The Send Off Sisters!

Hey, family!

So, we're calling ourselves the "send off sisters" now, haha.  We've had the amazing opportunity of teaching people (no fewer than 8 now) that are in our area but are either moving or don't live there, setting dates with many of them, and then sending them on to other missionaries!  Some missionaries might look at that as a bad thing, but we've seen it as a privilege. We've gotten to be the "spark" (as one of them who got baptized put it) to help people stay hooked in learning about the Gospel. In the end, the work is all the same, no matter who finds, teaches, and baptizes. We're not in this for the numbers or the glory of teaching the most investigators, we're just in this to serve God and help His children.

One of them is Luka, from Egypt!  He made us liver this week!  We were kind of nervous going in, but it was suuuper good.  He's moving in a week, but we're teaching him a lesson before he leaves!  Balvina, Fadil, Jacque (the girl who got baptized), Jacque's sister Stephanie.... they're all in the aforementioned category.  But like I said above, it really is cool to us!  We're getting to help them and help other missionaries!  What could be better?

We also got to volunteer at a color run!  We didn't run ourselves, but we filled up the bottles of color powder (and then emptied a bunch of them before the race started on each other....) and stopped traffic for the runners!  Super fun!  There's so much power in a stop sign and an orange vest.

We've found some more potential investigators, too!  We're seriously being so blessed here!  It may not show in the amount of progressing investigators we have (that amount is 0), but we know we're "laying the foundation of a great work" (Doctrine and Covenants 64:33)!  We've come to the conclusion that these past few months have really been a lot for the members here.  We've kind of been rewiring their brains to trust the missionaries again, to focus on missionary work, to increase their faith and vision, and to help them hit the ground running with their missionary work plans once the fall semester starts!  We know if we hadn't have been working like we have, it might take a while for things to get started work wise, even with all the students coming back soon.  But we feel like things will just EXPLODE once the students get here.  They think they're just coming for secular learning.  Little do they know.... :)

 

 It really is amazing though how nothing else matters anymore.  Nothing matters accept serving God and doing what He would have us do.  I know I'll be doing that in a different way fairly soon, but I will always owe my life to my mission for helping me see that more.  There is nothing that even compares to living the Gospel.  There is nothing that brings more peace, strength, and joy in life than living the Gospel.  There is NOTHING else that compares!  We love serving for the sake of serving, not for the numbers or the outward success.  Sister Fredrick and I have been talking about how even though we're not really teaching anyone steadily anymore for the past while now, we've just been so happy!  We don't care about earthly rewards anymore.  The mission has purged that out of me.  All that matters is serving God and helping His children.  I love Him, and I can never repay what He's done for me, but I can sure as heck give Him the rest of my life gladly.

Love you all!  Give something up that's taking you away from or holding you back from coming closer to Christ this week.  Your "sacrifice" won't be a sacrifice at all, in the grand scheme of how stinkin' happy you can be all day, 'err day.  And yes,I'll write next week, don't worry haha.

Love,  Sister Jacobson

                                             The Color Run!

       Last Preperation Day Tennis Fun!

                                       

                                             Katie titled this one "Tennis Thugs"!