Transfer Week!

Hello All,

I had to say goodbye to Sister Ritter on Thursday, but I got a new companion, Sister Caldwell! She just got out of the MTC and is so excited to work! We have seen amazing miracles this week together!

Goodbye Sister Ritter :(

Hello Sister Caldwell :)

On Thursday, a less active member brought her friend, Adam to her lesson because she was sick of answering all of his questions herself. We talked about things that we can do to feel the holy ghost in our lives and he agreed to meet with us again on Saturday. We taught him the Restoration on Saturday outside in front of the institute building (we still haven't gotten another key since I got it stuck in the door my first week here). It was a beautiful day! The spirit was so strong, and he agreed to be baptized if he comes to know that the things we share with him are true! He was so prepared to meet with us and learn about the restored gospel of Jesus Christ!

We also met two college students that were performing in an acapella competition Friday night. We started talking to them near the piano at the student center at MSU. They were interested in talking to us because one of them auditioned for "The Book of Mormon" musical! Hahaha! I don't know the details of that musical, but we made sure they knew that we were nothing like the missionaries in that performance.  They had a lot of questions and we referred them to the missionaries in their area. We hope and pray that they wil continue meeting with them so they can answer their questions!

Last night, we met with two professors from China that are going to school at MSU for now. We have been meeting with them for a few weeks now and they like to know the facts about Jesus Christ. While we were teaching the Plan of Salvation, they had a lot of technical questions that were difficult to answer, but at the end, they said, "That is the perfect plan! What are we learning next?" In our next lesson with them, we taught the Gospel of Jesus Christ which is faith, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end! It was such a spiritual lesson and they understood that as they followed those things, they can come closer to God! We invited them to be baptized and they said yes! I am so grateful that Heavenly Father prepared them for us to teach and that the Holy Ghost testified of the truthfulness of what we were sharing. My testimony of this church and this Gospel has never been so strong! I am so excited to have another year to share it with others as my full time "job!"

I love you all so much!
Sister Emily Jacobsen

Transfer Calls

Hello!

This week has been so amazing! We made it a goal to get 60 lessons combined with the elders and we got 53! Woohoo! A lot of those lessons weren't with the same people, so we were able to talk to and teach a lot of different people. We also have three new investigators! The guy who threw the dodgeball at Sister Ritter is now a new investigator! He is really nice and has a strong desire to learn more about Christ. 

On Saturday morning we were able to meet Elder D Todd Christofferson, an apostle of the Lord! We originally were going to go to the temple, but none of the recent converts were able to go :( So we were able to go to Tulsa, OK instead and meet an appostle! We were able to shake his hand one by one, and throughout the conference, he answered all of my questions! It was one of the most spiritual experiences of my life. I am so grateful that I was able to go and hear counsel from an apostle of the Lord. I am grateful that we have a prophet and apostles to be able to help us navigate through life and get back to our Heavenly Father. He and Elder Lynn G Robins talked a lot about miracles during the conference. I love to hear people's conversion stories because they always involve a miracle! We have miracles happening around us all of the time, we just need to open our eyes and ears to be able to notice them. 

We got transfer calls last night! Sister Ritter's time is up and she's going home :( But I get to stay and train a new sister that's coming in on Thursday! I am still a sister training leader, but I'm not sure who is going to be STL with me this next transfer. I'm grateful to be able to stay here in Springfield another transfer! 

I hope and pray that you will all have an amazing week! 

Sister Jacobsen

Exchanges!

Hey Everyone!

Our week was really good! Although Sister Ritter is accident prone and got a concussion during dodgeball... We've been staying home since then, but she's feeling a little better today. At least well enough to go to the zoo today! We are going to hold lemurs and baby kangaroos!! One of our members works there and his brother shows the animals.

