Fairhope Welcome's SIS Fletcher

Hello my dear family and friends. You all look like you are doing sooo good and it makes my lil heart so happy! Here in Fairhope, this week has been BLAZIN. So dang hot and humid. My camera fogs up now so i dont know how many clear pics you'll get from here on out aha. 

SISTER FLETCHER is my new trainee. She is a cute red head from Southern California. She cheered and ran in high school. I picked her up on Wednesday and we have hit the ground running ever sense! She is a rock star. You guys would be so proud of me and my decisiveness this week! It will just take some time before she will feel comfortable making decisions about lessons and appointments and everything in between haha. And y'all know i was thee absolute worst at decisions. So this whole training thing has really helped me overcome that! I am gaining confidence in myself as a missionary and my ability to teach and work. I did not realize how different training would be from being trained.  This week has been full of highs and low lows as each week is. It has been really hard in the fact that I just want to be the "perfect" trainer and i tend to be hard on myself! But it has also been super neat to be able to take everything i love about missionary work and adjusting and what not and give it all freely to Sis Fletcher. What I love most is being able to focus all my efforts on someone eles! ahhhh its the best. I told Sis Fletcher right off the bat that these next two transfers i am just simply here for HER! She is awesome because unlike me who when i first got here was stubborn and just wanted to fix everything on my own in hopes of not putting people out, she has opened up and truly lets me help! I love her immensely and am so so proud of her! It is kind of cool because we have experienced a lot of similar things but those things are no longer a huge issue to me and puts me in a place to give comfort and advice! THE GROWTH OUT HERE IS INCREDIBLE. Keep praying for her and her nutzo trainer!

The work out here has been difficult and we have been finding, finding, finding, finding! This week we found out that Percy Jackson one of my favorite investigators, is leaving to a House of Hope/ rehab type of center for 7 MONTHS because of some probation and law stuff that he had not cleared up. We were on the phone with him for like a half hour ha my heart broke. I told him to bring his Book of Mormon with him and he said of course he would! Sad day:(

Other note worthy items- i splurged and bought myself a rockin night gown, and I ate deep fried frog legs the other day...decent, but not my fav.

I love and miss you all to the moon and back! I am so grateful for all the love and prayers! I sure do feel them over here. Keep keep reading and looking for Gods hand, he is everywhere if you are reaching. Remember someone in Fairhope love's you:)

Sister Jackson

An eager shop owner came out and posed us with her alpaca this morn

TRANSFERS

MY BEAUTIFUL FAMIly, I hope you all had a lovely lovely Fathers day weekend! I thought of you all lots:) I gave a talk on forgiveness in Sacrament and of course just balled my lil eyes out like always. Holidays like Fathers day are hard for proselyting but Sister Giles who is an angel had us over for sausage soup. I love her with everything that I am! This week she got diagnosed with Breast Cancer for the third time, on top of being rejected frequently from family and friends in the ward because of her infections. Seriously the most Christ like woman. 

We had a good week this week! Full of dropped appointments and funny moments. Hmmm  i will just mention a few.....

 Connie moved in above us this week and we went up to her place the other night and it was the strangest meet and greet ever. Her cat was a transvestite which explains how that night went. We both walked out of there and didn't really know what else to say to each other.

 I ALSO found out that a Less Active has been giving me tea to drink this WHOLE time. Every time we go over to her trailer for lunch she gives us sippy cups full of "fruit punch" I saw her do it this time though, and sure enough i have been breakin the word of wisdom sense day one out here...whoops.

Charles( the one from the last email) addresses us now as Queen. 

SO the big news around here is that Sister Redfearn is leaving:(  And i have been called to TRAIN. The night after President called me i felt so unbelievably inadequate. So so inadequate! I had all these thoughts of things like i have never even taught half of the lessons or that i'v only been in training for 11 weeks or that theres no way i can lead all the lessons and i felt no where near ready! But as time has gone on i feel the strength of god with in me. I am excited to take all the things that i have loved and learned in these past two transfers from each trainer and apply it with my new trainee to help her in the way that i would want to be helped and loved for! I can't wait to help her become the very best that she can be! I want to show her how fun and light a mission can be among the stresses, setbacks and adjustments. She will get here on Wednesday and I will go to Tallahasee tomorrow to pick her up from the mission home and take her back home with me:) Needless to say pray for this poor new greenie;)

I love you all so so much!! I am grateful to be able to be somewhere where so much growth is available to push me. I swear i am never really comfortable here and as soon as you start to be your life flips! And it is something i am totally learning to love! I am grateful for the gospel. I talk to so many people out here and nothing brings peace to me like the church does. And all though it is a fight in this gospel and a battle to get my heart where i want it, there is nothing i would rather be doing! God is a good one:) Keep loving and praying and reading!

xoxox Sister Jackson:)

FAREWELL SISTER REDFEARN

We ran out of time to go grocery shopping last Monday so this week we have successfully eating and scavenged though all the food storage..

