Enjoy The Ride!

Hello!

So this week was amazing. It feels like I went to the beach ages ago but the beach was unreal. White sand, crystal blue water. And this wasn't even one of the elect beaches. They call it Brighton Le Sands beach. So this week was packed with lessons and meetings and even a trade off with sister Morgan! We were so excited to be comps! So one of the families we are teaching (the one with the fasting experience) is doing so well! We have lots of amazing people we are teaching! I just wanted to share a couple of things I learned this week! I'm trying to make every minute of my personal studies!    “learn of me ….and ye shall find rest unto your souls” Matt 11:29  I'm also learning to enjoy rejection. President Back said Enjoy rejection as did Paul: “…my strength is made perfect in weakness….I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.” 2 Corinthians 12:9-10. “…Love your enemies, bless them that curse you…..pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;” Matt 5:44 President Back also tells us that obedience fills all the cracks of our lives. It is so true. Obedience guarantees happiness. "Enjoy exact obedience: Miracles are yours for the asking." I've learned to  enjoy work: “…this is my work and my glory-to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.” Moses 1:39 / “…a marvelous work….” D&C 4 / “It is the working man who is the happy man. It is the idle man who is the miserable man.” Benjamin Franklin / “The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary.” Vince Lombardi / “Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.” Confucius There are so many great things I've learned this week! Sorry for an overload!

President Back also came to Stake Conference as did one of the Seventy who I talked with after!

Keep the fire burning! (fire means the spirit) I will attach pics of the beach!

No Time

Hello!
So this week i can't write because we are heading to the beach for sister Morgan's birthday! Got special permission and we are super stoked! :) Love you all heaps!

Love,
Sis Jake

SMILE

Dear Mates (people really do say that here)

Soo much happened this week! Let's start off from the beginning. Our dear flatmate Sister Atkinson was Emergency Transferred because another sister went home and so now we just have four sisters in the flat. But Sister Tau has brought a lot of life to the flat. She's hilarious. She is learning English too so it's really funny because i feel like anyone that is learning English just says random things all the time. They catch you off guard. Ok also SISTER ROLLINS AND SISTER JOHNSON are here and Sister Rollins is in my district! So happy to be with her. 

She is the cutest sister missionary to ever walk this planet. We are still working with our investigators! Emma is doing great and the Sureskumar family is doing great! One of the members found a job for Rajen. The upside was he got a job but the downside is he has to work on sunday, so i think our plan backfired. We found some great new investigators this week too! Pray for Sella and Deborah! Ok for my spiritual message! I received a letter from a friend this week and they shared some amazing scriptures with me! I think you should all look them up! D&C 88:123-126, 2 Nephi 4:16, 4:27-29. Ok also I was reading in Nephi and i read about how Nephi felt he was the most awful man to walk the planet. Read 2 Nephi 4:17-18. But then i read how we need to react to hard times. Read 2 Nephi 4:20-30! But my favorite scripture this week was 2 Tim 1:7 "For God hath not given us the spirit of fear: but of power, and of love and of a sound mind." Je vous aimes tous, l'evangile et l'eglise est vrai. (I love you all! The Book is Blue, the Church is true)

LOVE,

SIS JAKE

Sister Morgan and i (i may have been on my tippy toes and she may have crouched a bit)

Flat Mates

Sofae(investigator) with my pineapple dress from Bri and my new sandals! 

Alofa Atu

Ok Big things happened this week! Ok first of all two of my investigators from Roseville, Michigan got baptized this week!!!!! SO happy for them. A piece of my heart will always be there. Their names are John and Danny. John is the one who threatened to call Prez Monson if I left lol. I love them both so much. 

