Dear family,

Yet another awesome week!

 

Teresa and Kevin got married!!! Woooooo!!!! It was just a small, simple wedding in the church building, but still so beautiful. Right after the "kiss the bride," Kevin's daughter gave Teresa a hug and said, "Now you can be my mom forever!" Oh my gosh. And how right she is. Families can be together forever through this Gospel, and how sweet it was to see this family taking the first steps to eternity. We don't know at this point if Teresa and Sadie will be baptized in two weeks' time or if they'll wait a few months so Kevin can baptize them, but either way, this family is doing all they can to be together forever. It's just.... aah!!

 

Liz is doing so well!! She's starting to cut back her cigarette count and came to sacrament meeting yesterday!!! It was the first time she had gone in a little over a year, I think. She also came with her less-active husband and her one year-old son! So great to see them there!! The speakers were a newlywed couple, and they had both served missions, so the talks were pretty great as it was, but the husband talked about overcoming trials--addiction being one of them--through the Atonement of Christ. It could not have been more perfect with Liz there! She's keeping all her commitments and this past week when we asked if she would read one chapter of the Book of Mormon a day (as opposed to reading everything we leave in one day), she looked kind of bummed. She said, "But sometimes it's just so fun and I want to keep reading..." Man. Oh man. So we gave her some more to read. It is so cool to see how much she loves the Book of Mormon! Seeing how much spark she's gotten and how much she's grown in just these three weeks I've been here is absolutely incredible. Keep praying for her! I know it's helping!

Teva's going through some hard trials right now.  We talked to him a bit about faith and enduring through trials , and it seemed to help him feel a little better, though!

 I've come to learn that there comes a point in everyone's life where we're backed up to the wall of faith, and we have to choose to believe and act on that belief, or we choose to keep going with what we see right in front of us, leading us nowhere. We all go through it. So are you going to choose to continue in faith, or are you going to turn your back on the One who really knows what's going on?

We came across some new investigators this week! I know it's a result of our hard work and obedience. There's this super fun couple, Doug and Sharon. They've taken discussions from the missionaries before, and Doug has read the Book of Mormon through a bunch of times, but they're in their church and they like it. From what they've said, the last missionaries that visited them would just come over and hang out and drink chocolate milk (they gave us some too.... it was dang good chocolate milk!). They said the first elders that came would always pray with them and have a spiritual thought, but these last ones didn't. That just makes me mad. You DON'T just hang out as a missionary, especially at an investigator's home. We are here to WORK. ...Anyways, we shared a good message, had a return appointment, but they cancelled because Sharon just had foot surgery, and her foot was really bothering her. They felt really bad about cancelling, and said they do want us to stop by again. So sometime this week, Sister Kuhns and I are going to drop by and do any cleaning they need (she's been off her feet for a month now and Doug needs a little help... haha) and any other chores.

 

We've been really trying to focus on serving while we've been here. Visiting elderly women, volunteering at a community service opportunity, doing little chores here and there. There's lots of trust that needs to be built in the missionaries here, and we feel this will be a good way to do it. And a word of Sister Jacobsonly wisdom: let people serve you! Please! Even Sisters. It's hard to serve others when no one lets you do it! "Doing good is a pleasure, a joy beyond measure, a blessing of duty and love." (Rant over.)

I've also had an idea of something to get the members here more involved in member missionary work. We both have realized that we want/need to teach more in members' homes, especially those who aren't super involved with Church things--with or without an investigator. As we teach in members' homes, 1. they are edified themselves, 2. we get more practice, and 3. they will begin to catch the contagious missionary bug. As people see what we do and how we do it, they'll see that it's 1. not hard, and 2. pretty dang awesome. And then they want more. And more! Until the whole stake is ablaze in missionary fervor. Hopefully. So I thought that maybe we could make a signup sheet akin to the meal signup sheet for people to have us over for a "practice lesson." We'll just teach them any ol' lesson we'd teach an investigator. I don't know if it's going to be implemented or if it'll work, but I dunno. Maybe it'll start something!

I am SOOO excited to hear about all the mission calls!!! Congratulations to those who have received them or are in the papers process! I just.... you're just so great!!

I love this Gospel. I love the change it brings for the better. Always for the better. I'm not the same person I was a month and a half ago. And I'm ok with that. I love you all! I love my mission! The Gospel is true! I'm going to commit anyone who reads this to read Alma 7 and report back. Will you do that? Great!   

Love,
Sister Jacobson                                        1st  Zone Conference