Sister Jacobson's Glimpses of Gilbert

Week 49: 2018

January 2, 2018

Hello!

Happy Tuesday! And Happy 2018!! It was a really weird feeling waking up yesterday morning and realizing that it's 2018. I can literally remember getting my mission call in September of 2016 and being like...wow I come home in 2018...that's so far away. And now I come home this year. It's a very strange feeling! Almost as strange as realizing that all of 2017 aside from the first 17 days were spent as a missionary!

P.O. shredded Jaime's card

It's been a good week! Definitely a weird week...haha it kinda feels a little bit like it didn't even happen? You know that weird limbo between Christmas and New Years where time keeps moving but it sorta feels like it stops? Yeah, missionaries are not exempt from that. Haha we still saw miracles though!

Tuesday night we had dinner with the K’s. Sister Small and I were really unsure of what to teach them...planning for this lesson took a LOT of prayer. All day on Tuesday we were stressing about what to share with them, and when it came time for us to sit down and plan the lesson we truly felt like we were guided and inspired. We realized that something we'd been talking about all day was everyone's individual conversion to the Lord and His gospel. Ultimately, everyone's end goal is the same--to gain eternal life and live with Heavenly Father one day. The variable is the path that it takes to GET there. For some people conversion is a singular, lightning bolt experience...but I've found that for most people, conversion is not that way. For me, conversion has been a lot of little spiritual experiences over a long period of time, with many of those experiences being few and far between. But eventually those little experiences amount to one big conversion. We kind of realized that the K’s come to church, look around and see all of these people with rock solid testimonies and wonder, "Why don't I have that??" We decided to watch the Mormon Message "The Hope of God's Light" with them. If you haven't watched that video--do it!! It's so good! We were a little bit worried about the kids paying attention through the whole video, so we came up with a bribe to keep them entertained haha. We told them that if they paid attention the whole time we had a surprise for them. It worked! The kids watched the entire video and even contributed during the lesson. We asked them to identify similarities and differences between that story and theirs, and the kids were some of the first to point out the similarities. They were so excited when we gave them mints at the end haha. :) Then Sister Small and I shared moments in our lives when we knew the gospel was true. We invited them to write down things that they KNOW about the gospel. MK and CK loved the idea and were really excited to do it.

We also had a lesson with K this week! We decided to focus it all on Jesus Christ and why He's important in our lives. We spent the first part of the lesson discussing ways that she's come to know that Jesus is the Christ. It's cool because every single one of her experiences that has shown her that Jesus is the Christ included moments where she had felt of His redeeming love. Her testimony of God's love is SO strong! We showed her a video of BYU Vocal Point (you know I'll find any excuse to involve Vocal Point) singing "I Stand All Amazed" with segments from the Bible Videos included. The Spirit was so strong! K was getting all teary-eyed and emotional. It's such a blessing to be able to teach so many of God's choice Spirits. She's progressing so well, and we are excited for the future with her!

Working on a puzzle

This week I developed a theory. I think Sister Small is magic. This week we met three people whose doors I have knocked countless times since being in this area. One of them is a referral originally received back in April, which the sisters were unable to contact. Back in October we received a referral for the same person and we've still been unable to contact him. But this week the door opened for the first time ever!! We met his little brother AND his older brother, both were super friendly and super excited to see us! We were able to find out some more information about him and we're excited to hopefully get in with him. The second one is another referral we've been unable to contact. We knocked the door and met his brother, who told us when a better time would be to contact his brother! Fingers crossed! The third is a part-member, over-age youth family in the Stratford Estates ward, the ward that Sister Utsch and I whitewashed into! I cannot tell you how many times I have knocked on that door. I hate to say it, but I'd honestly given up hope that anyone would ever come to the door. But this week it was 8:45 p.m. and I thought, what the heck, let's go knock on the M’s door. My mindset was a little bit like "We have literally nothing to lose...it's really late, and most people get mad when we knock on their door this late...but we've never met them and they never answer anyways so...why not??" So we went and knocked....and the door opened. I literally did not know what to do--I was in shock. Haha and he was SUPER friendly and welcoming! We got to know him briefly and he even told us that his kids are at his house Monday, Tuesday and every other weekend. It was awesome! Seriously, I think Sister Small is a miracle worker!

