March 17, 2014 - Ether 14:23

"And the scent thereof went forth upon the face of the [car], even upon all the face of the [sisters]; wherefore the [sisters.. and the vehicle coordinator.... and Pepboys] became troubled by day and by night, because of the scent thereof." (modified Ether 14:23)

First of all, Happy St. Patrick's Day!!! :)

Second of all, at Zone Conference I got a sweet little envelope from the ward filled with wonderful cards! Thank you!! :)

This week has been slap full of adventures! The water here in Hartwell is gross. So we take our water jugs to church in Elberton on Sunday and fill them up and we have great water that could last us a couple of weeks. Well. A couple of weeks back we accidentally left the jugs in the back of our car. They stayed there all week. On Sunday (a week ago) our car started to smell funny. We thought it was the jugs getting mildewy. Nope. Last Monday it smelled worse. It was a great motivation to deep clean our car. So we did. Washed, vacuumed, waxed, scrubbed down mats, individually cleaned each seat, Windexed all windows inside and out... It reminded me of when we deep cleaned the suburban before we sold it. And the smell... was still there. It wasn't bad, just kind of mildewey/moldy. Which is never good. Tuesday it got worse. We called Elder Elder (They're like our grandparents/home teachers out here. I love Elder &Sister Elder). He suggested that it might be the air filter molding (yay humidity...). We called our vehicle coordinator, Elder Residori, about it and he told us to get it checked out at Pepboys after Zone Conference on Thursday.

On Wednesday Elder Elder sat in our car and turned on the AC. The stink at that point became a stench. He said, "Nope. That's not mold. That smells like a dead rodent." So he looked under our hood to check it out. We found crushed acorns and rodent droppings! We took the car to a carwash and Elder Elder sprayed everything under the hood with the pressure hose. No rodent. We searched and searched. No rodent. He checked the air filter. No rodent. So he sent us on our stinky way and we kept our windows down all day. Thursday was Zone Conference! and car inspections! Haha. After our wonderful meeting (more on that later), we talked to Elder Residori about our smelly friend. He said that he kept the doors open to air out the smell for a good couple of hours... and his only other thought was to check the cabin filter. We left zone conference in our stench-mobile and zipped over to Pepboys. We warned them of the smell, and off they went. About 5 minutes later, 2 guys came back to the front desk, "Dude. We gotta get something to get rid of that smell. It's rancid." Yeah. We weren't just being sister missionaries about it :P We asked them if they found our furry friend, and they did!! It was a mouse. In our cabin filter. Which is, according to them, only accessible from the inside of the car. ...? No idea how it got there. But all that matters is that he is gone and our car no longer reeks of death :)

None of our other critter encounters are nearly as exciting as the cause of our stench mobile... but Stenchy was only one of the three this week! It's spring time in the South! That's for sure! :)

Alrighty! Our investigator K. is still on the map! I know I kinda talk about her off and on, but she's awesome :) We finally got to meet with her husband and their 7 kids. He had tons of questions. He had already watched the Restoration DVD we left with K. and he asked us all about the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith. They are so awesome! The Elberton branch will have another family! It'll happen! With prayers and effort, I know it can happen :) They are so prepared and receptive :) Our lesson with them was one of the shortest lessons I've ever taught, but it was so meaningful and it gave me so much hope for the rest of this area! There are people everywhere ready to hear the Gospel! :)

Zone Conference!! Elder Kopishke of the Seventy came! It was so awesome! :) Before he started, he told us to each write a question or concern that we've had on our minds. "I don't have time to answer 124 questions, but the Spirit does." He talked just about the whole time. And my questions were answered! How about that! :) I decided to do that yesterday before church, and it made the meetings a lot more meaningful :) I challenge y'all to do the same! Every Saturday night or Sunday morning before you get to church, write down a question that you have. And then let the Spirit speak to you as you sit in your various meetings. The church is true!! :)

At lunch 6 lucky sister missionaries got to sit with Elder and Sister Kopishke. One of which was... yours truly! :) They are the sweetest people! Sis Kopishke told me that she likes Utah alright, but she misses the beauty of Germany. She spent the next few minutes reminiscing about Europe. She's so cute :) Elder Kopishke asked what Dad does. Sooo I told them about ancestry.com and they were super excited about that! :) So Dad, according to Elder & Sister Kopishke, You're a pretty cool cat :)

We also did some service this week... and for the first time ever, I split and stacked wood! Woot! :) It was lots of fun. The longer I spend in this area, the more I realize that even though Lindon is small geographically, it is definitely a city. I used to think it was a small town. Hah. Not really. :)

This week has been great! This upcoming week it gonna rock! And missionary work is my favorite ever! :)  Keep doing the little things that make the big difference! :)

Love y'all! :)

~Sis Jacobs.

