My Sweet Sweet family!!!
How in the world is it over there?! Once again it feels like a lifetime since I have talked to Y'all. Well I made it here! And it was a dang good wake up call from the MTC haha. It wasn't long after I got off the plan that a large black man came up to me asking me questions about the church and trying to catch us in a trap to bash. I stood there and was just like oh geez so this is the life now hahah. All is well though:) I am serving in FAIRHOPE, ALABAMA. It is beautiful here. It is a small quaint town. Right next to the bay! Their is a pier that goes into it, that we OYM (open your mouth A.K.A contancting/sharing messages) up and down almost every night! It was probably my favorite part of the day. Gosh so much happens I don't even know where to start!
My comp is great!! She is from New Mexico and has been here for 7 months. We work really great together and have open communication about what works and doesn't which is awesome. We are still figuring out how to teach together but I'm just jumpin right it:) I guess our area has been known to be a slower area but she is just ecstatic about this transfer because we have already exceeding the weekly goals x 5 since I got here. We have a good time together.
I am already toughening up hahaha. It has become almost comical how rude people are sometimes and how much you get rejected. And how annoying we are and must be with knocking and calling people over and over again. So once I came to that conclusion of brushing things off fast, and just accepting the life of a missionary everything became a lot easier. However, because so many people love jesus down here there will be people who just say "AHH Bless y'all! I loveeeee jesus y'all keep spreading the word!". Ha it is the best to have those type of rejections every so often:) I truly respect every religion and all have great people in you just have to remember the unique message of the FULLNESS of our church. That is worth sharing.
So I'll just tell y'all about a moments from this week! I have met so many interesting people from different walks of life. Our mission focuses on less actives so we see and try to contact and teach them a lot. We knocked on the Karkinians and they usually slam the door shut but he let us in and we were both kind of shocked. Long story short we taught family history to him and his wife and it was HARD. Brother Karkinian used to be a bishop and so i am sure you can imagine what it would be like to teach a Less Active bishop. He literally fought every word we said with evidence from some book or idea or another. His wife was awesome though and a lot more open to what we were teaching and is just an angel. So we kept going because of her and got her number at the end of the lesson to give her a call again. By the time we left we were both physically shaking, and I honestly just wanted to cry hah. I felt like i had just been dragged across the asphalt. We can't give up on them, i just kept thinking that i didn't want to have to be the one to keep pursuing them. It really shook me but i am learning and growing pushing past my own insecurities in hopes of softening hearts in the Lord's work!
After, we got out we rushed to a dinner appt that we were late to! Sis Giles fed us gumbo and I don't think i am a fan. Sis lehman is an EXTREMELY picky eater and struggled more than i did. Sis Giles is considered less active because she physically can't come to church. She has one leg, and has Mersa which causes her skin to have open bloody wounds all over her body. She doesn't have teeth and lives in a horder like apartment. She is straight AWESOME and i love her to death but her kitchen made the gumbo even more questionable. Sis Lehman emptied to Plan of Salvation bag and dumbed some of our gumbo into it when Sis Giles was wheelin around somewhere. Hahah ah gosh.
We then left and stopped by a few more houses and ended up at kevins. So in Fairhope it is weird because it is almost segregated completely by a street between the white people on the north and the black people on the south. Most of our visits are on the black side. But kevin lives in a trailor park nestled in woods down on the south side. We sat on his pourch and taught him Family history/plan of salv. His son was killed 4 years ago so thats what he was drawn to. He told us that he almost committed a serious crime 2 weeks ago but something stopped him. So we just explained that that was God and that he is preparing him to live with him again. He just kept going though ha, and explained that he had a knife to a man in his grip. But that something his Grandma said about a prideful heart will send you to hell. So he didn't do it. We set a baptism date with him but he got drunker and drunker and the night went on so i don't know how long it will take to get that date but he is a good guy with a good heart. We eventually left because no progress was being made with his beer in his hand haha. We got into our car (which we have by the way! So i wont bike much in this area!) and it wreaked of alcohol, which we found out that all of his neighbors back there had dumped beer all over our car ha which set sis lehman off into a pissed mood the rest of the evening. Haha it is just stuff like this that i have never experienced before! I do feel protected by the Lord as a missionary, somehow i have courage to talk to everyone and knock so many different types of doors. It is all so dang surreal here!!
A last cool experience is when we knocked on a door last week looking for one of our potential investigators, she wasn't there but her sister Jessica was living there and we got talking to her and gave her a passalong card. The house is completely engulfed in smoke to the point where it sucks to breathe but she was really nice. The days that followed i kept bugging sister Lehman that i thought we should go back to see if she had watched the video/check in. Sis Lehman didn't want to (i don't blame her cus im the greenie out here:)) Anyways i couldn't get her out of my mind and i finally drug my comp over there and we ended up setting a time with her to go back on Tuesday to teach her a lesson! This is the first time I have felt guided by the spirit to someone. Sis Lehman apologized for being so stubborn, and talked about how i have the spirit just as much as she does as the trainer. I am slowly becoming more confident in myself as a missionary!!
Anyways this is a novel but i still can't believe I LIVE HERE NOW. I have been homesick because it is SO different and much less social than the MTC where you see nice people all the time but I am just plugging a long and I know soon enough fairhope will feel like home:) Some days are so hard and i often find myself pleading with the lord for a desire to be here. But I know great things are going to come from my mission and true happiness comes with a life centered on our savior!! My heart has so love for all of you and miss you all daily!!
Also if you want to send me anything my new address is
320 Volanta Ave. Appt. B4 Farehope Alabama 36532 :)
xoxoxo Sister Jackson
My cute comp:)
The eaten or not eaten gumbo.
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