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!