Not so long ago in a state far, far away.

Hello family and friends! I hope you all have enjoyed your week! My

week has been excellent and this week is gonna be even better! That's

right! Maurice and Darren get baptized on Sunday!!! Oh stars above

peeps I'm so pumped! Sister Nutting and I have been working so hard to

get here and it has not been easy, but this is easily worth every

second of tears, sweat and sleeplessness we've put into these two men

who we love so much! It's well worth the 12 week wait!

Speaking of hard things being thrown at us Sister Nutting and I have

both been under the weather the past few days! Luckily though we were

able to push forward with smiles on our faces! It's rained a lot here

as of late it rained all day Tuesday and Wednesday which put a damper

on the work...all of our appointments canceled on Tuesday so that

sucked. We were able to share the video to a lady named Paula who was

so sweet! She wasn't interested in us coming back because she's

already found Christ but she wanted our pass along card to share with

her pastor and congregation of ten people!

We were able to teach Victoria this week again! She's so cool! She

realized in this lesson that she wants to be on Christs team, not the

devils team, so she really committed to coming back to church come

January! We are so excited! We also taught Sister Bangura again which

was cool! We read Alma 14 and talked about how Alma and Amulek had to

have faith in the situation they were in! They didn't know how it

would turn out but they relied on God. At the end of the lesson Sister

Bangura prayed for her to act on her faith as Alma and Amulek had and

to be able to come to church on Sunday! We were also able to meet with

a recent convert family named the Dohney's! We've been trying to get

in contact with them for a while and that was so fun! They are so

sweet and Tina Jr's five year old son, Michael was so cute! We showed

them the video and he just kept repeating "that's so beautiful!" Ugh

we just wanted to put him in our bags and take him every where!

We were able to see sister Hemminger's daughter Gaby one more time

before she headed back to Ecuador! She was so fun!

This week we also were able to help Sister Shelton paint the ceiling

of her house! It was really fun because her daughter Elsa just got

back from Rome Italy mission! She's here until March and then heads

back out but she's so fun! She makes really good pasta too! Plus she's

just super cool because she's the same age as us and she's still in

mission mode! It's so fun!

Friday is when our sickness set in, but that didn't stop the work! We

were able to go on splits with our stake relief society president,

Sister Hall and our ward rs president Sister Huss! I went with sister

Hall and we were able to visit with Bonnie Johari, who is pretty sure

this is the end of days because of Donald Trump, but she's so cute!

She is the guardian of her granddaughter Alexa and just has the

craziest life story! She used to work for civil rights and then worked

on the Obama campaign, but gave it all up to be a mom all over again

when Alexa's mom got hooked on street drugs. She really wants to come

back to church once the time changes she can't come yet because she's

on some pretty heavy medication because she's got a bone marrow

disease that keeps her in bed or a wheelchair pretty much 24/7.

Our ward mission leader is the best! He bought us a real Christmas

Tree! It was so fun to go chop it down and decorate it later that day!

We also had the most awkward dinner at a lady in our wards house, she

was cool though! She was the only one home and she's from Honduras but

she bought us Amish food. It was real good. The Amish know how to

cook, I'll tell you that's much!

We have such great ward members! Everyone wants to feed us before

Sister Nutting leaves next week, so not only do we have a full dinner

for this week but we are also booked for lunches! It's amazing!

So I don't know if you all remember the Samuels,  Vino and Anu, but

they contacted us and want to start meeting again! So we were able to

meet with them this week and share the video! Which they really liked

and seem excited to start meeting again!

Both Darren and Maurice have been out of town this week so we haven't

been able to meet with them but we are meeting with Maurice tonight!

They are both still on track for Sunday!

So in Coatesville there is this cute little library thing, you take a

book out and put another one in for free! Sister Nutting and I were

able to stop by it and place not only a Book of Mormon but a Bible

too! We put our pass along card in the books with our number so

hopefully someone calls! It was really cool because we highlighted

both the scriptures used in #LIGHTtheWORLD but also to find a few in

the BOM that talked about how Christ is the light. Because He is! He's

the light of everything in this world! His light is in each one of us

just waiting to grow brighter, if we are willing to share our light!

We were able to meet with a bible referral this week who has turned

into a new investigator! He is so cool! We shared the video with him

and asked him how he's seen Christ in his life and he shared these

crazy near death experiences that he's had! He's in his late 50's but

retired from work at 48 because he was diagnosed with an illness and

he said something so profound, "I am not defined by my illness, I am

defined by Jesus Christ." Wow, how often do we as humans let the

world, our money, our schooling, whatever it may be define us? How

often do we let Jesus Christ define us?

