, and it was the first time we'd seen him this week. He is really stressed out about school and graduation right now and the deadline for his capstone project is rapidly approaching...so he wasn't even going to come to the fireside but between us and his fellowshipping member we talked him into going. He looked so exhausted and pretty out of it...please keep him in your prayers!! He needs all the help he can get right now...and he needs to find the strength in him to continue to progress towards baptism. He is so close!

Anyways, all in all it's been a great week...lots of tender mercies being sent our way from our Father in Heaven. I want to testify to all of you that the change that the gospel of Jesus Christ is, is real. It's not something that anyone can fake. Elder Boyd K Packer said, "True doctrine, understood, changes attitudes and behavior. The study of the doctrines of the gospel will improve behavior quicker than a study of behavior will improve behavior." I testify that this principle is true. I see the change that this gospel brings about in people on a daily basis and I know that the reason for the change is an increased resolve and desire to become more like our Savior, Jesus Christ. I am so grateful for a loving Father in Heaven, who created a plan for us to be able to repent and change--a plan perfectly and completely centered around Jesus Christ.

I love you all!

Sister Jacobson