Week 2 In The Pool

Hello!

It is a beautiful day in Liverpool! I am starting to get use to this beautiful country. I love it. The people here are so loving and kind and I feel honored to be in this area. Sister Chaipinit is a wonderful example and I am learning a lot from her! Our area is doing great! Ebony is getting baptized!! I love her so much. She fasted that her mom would let her be baptized and her mom is letting her. We are teaching her mom Emma and she asked for a priesthood blessing! It was so cool! Bishop Gomez gave the blessing himself! When they walked in you could feel the spirit come with them. Anyways Sister Chaipinit and I saw many miracles this week! We found a ton of potentials this week and found some new investigators. Saturday was one of those days when I learned a ton a grew a ton. For some reason all of our appointments fell through. We were trying to keep positive attitudes but it was getting rough. We probably said three prayers together. We decided we wouldn't have dinner until we taught someone haha so on our way back we stopped at every house that had a light on. We ended up teaching an amazing woman named Sa. She only speak Thai!!!!! Sister Chaipinit taught her the restoration in Thai and invited her to be baptized and she said yes! I just sat there and smiled and nodded my head, but the cool part was I knew what sister Chaipinit was saying. I could tell when she was talking about Joseph Smith and The Book of Mormon. So every once in a while I would say a tiny bit of my testimony even though she couldn't understand. It was amazing! She said that she thinks we are servants of God. My heart was so full and we immediately thanked our heavenly father. I am also thankful that I've learned a little Thai from sister Chaipinit so I knew how to say hello and goodnight. That's pretty much it though haha. Anyways there were heaps of smile moments this week as well. One day I decided I should try my Aussie accent. I look at Sister Chaipinit and she asked me if I had hurt my tongue haha. 

We went to Sister Allen's this week to share a message and all the sudden she whips out some oil and starts putting it on Sister Chaipinits face, Then she forced me to put it on my face too. There are HEAPS of tongans and somoans here and they WILL NOT take no for an answer haha. I am still getting used to walking on the left. It is so hard. It is my natural instinct to walk on the right. I am helping Sister Chaipinit learn English and every time she goes to send a text I check it before we send it and one time she showed me a txt that read, " Hello Roy is it ok if we come over and share a massage with you." I told her what she said and she laughed super hard. Anyways I've been studying a ton about pride this week. Probably because I really want to humble myself. There are so many Christlike attributes that I need to work on. Jesus Christ had the perfect personality. In the scriptures it talks about how we have to have a broken heart and contrite spirit so that we can humble ourselves. We can choose to be humble or God will humble us. I want to choose to be humble haha. In a talk by Elder Benson it says, "Pride is Ugly, it says if you succeed, i'm a failure." A lot of times we compare ourselves to others. At least I do. When we do that we are being prideful. But then I read "if we love god, do his will, and fear judgement more than men's, we will have self esteem."  So my goal this week is to not compare myself but to try and lift others up!!! I also realized that sometimes people put on masks. Like as missionaries sometimes we put on the "missionary mask" or when we go to church we put on the "church mask" and then we leave we go back to being the natural man.  That's not how it is supposed to be.There should be no mask. It should be real. We are supposed to love ourselves and try and seek the good qualities we have and try to better ourselves every day. If we take each day one day at a time we can become those sons and daughters of God that our Heavenly Father knows and wants us to be. I know we get what we are putting into it. Ask yourself the question, "What am I putting into it?" Don't blame mistakes on others. Ask "Lord is it I". This gospel is so good. I love you all so much!!!

Love Sister Jacobsen

P.s. Here are some good scrips for this week Mosiah 4:9 2 Nephi 22:2 Alma 37:36 oh also #jacob6:12

 A member brought us so much meat that we couldn't fit it all in our freezer!

Liven in the Pool

Hello!

So i am now in Australia! Wow this is a dream. I am so blessed to be a missionary here in Liverpool. I've been assigned to the Liverpool area, so we call it The Pool. I survived the longest flight of my life [15 hours and 1 minute from LA to Sydney - 17 Time Zones]. On my ticket it said departure: Monday and arrival: Wednesday. haha i was like where did Tuesday go?? So my first flight was from Detroit to LA and i sat next to a great guy named Leslie. I feel so lucky because every flight i've had on my mission so far i've been able to share the gospel with the person sitting next to me. Leslie already had a Book of Mormon but had misplaced it so i "coincidentally" had one in my bag haha. I explained it to him and he asked for my contact information! I was happy to give him my email! It is such a miracle to be able to share the gospel through email to an older man i met on a plane. 