Last P-Day at Lamberts Cafe:)

Sister Giles:):)

Somos Missionarios de inglesia de Jesus Cristo

Hey hey hey! I am emailin earlier today because im going to lunch with some missionary pals today:) Sister Redfearn and i are sitting here laughing about what we could even write home about this week, it was a slow one!

We had a huge zone conference to say goodbye to President and Sister Smith. Each District preformed a skit that the were planning for weeks and weeks. Us being our not so cool selfs didn't really even plan one and just winged it haha i have never laughed so hard in my life. We basically did a parody of door knocking and i was put with the spanish elders and just pulled out every poor pronounced thing i learned in my teenage years from Spanish class in school...Including "Somos missionarios de inglesia de Jesus Cristo!" Ha clearly the convo doesn't go smoothly when i run into the Hispanic people of Fairhope.

We Did have exchanges this week and the STL's came to our area this time. It was a riot, we walked to the bay at 630 and they just loved it! It is what i will miss most about this place! Exchanges can be exhausting because you just talk about your strengths and weaknesses all day. BUT I truly was able to better focus on how I can better myself as Sister Jackson and as a missionary! 

Hahahaha there are so many people here that i wish you all could just meet once. We have been trying to teach this lil black dude charles who is awesome. He lives in his boss's garage and so we just sit on the pourch each visit..His Boss and wife don't quite love us yet..! I just laugh my head off when we meet with Charles. The other night he texted us a 7 page long prayer about us... We met with him on Saturday and he just laughs at himself hysterically, one particular time he busted out and accidentally spit up flem or something all over himself and just kept talking to us as he washed his face with the hose faucet. Super nasty but I just lost it!!

I love serving with Sister Redfearn we just laugh our heads off. My perspectives of life change daily. I know that as i work on becoming who God knows I am and can become so much happiness comes. I am constantly wanting to improve out here and fill my heart with more love. A mission puts all your weakness and faults on a platter for you to see all the time which can be hard. BUT, I am oh so grateful for that! Oh so grateful. It lets you see so much about yourself and gives you what you need to better yourself! Everyone of us have so much potential because of our Savior. That is a simple statement with SO much underlying meaning if we search it out for ourselves! I LOVE LOVE LOVE and miss you all to the moon and back! I pray for you all daily and could never express how much you all truly mean to me:) I am one blessed Sister out here:) Keep up the good stuff. 

xoxox Sister Jackson

Cute Sister Smoot:)

It's a Good Life Over Here

Hello Hello my favorite people! Y'all are as good as they come:) Truly!!

I just want to share the joys in the rough this week....

I told you all about Jesus lovin Percy last week! Ah my heart. How I love him. He had us call him on Sunday at 730 to wake him up to come to church. I was overjoyed when he answered and said in his tired lil voice that he was up and gettin ready to come. 9:05 IN WALKS PERCY. He looked absolutely bewildered haha but had his white shirt on cross pins and all. Honestly i am sure he was taken back by the fact that he was in a sea of white people. I was just praying that he would stay, over and over again. It was the coolest thing to help him take the sacrament and hear him sing our hymns. Hahaha what happened next is something that just made my entire existence full of COMPLETE JOY.

 It was fast and testimony meeting and after i explained to him what every one was doing, he turned to me in his deep, raspy voice and said " I LOVEEE to testify." Ah, i wish you all could meet him. And before we knew it he was wandering through the isles up to the front. Both Sister Redfearn and I just looked at each other. Hah Percy is so awesome but he has some pretty crazy encounters with god and lights and such that i'm sure not everyone would appreciate..!! He is also known to talk for insane amounts of time.He went up and just stood next to the lady bearing her testimony, it wasn't untill someone on the stand invited him that he sat down to finish her out. Hahah needless to say he was sooo awesome. He gave a great testimony of God and Jesus and his love for everyone there and the "two ladies in the back". The spirit was there as he talked about his yearning for more knowledge and truth. I was just like a proud lil momma. After Sacrament we then ran him to the bathroom because of this 3 cups of coffee from that morning. Everyone was touched by his words! The sacrament and the sunday service that we attend each week has never meant more to me then when i am able to share it with friends like Percy!

That night we were able to contact on the Pier at Sunset! Oh my lanz the Pier is rockin and rollin now that schools out. We were at the end of the pier and some kids our age came and started Singing and Playing the Uke. We eventually joined in and life was SO good. Good music and beautiful scenes make me one happy girl. It was one of those moments where you are able to just exist and be present. Life needs so many more moments like that! SO so many more. One of my favorite nights thus far on the mish!!

I Love you all so much. Keep reaching out to God. I know I sound like a hard core cliche missionary but i mean it! Just as Jesus Christ pleaded with the Father "why has thou forsaken me" We too have to have times in our lifes were we will feel a lack of his communication and or love. If Jesus Christ experienced it, we will too. Keep reaching. Keep reading. Keep praying. 

So much love, 

Sister Jackson:)

Take a look at what steals my heart every time:)