We had a small miracle yesterday. We went tracting in one of our wards and the second or third door we knocked a woman named K came to the door. She was super friendly and told us that she'd lived here for three years and hated literally everything about Arizona. Haha we asked her if she'd ever run into missionaries before and she said no. We about fell over!! I think I can count on one hand the amount of people I've met on my mission who have never met missionaries before. We started talking to her about our purpose as missionaries, why we come on missions, etc. She thought it was the coolest thing ever! We asked her if we could teach her more and she looked really sad and told us that her husband wouldn't allow it. So we asked her if we could give her a copy of the Book of Mormon. She lit right up and was like "I've always wanted one of these!! I've thought about ordering one myself, but looks like it came to me instead!" It was super cool. I know that the Lord is preparing people to receive the gospel! Even if she's not ready to meet with missionaries right now, one day she will be.

This week some horrible illnesses have been circling around the mission. About half of our zone got the stomach flu, and a sister in our stewardship got the flu, which turned into hand foot mouth disease, so they were stuck inside this entire week. We heard that they were stuck inside, and we didn't realize how bad it was, so we took them lunch one day and ate with them so they could have some company. It was probably not the best decision. I've been sick since Saturday. I originally thought it was just a sinus infection, but as the days have gone on it's become pretty obvious that it's more than just a sinus infection. My throat is pretty sore and I've got a really nasty cough. In addition, I'm pretty sure my voice has dropped an octave. The Elders in my zone keep making fun of me haha. I'm pretty sure it's the flu...and there's literally no improvement since Saturday haha. Nevertheless...the work must go on! We've gone out and worked every day and I know we've been blessed. It's been amazing because I've noticed that during the day, when we're working, I feel normal and my cough isn't as bad...but when we get home, it kicks back up and I start feeling icky again. I promised the Lord that I would work hard all day every day my whole mission and I intend on keeping that promise. There's not enough time on the mission for sick days. If it doesn't improve in the next couple of days then I'll go see a doctor, but until then I'll keep working my hardest!

Zone movie on NYE

For New Years Eve we had to stop working at 6, but we had the opportunity to gather together as a zone and watch a church movie. Our zone watched "The Cokeville Miracle" and it was so fun! We all brought snacks and shared with one another! Afterwards we were able to read our patriarchal blessings individually and set personal goals for the new year. I'm excited for all that 2018 holds and I can't wait to see what the Lord has in store for me this year!

Happy New Year everyone! Love you all so much!

Sister Jacobson

Selfie with decorations

Finished the puzzle

Week 48: Merry Christmas

December 26, 2017

Hello!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas! It's been another great week in Arizona--the Christmas season is truly a special time of year! It's been a season full of miracles and I'm sad to see it end.

Mission-wide games!

Baptism Balloons!

Last Monday we had a special Christmas zone conference from 3-9 PM. It started with a super nice meal, and then the senior couples passed out Christmas presents for all of us. Then we had about an hour and a half of mission-wide games. It was minute-to-win-it style games and we discovered that Desert Ridge is not very good at minute to win it haha. Then we had a mission-wide gingerbread contest, where we sent up two representatives from our zone at a time for about a minute each...and we were so ready to win....until the Elder who was sent to start the house forgot to put icing down in the tray and our house collapsed 30 seconds before we were supposed to be done. Haha it's all good...it made for some fun memories! Then we had a Christmas devotional from President and Sister Wheeler. My biggest take-away was that there is more to the Christmas story than what meets the eye! We read Luke 2 and hear it over and over during the Christmas season but there is so much more to learn from reading between the lines and understanding the historical context. To finish zone conference we released balloons for every single person that was baptized this year in the Arizona Gilbert Mission. We watched a video of all of the baptism pictures from this year and it was so cool knowing that six of those balloons were the H family and four of those balloons were the P family. T, L, K, and the K family will all be part of next years balloons!! :) The Spirit was so strong as our whole mission gathered together and sang “Silent Night” as we watched the balloons float away.