Ok so we had transfers and all four of us are staying! I guess our bribing worked! But we also got a new flat mate! Her name is Sister Tau and she is from Tahiti!!! Also, I GOT A CAR! So on Sunday night, Sister Morgan certified me! It was dark and raining. Perfect weather conditions. But I passed! I was really nervous so we said a prayer before we walked to the car and then I got in the car and drove 2 inches and was still nervous so then Sister Chaipinit said another prayer and after that prayer I felt super confident! It's so weird, I feel like I was able to switch over fast! I reckon I might even be a better driver than I was in America. Tongan exchanges were so cool! I learned some tongan! Alofa Atu means i love you and I also learned "Malo apuito, ma'u me' a fokoni coma coma" which means thank you so much but I am so so full because tongans eat HEAPS! Seriously they do. Ok I had such a cool miracle this week. Remember how I told you how I fasted last sunday. Well the husband of the family that we fasted for was released from the detention center! The mum called us on Wednesday and said, "I have great news!!!" We couldn't wait to hear what she was going to say, " She just said thank you so many times and then she said that her husband was being released!" Their entire family came to church on sunday and we sat with them and that day definitely went into my journal. It was the best! Ok I just want to share one scripture that I liked this week! It's John 6:35. it made me think of the questions "How important is it to eat in this life? What would happen to us if we didnt? I related that to spiritual hunger and how Jesus Christ is what keeps us alive. My study was a lot deeper than can be portrayed in this email but my challenge to you is to study it for yourselves :) I will send pics to describe the rest of my week! :) Love you all heaps!

Love

SIS JAKE

Don't Worry Be Happy

Hello Friends and Family!

All is extremely well in the pool! Last week my Pday switched because we got to go to the temple! But now it is back to Monday! I cannot believe we are already a week away from transfers! I feel like I just got here. This is the best place in the entire world. Ok so yesterday Ebony was confirmed! This was almost better than the actual baptism. I just got to sit and watch a beautiful daughter of God receive The Gift of the Holy Ghost. I felt complete peace and it was beautiful. Plus every time i've seen Ebony this week she has been wearing the necklace we bought her and it makes me so happy. It's a reminder of the promise she made with God. She wears it with the Personal Progress necklace. She also said everyone has been asking her why she is so happy all of the time? I was like oh you better tell them why you are so happy! We taught her about missionary work and we she's already been talking about friends. LOVE HER! Also, we have been teaching her mum. Emma's heart has been softened, but we are still trying to strengthen her desire. We flat out asked her if she had a desire and she said that she did but it was small. To missionaries that's a green light to start working harder because she has so much potential! We decided to start bringing members with us to the lessons. Since Emma just had back surgery she has to lay down during some of the lessons. On Thursday she decided to just get up and make a shake in the middle of the lesson. I was in awe. I wasn't quite sure what to do. Other than that this week was a week that was on fire! Despite everyone in Australia getting sick (I mean everyone, they all plan on getting sick during the winter)  including our flat (But no one stayed in the flat, hallelujah) we saw so many miracles. We have been teaching this amazing girl named Sella. We've had three solid member lessons with her. She Is getting baptised September 19th! That is the goal right now. We have become mates. I have begun to love her as my sister but not as much as i love Lauren because that's not possible. But She has been praying and getting answers to her prayers. She feels so much peace and she doesn't feel like the other church she goes to has the full truth. She has been reading the Book of Mormon too! Also, we've been teaching a couple of families! One of the families just moved back! It was a miracle that we ran into them at the train station! They are an Indian family and her husband was just sent to the detention center because of immigration issues. So we all decided to fast together and then last night we brought dinner over to break the fast. Dinner was super late and we started Saturday night (Longest time i've ever fasted in my entire life, but SO worth it). When we got there they told us that they were so much happier because they were fasting and the mom cried. They are SOO kind to us. They wouldn't let us walk to the bus stop alone. They walked us all the way there and waited with us so that they could make sure we were safe. annyywayyss of coarse there were TONNS of smile moments this week. There always is. One of the members gave us Lava Lavas this week. They are mean. Also we met a guy who had a huge bag and it looked like he was carrying a bunch of dead bodies. He started talking about all the animals he had at home and the chickens he had. He even showed us pictures. Then we asked him what was in the bag and it was all of the chickens he had showed us. Ok i don't think i've talked enough about how much i love my companion. She is so amazing and i am learning so much from her. And when i say learning it is not like a "Oh she is hard to get along with" kind of learning. She is so pure and Christlike and she radiates with light. I love her so much. Also, this weekend was HUGE! Australia's main sports are Rugby and Netball and it was the world cup or something so everyone kept talking about it non stop! Also this next week i will be going on trade-offs with the tongan sisters. Be ready for lots of stories! "The more we give of ourselves, the more our capacity to serve, understand and love will grow." "Not my will, but thine be done" Luke 22:26-27 "Never let problems to be solved become more important than a person to be loved." -President Monson These are just a couple of great things i've learned this week. I also realized that as a missionary i am always going to feel inadequate, But if i mess up i am just learning to own it. Laugh it off. If you can laugh about it you can live with it. That is the advice i would give to anyone. If you mess up, go ahead and own it. It's ok. Don't worry, be happy. Remember God loves you! SO SO SO MUCH! and i do too! I have the most amazing support system ever! Truly i do. I love you all so much! If i don't respond to your email it's not because i dont love you, I apologize now and i will eventually respond! I love you all so so much! I would not be who i am today without you! 

