Summer begins to Show and So Do The Missionaries

Hello Family,

This week was super cool. We had a lot of great experiences in our area. I wanted to just list off all the highlights of the week with the people we are working with and the super awesome members in this ward!

So Lawndale is a really cool place now that I am getting a hang on the area. This place is full of some really cool people, but it's just that you need to search threw the tares to find the wheat. We were in the more affluent part of our area and it's not that affluent it's just enough that some people are not very nice, but you find those few people that are super awesome and they bag on all their other neighbors because they just keep to themselves and are jerks to everyone. Haha I think it's funny!

We met these to two ladies one is A and she was meeting with Elder Cowley and his companion before I came in and she was with her grandmother who actually when she was 20 moved from Sweden and so that was really cool. They were like those cool people I talked about just now, she loved talking to us, but A is busy because her grandma is not doing to well so she decided that she will wait until she is better before we come over. 

We had another good experience with J he was one of the Nigerians that came to Church which was super cool. We finally was able to meet with him and share The Restoration with him which was really cool. He had a hard time understanding, but it was really good he said he needs to put God first so he is going to try and get his family involved and coke to Church again.

Also this week was saw A she is still having struggles forgiving, but we had a do or die lesson with her and she said she wants to move on so that was a step. So we ended up not turning her over to the Lord which was a blessing we thought we really were going to need to, but we talked to her more and she said it's going to be hard, but she wants to move on, so now we decided it will be good just to focus on the Gospel.

I had exchanges with Elder Terry which was fun, he has been out for three months now and so I always love being on exchanges with new missionaries it helps me refocus on the simple things. Teaching the Gospel is all, I seemed to complicate that a little bit as time went on, but it's cool to see the new missionaries still teaching simply. We had a good time Elder Terry is from Rexburg Idaho which is cool! He saw many BYU I students in his life time. Probably saw a lot of BYU I weddings as well, (all those people just get married as fast as possible over there). Our day was fun we met this guy we have been working with named T and he just has so many questions, he is less active and so is his mom, but she has health problems, but it was interesting the questions he has, it's hard to see someone who has this outlook on God as an all powerful deity that doesn't really care about us unless we are good, so we tried to help him realize that God loves us regardless, but that he can't look upon sin. But he let us know that because of his tardiness from Church for so long these things come up and I know that is why we need to keep living Gospel principles or else these doubts just sneaks up on us. Stay faithful it's so important.

We met this other less active guy named D and he was really cool. We were lucky to catch him so we shared with him in Alma 5 about the mighty change of heart, but we also read a part about do you still feel that change right now and he paused for a while and the spirit was so strong. I could tell Heavenly Father loves D so much and D said, "I don't," so we testified that he can and we asked him what are you willing to do right now to change that, and he said, "I will read and pray about the Book of Mormon and about all that I learned," and it was so cool. We left and it just felt super awesome being able to see that. He is really cool.

Sunday was good too, I am getting a hang of all the members and their names except for Grandma and Grandpa because they don't like us saying Brother or Sister "so and so". Haha We have this cool guy in the ward Brother E, he was a former Bishop here before, but he is super loving and always has a smile on his face. We also have a cool member Brother M who I think I talked about before, but he has a strong testimony and has some great insights in Elders Quorum. The talks at Church were good too we had Brother W stand up and he looks like he is a brand new graduate from BYU and he gave an awesome talk about General Conference and he gave a stat about General Conference and listed of how many talks were centered on what subject like 11 were Charity, 10 were the Holy Ghost, and Jesus Christ was 26! And I was like wow I can't believe nobody thinks we are Christian! That was a good one and also I am going to share a miracle from a member in the ward.

So Brother S from the Stake was here and he gave a talk about his life, but also about responding to the first prompting and so a member in our ward Sister M was driving home on Sunday from Church when she noticed a guy with a biowaste can and he was working on his trees and she thought to her self, "Man if that guy was Mormon he would just need to call the missionaries and they would help him out!" But she almost ignored trying to offer our service, but she remembered Brother S  talk and so she went with it. She said "I went up to him and said, 'This may sound weird, but if you were Mormon you could call the missionaries and they would be here in a heart beat to help you out, could they do that for you?'" And she said he said, "For the ten years I have been living here no one has ever offered help to me and sure I'd love for them to come over!" So that was a cool miracle from a member in our ward. Always Act On the First Prompting!

That was the highlights from our week. I am doing great and also we had interviews with President and it was really good! 

Well I loved hearing about what's going on back home, say Congrats for me for Connor graduating Seminary also for almost graduating High School! I am super excited for him. 

That was all I had to say for this week, but today has started off really good, we had a grill out with the Hermosa Liahona Elders which was fun! Carne Asada and Chicken Tacos, So Bomb!!

Well I love you all and hope you all have a great week this week!! 

Love,

🌴Elder Jacklin

Here's a pic of me and my companion!