Sis. Small and me

Our tri-panionship

Tuesday morning bright and early we had to say goodbye to Sister Utsch. That about killed me. It was a blessing that we said goodbye so early because it didn't really feel real...but I've definitely felt her absence this week. It's weird spending 24/7 with someone for almost five months straight and then abruptly...not spending time with them haha. But Sister Small and I have seen miracles this week! And we already work really well together so we are excited for the future. Tuesday was a rough day because we said goodbye to Sister Utsch, and then we found out that our miracle baptism that was supposed to be happening this weekend was actually going to happen in a different area, and then a few appointments fell through, so we were feeling pretty disheartened but then a huge miracle fell from the sky. We were biking through one of our wards and we saw some people putting up Christmas lights. We stopped to talk with them and they were super friendly. They introduced themselves as "the D’s" and I about fell off my bike. They are a part-member family with a couple of OAYs in their 20s (AKA YSA potentials!) and the entire time Sister Utsch and I were together we knocked their door multiple multiple MULTIPLE times and they never once answered the door. We introduced ourselves as the missionaries and they were like "let us come and properly greet you!" The daughter, K, told us that she'd been praying for guidance recently because her grandpa died last week. She said that she felt strongly that she needed to get involved with the church. We were like...yeah...that's kind of our whole job. And she was so excited! We exchanged phone numbers with her and are looking forward to meeting with her after the New Year! I know that God placed us in her path that night!

We had the opportunity to go to the temple as a mission this week. I love the opportunities to gather with my entire mission!! Perks of a small mission! I'm tellin ya, stateside, English speaking, tiniest proselyting mission (so basically the only option left is the AGM) is the WAY TO GO. There was such a special spirit having our whole mission in the temple.

Exchanges with Sis. Baker

Blocked driveway

We went on exchanges this week. I was with Sister Baker, who has been on her mission for ten months, in my area. We had a great exchange! We were able to talk to a ton of people and found a lot of new potentials. Haha she forgot her helmet so we were unable to bike, so we were in the car the whole time...and we came out of the house in the morning to find a huge moving truck blocking our driveway. The workers were unloading HUGE furniture from the moving truck to our neighbor's house so we set off on foot from our house to do some work in the neighborhood! It was a first for us, we're so used to being on bikes!

We finally had another lesson with T this week! We taught her the word of wisdom, which we were slightly worried about, and she accepted it no problem at all. She is seriously golden beyond belief. She told us that she's been living the word of wisdom for a while now, the only thing she struggles with is coffee. We decided to move her baptism day back to January 20th so more of her family and friends could come. She is so solid and so ready for this next step! We are excited for her.

We also had another lesson with the K’s. We went with their home teacher, who is conveniently our ward mission leader and he read them the children's book "You Are Special." Back in the summer, Brother Buchholzer told them about this book and CK LOVED the idea of it. After that lesson the K’s started progressing much faster and it was all around just super inspired. Well, this week, he actually read the book with them and at the end he pulled out a bow, put it on the book, and gave it to the K family. They were so excited!! Then we all went around and shared how we know that we are special to Heavenly Father. We talked about how Heavenly Father knows us individually and Jesus Christ ministers to the one. The Spirit was really strong! It was a really nice break from the more contentious lessons we've been having with them recently. We love their family so much! They specifically planned to go to Mesa Lights on a night that we were working and went out of their way to find us...seriously I wish that everyone could know the K family!

