April 24, 2017
HELLLLLLLOOOOOOOO!
Another week, another email! I'm not sure how much time I
have today...it's going to be a wild week but I'll just jump right in.
This week was AMAZING down here in Queen Creek. We saw so many miracles!! First
story, last p-day we got back home from emailing and we started deep-cleaning
our house. We found this 90’s version of Pictionary...so we sat down and
started playing. It was SO fun. Some of the words are so 90’s and they're hard
to guess haha...like "compact disk" and "turn table" so
it's fun to try and draw them so our millennial brains can guess correctly! We
had so much fun that there was one night this week all four of us didn't have a
dinner appointment so we spent our whole dinner hour playing Pictionary! And today
our zone is getting together for a Pictionary tournament!! I'm so excited.
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| Sis. Ludeman & Me...Boise Represent! |
This week I went on an exchange with Sister Ludeman, who is
from Meridian! She graduated from Centennial. It was so much fun to sit down
and talk all about Boise with her. We have multiple mutual friends and it was
also really fun to make different connections and exchange stories about the
various people we knew! We were in her area and we had a really fun day and we
taught a lot of different people. When we're on exchanges we just ride each
other's bikes so I was riding Sister Rowley's bike. Let me tell ya, never
underestimate the difference a correctly fitted bike will make. I'm about five
inches taller than Sister Rowley and I was dying all day on her small bike
haha.
While on exchanges, we got a text from Sister Sorenson
saying that her and Sister Rowley had tracted into this less-active/part member
family and had found SIX PEOPLE who wanted to be baptized. WHAT A MIRACLE!!!
The dad of this family is a member and he recently moved here for work, his
family had been taking the missionary lessons in their old area but for one
reason or another just hadn't connected with us…And then we tracted into them!
They all want to be baptized in the near future, so we're hoping to put them on
date for the end of May.
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| The Last Supper ft. Bro. Mitchell |
Friday night was easily one of the best nights of my whole
mission. Literally, if every single day on the mission was like Friday night
then everyone would be coming on missions. I had a lot of cool experiences with
the Holy Ghost.
First, we had an amazing dinner with the Mitchell family (the Joseph Smith
actor family), who had volunteered to feed us last minute. We had a super
awesome spiritual thought with them, and Brother Mitchell made the comment that
"the gospel of Jesus Christ is the cure for heavenly homesickness."
That phrase really resonated with me and as we left it was on my mind. As we
were biking to our next appointment, we saw this lady sitting outside of her
garage watching her daughter so we biked up to her and started talking. She
recognized that we were missionaries and started asking us a lot of questions.
We asked her if she'd ever read the Book of Mormon and she told us that
she had watched “South Park” and had heard a lot of different things about the Book
of Mormon from that...and usually when that happens we get anti-d and it's
just a bad situation, but then she told us that she didn't think South Park was
a reputable source and has always wondered for herself what the Book of
Mormon is all about. That opened the door for us to teach her briefly the
Restoration of the gospel and about the Book of Mormon. Sister Sorenson
told her about the first vision, and recited it...and if there's one thing I've
noticed so far on my mission it's that the FASTEST way to bring the spirit into
any conversation is by testifying of Christ or merely saying the words "I
saw a pillar of light." It was about 100 degrees outside and I felt chills
all over my body as we were standing there on the street with her. When we
handed the Book of Mormon to her, I felt really strongly that I needed
to tell her about the testimony of the three and eight witnesses, and about how
many of them turned away from the church at one time or another but none of
them denied their testimony. Not typically something you teach during an
initial contact, but I told her and she was like "Really? That's amazing.
I'm going to go read this right now." And we set up a return appointment.
Super cool.
Then we got to our next appointment, which was with this
Less-Active family who has an over-age youth son, L, who isn't baptized because
he's afraid of water. We were struggling with trying to plan this lesson
because we were like "how do we casually ask if we can baptize their
son..." haha but we had prayed earlier and felt that we needed to share
with them the story of Alma the Younger and read from the Book of Mormon.
As the lesson began we were telling the kids all about the story, and then we
read from the Book of Mormon. Halfway through the chapter I looked over
and the mom was crying, usually a good sign. After we finished we asked what
she thought and she said "earlier this week I was looking up 'sin' on lds.org
and I was directed to this story. It's crazy to me that you picked this story
to teach on this evening because it has already been on my mind so much this
week. Every time you come over I'm reminded of this hole in my life that I
don't know how to feel." Brother Mitchell's words came back into my mind
and I said "The gospel of Jesus Christ is the cure for heavenly homesickness"
and she was like "Wow...you're right." and then she opened up to us
about all these various trials in her life that have popped up in the past year
and we had this amazing lesson all about repentance and how we can be forgiven
of our sins. We weren't even going to bring up the question of baptism, but
right before we closed she said "Oh, by the way, L's decided that he'll be
baptized in July, when his brother is, because he doesn't think the water will
be as scary if his brother is there with him." We left and were like wow,
the Lord has blessed us significantly this evening.