So this week I invite you all to get on Mormon.org and participate in

#LIGHTtheWORLD and to share the experiences you have online! If you

follow me on Facebook you know I will be!

Friends, family, during this Christmas season, let us not only live

more, but rejoice in Christ more. Have Christ more, or Christ Más if

you will. He is the reason for the season, He is the reason for my

joy, He is the reason.

I love you all! Have a great week!

Love,

Sister Jackson

missionaries

Josie and Sister Nutting 

Cutting a Christmas tree

Wazzup friends and family! I know you're like "WHAT?! It's P-Day

already? She emailed like three days ago." But I know you're excited

to hear from me just the same! So like I thought thanksgiving left

overs were bad at home....we've eaten them every night since

thanksgiving. I have eaten more turkey in the past three days than I

have in my whole life. It's crazy. This whole repeat of food thing

sucks.

Well since it has been three days not a whole lot has happened. So

this will probs be a rather short email, but you'll love it none the

less!

We had a lesson with Darren on Friday! He brought up his concerns from

when he read some Anti-Mormon stuff, which Sister Nutting and I were

freaking out about. Eternal Progression is not my strong suit. Well we

were inspired with the members we took with us. We had Brother and

Sister Shelton go with us. Normally we have Sister Goodsell come with

us but we switched it up this time. Anywho, brother and sister Shelton

are both converts and for some reason converts out here love to know

deep doctrine (Brother Seaman is also a convert who knows way deep

doctrine). When Darren pulled out the question about eternal

progression Brother Shelton pulled out an answer, the best answer of

all, the Book of Mormon. We talked about how important it is to read

the BOM and study it because that's how God answers our prayers. It

was so awesome! He committed to read the BOM daily, we were so

excited!

We also had a lesson with Maurice that day, who ended up coming to

church for 40-45 minutes on Sunday! It was so awesome. He's just

progressing so well and loves what he's learning because it all makes

sense to him. He doesn't know how it does, but it does. If that's not

cool I don't know what is! He's been reading the BOM all the time and

has been applying it to his life! How many of us take the time to

apply what we read to our lives? I know that I haven't always applied

it to my life!

We were able to visit a couple less actives and share the

#LIGHTtheWORLD video with them. (If you haven't seen it go watch it)

they both enjoyed it and loved that it's so focused on doing the

service that we can in anyway we can! You all should go look up the 25

advent calendar that comes with it! The calendar has 3 suggestions

each day on how you can serve and act as Jesus Christ would to make

this holiday season a little more meaningful! Plus you know I'll be

doing it! Let's take the time to #LIGHTtheWORLD together, one light at

a time.

We had some service this week with Brother and Sister Hemminger and

were able to spend some time talking with their Ecuadorian "daughter"

just talking to her about what we do as missionaries! It was so fun!

Our second thanksgiving was with the Sagers family, it was way good

and they are just so cute! Our third thanksgiving was with the

Bradshaws who just talked a lot but they are cute.

We also hit up the Seamans house Sunday night. They want their

youngest daughter Krisha, to have the lessons before she is baptized

in February. We just love them and it was so fun to teach her! We love

it! We also spent most of our P-Day over there because sister nutting

has been working on her quilt to take home.

To explain the title. Brother Mele served a mission in Oklahoma where

they had some Marshallese elders who would say "BDOG" every time a

cute girl walked by. BDOG stands for Beautiful Daughter of God. We

have a good time up here with the members!

Well kiddos, I love you all! I miss you all! I love this mission, our

Savior, and the scriptures.

Never forget He lives, He hears, He cares. He is the reason for the season ❤️

Love,

Sister Jackson

Josie and Sister Nutting

They have a WAWA

Hello Friends and Family!! I hope you've all had an enjoyable

thanksgiving and that you're pumped to get my email today as you

always are! This week has been unbeLEAFable! It's been a little weird

since P-Day wasn't on Monday this week. President decided it would be

best to do P-Day today so that we could spend the whole day with

members, so guess where we've been since about 12:30 today? You are

correct if you guessed the Seamans!

So since Thursday, wow that's weird. We had interviews on Thursday

which were awesome! President is so inspired. He's an amazing man.