Christmas Eve we spent the majority of the day in church. We narrated one of our ward's Christmas programs, which was fun, and then after church we had about an hour before dinner so we went and made some visits. Every single person we visited, someone from the ward was there. It was amazing; five out of the five houses we knocked on! We are so blessed to serve among such great members, people who are willing to spend their Christmas Eve going and ministering to the lost sheep! I want to be that way when I come home! We had hot wings for Christmas Eve dinner...which was very messy but also very delicious, and then starting at 6 PM it was appointment only. We tried to set appointments but failed, so we went home. By 6:30 we were in our pajamas, with our faces washed...and we were like...now what?! Haha we don't know how to have free time! So we played battleship, ate some food, and found a ridiculously difficult puzzle in our house--which consumed the rest of the evening.

Mini-family reunion

Skype!

Christmas Day was appointment only as well. We got up at 6:30 a.m., opened our stockings, and then we sat down and did more of the puzzle for an hour. (We are probably only 1/3 of the way done with it) And then we opened our presents! We got to Skype our families, which was so great and so fast, and then we ate lunch with the members whose home we Skyped at. Their kids were so excited that we got to talk to our families, during the Skype call they kept poking their heads into the room so they could see our families. I think they were more excited when we finished Skyping though because that meant that they could show us all of their presents. One of the daughters was so excited because she got a phone that "matched ours" and she wanted our help setting it up. Haha it was so cute! We had another appointment with a family that struggles a bit, and they really outdid themselves with the food they gave us. It was probably one of the best meals of my mission. To conclude the day we worked our final shift at the Mesa lights, and my aunt and uncle who live in Mesa came and found me walking the grounds! It was a fun little reunion and it was exciting to be able to see them...I knew it would happen at some point on my mission! :) We got to meet some really awesome people and talk to tons of people about the light of Christ. Christmas as a missionary is the best!

Pres. & Sis. Wheeler

Our mission president's Christmas present to us missionaries was that we got to watch a PG or G movie without any romance, so our zone watched “Moana”! It was so fun, especially since the majority of the missionaries in our zone hadn't seen it before. It was fun to hear their reactions to certain scenes, almost like being in a theater and seeing it for the first time again haha. All in all it was a great Christmas filled with loads of fun activities, but also filled with the Spirit and the true meaning of Christmas. I hope that everyone had the opportunity to think about Jesus Christ yesterday and remember the remarkable gift that He has given us.

I love you all! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! P-day is Tuesday next week as well.

Sister Jacobson

D-Ridge at Zone Conference ft Gleave

Our tri-panionship :')

The fab 4

Baptism balloons

UFO sighting???

Aftermath of Christmas

North STLs

Week 47: The Dancing Santa

December 18, 2017

Hello everyone!!

The tri-panionship

I hope you have all had a great week! It's been a wonderful week full of little miracles and tons of tender mercies. This email might be a little shorter than most because Sister Utsch goes home tomorrow so we are running around like crazy trying to get her all taken care of and p-day ends at 2:30 today for our mission-wide Christmas zone conference. So I guess here's just a brief update:

Visiting D

On Monday we were finally able to get in contact with D again (remember him?? It's been a while) He had gone out of town for thanksgiving and then our schedules just hadn't lined up until this week! He is moving to the Philippines tomorrow, so Monday was our last lesson with him. We walked in and he said "I was wondering when you would come back!! I am ready to learn more about the Lord, Jesus Christ." And he then told us that he had been thinking about what we had taught him and he knows it's true! He reads the BOM every day and he wants to be baptized! We totally didn't see that coming. He started crying and asked us to write our testimonies in his BOM so he could always remember us. The missionaries in the Philippines have a golden investigator coming their way!