Stenchy!

All the wood we helped split at Harold's. 

Learning how to split wood.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

March 10, 2014 - "The greatest thing about prayer is you gotta use a Southern Accent!"

Fun quote: "I might could if you learnt me how!"

Hey all!

Where to begin?!

Oh I know! How about the Lord stretching me and putting me in situations to help me grow? Yeah. Okay. First of all. Playing piano at district meeting. And relief society. And Primary. ... Primary?! Yeah. Primary. And singing in Sacrament meeting. *and* singing on Thursday at Zone Conference for Elder Kopishke. The General Authority. Yeah, that guy. Super stoked!! :) I just know that Heavenly Father is blessing me... because there's no way these fingers could plunk how I plunked on Sunday. (And believe me. I was plunking, haha)

Earlier on this week, we got a call from Sis R. that said that she had good news (woo hoo!), that she had invited some ladies to church... and that on Sunday morning she was gonna go over to their homes and make sure they were getting ready for church before it started. What?!? :) It was so special! (Also. FHE at their home was great. I'm so excited to do it again tonight!) We've been texting Sis R. every day reminding her to say her prayers and you would not believe the improvement we've seen in that wonderful little family. They really made church a priority on Sunday! ....until a skunk sprayed their 2 dogs and 17 cats that morning and they couldn't even open a window or door without gagging! (welcome to the South...) Sister R.'s only comment was, "I know God created all things... but when he woke up this mornin to the stink of that skunk He must've said, "I made a bad decision when I created that one!!"" Haha. I love her :) The branch President wanted to meet with them, so they came a few hours after church when they could make it out of the stench barricade, haha. :)

Oh yes. And Elder Cook!! It was so good!!! I just wish I could copy all my notes and somehow send the Spirit we felt there! :) It was so wonderful. I loved singing the opening and closing hymns with such great power of 2 missions! (The Georgia Atlanta North Mission and the Georgia Atlanta Mission.) I totally saw Sis Amanda Fee there. :)) One of the things that stuck out to me was this quote, "Thank you little black name tag for giving me license to have intimate experiences with complete strangers." At the very end, he left us a promise that what we're doing here will bless us, everyone that we do love, and everyone that we will ever love. Wow. What a blessing. I didn't know it before, but I really needed that :)

Sunday was branch conference. It was all about families and I loved it. I took lots of notes for my "future journal" :) The Stake President focused on being a little better in Relief Society. He said that he'd been thinking and something that he could do is being nicer to his cat. "Will that keep me out of the Celestial Kingdom? Well. I don't know if cats will be there anyway..." Haha.

I love y'all!! The church is true!! :)

~Sis Jacobs.

We are family! I got all my "district" and me! :) All reunited at the Elder Cook meeting :)

Why yes, we are in The South...

One of our investigators and his prized possession.

March 3, 2014 - "I have an IQ. It's 2 points higher than a moose. But I have one."

Hey all!

Sometimes I look back on the week and I can't believe it's Monday again. But then I go through the week and I feel like the events that happened were forever ago!

Fact: From May to February is 9 months.

Fact: Feb 29th, 2014 doesn't exist

Conclusion: My "hump day" is nonexistent :)

Because of the marvelous month of March... we decided to do our own month of consecration, like the whole mission did back in July. We named it, "March Madness, Month of Miracles!" Our theme song is, "We are all enlisted" (One of President's favorites) and our theme scripture is Alma 26:12 :) Because obedience brings blessings, but exact obedience brings miracles!! :)

We continue to teach people and teaching is good.

The R. Family is still progressing and all Sis Tanner and I can talk about when we leave their home is how much the Spirit has changed. We're having FHE with them tonight. :)

These upcoming weeks are really gonna rock. We have Elder Cook coming to speak to both us and the Atlanta mission this Saturday (woot!), the next week is Zone Conference, and 2 weeks after that is General Conference!! Woo hoo!! :) Talk about a spiritual high!!

I love it out here :)

~Sis J.

Guidestones. Yup. Hartwell is really exciting :P

Vanessa rocks. And within the next few years I'm totally learning Armenian.

