A Changed Man

Happy Monday:)

        God is good. Life is good. Yesterday was one of the happiest days on my mission. Syliva came to church for the second time and is progressing like iv never seen with her. Xiaver( jimmy fallon Jr) Got ordained a Priest. And Taurz who we tracted into had a few ups and downs but is doing SO good now. He is on tract to get baptized next week.

        The branch had gone out and gotten him a white shirt and tie and yesterday when he walked in I couldn't believe it. These past three weeks he has become some one entirely new. Yesterday in the hall way he came to me and said in complete humility and excitement that he too wants to serve a mission. He has given up weed, the friends and everything in between. Nothing in his life has given him an ounce of support or reason to have the courage to do what he is doing to change his life how he is today. It amazes me. I wish you all could just sit in our lessons because he sure is loved by God and is one of His finest.

       Only God could be giving him the divine help to overcome his past and break the abusive, violent, absent chain within his family. 3 weeks ago Taurz told us that he knew his life was going to be a failure if he didn't get out of the streets. He was brought to tears from the stories in the Book of Mormon as he related to Nephi and knew he needed to be the strong one for his siblings. Nothing I could express in email would be able to explain to you the depth that he has  in the Gospel.

        These past three weeks my testimony of the Book of Mormon has grown. It truly is a book of change. Given to us to help change our lives. With every investigators the stories seem to fit them perfectly. I love the book and feel its truth. It is a good life we live!

Sister Jackson 

Taurz  Allen

Yay for mommas who send love and Stance socks.

A vid of the missionary life in action haha Elder Sherwood recorded this one day and sent it to my mission pres.

I LOVE YOU ALL.

An Apostle of the Lord

Hello dear ones,

This week we had an entire mission conference and Elder Gary E. Stevenson from the Quorum of the 12 Apostles came to our mission!  So neat. A few other missionaries and I had the chance to sing Come Thou Fount to him and our mission. For the past month we have been coordinating together for the number. I love that song and it was a tender experience! It was something eles to be able to shake an apostle of the Lords hand and to receive training from him one on one. My entire mission it has been a learning experience to understand how the Spirit touches me personally. And MAN it is a cool journey.

We are still at it trying to find people to teach as always! Ha last Saturday we met two 19 year olds at a gas station and invited them to church and they came! Every one says they will come but no one does of course ha so we were pumped. It got a little less exciting however, when we all sat down and it became apparent that they both showed up totally high. We sat there in sacrament with them and the longer we sat the more apparent it was. Geez. Ha one of them was clapping after talks and quoting the bible scriptures with the person speaking. At times i was nervous for what they were about to do. Sister Jarvis had no clue what was going the whole time. 

I Love you all. This week have more faith than fear. Jesus Christ Lives!

Sister Jackson:)

I also chopped 5 inches off my hair last week. It was actually very liberating hah. 

Fun to see old friends/ comps again!

God's Love is the best Love.

Miracles. This week was full. The past while consisted of tracting and street contacting and we were stoked for the ones with a return appointment and then we get stood up time and time again! Ha it is the norm out here unfortunately. This week particularly was a really really long week. It has been a goal to tract around the areas of the no show appointments.If God brought you to that area theres a reason....So what it looks like is we will find someone go to their house, they stand us up, we contact around them, find someone else set an apt with them at their place, they stand us up, we contact around them find someone else and set an apt at their place, etc, etc. .... Well fast forward to Saturday when we met Taurz. We were brought to Taurz's trailor park from tracting 7 different no show appointments consecutively over the past weeks! 

We knocked his trailor after a no show appointment with on of his neighbors. And Taurz came out half awake but grateful "to be woken up with Jesus." Ha he is 18 and one of the coolest kids i'v even met. Already one of my best friends. Taurz is straight from the streets as he puts, covered in tattoos and quite honestly has almost no one in his life. He was a little wild that morning and was all over the place swearing and acting out the Passion of the Christ and everything in between. We taught him about the Book of Mormon and left him with our number. 

Sunday morning we woke up with a voicemail from Taurz saying he is going to be ready to come to church. God told him that he needed to come. I can only think of one other time on my entire mission where someone called us! We sent a Member to pick him up and sure enough Taurz walked into church yesterday. 

If i have ever felt that talks and lessons are inspired I felt it yesterday stronger than ever.  In sacrament, the talks were about family and how we are each others family and he commented to me the whole time how he needs these people.  In Gospel Principles it was on the Word of Wisdom and he sat there intently on every word and even met with the Branch President after Church to see how he can help him change. He was a different person entirely. Never have I seen such a change over 3 hours.  

We went and taught him the Restoration this morning with a member and committed him to get baptized on March 10. By the end he was smiling as we taught. MAN nothing is more real out here than meeting and teaching someone who is truly, deeply, SEEKING. Keep Taurz in your prayers this week:)

I know this Gospel is raw, genuine, work full of lots of heart. Jesus Christ gave us the beautiful Gift of second chances. And I love him for it.

Sister Jackson:)  

Sister Brinson, my Relief Society President.

We are born to meet the King

HEY:) I hope yall had a good Super Bowl weekend. Ha it hit me how out of the world I am when I found out it was happening this weekend from 90 yr old residents in the rest home that we sing to. No one could remember quite who was playing though hahah. This morning we found out when we were walking around tracking all the hung over fans:)

Ms. Kathryn had a beautiful funeral service. It was my first "Baptist" funeral and boy they don't mess. As two "white gurls" in dresses, we usually stick out like sore thumbs and the funeral was no different. They had a live choir singing praises as the family walked in to see the casket for the last time. People were fainting and wailing and fanning. It broke my heart. She was loved widely and deeply. As I spoke everyone was clapping and shouting "amens" and "yes Jesus."  And it ended in a raging applause! It was hard for me not to throw a few hallelujahs in there:)  It was a really cool missionary tool through it all. At the end as I bore testimony and read something from the Book of Mormon and the pastor sat behind me nodding and amening. I kept wishing yall could have been there! After wards they had big fish frys and BBQs. We spent a few hours gutting fish with the family in the yard. Everyone was drinking Gin havin a good ol time hah.

Its funny. Out here you feel like there are some days where every decision you make is led by God and other days where you feel completely left in the dark making wrong turn after wrong turn. Both are for either their (gods children) or your good. A few days ago we had one of those awesome days. We were lost trying to find an appt. and pulled over on the side of a neighborhood to look at our GPS and 2 girls walked past us and waved. I watched them walk away and like usual the feelings come in ya and we chased em down. As we asked them their names it turned out to be the girl we were LOOKING for!! Not even close to where we were suppose to be. We taught her and her cousin Puddin the Restoration in the street right there. It was a beautiful moment filled with the spirit. God answers prayers. Feeling the spirit of that lesson was something He knew I needed that day.

I have found comfort in a scripture lately in Hebrews 12:6 "For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth.."

That applies to every ounce of our lives. I know because he loves us he is going to stretch and mold us in difficult and painful times. BECAUSE he loves us. Love is what fuels this life and quite frankly what fuels every piece of doctrine found in this gospel.

Thank you for making me the luckiest gal alive! Sending so much love your way:)

Sister Jackson