Love,

Sister Jacobsen

P.s.

Alma 5:16, 26-27

Jacob 2:8

2 Nephi 31:21

Jacob 4:4,6

Mosiah 8:18

Ether 12:27,32-41

Helamen 10:4

2 Nephi 32:8-9

(Maybe just pick one haha)

Best Week Ever!

Hello!

Best. Week. Ever. I am going to prioritize this email. Starting with Ebony was baptized! It was soooo amazing! She wore all white and my favorite part was when she came into the bathroom and we got to help her change and she said to me,"I can't stop smiling, i feel so clean." I just gave here a huge hug right then and there. I didn't care if i got wet at all haha. Not going to lie, i thought that baptisms were supposed to be all smiles and a huge overload of the spirit. It was so stressful! I was basically like Ebony's mom and everyone looked to me and my comp expecting us to know the answers to everything. But i can't complain because there were tons of smiles and the spirit was so strong! (Plus Sister Chaipinit and i challenged the Relief Society with deserts and our brownies were the bomb, they were gone super fast) Ebony bore her testimony at the end and i wish i could have recorded it, i was so proud of her! I can't wait to keep teaching her and to help her on this journey! I bought an infinity necklace for her so that she will remember this promise she made with her Heavenly Father and so she will know it is forever. She put it on right away! <3 

Ok moving on, I also got to see David Archuletta and Sister Dalton this week! There is this amazing thing called Time Out For Women and the sister missionaries were allowed to go if they brought somebody with them. So we brought a busload of less actives haha. Seriously though we brought five and it was so fun! We went to Sydney for the conference. It was at Olympic park. I saw Brad Wilcox, Sandra Turley, The women who wrote President Monson's biography, David Archuletta and some other people! It was soooo much fun! David Archuletta signed my planner haha. Side note, Sister Chaipinit has a huge crush on David. Sister Betham was like im going to get him to sign my Scriptures and Sister Chaipinit was like, i'm going to get him to sign my temple recommend. I was dying. They we ran into Sister Dalton. She saw Sister Chaipinit and i and said, "My Girls!" 

We got to talk with her for a bit it was so fun. She really does radiate with light! When we took a picture with her she whispered into my ear, "I'm so proud of you." THAT MADE MY DAY! She talked about how we are not ordinary, we are special, we are elect. She is so right! She also talked about how the 10 commandments weren't the 10 suggestions, they are the ten commandments haha. There were so many moments where i received personal revelation. It was great. 

