Wednesday, November 25, 2015

Marital Advice?

23 November 2015

It is sad, but there are tons of people in my ward here that have had their families torn apart by divorce and it made me realize how blessed I am to have two temple-worthy, hard-working, honest and Christlike parents who have been together so long and are such an awesome team and have provided me with a life many would kill for! I'm so blessed! That is funny that you say that though because our theme at church on Sunday seemed to be all about families and strengthening them. I really learned how important talking with your spouse is so there isn't built up tension or anger on either side. I also, like you and dad were doing, realized how important remembering your temple covenants are. As you remember them and strive to keep them, blessings will follow and all of the trivial things in life will roll off our backs. I've also learned how similar being with a missionary companion 24/7 is to being married. We do Companion Inventory on a weekly basis to negate any building tensions and it helps a lot, so I'm sure that doing that regularly with a spouse does a lot of good as well!

We also talked to one of the best parents I've met (he has 4 kids all under 9 and they are THE best-behaved kids on the planet and are all so knowledgeable of the Gospel, and he's the Elders' Quorum President) and he gave us his tips. His name is _______ Guy, so we called it "President Guy's 'Guy'd to Successful Parenting" and it said:
 1. Choose a great wife (I've been praying for that, you can bet your best boots on that!)
2. Limit TV watching (they don't have cable. They rarely watch anything, only movies and netflix)
3.Go on 1-on-1 Daddy dates with each kid once a month
4. Have each kid be involved in teaching FHE every Monday.
I thought that was awesome!

I have noticed myself changing a lot, but yes, I am still the same person. I still love my parents and am still the same ole Alex. I just hope I am a more Christlike, charitable and better-facial-haired version of myself when I get back so that I can be prepared for a life centered on Jesus Christ and provide the kind of home I was blessed to be raised in to my kids.

Sister ______ is the greatest! She just became active again and her husband was baptized in April. They did baptisms for the dead this past week and will be going through the temple in May or so. They are the best! I love them so much and they are my favorite to visit!

This week has been amazing! We have seen so much happen this week and we truly are incredibly blessed! The Lord has revealed His hand in this area, and there can be no doubt to that. We  started out our week with a strong desire to be better. We resolved that if we were diligent in putting our daily 1.5 hours of walking and talking as a priority, we would have success. We started the week out strong with 2 1/4 hours on Tuesday. We kept up with that throughout the week. We had the pleasure of having Assistant to the President Elder Fischer join us on Thursday and was able to learn a lot about being persistent in our street contacting and really working on having the Spirit guide where we are supposed to be walking more. We had some of the best contacts of my mission so far that day. The success poured into the following days. We saw miracles!

On Saturday we were so blessed by the Lord to see some miracles. We were able to put ____, a less-active street-gang member on date for baptism on Dec. 20. We then got a call from a member who said that he had someone who would be interested in learning more. We went and met her and it turns out she is the most prepared person for baptism I have ever met! She has such a strong desire to do what Christ wants her to and felt the Spirit and said that she wants to be baptized, and felt that everything that was taught at church and by us  was true! It was amazing! She knows that this is the right path for her! It's been a true blessing of exact obedience and hard work, especially when we have seen so little success in our area and were starting to become discouraged! I'm so grateful to the Lord for all of His tender mercies toward us, His unprofitable servants. It was a miracle I'll never forget!

I love you lots and miss you just as much as you miss me! Just send your prayers that I can survive this holiday season and have my pants and waistline survive as well! Just kidding :)

Love love love love you!

Elder Jackson

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