Christmas at Costco

I am staying in the Pool! This is my 5th Transfer here! So happy! President told me that i won't stay another transfer though. We have seen miracles already! One of our investigators, Stevie Rae, came up to us and told us that she wants to be baptized. Then she walked away. It was so beautiful. The cool story about Stevie is that she is actually a grandaughter of a less-active family we have been working with for a while! Sister Tipiwai became active about two transfers ago and now her husband has been coming to church. Her unbaptized daughter and grandchildren have been coming to church as well! The extended family also went to the ward Christmas party and temple lights! So we went to visit them earlier this week and it turns out both Stevie-Rae (10) and Madison(8)want to get baptized! Missionaries have been working with these grandchildren for a long time and they know the book of Mormon stories so well. When we asked Stevie why she wanted to get baptized, she replied, "I want to go to the Celestial Kingdom." The family is on board for the 16th of January! We talked with Madison's mum about her baptism and she said that her goal is to go to the temple. We invited her to be baptized and she said it will eventually happen but i want to see my children baptized first. That was a highlight of this week. 

Ok i forgot about Christmas! It was great! Skyped the family and it was wonderful! To be honest we didn't even say anything too important, it was just great to see their faces! Congrats to Briar and Brad who were married yesterday, which is technically today because i am a day ahead! I love you both! Went to Costco for Christmas eve and the members showered us with goodies and perfume! We had to stay in Christmas eve so President let us watch movies! We watched Tarzan! We had a massive sleepover and we were allowed to stay up late and sleep in on Christmas!

I came to realize that your Life's greatest work is YOU. When everything in your life is removed. When you are stripped of every worldy thing and every person you know and you stand completely alone, what do you see? Who will you be? We are constantly changing.  We are either internalizing qualities of light or qualities of darkness, i really want to change my nature. I want to give God my entire self. I want to be ready to stand in his presence. I know i will always have weaknesses, but life is about progressing and changing. I don't just want to change my behavior, i want to change my nature and work exactly according to God's will, not my own! The work is great and i love being a missionary! Love you all heaps! 

-Sister Jacobsen

Look Up!

Merry Christmas! This week was packed with Love and of coarse the spirit! Quick update on my week since i only have 10 minutes to type this. Yesterday we had our Mission Christmas Conference. It was so much fun! We watched The Other Side of Heaven and all the Poly's did the Haka! It was so funny! We also had our ward Christmas Party and we performed twice! Our investigators performed in it as well! I will have to send videos of our performances! Emma made so much progress this week. She has been texting us throughout the week and she's been saying no to alcohol left and right. We are so proud of her. Also she has been reading her Book of Mormon and coming to church every week! We are setting an appointment with her and the Stake President this week! 

How do we have the Christmas Spirit? We recognize that God loves us so much that he gave us his son as a gift. How do we show him that we appreciate this gift? We love him back. God does not need us to love him, but oh how we should love him back. Imagine the atonement. Jesus walking, not knowing fully what was about to happen. But God is all-knowing. He knew what was going to happen. He could have called off the whole plan, but he didn't. Instead i believe that he looked at all of us. Looked into our faces during that time that our savior bled from every poor. He looked at us and he gave us his son because he loved us.

During this christmas time. Don't look to your left or to your right. Look up! 

Love,

Sister Jacobsen

Merry Christmas Mates

I LOVE YOU ALL! I will try to write a good email next week! This week was more than wonderful. It started off with an epic game of zone laser tag! Ended with a beautiful trip to the temple as a zone. I love my zone! Also We have been going over the baptismal interview questions with EMMA and she now can say yes to "Do you believe that God is our Eternal Father? Do you believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, the Savior and Redeemer of the world?" She didn't know God before! SO SO Happy! Also Jessica the mother of our other investigators that is on date started taking the discussions and in her closing prayer she said "The more and more the sister come, the more and more i want to be Mormon!" It was great! Of course we had many smile moments this week! Love you all!

Love, Sister Jacobsen

P.s. You get what you put into it! I believe that applies to almost anything.

Milo

There is so much that goes into every week here in the pool. I struggle every week to share with you the many great things that happened!