Ok other than that we saw the thai lady again! She is so cool! Also, we have a super keen investigator named Sella. I'm pretty sure she will be getting baptized within the next month or so! We love our flat  so much. We are pretty close with President so we "bribed" him with 10 dollars to keep us all together for the next transfer haha. This week i learned how important planning is. I love the quote "If you fail to plan, you plan to fail!" OK i love yous all! they say "yous" in Australia! Have a great week!

Love,

SIS JAKE

P.s. Sister Chaipinit sleeplaughs.

P.P.S. there are a lot of cuss words in america that aren't cuss words in Australia. Let's just say the bishop has cusses multiple times haha.

P.P.P.S. Women, look up D&C 25 and substitute your name in! Also, look up Alma 36:6-7 Math 25:4 Proverbs 17:22 

Smile Moment

Hello!

So i would like to start this letter off with a smile moment I had this week. It was more of a cry in the moment and smile later. So on Friday it was any normal missionary day and I was getting ready for the day. I had 5 minutes left until I needed to be at my desk for personal study. I was finishing up my last couple of curls. 

Sister Chaipinit accidentally unplugged the iron so I quickly plugged it back in. The outlets here are wack and we have to use converters. R.I.P. to all of our blow driers and 2 flat irons. The converters have already killed them. So I plugged in my curling iron and I wrapped my hair around the rod and then pulled the rod out like I would any other curl. But this time when I pulled the rod out I was shocked what was on the rod. MY HAIR! And then it began to smell like smoke and my hair was sizzling. Haha the converter made the iron get super hot in like 2 seconds. Imagine the hair tutorial of that girl whose hair burnt off. YUP, that was pretty much Sister Jacobsen. I had the same reaction and the entire flat was hysterical. I'll send pics to prove it. 

Anyways. Now I want to let everyone know how happy I am. EBONY IS GETTING BAPTIZED THIS WEEK. I am so excited for her and how ready she is to make these covenants with the Lord. We've been going over everything that she has questions about and she is rock solid with her answers. She's a little nervous about the interview but we know she will pass it with flying colors. It is this next friday. Her baptism is next Sunday. Oh did I mention Sister Chaipinit and I have to sing at it. She asked us to sing and I said no but then she asked me again and I couldn't say no. I just felt so guilty. We also found 3 new investigators this week. They are so keen and we had some very spiritual experiences with them. We also had soup Sunday at church. Basically it's a big thanksgiving to break the fast with the ward after church. It was so fun. I've been teaching Sister Chaipinit more english this week. It was so funny, this week she wanted to order fries. But she couldn't pronounce the R so she kept accidentally saying flies. My favorite part about this week was last night. We had the opportunity to bring Ebony to a Recent Convert Fireside that they put on each month. Wow it was amazing. There were 9 speakers people who shared their conversion stories. There were 2 musical numbers. The people here in Australia are so gifted in music. There are a lot of Tongans/Somoans so their voices sound like angels. They brought the guitar up and they harmonized and it was brilliant. At the end the stake president got up and talked a little bit about how we can liken prayers to phone calls. We have to pray with a sincere heart and real intent. We can't pray hoping the call goes to voicemail. God has caller ID. He knows who is calling him. We are on his favorites. He has special ring tones for us. He knows us all personally and individually. A phone call involves 2 people being on both lines of the phone. It cannot be one way communication it has to be two way communication. Receiving answers to our prayers comes in different ways. Sometimes we will get a vibration or the phone will ring really loud or it will be on silent. They work the same. But I realized prayer is much better than a phone call. We don't run out of credit and it is free of charge. Prayer is an opportunity to align our will with Gods. God is a real person on the other end of the phone! :) 

Well I have a lot more to say but I am trying to work on making my emails shorter and to the point! Love you all!

Love,

Sister Jacobsen

#comewhatmayandloveit

P.S. Look up Alma 13:28-29 and please go look up the Bible Dictionary's definition of Charity. I have become converted to the Bible Dictionary. It is so great!

This is how they say hello in Thailand. "SAW WATT DEE CAH"