But then! We had another lesson. This was with another
over-age youth, H, who we took to the Easter pageant. She is awesome. I love
her so much, and we decided to read from the Book of Mormon the story of
the Anti-Nephi-Lehies and talk about the importance of "burying our
weapons of war." She loved it and the lesson went really well. We closed and
were getting ready to leave, but as we went to stand up from the couch Sister
Sorenson and I looked at each other and sat back down. Then Sister Sorenson
just straight goes "H...why aren't you baptized??" and H really
opened up to us about her dad and about how she's scared to even ask him if she
can be baptized because she knows he'll be angry with her and maybe not talk to
her anymore. It was so heartbreaking, because she really truly wants to be
baptized but she's scared of what will happen to her if she is. We comforted
her and promised her that her dad's heart would be softened and she would one
day be able to be baptized.
So yeah, Friday night was amazing. When we got home I was
writing in my journal and I wrote the phrase "the Lord is far better to us
than we deserve." Earlier in the day on Friday, Sister Sorenson and I had
been a little frustrated because none of our investigators were texting us back
and we were just tired of being ghosted. When we went out to work that evening
we didn't have the best attitude, but we showed just a little bit of effort and
He rewarded us BEYOND comprehension. Man...it's like you give the Lord a piece
of bread and he gives it back as toast...and then you give that back to him and
he gives it back BUTTERED. No matter what you give to the Lord, He will always
bless you with far more than you deserve.
However, Friday night was also a little bittersweet. I
mentioned earlier that I had a lot of cool experiences with the Holy Ghost.
Many of these came in lessons, but after every lesson I heard, clear as if
someone was talking to me, the words "You will not see the fruits of these
labors." I just brushed it off and kept working, but it made me a little
uneasy.
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| 2 1/2(ish) Months as Companions |
I had known that there was something stirring in the waters
this week because of various news traveling around the mission...but Saturday
night the answer to this prompting came through a call from President. He
talked on the phone with Sister Sorenson for a while and then she handed the
phone to me. When I answered he said "Sister Jacobson, I'm going to ask
you to do something very difficult for me," and then explained that he
wanted me to forgo my last two weeks of training in order to be a part of an
Emergency Transfer. And I agreed.
So what's happening is pretty complicated, but basically across the mission
there is a Sister who was visa waiting and she found out her visa is never
going to come, so she was reassigned to a different mission where she could
speak her assigned language. Her companion is from Japan and doesn't speak
English very well. So I'm being transferred to be this Japanese sister's
companion. Sister Sorenson will be a solo missionary for a week; until Sister
Bradshaw leaves for Jamaica (she got her visa!!). When Sister Bradshaw leaves,
Sister Baggaley and Sister Sorenson will be companions for the last week of the
transfer and they will cover all six of our wards together.
After I hung up the phone from talking to President I just
started crying. I didn't realize how much I'd grown to love these wards and
these people until I knew that I was going to be leaving them. And then yesterday
at church I didn't realize how much the wards loved me until they found out I
was leaving. It was brutal. I knew that the odds of me staying in Bella Vista
for another transfer were slim, but leaving two weeks early is super sad. But I
know that it is right, and I know that it's happening now for a reason. Yesterday
President called again to make sure I was still on board and he told me that
all four of the Assistants, himself and Sister Wheeler, as well as Sister Ogawa
and Sister Warner had all prayed about it and felt right about it, and I told
him that Sister Sorenson and I felt right about it as well. Knowing it is right
though doesn't change the fact that I'm still sad about leaving the area.
That's the hard thing about trusting the Lord; knowing it's His will and having
to humble yourself enough to be willing to follow Him.
However, I'm going to Sister Sorenson's old area!! I'm going
north to the Gilbert Zone, in the smack dab center of Gilbert. Sister Ogawa is
from Hiroshima, Japan....the only Japanese sister in our mission! I've heard
that she will change my life. People in the mission say "try and be like
Sister Ogawa...because being like Jesus is too hard, we need stepping
stones." Also Sister Sorenson trained Sister Ogawa, so it'll be a pretty
smooth transition. I'm so excited to be her companion, and I've heard amazing
things about this area. My guess is that Sister Ogawa and I will stay together
next transfer, but we'll find out in two weeks!
So yeah, that's my week…pretty amazing, and pretty crazy as
well! This week's going to be even crazier! I love and miss you all!
Sister Jacobson
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| Baby Bird Rescue w/Less-Active Member |
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| Baby Bird Rescue w/Less-Active Member |
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| Missionary Humor w/Sister Rowley |