I was also able to go on an exchange to Centerton this week.  Exchanges are a little different now! The sisters are organized a little more like the elders now. We have sister training leaders and then one set of super sister training leaders that are the leaders over all of the STLs. They are kind of like the assistants to the president. So we went on exchanges to Centerton, my first area! I got to see Hannah who was baptized a few days after I left and she's doing great! I also got to see the rest of her family and they are also doing really well :) It was such a good exchange! I'm so grateful for the opportunity I had to see them!

Have a great week!

Sister Jacobsen

A Great Week!

Hi Everyone!

This week was great! We had so many miracles and found a few more potentials. We hit above the standard of excellence this week! We got 22 lessons and 15 of them were member present. The members that we brought to the lessons were definitely inspired! They really helped our investigators and new members strengthen their faith.

On Monday, we went to Bass Pro shop with the elders in our zone! It was so much fun! We got matching hats and shirts with the elders in our ward.

Hannah is so ready for baptism! She told us she wouldn't be able to come on Sunday because Chinese new year was the night before, but she felt prompted to come. She was filled with the spirit and was so happy she decided to come! The work is really starting to come along here!

Sorry my email is so short! I love you all so much!

Sister Jacobsen

Pictures from Bass Pro! And Sister Ritter is great at darts :)

Caving

Hey everyone!

It's been another great week! Serving in YSA is so much fun! We got here with two investigators, and now we have 5 with a lot more potentials! We would have 6 if the elders didn't steal one of them :( They started out with 0 investigators and now have 4 or 5. It's amazing what can happen when you put your faith in finding people who are prepared! Bishop is very encouraging and helps us a lot when it comes to finding people to teach and getting members involved. He was gone this week, so life wasn't too exciting until he came back on Saturday.

I had my first solo instruction at Zone Training! It went really well! I talked about baptizing converts and how we can help them be converted. I took most of my notes from Elder Bednar's talk "Converted Unto The Lord" (https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2012/10/converted-unto-the-lord?lang=eng). It's one of my favorites! Everyone was really involved and had a lot of good things to say. Heavenly Father really helped me out with that instruction :)

Hannah is so ready for baptism, but she doesn't realize it! She knows that this is true and the right thing for her, but she doesn't know that she knows. Hopefully we are able to get her to set a baptism date this week. She is so amazing!

We were able to go to the Chinese Spring Festival event last Saturday because a few of our investigators were performing in it! It was so much fun! I loved learning more about their culture. 

Sister Ritter and I taught our first English class at the institute building! There are so many students from China that live really close to the institute building that are trying to learn english! In class, we have three main goals. 1) Learn english conversation skills. 2) Make american friends. 3) Learn about Jesus (my personal favorite)! They are all so sweet and so willing to learn from us. 

We had a few amazing lessons with some less actives this past week. We've been using Brad Wilcox's talk, "His Grace is Sufficient" for our lessons. That is another one of my favorite talks! I encourage all of you to read it sometime this week. It's a BYU devotional, not a conference talk. Our discussions were about finding strength in Christ and using His grace to be able to improve ourselves and our relationships with Diety.  The spirit was so strong in all of those lessons! I absolutely love talking about the Atonement of Jesus Christ because it is a topic that you will never completely understand, but it is sure good to try. I am so grateful for the love Christ had for us to be able to sacrifice himself for us. I would not be able to serve a mission if it wasn't for His strength and direction He gives me every day! 

On Saturday, Bishop came back, and we went caving! At first, I tried not to get too dirty, but I threw that out the window when I had to crawl through a two foot hole in the cave with a munch of mud at the bottom and had to go thigh deep in muddy water. It was crazy! There were frogs that lived in the water and they were super creepy. It was so muddy and slippery that at some spots we would just belly slide! There were also a lot of deep puddles of water and small spaces you have to squeeze through. I'm sure some of the YSA tagged me and Sister Ritter on Facebook. 

I hope you all had an amazing week also! I can't thank you all enough for all of your prayers and support you offer me. I feel the strength of your prayers each and every day that I am here.

Love, Sister Jacobsen