He ended up telling me that he was one of the head honchos at the airport and he introduced me to the people he worked with. Since i had to wait in the airport for so long by myself my gate wasn't posted yet for my travel arrangements to Sydney. His friends looked it up for me and they were all so nice. I felt so naked not having a companion with me! I was desperately searching for missionaries and i found some! They were headed to Brisbane but were on the same flight! Anyways on my long flight i sat next to two very authentic Australians. The one to my right ordered white wine for every meal and even requested extra haha. I couldn't help but notice he was watching Downton Abbey and it took all my willpower not to watch it with him haha. Just kidding it wasnt that hard. Once we arrived in Australia all the Aussies started clapping on the plane. It was so fun. While i was walking out i saw Sister Salts!!! My roomie from the MTC that was also waiting for her VISA. we kind of made each other companions until we saw The Backs. The Backs. They are perfect. I love Roseville Detroit so much. A part of my heart will always be there. I miss the people everyday, But it was insane how right when i met The Backs i felt as if this is exactly where i am supposed to be. The Backs are super great. They have the best sense of humor and they are so kind. President Back pulled me aside and we did my interview right then and there in the airport. He made me feel so good about myself and i can already tell we are going to be fast friends. We had to wait a couple of hours in the airport until all the other missionaries arrived. Ok so this mission is brilliant. THERE ARE MISSIONARIES FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD. No joke, i think there were only 3 Americans that came in out of all 23 incoming missionaries. I'm talking Phillipines, Tongan, Somoan, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Thailand, Japan, Spanish, Finland, etc. etc. etc. Before we left the airport we all sang Called to Serve in the airport and the spirit was so strong. Imagine missionaries from all over the world gathered together singing called to serve. Powerful right? Ok now i get to talk about the moment you've all been waiting for. Yes. Driving in the car. So i get in the car and the steering wheel was missing. But then i realized it was just on the other side. While driving to the mission home i almost had 15 heart attacks because i was so tripped out. Everything here is different. The speed limit is in K's and they have cameras on all of the streets that just take pictures of you if you are speeding and mail you your ticket. So then we arrived to the mission office and there were heaps of missionaries. The culture here is very different from my last mission and everyone is very casual but very good missionaries at the same time. I'm not kidding i've probably learned how to say Hello in 10 different languages. I tried my first TIM TAM! The chocolate here is unreal. Never going back to Hersheys. Sister Back calls our mission the BMW mission. That is like the mission's slogan. It stands for the Best Mission in the World. I am so keen on believing it. I can't pick out one thing that is bad. I just love it so much. After i shared my testimony and learned some things about the culture i got paired with my amazing companion! 

Her name is Sister Chaipinit and she is from Thailand! She reached to about my shoulder height! It is so fun, we have language study in the morning so i can help teach her English! This morning she had salad for breakfast. I was like, Mom is that you? JOKES. Sister Chaipinit is one of the hardest workers i know and i love it. We actually have four sisters that live in our flat! it is so fun! We love exchanging spiritual experiences we had throughout the day! We live right next to a cemetery and we run around it every morning for exercise! Sometimes we look at the names haha. 

My district consists of all Polynesians. There are very few moments when they are not laughing. They say heaps and heaps of jokes. Sometimes i just want the Poly's to stop laughing so we can be spiritual. I already love the people here so much. One member dropped off an entire shopping cart of food for us. Christmas came early! They are so kind and giving. We have some great people we are teaching. I am still meeting everyone. It is VERY different from my last area so i am still trying to get use to it. We bus everywhere so we don't get to visist as many people. But we had such a great miracle this week. We went over to our Investigator names Ebony's house. She is 13. Her mom wasn't going to allow her to get baptized but when i asked her after the lesson about baptism she said her mom said she could get baptized!!!!! We were so happy! I am still meeting everyone here but i am so happy. On sunday they asked me to bear my testimony when i got to church. I knew this moment would come. Last sunday in Roseville they asked me to say the closing prayer and this sunday they asked me to bear my testimony! My fear or public speaking is diminishing a little bit every transfer haha. But it was such a blessing to share my testimony. It is strengthened each time i bear it. I love it because i know i am growing closer to my father in heaven. Anyways there is too much to say. I'll spread out all the fun facts about Australia throughout my emails! I just want to leave you with a spiritual message. So you guys probably already know how much the Brethren have been stressing Sabbath day observance, but i've had the opportunity to really study the importance of the sabath. It really is a gift from God and we should treat is as a delight. Do we prepare our stomachs more than we prepare our spirits on sunday? In 2003 President Hinckley invited us to raise the bar in missionary work, they are now inviting us to raise the bar with the sabbath. Take mental pictures of your sunday life. Then ask yourself, what sign am i giving God? Would you want to send that picture up to God? Sabbath comes from a Hebrew word meaning rest but it doesn't mean to sleep all day. Haha i was definitely guilty of that but i know now that we supposed to treat as a gift from God. It is different for everyone and our relationships with God are very personal but i know that we need to catch the Brethren's vision about keeping the sabbath day Holy. Go read the talk "The sabbath is a delight"! It is so good! Anywho, one other thing that really took me aback this week was when i came across the question, "Are you serving a mission or are you serving The Lord?" It really hit me hard and i am so grateful for this opportunity to be a missionary and an instrument in the lord's hands. I love you all! 