"Sister Hagopian" :)

Feb 23, 2014 - "Pay her no mind. She's been havin a mully-grub day..."

Here's the latest from Sister Jacobs. ~Lisa

** Disclaimer: Sis Tanner and I have specifically been working on using Southern talk. So. If you find any from here on out, don't judge. But feel free to laugh :) **

Family and friends!!

This week has seriously flown by!! I can't even believe that it's Monday again! Wasn't it Monday yesterday?! Haha.

Well. We have more updates on investigators! Yay! We finally met with K. again and she's golden!! She's been reading from the Book of Mormon on her own and has committed to be baptized the end of March. So... as we're working with her, we're trying to find a way to get the rest of the family on the band wagon as well. We normally just teach her, but we're gonna teach all of them (7 kids ranging from 13 to 18 months...) on Tuesday! Ah! :)

And M. Our dear, sweet M. We taught her this week and she's keeping all of her commitments. All of them! Now, what kind of 15-yr-old reads 5 verses every day before she does homework? I'll tell you what kind, an elect one! :) She's awesome. As we taught her the plan of salvation, she told us that Heavenly Father has been showing her what being a Mormon can mean for her. She is probably one of the most prepared people I've ever met. She has also committed to be baptized the end of March :)

One of my favorite things ever is watching the progress of those we work with. Like the R. Family. They're a less active family. Bro R. grew up LDS, but just kinda stopped, and Sis R. was baptized at 12 with her family but wasn't ever really active. The sister missionaries have been working with them since July-ish. And the coolest things happened this week. We went by to see them on Wed morning and they were still in bed. Their 4 year old answered the door, haha. So Bro R. came out and told us to come back later, when we hear from the other room, "No! God sent them! Gimme a minute and I'll be up!" Haha. Oh yeah. And Sis R. has a broken rib, among other things. So it was kind of a big deal :) We got to talk to them and teach them a bit. Then on Sunday we had our regular visit and Sis R. opened her BofM with us to read. She's never done that before. We asked them if we could pray before we left and she, "Alright. Kids, come'ere! Kneel down and fold your arms." Then her husband proceeded to choose someone to pray without us asking him to. It was so cool! :) It's the little things that make a big difference.

Quote for the week: "The highest form of influence is to be a model, not a critic; a light, not a judge" It's so true!! So go out and be a light! :)

I forgot about T. How, I dunno!! Okay. So remember how ever single day last week we were on foot from the storm, we saw T.? Well. she described to us where she lived and every time we were in that area, we'd take a couple of minutes and try to find her house. And we finally did!! We didn't have her number or nothin, so we just popped in on her and taught her. We taught her the restoration and after that she proceeded to talk to us for 30 minutes about how the first time she saw us, Heavenly Father told her that we were His servants and that He was going to show her His glory through us! What?! :) Talk about elect! :) Anyway, she's cool. When we asked her to kneel in prayer about the Book of Mormon and about Joseph Smith being a prophet, she said, "Well. I will. But I already know the answer!" Wow! :) I can't believe I forgot to write about her! She's praying about being baptized. :)

Anyway. The work is going quite nicely! I've never been more busy my entire mission! :) A lot of missionaries told me things about this area... mainly that it's a "dead" area. But it's not! There's no such thing as a dead area!! Remember that! Where ever you are, there's no such thing as a dead area! :) Find those that are ready! Because they're there!! :)

Love y'all!!

~Sis Jacobs.

The froggy friend we found while doing service.

 It was in the 70s again this week. So pretty :)

Feb. 17, 2014 - "I'm sittin' on the stool!! I don't got no time to talk!"

Hey y'all!!

Okay. This is gonna be a quicky. Just the highlights. Which will be hard because this week has been full of miracle after miracle!

First, to answer your question... the snow was fantastic!!! :) We parked our cars and bikes on Tuesday, but we still went out, and that was fun :) While we were tracting, people kept asking us if we had our extra milk and bread. Milk and bread? Haha. It was funny. :) Wednesday was another SNOW DAY! President told us to stay inside unless we felt like it wasn't icy in our area. We got lots and lots of snow and ice. It was rather exciting. :) Thursday morning it was too frozen to drive, so we got some walking done and just stayed close to home. We tried to see if we could help shovel someone's driveway or side walks or something... but guess what? They don't have snow shovels here!! Or rock salt. Our landlord covered the sidewalks in sand. Like... sandbox sand. Not sure if it worked... but it was nice of him to take care of us! We never lost power or nothin, so that was good. Even after the earthquake! Yup! There was a 4.1 earthquake Friday night! And I survived! Haha. Over the course of my mission, I've survived a tornado (that happened my first week out...), a snow storm, an ice storm and an earthquake! Sweet! :)

On Friday we went on an exchange and I ended up going to another area for the day. That night we saw a less active who was super sweet. She's been to church for the last like... month or two, but she's still working to find her testimony. She's read like 167 pgs in the Book of Mormon in the last 2 days. She's really serious about finding her testimony.

