This Week Was the Bomb!

One thing that I really learned this week was to be grateful. The Lord has truly blessed us with so much, and how often do we remember to thank Him? A talk was given last week in Sacrament meeting about gratitude and one point that was emphasized is how we often pray for safety as we travel or a blessing on the food, but how often are we like the 1 leper who returned and thanked the Lord for that, verses the 9 who did not. It was a cool experience to take time each night and say a prayer to my Father in Heaven, thanking Him for all of the blessings in my life- big and small. He really does shower us all with blessings, and taking time to notice them makes us happier and more fulfilled people. 

I got transferred! I'm no longer in Moreno Valley, but back in the Jurupa Stake (the stake where I started my mission) in the Jurupa Ward! I'm now at the top of the stake, whereas before I was at the bottom. I'm with Elder Wood from Oklahoma. He came out the same time I did. I'm super excited to be here! Our zone is much smaller than MoVal's (5 companionships verses 10) so that'll be so nice! I love this stake, so I couldn't be happier! I was here last year for Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas, and I'll almost certainly do that again here this year.

I'm very excited to be in Jurupa with Elder Wood. I think that we will be able to get a lot of great work done here and get this area back up on it's feet. We will exercise faith and be very diligent in our work so that the Lord can trust us to teach and baptize His prepared sons and daughters.

​Thank you so much for the box! I really appreciate it. I also appreciate all the pics, ties, aveda stuff and FH stuff. I love getting packages and mail and especially stuff that I can use like that. Thank you! Is there anything from Cali that you'd like me to send  you? I'm super bad at gift ideas.. haha

We got to buff a B-29 at the air museum this week! That's the same plane that dropped the atomic bombs in WWII. It was such a cool experience! We got to climb up into the bomb bays too!

                                       

   

This past week has been pretty good, in Lasselle. We really pushed to add as much faith in to everything that we did as possible, and it really seemed to make a difference. Even though I am leaving the area, I am confident that it will do well and I think that we left on a high note so that Elders Gulbranson and Williams will be able to have a lot of good success.

I talked with President Mullen this week about the whole school situation. He said that the only two options are for me to go home August 15th and have that super tight schedule, or be released a transfer (6 weeks) early and go home sometime in the beginning of July. He said it's up to me and he's fine with getting the permission from SL, but he needs to know pretty far in advance so he can get the application process done in time, if I do choose to go home early. I'm really torn because I don't want to go home early, but on all logistical fronts it seems like it'd be better. I've prayed about it and really don't feel a lot of listing feelings one way or another. I wanted to get your and dad's opinions on it. What do you think would be best?

Love,

Your Elder Jackson :)

Service Softens Hearts!

"M" Mountain (He is in Moreno Valley)

This week we really saw the Lord's hand in our lives. We took the challenge of the mission to fast for the faith to find families very seriously. We've both been trying very hard to grow our faith and trust in the Lord's promises. And the Lord does fulfill His promises! We broke our fast Sunday evening and immediately left to see a potential (her name is Sonyika) whom we had met Saturday morning. We were graciously welcomed into her home and invited everyone to participate. All 6 of her kids came in and we started sharing the message of the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Spirit was so strong and all the kids and her herself recognized it and everything clicked. They were so excited to accept all of our commitment invitations and are on date, preparing to be baptized. They are so excited to come to church this next Sunday as well. It was a huge blessing to us and we are so grateful to the Lord for rewarding us for our faith, and in such an immediate fashion! We're so excited to see how they progress!

We had a cool experience with service this week! We've been doing service at the Air Force museum every day of the week during less productive proselyting hours. We have become pretty close with some of the volunteers and one of them, a retired Marine dog handler, was really excited to talk to us and said, "next time you come I'd love to sit down and read from the Book of Mormon with you!". It was so cool! Service really does soften hearts and make people more receptive to the gospel. JustServe is a wonderful organization and it is so inspired. Everyone should get involved with it!

That is great to hear that you are getting back into the swing of things. I'm really proud of Jessie and Julie. That is awesome. 

That is also pretty cool to hear about the family history miracles. They want to train us more on using that to help in our proselyting efforts!

Yes, I still have the digital photo frame and it works. Thank you! 

Things are going great here. Is there anything you need and that I can do for you? I would love to get prayed into Winnemucca, but we'll just have to wait a few months :)

Love you so so much! I hope you have the best week ever. 

Love,

Your Elder Jackson

Conference as a Missionary Rocks!

The week was great! They keep getting faster and faster. It's weird, transfers are starting to seem short now--almost like weeks.

I'm so happy to hear that Bryson made it to earth safely and that he's healthy. How is Trent feeling? 

I did like the firecracker story too. I also liked Elder Holland's Priesthood session talk on Home teaching. I will make sure I do my home teaching faithfully when I get back. It is so important!

Conference was amazing! It always is as a missionary. I was very impressed on how repentance was very much a theme throughout the whole thing. I particularly liked Elder Cornish's talk on repentance and how we cannot justify our sins away or do anything short of full and proper repentance in order to become clean. We all want to become clean and return to live with our loving Father in Heaven, but only by complete and proper repentance can we become worthy to do so. Living God's commandments is a requirement and obedience to the promptings of the Spirit is a very big part living the commandments.

I love service. I got to sit in a WWII Jeep at the Air Museum! It was so cool! It was sooo cool!

I can't believe that the holidays are already coming up! So soon!

Thank you for digitizing my stuff. That will make it really easy for me to see if I need to make any changes or anything. I really hope I can get accepted into the program again! If you want to start making arrangements you can.

Thank you for all of your love and support! Don't forget to share the gospel and do missionary work! Open your mouth, testify and invite! There are people prepared in every corner of every land!!

Love you so so much! Have a great week!

Love,

Your Elder Jackson :)