Emma received a priesthood blessing this week to help her with the Word of Wisdom. The blessing was so amazing. It really emphasized her baptism and having an Eternal Family. Speaking of her baptism, Bishop isn't sure if we will be able to have it on the 26th so stay tuned for the confirmed date. We also attended a funeral this week for Brother Allen a member in our ward who passed away because of bad health. They asked us to sing in the funeral so we said yes. I think it is truly amazing how fast a family can come together. The spirit was there. We went to the temple to give tours for the temple lights. It was beautiful!

I Love Love our investigators. So many families to work with, we recently received Elders in our ward so we are handing over some of our families to them so that the work can be hastened. It was hard letting go of these families. But one thing I realized is that I am an investigator. Correction, I am an eternigator. Eternigator is a title we give an investigator who seems like they will investigate for eternity. But really, every day I am learning something new. I plan on investigating forever and to be more converted every single day. Here is an interpretation from Elder Bednar about the parable of the Ten Virgins. It is so good!

I now want to use one of many possible interpretations of the parable of the ten virgins to highlight the relationship between testimony and conversion. Ten virgins, five who were wise and five who were foolish, took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. Please think of the lamps used by the virgins as the lamps of testimony. The foolish virgins took their lamps of testimony but took no oil with them. Consider the oil to be the oil of conversion.

“But the wise took oil [of conversion] in their vessels with their lamps [of testimony].

“While the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept.

“And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him.

“Then all those virgins arose, and trimmed their lamps [of testimony].

“And the foolish said unto the wise, Give us of your oil [even the oil of conversion]; for our lamps [of testimony are weak and] are gone out.

“But the wise answered, saying, Not so; lest there be not enough for us and you: but go ye rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves” (Matthew 25:4–9).

Were the five wise virgins selfish and unwilling to share, or were they indicating correctly that the oil of conversion cannot be borrowed? Can the spiritual strength that results from consistent obedience to the commandments be given to another person? Can the knowledge obtained through diligent study and pondering of the scriptures be conveyed to one who is in need? Can the peace the gospel brings to a faithful Latter-day Saint be transferred to an individual experiencing adversity or great challenge? The clear answer to each of these questions is no.

As the wise virgins emphasized properly, each of us must “buy for ourselves.” These inspired women were not describing a business transaction; rather, they were emphasizing our individual responsibility to keep our lamp of testimony burning and to obtain an ample supply of the oil of conversion. This precious oil is acquired one drop at a time—“line upon line [and] precept upon precept” (2 Nephi 28:30), patiently and persistently. No shortcut is available; no last-minute flurry of preparation is possible.

“Wherefore, be faithful, praying always, having your lamps trimmed and burning, and oil with you, that you may be ready at the coming of the Bridegroom” (D&C 33:17).

I learned about what conversion truly means from Elder Bednar. I know that we take our "conversion" with us when we go to meet our Heavenly Father. We take our entire selves that have been tried and tested and CONVERTED. That is who you will take.

Love,

Sister Jacobsen

P.s. We are going to play laser tag today as a zone! Also, look up 3 Nephi 31-33

Something else I learned is to stop asking less-active members to come to church. Instead we ask them "How long has it been since you've taken the sacrament?"

Also a member thought of me and gave me a bunch of American candy from Costco. Love Costco.

Bonjour

So i want to talk about one of my favourite(they spell it like that here) experiences this week.So for the past 2 months we have been going over to a less-actives home almost every single day. She wouldn't answer and she had just recently gone less-active. She actually helped fellowship one of our investigators that was baptised. Any ways, last night we were going to go back to the flat for language study but i felt like we should go try again. Again no answer. She lives in a flat, so we can see her balcony so we pulled a Romeo and Juliet. I picked up the little seed pebble things at my feet and started throwing them at her door. I was desperate. After a few minutes we had a good laugh and walked back to the car. But then... She came out to the balcany and yelled, come in! We were so excited! We went in and had one of the most spiritual lessons. She cried, I cried, my companion cried. For some reason we all just cried. I blame it on the spirit. She opened up to us about everything. We were able to help her and give her love and support. I find it interesting how most of the time when things get rough, latter day saints turn away from the gospel, they say just give me a couple of months off. That is exactly the opposite of what we are supposed to do. We need to embrace the gospel. I know that it is a lot easier said than done, but when the rough patch is over and latter-day saints come back, they go ahh i knew the answer the whole time. That answer is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 

Ok quick funny story, We had some great investigators at Church yesterday! Emma sat next to me. It was so funny because when we were taking the Sacrament she leans over and whispers to me, is there any point to taking it if i'm not baptized? I explained to her the significance of the sacrament after baptism. Then our other investigator actually asked Emma the same question and it was so cool to hear Emma explain to Destiny the importance of the Sacrament. Emma then said, " But i'm going to take it because i'm sorta hungry." Haha she makes me laugh! She is getting a priesthood blessing this Tuesday to help her with the Word of Wisdom! She is on date for the 26 of December! Boxing day! 