She asked me if I'd ever asked Heavenly Father how much He loves me. I told her no, but shared an experience with prayer I had a long time ago. I told her I haven't had a prayer like that since, but it was a cool experience. She asked me why it changed. I told her that it was because I'd never been able to put myself in the same mindset I did then. She asked if I thought that He changed, too. Well... no. He doesn't change. And that was her point. No matter how we pray, Heavenly Father never says, "Meh. She's only putting in 50% tonight. I'm only gonna put 50% into her answer." I felt like she was teaching us! So I asked her how she has such a strong testimony about God's love. And, to make a long story short, she said, "Because He heals temporal pain with eternal power." Woah. That made me think. The next day she wanted to help me with something for a minute and after she helped me she said, "Sis Jacobs. I want you to know something. The question that you asked me last night made me really think. and I know. I know that God loves me, I can't deny it. I know that the Book of Mormon is true, I can't deny it. And I know that Joseph Smith was a prophet, I can't deny it." Sis Blaylock looked at her and said, "I always knew that you knew!" and she said, "Yeah... but it's different to be able to finally say it myself." The church is true!!! :)

Love y'all! Have a blessed day!

~Sis Jacobs.

Snow storm in Hartwell, Georgia!

My cute little snowman. I love him!

Happy Valentine's Day!

"I play the gui-tah and the pianah!" - Feb. 10, 2014

My dearest family and friends.

Considering Valentine's Day is this week, I have a confession. I'm in love. With Hartwell, GA :)

Once again the week has flown by!! I can't even believe how quickly the time has gone. Transfers are NEXT WEEK. What?! I just got here!! Sister Tanner and I think that we'll both stay because she got here mid way through last transfer, so we're both pretty new to the area. *crosses fingers* We dunno though. I'll let you know when I find out next week :)

Our investigator, K., is doing well... we think. We had 2 appts set up for this last week, but they both fell through because she has had lots of doctor's appointments. Sooo... more on that next week! :)

We taught also taught another investigator, a guy named J. this week!! We met him my first day with Sis Tanner, but we couldn't go back because we're girls, haha. So we finally got our team-up to come out with us and that was a really good lesson!! A few minutes after we started teaching his nephew and his friend came over. So we taught them too! J. and his nephew were super receptive aaaaand their friend thinks we're a cult. So that made the lesson very interesting. But the member who came with was so good! She got baptized about 6 months ago and is probably one of the most solid recent converts I've ever met. After the friend shared his interesting opinion, J. completely disregarded it and said to us, "I can learn from you and your book, and you can learn from me! I'm always open to learning more" *phew!* Tender mercy, indeed :)

Aaaaand then there's a girl named, M.!! We tracted into her on Tuesday. She's a 15-yr-old who is just adorable. Her mom answered the door, but then had her daughter, M. talk to us because her mom is deaf (...still trying to figure out how she heard the door...) AAAanyway. They're currently going to another church in South Carolina because they accommodate deaf people there, but M. doesn't really believe the things they teach. So we set up an appt and taught the restoration by watching the Restoration DVD with ASL. I love the Spirit!!! We asked her how she felt afterwards and she just said, "Wow. That was so good. I can't describe how good that movie was. And I just feel so good!" We challenged her to read from the Book of Mormon and the next day she told us how much she loved 3 Nephi 11 and how good and happy it made her feel. Go Spirit! :) We're really excited about that. We're in the process of trying to find an ASL interpreter for church and some lessons... which is rather difficult in a branch of 30 active members, haha. But! We have faith! :)

Something that really stuck out to me this week was while we were tracting. We referred a man to mormon.org to look up an old acquaintance and he said, "I knew a him many, many years ago. I don't even remember the guy's name, just his life." May we all live lives like that.

Love y'all lots!!