Love,

SIS JAKE

P.s. look up the scrips 2 Nephi 33:1 and The Book of Enos! Enos i my favorite right now. He is keen. 

P.p.s. Granpa Jake, they don't say garbage here they say rubbish haha!

My view from my flat.

Sister Chaipinit and I.

Off to Australia

Dear Family & Friends,

O.K. This is the weekly letter I started before I went on exchanges. Then I found out I was going to Australia. It's only half of the week! I'll write about the other half next week—

“Green, Green, I pink up the phone and say YELLO?”  Haha we actually have an investigator that picks up the phone and says that overtime we call,  No joke.  It’s so great.  His name is John! (Great name, isn’t it Dad?) I love John so much!  We have been teaching him for a while now and his baptism is coming up in the next month!  I can’t wait for him to get dunked.  He is a solid 250+ pounds.  We actually go on walks with him and talk about his Book of Mormon reading to help him with his exercise.  So on Friday he told us that if we get transferred he is going to call Pres. Monson and tell him we have to stay.  He jokes around saying he isn’t going to get baptized if we don’t stay,  Mom, John really wants to write you a letter. Who knows?  He might come show up at your door in California!  We’ve taught him pretty much everything!  I’m so excited for him:)  

So on Monday we only took a half P-Day so we could go to the temple on Thursday.  I LOVE the temple.  it was so beautiful and so peaceful!  It was even cooler going as a missionary.  It was so cool, the lady that sat next to me in the temple was blind.  She was so beautiful and she is amazing at crocheting.  She crocheted most of her temple clothes.  I don’t really know her but I love her.  I’m always so happy when I go to the temple and feel complete peace.  God’s love is so evident.  I can’t wait to go there and be sealed to by forever family.  I get emotional just thinking about it and thinking about how some of the people I’m teaching right now are on their way to finding that eternal happiness.  God is so good.  So Sister Hubbard went to the temple with Sister Russel, Sister Wood, and myself!  After the temple we went to Sister Hubbard’s beautiful home and she prepared a wonderful lunch for us!  I met Bella, the dog who pees instantaneously if you pet it and I saw Fat Amy, the car Jane drove in High School!  We ate Eggs Benedict and we had Vernors which is a Michigan drink.  Sister Hubbard stoked us with some Milano and Dove chocolates.  She’s such a saint.  We then drove home in Sister Russel’s mini van.  She named it Dirty Red.  Thanks to Aunt Shannon I’ve discovered the best snack int he world, frozen grapes.  They are heaven on the mission.  We shared them with Sister Russel and she loved them.  Sister Russel is a hilarious black lady who is deathly afraid of fireflies.  

So another really cool miracle we saw this week is with a couple of less actives we are working with.  We came over to teach them about relying on the Savior and the first thing Brother Merlo said when we walked in was, “Guess what?!  I read the entire Book of Mormon!!”  I could cry I was so happy.  When we talked about never being alone and how our Brother Jesus Christ is always there, Brother Merlo’s heart melted and he started crying.  This moment was so precious.  W wanted to replay it time and time again.  Emma is doing good too!  She want to pay her tithing when she gets baptized and her dog Maggie is only smoking like one cigarette a day not!  We began teaching this super rad guy named Danny.  He has an Irish accent.  He is a friend of a recent convert in our ward.  We asked him to pray about a day when he wanted to get baptized and he got an answer!  He chose August 15th.  I am so excited for him.  We just talked to him about the plan of salvation and it touched him because he lost 165 of his closest buddies when he served in the navy.

TO BE CONTINUED  (Jacquelyn did not know she was leaving for Australia until 2 days before.  She said it was REALLY hard saying good bye to her investigators.  She grew to really love and appreciate them.  She felt like her heart was breaking when she said good bye to them.  But, she is looking forward to Australia.  We will keep you posted!  Thank you for your love and support!)

Knock On!