I had another spiritual experience this week. I have been reading in 3rd Nephi in the Book of Mormon and almost every morning i've been brought to tears. I am constantly getting a burning feeling in my heart that the Book of Mormon is true! I love it! 

Also, I've been asking God a lot "what is keeping me from progressing?" It's interesting how specific answers i get. My answer was you need to increase your faith. I then asked him how i could increase my faith and the NEXT  day my mission president taked about increasing our faith at Zone Conference! He really does answer our prayers!

In other news, we got locked out of our flat this week but we both still had our keys, it's a long story. We went to another Stake Christmas party with some investigators! It was a great week! Love you all!

Love,

SIS JAKE

It is Hot

Australian Updates: This week we hit 42 C which is 114 F in America. It. was. hot. But on the bright side (it was too bright) everyone offered us ice blocks (Popsicles) and whenever it is raining or super hot people feel bad for you so they let you in! 

Jonah Lomu died! I guess he is a really well-know Rugby player. He is actually LDS and is related to the Simpsons in our ward! 

Smile moments: This week we had a lesson with a family we are teaching and we found out that they are still praying to the Hindu Gods. It was heart-breaking. They want to be baptized, but they need to be truly converted. There has been a lot of concerns that we have had to tackle with this family. So it was kind of a sad lesson but at the end of the lesson when i went to pick up my bag i realized that little baby hendry pooped on my bag. It made me laugh! Also i ate bones this week! The members in the home did it so i didn't want to be rude.

This week was great because i decided to do a spiritual evaluation this morning. I looked at how i had grown just within this last week and wow my mind was blown. I want to share a couple of things i learned. So i realized that we come to earth to progress.We couldn't progress any more in the pre-earth life. I believe we were put into our unique families to learn from each one of them and to ultimately help us to progress. I know Lauren is my Sister because i need to learn something from her to progress and i need to learn something from Nate to progress and Mum and Dad and Brad. I don't know if this is making sense to anyone, but we don't just stumble across the people in our life for no reason. Every one is a part of the plan. Everyone has something to offer to your life. Whether it be good or bad. 

Ok also, we have been doing a lot of Object lessons. I want to share one. We will be going on an imaginary plane ride. Passengers, please fasten your seat belts. Ok you pretend like you just took off. Passengers our right wing has just blown out... stay calm. Passengers, our left wing has just blown out.. stay calm. Passengers we will be crashing. We have assembled an emergency package where we will put letters for your loved ones. You have 2 minutes to write a letter. 

So i went through this experience. I wrote my letter to the ones i cared about and loved. They collected my letter and they then related it to how in the scriptures these prophets wrote their last words for us. Then the Pilot ripped up our letters right in front of us. My heart hurt! The pilot could tell i was upset. But i realized that is like when we don't read the scriptures. Do we really cherrish the scriptures? 

Sorry i am so rushed, the computer is shutting off! I love you all!

Love,

SIS JAKE! 

p.S. Look up Jer 1:8 and Joshua 1:9

If you want to be happy, BE -Tolstoy

She understood who she was and whose she was -Elaine Dalton

The spirit speaks to us everyday, we just need to listen!

I am Staying

Quick email! I am staying in the pool with Sister Teriihaunui! Investigators are great. This transfer is going to be one full of miracles. With prayer and fasting i am sure of it! I will just send a couple of pics this week and i will be sure to update everyone next week!

Any time we experience the blessings of the atonement in our lives, we cannot help but have a concern for the welfare of others! 

p.s. Also i gave my first training this week on the Book of Mormon! I felt complete peace while training and i just love The Book of Mormon so much! Also went to the first of many Christmas dinners. When i say they start early for christmas i mean they start really really early!