Til next week,

~Sister Jacobs      

"You dirty possum!" - Feb 3, 2014

Hey, all!! :)

Man. The weeks are seriously flying by. I feel like for the last several weeks Sis Tanner and I have both been shocked that it's Pday again! So fast. But that just means that the work is chugging along quite nicely! :) Time flies when you're having fun! And I am having a blast! :)

Guess who has an investigator?! Woo hoo!! We met a lady named K. my first day in Hartwell and she invited us back whenever. It's hard to follow up when they say to come back whenever... but about a week later, we felt prompted to go back and she let us in. The first thing she said to us was, "I've been waiting to hear back from y'all!" It was exciting. :) We taught her a first lesson. We went back the next week, and showed her the Restoration DVD. Every time I watch it, my testimony that Joseph Smith was a prophet is strengthened. Super cool :) We challenged her to watch it with her husband (who used to be a preacher of some sort) and when we went back a couple of days later, they had watched it together and her husband had started to read the Book of Mormon. He mentioned to her that they needed to come to church and pray about it... and we haven't even met him yet!! We invited her to be baptized and she said, "Actually. I haven't been baptized and it's been weighing on my mind a lot lately. I really do want to be baptized." Oh. They also have 8 kids. Woo hoo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :) Keep them in your prayers, yeah?

Another exciting thing was Sunday. I don't think I've had a better Sunday out here. I didn't know what to fast for, so I just had a gratitude fast. An idea from my previous companion Sis Sullivan. And it was so great. Man. Best day ever. Okay. So before sacrament meeting started, Pres Rownd (the Branch president) came up to us and was like, "Rumor has it that you're fluent in Spanish!" Fluent? Haha. Thanks Mom. Not quite :P Anyway, apparently there are like 3 active Hispanic members and about 117 that just don't come. And I guess they're all related somehow. So Pres really wants to work on activating them. There's one person in each missionary companionship that can speak Spanish so he's putting together a "game plan" of sorts and we're gonna get that all up and running next week! So he told us all of this before sacrament meeting. After the sacrament, a young lady, (the 17-yr-old daughter) and her parents came in... with like 15 other people! They wanted to bless 2 of their children. So Elder Elder blessed them... in Spanish!!! I was all sorts of excited.

The father of the children who had been baptized shared his testimony about being inactive for 12 years due to the language barrier, but that he knew he needed to be at church and that he wanted his kids to be raised with the Gospel in their lives. Both he and one of the less active ladies that we've been working with touched on the fact that God doesn't "do" things to us. But that people have their agency and that's why we suffer. And then Heavenly Father helps us through those things. This sweet sister also shared that the Gospel has filled a hole in her heart that she didn't know was there. She and her husband are going to have their kids blessed next week. Woo hoo! 

There's a summary of yesterday for you. I wrote like 4 1/2 pages in my journal last night... but those are the most exciting details :) Everything has just kind of clicked together this week. 

On Tues, as I'm sure you heard, "IT SNEW!!!" (It snowed) Well. In terms of southern people... haha. We got a call from President saying that we had to be back from our meetings by noon and that after that we needed to proselyte on foot. So we did! We were actually teaching K. when we got a text from the zone leaders, "Game over, Athens zone! Go home til further notice from President." So... after our lesson we started walking home in the snow. Which was so fun. I love snow :) So we were walking home when a nice older lady pulled over and offered us a ride home! She told us, "I recognized y'all as servants of the Lord from behind and I couldn't stand to think that y'all were out in the cold. And y'all are smilin like it's been sunshine all day!" I don't think she knew how much we were loving the snow. :) We talked to her a bit about the Gospel and offered her a Book of Mormon as a token of gratitude. To which she said, "Hallelujah" and "Praise the Lord"  I love Southern people!! We're not perfect missionaries... and we failed to get her number or address. But on Wednesday we were still forbidden to drive, and as we were walking, she drove past us and honked! :) I like making friends out here :) It was weird to have a "snow day." My first snow day ever. And maybe my last? But anyway. We're all safe and sound. It was so beautiful to see the snow. Definitely a tender mercy. And rumor has it, there'll be a bigger storm this winter.

Well. My heart is just so happy. And this email is a novel. But I love y'all. And I love it here. I wouldn't wanna be anywhere else doing anything else. Til next week! :)

~Sis Jacobs.

Things you hear tracting... 

"It don't tickle my fancy... you know? It just don't start my tractor." 

Have I ever mentioned that I love these people? Yeah. A whole lotta love! :)