Dear Family & Friends,

I love my gangster friends almost as much as I love you.  I really love these people.  My ward is beginning to become a family to me.  This week we started off at New Missionary Training.  It was so great.  I always come out of meetings feeling spiritually overwhelmed.  I want to take the world on.  There are so many things I want to change about myself.  It is so great.  Also, Sister Gerber made hot dogs inside of potatoes.  In the words of Sister Wood, “It was weired haha.”  Oooohh on Monday we played chair soccer as a district.  It was intense.  I was so sore on Tuesday!  Sister Wood and I still run 2 miles a day so that made chair soccer bearable.  We are teaching the Merlos still.  Within the last month they are really really progressing!  They are coming to church!  Two times in a row!  Brother Merlos is so cool.  He’s actually in a wheelchair and he played wheelchair basketball.  He made it to the championship!  I tease him that I would totally cream him in wheelchair basketball.  Emma is also really progressing.  She is already preparing to pay tithing when she is baptized.  We had to talk abaout the law of chastity a couple days ago.  It was my first time really teaching it.  It turned out way good.  So we met this super cute man named George.  He is 91.  He showed us his garden.  He even gave us a zuchinni.  He also gave us these cool Brazilian beans.  I keep them with me wherever I go because I’ve never met anyone with as much charity as George.  I can’t wait to meet with him again!  We are so excited to talk about the Plan of Salvation with him.  Sometimes, Sister Wood and I like to switch name tags to mix things up a little bit.  One time we forgot to switch them back.  So Sister Wood began to introduce herself saying, “Hello, I’m Sister WoooJacobsen!”  It’s a miracle we kept straight faces.  Somedays I’m so tired in the morning that at the 6:20 mark (so I can say my prayers) I honestly just force myself to roll directly onto the floor.  There’s always a big lump.  But that’s only on the rough mornings when Satans working really hard on me.  He knows my weaknesses but he hasn’t got me yet!  Still going strong with no sleeping in!  Be proud of me Brad!:)  

OK on Thursday, I don’t know who made this decision, but they trusted me enough to take over my area for a day!  Sister Wood had to go to a meeting so guess who my companion was?  Sister Johnson!  Two new bees taking charge of Roseville.  Whatever your imaging right now its probably spot on.  It was a day full of adventures.  So I called Sis Gaus because neither one of us had a car to drive us around to our appointments all day.  Lets just say I lived in Temecula for 18 years and I still struggle getting to certain places.  I’ve only been in Roseville for 5 weeks!!!  Poor Sister Gaus.  I’m pretty sure Sis Gaus hates me because I am so terrible at directions.  But we actually had some super spiritual experiences that day.   

Now I just want to talk about the 4th of July.  It was my favorite fourth of July ever!  Since a lot of our investigators had parties/plans that day we only had 3 lessons scheduled so we decided to go park contacting!  Basically we went around to a ton of families and asked, “Can we show you what we believe with one piece of paper and two words.”  We do this super, cool presentation I learned from a member.  Go look it up on Youtube.  Sister Murray said that’s where she found it.  It’s a kid from Bay City in Michigan.  Anyways we found 4 new investigators on the fourth!  It was so great!  Then we were invited over to the Jensens for a BBQ dinner.  We felt special because half the ward was there including the bishop.  It was a pool party!  We scouted out the nonmembers at the dinner and sat by them!  So Sister Wood and I actually have a balcony on our apartment.  We made a bed of all the sisters left over old clothes.  We slept outside and watched the fireworks everywhere!  It was so fun!  Well I have to go!  I’ll attach some miracles that happened this week!  So many people showed up to church!  It was so awesome!

Love,

Sister Jake

P.S. I’m becoming quite the baker!  Made homemade brownies last night!

Miracles——Sister Johnson and I went to go visit a less active in our ward. We decided we were going to heart attack her door with lots of uplifting quotes and scriptures. When they opened the door there was actually a different lady than who we were expecting but she was also a less active. She agreed to let us come in and share a message with her. When we sat down we kind of were just trying to figure out what was going on and why she wasn't coming to church. She told us her whole conversion story. She said that one Elder basically knew everything that she needed without her even having to tell. There was a particular scripture that really converted her but she didn't tell us what scripture. As we started sharing a message about faith and peace, Sister Johnson pulled out her all-time favorite scripture that we are both familiar with. After she started reading it Sister Fousten just started crying. There was complete silence for about a minute. Then I asked, “Is that the scripture"? It was. It was a miracle. God knew Sister Johnson needed to be there that day and needed to share her favorite scripture at that time. The spirit really does lead and direct and testify through us. I could feel it.  Anyways another miracle I saw this week was when we brought Brother Frank with us to teach. He knew exactly what needed to be said and he got The Merlos to church again. It was so great!