This was the best week ever! It was such a good week! Miracles were happening every day, all day! So many spiritual experiences happened. It all started with a zone meeting all on the Sabbath Day. I learned so much during this meeting. They shared a talk by Elder Russell M. Nelson called, "The Sabbath Is a Delight." I would highly recommend reading it. The questions that got me thinking was how can I make the Sabbath a delight and how can I make the Sabbath different? Those two questions really got me thinking. Sometimes I wake up on sunday and it doesn't even feel like sunday. I do the same thing and wear church clothes every single day so how can I make sunday different? Because it needs to be. The part I liked from the talk was, "If you choose to delight yourself in the Lord, you will not permit yourself to treat it as any other day." Christ created the earth under the direction of Heavenly Father in 6 days and on the 7th day he rested and that is what we are commanded to do: to keep the Sabbath Day Holy. We are to do all we can monday through saturday and on sunday we are to rest from our labors and reserve one day for Christ. "In paying tithing, we return one-tenth of our increase to the Lord. In keeping the Sabbath holy, we reserve one day in seven as His. So it is our privilege to consecrate both money and time to Him who lends us life each day." The missionaries doing the training challenged all of us to do one thing to make the Sabbath more a delight. I would like to challenge all yall the same thing. What can we do to make the Sabbath more a delight?
The next day just continued with great things! I was on exchanges with Sister Chandler for the whole day and we just saw so many miracles! She is such a great missionary! I learned so much from her. She is great at talking with everyone we see. We stopped all the times on our bikes to talk to everyone. There are so many stories I want to share from today but I will just share two! The first one: We were in an area trying to meet with an investigator who is moving but he wasn't home so we knocked some houses on his street, in doing this we met Tristan. He is 17 and had time right then for us to share a message. He told us that religion has changed his life. He is very religious and thinks about things a lot. We taught him the restoration and the spirit touched him! I love hearing people pray. It tells a lot about how they are really feeling. He was so open in his prayer and asked to know more about his gospel! What a miracle! Second: Sister Chandler and I were trying some potentials in an area and this group of kids walk up to us and start talking to us. The oldest two are high school age and the younger two are probably Elementary School aged. Well they didn't know anything about our church and we told them an overview and they were really interested. We left them with a Book of Mormon and scheduled time to come back! The younger kids loved the pass along picture cards.
Wednesday was just as good! It just kept getting better! Sister Jensen the day before on exchanges with Sister McKenzie met one of her former investigators at the Food Bank where they were volunteering. And the former, Rhiannon, was telling Sister Jensen that she wanted us to come stop by! This was great news! Especially cause Sister Jensen has kept trying to get in with them the past two months but hasn't had any luck. She told her to come in the mornings. Well this morning we went and had an awesome lesson with her! The spirit was confirming truths to her and everything was just making sense! She kept saying how she couldn't wait for her husband to get home so she could tell him what she learned! She even asked her daughter if she wanted to come to church on sunday! She invited herself to come to church and guess what, it gets even better?! Rhiannon, Ross, and their daughter all came to church yesterday!!! :)
Thursday we had something really funny and kind of strange happen. On tuesday Sister Chandler and I met this man named Billy. Well we set an appointment with him for today and we tried him and there was no answer at the door. Well about an hour later, Sister Jensen suggested going to try him again so we rode over to try him again. Well we bike up to his house and his front door is open with his screen door shut. We can see into his house and we see him inside but he leaves the room. So we go knock on the door and he doesn't answer, but we know he is inside so we just wait a little bit. But guess what we saw on the table open?! That's right, the Book of Mormon! He didn't ever come to the door which is weird but it looked like he had been reading! Then a car pulls up to his house and we feel a little weird waiting on the porch so then we just leave haha it was kinda funny experience.
The experience on friday evening I think was my favorite for the week! Well today was the night that the Beckette family (Nephi, Liam, and Olivia) had us over for dinner! Nephi and Liam are the young boys that gave us water. That happened during my first couple weeks here. Well we had dinner with them and then afterwards had a lesson with them. This was a powerful lesson. Sister Malcom (she is in the picture with me and her baby) and her son Levi, who is 8, joined us for the lesson about halfway through. Levi and Liam have been in the same school class for awhile so they are good friends. Sister Malcom and Levi were a great help to teaching the lesson. We got to the first vision part and Sister Jensen told the kids that they needed to be very reverent during this part and pay attention to how they feel. We recited the first vision and then waited a little while before asking them how they felt. The boys couldn't describe it! They were smiling and happy and Liam said, "it was the spirit." He was so right. The spirit was so strong as we were teaching them. Nephi and Liam by the end were so excited and said, "I want to get baptized!" We gave Nephi a Book of Mormon to keep and he held onto it the whole night, never set it down. He ran up and gave Sister Jensen and I a big hug and said thank you!
Saturday: By this day we are up to 100 miracles probably. So many good things happened this week. Earlier this week we met someone who we weren't too sure if she was interested but we saw her today and she seemed way more interested this time! After seeing her we knocked some houses and just so happened to knock on a members door! What?! We knocked on her door and she let us in right away. About 20 minutes into the conversation with her she mentions she is a member! How crazy is that. She hasn't been to church she said in a really long time. She isn't even on our ward list. So that was super cool and another miracle for the week! Lastly on our way back to our house before dinner we stop and see this guy we met on tuesday from Nepal. He wasn't home but we met his friends and they said they were all planning on coming to church. They asked if we wanted water and we said sure. The picture of me holding the Gatorade bottle full of water is what they gave us! haha they gave us sooo much water. Oh and that evening we tried Billy again and another funny thing happened again. So we were with a member in her car and we get to his house and his truck is gone so we figured he was at work still. Well Sister Jensen decides to leave him a note inviting him to come to church when his truck drives past but doesn't pull into his driveway. We are thinking that is weird. About a couple minutes later his truck comes back and pulls in to his driveway. We are sitting there in the car not sure what to do. We figured this probably looks super weird cause we are just sitting outside his house when he comes home from work haha super awkward. We just decide to drive away and come back later that evening haha. Well when we come back that evening we knock on his house and no answer and that same car from the couple nights before that pulled up, pulls up again. How strange? haha well we just leave again. Who knows what is going on with Billy!
The last picture is of Sister Jensen and I in front of the Lawton bench! I just love being a missionary! It is seriously the greatest! I truly am an instrument in the Lord's hand. He is guiding us everyday to the people we are suppose to be meeting! I love all yall! and thank you for the support and prayers. Have a blessed week!
All my love,
Sister Jackson
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