Cafe Rio with L

We had two lessons with L this week, and we went to Cafe Rio with her for lunch haha. We realized that we've had a lot of lessons with her in the same room at the same church building so for one of the lessons we tried to shake it up a bit and did a lesson based off of the pictures in the church building, illustrating how everything in the gospel points us back to Jesus Christ. We ended in the chapel talking about the sacrament and the Spirit was definitely there.

"The Clique" aka L's friends

We had a lesson with the K’s this week too. We were very nervous, and it went okay. We taught the Word of Wisdom and everything was going smooth until we extended the commitment to live the Word of Wisdom...the kids committed but MK was like "Yeah I don't believe that...it’s too wishy washy for me" and got really abrasive and was pretty stubborn. He said "If the prophet got up today and told us it was necessary I would believe it." The more we talked the more apparent it became that he didn't understand the revelation fully, so we ended up committing him to reread the revelation. We also sent him some conference talks that go through the revelation verse by verse to hopefully help him understand. We noticed that they are only abrasive and scary when we talk about something they don't personally agree with...so this week I think we might try to cool the flame a bit and teach a lesson on something safe haha.

We threw in exchanges this week! Sister Utsch and I brought Sister B into our area with us. It's so fun being on an STL exchange with your STL companion haha. Sister B is serving a trial mission and has been out for a little over two months. As of right now, it looks like she will not end up staying for the full eighteen months so we worked really hard to help her make the most of her time here! We saw tons of miracles, the biggest being that we got in with a part-member family and had a GREAT interaction with the nonmember! Exchange miracles!

Funny moment: we were tracting and talking to this lady and her husband who were nice but not interested. Suddenly she invited us in to their home, so we were thinking we were going to get to share a message...but instead she goes "is this cool or creepy?" And we look and it's a LIFE SIZE Santa...and it starts SINGING AND DANCING. It was hilarious. We were not expecting that...you see the weirdest stuff as a missionary!

We also had interviews this week! We found out about them the day before, and usually I prayerfully ponder questions to ask President but since I didn't have time to do that this time it was basically me and President sitting in a room for 15 minutes and him going "how are you?" And me saying "good" haha. It was still good to get to talk with him!

This week we picked up two new investigators, one of them we found from the area book and knocked on his door and he was so excited! He said "definitely come back next week!" So that was exciting. The other one we talked to a few weeks ago, the one who practiced Baha’i! We took him a Persian BOM and he was also so excited. He told us that we came at the perfect time because he wasn't doing anything, and he was going to go read right at that very second. The struggle now is that we obviously do not speak Persian, and the Persian BOM is only selected sections from the BOM so we don't know what sections are in there. Haha if you know anyone that lives in Gilbert, is LDS, and speaks both Persian and English let me know.

On Saturday there was a baptism in the YSA ward for the elders’ investigator, S. When we met S we thought she was a member, so it was super awesome to see her make that covenant with the Lord. The Spirit was really strong, and the Lord's love for her was apparent. It was probably one of the best baptisms I've been to!

Last night our mission had our Christmas choir concert. We were pretty worried, but it turned out great! Tons of investigators were there; L and K came! And it was fun to see people from previous areas. There's a video going around somewhere out there of my group singing, if I ever get my hands on it I'll send it home!

Mtn. Ranch ward auxilaries + Stk. Pres.

After the concert, Sister Donaldson and Sister Rowley came up to us and told us that they have a golden referral for us! She's YSA, and on date for December 30th!! We will have a pass off lesson this week, and we are so excited to meet her! Our ward is already so excited! The miracles will not cease.

Here's a Christmas quote to get your Christmas week off to a good start:

"There would be no Christmas if there had not been Easter. The babe Jesus of Bethlehem would be but another baby without the redeeming Christ of Gethsemane and Calvary, and the triumphant fact of the Resurrection."

As we remember the birth of the Savior this Christmas, let us also remember His remarkable life and the significance His life now plays into each of our lives! He lives and loves us! Merry Christmas everybody!

I love you all! P-day next week is Tuesday due to the holiday.

Sister Jacobson