Don't let me forget to look up Brother Perry at BYU Provo when I get

home. He's the number one Isaiah expert for today and Isaiah is giving

me a headache to read 😬 Anywho, interviews are just awesome. He's so

involved in the lives of all 250 missionaries he has! He started out

by asking me how Darren is! The fact that he remembers the names of

our investigators is a huge thing. We also had some service at the

Mele's they just moved into a new house and needed help cleaning it

before their furniture moved in. Their kids are adorable! Not only

that but we had dinner at the very top of our area that night, so we

were running around like crazy. Dinner was so worth it though, I'll

attach a picture!

Darren 💪🏾 he's so awesome! He is really progressing towards his date

and just loves it! The best part is the youth in our ward love him!

Brother Williams son AJ always talks to him about so many different

things. Usually workouts but hey, when you're a personal trainer you

love talking about that stuff right? He's so funny though, we were

teaching him the Word of Wisdom and after he talked about how he was a

casual drinker but only because he was apprehensive to certain unknown

situations. Sister Nutting joked that he didn't need a drink to come

to church. Darren cracked a joke that little did we know that he had

three shots before coming in. He's so funny!

Oscar and Maurice are progressing so well! Shane dropped us and it was

hard but hey he bought us food first. Susie basically dropped us, she

wants to keep meeting but she's not going to become a Mormon so what

can you do?

Super Saturday was also this week and it was super fun to get to know

the ladies in the ward more!

We've also been working with a Less active named Victoria who called

us because she wants to come back to church!

This week has just been so good guys, so unbeleafable! The leaves have

officially dropped but no snow yet, keep praying that it won't. I'd

appreciate that!

We had a really amazing lesson on Sunday about sacrifice that Sister

Nutting and I taught. We had the people break into two groups and talk

about how they have seen people around them sacrifice. Sister Kristy

Williams talked about how he dad was a convert and how her parents

waited a year to get married so that they could do it right the first

time (in the temple) and how in the sealing room it was only her moms

side. Her dads side could not enter the temple. Could you imagine? A

wedding that your parents can't attend? Or anyone in your family for

that matter. I would be devastated to not have my family at my

wedding.

Sacrifices can be big and small, negative or positive. I encourage you

all to look at those around you and see what's being "laid at the

alter of God" and to put sacrifices on the alter yourself. I know as

you sacrifice things that may seem or are important, Heavenly Father

will provide for you. I've seen it in my life as I've sacrificed

everything to be right where I am, on a big cushy couch in Downingtown

Pennsylvania, with little contact home. He's provided everything for

me. I know He will for you.

There as so many things I am grateful for this thanksgiving. First and

foremost I am grateful for Jesus Christ and for the many things He

does for all of us, without Him we are nothing. I'm grateful for both

my parents and siblings, you never realize how thankful you are for

your family until you're gone. I'm grateful for my grandparents,

aunts, uncles, cousins who support me so much on this journey. I'm

grateful for each one of you, for you're unique talents you bring into

my life, and the time you take reading these emails each week. I'm

grateful for President Monson and that he gives us revelation to guide

us in these troubling times. I'm grateful for the people here in PA

who are so welcoming, loving and kind. I'm grateful for those who are

teaching me, not me teaching them. Im grateful for the Book of Mormon,

which is really a book of answers. I'm thankful for the times I'm sad,

because it means I know what happiness is. I'm thankful for my trials

because I've grown so much from them. I'm grateful for Heavenly Father

and the blessings he gives us. Most of all this thanksgiving I am

grateful for a place that I never knew would become home, and a family

I never knew I had. A mission is a wonderful thing folks, thank you

for letting me share this journey with you.

I love you all. I miss you all. I love this state. This mission is the

best mission you're ever gone find. I love D-Town. I love our Savior.

I love our Father in Heaven and His many blessings.

Love,

Your literal favorite missionary,

Sister Josie Dannielle Jackson

Sent from Downingtown ❤️

Josie and her ravioli

Josie's Thanksgiving 

Josie, Sister Nutting, the Seaman Family

This week was so awesome! it was a little crazy, but a great week just the same! We were able to set both Maurice and Darren with a baptismal date! They are both just golden!! Golden people golden!! 

Darren came to church this week too! He loved it! So Darren is a personal trainer and it was hilarious. After the block all the youth were coming up to him to get workout tips. It was so cute! He just loved the attention from the youth and all the members who were just so welcoming and loving towards him! This ward is so great!

Maurice is progressing so well, he and Darren are both set for December 10th, anyway, Maurice is just awesome! He always talks about how the gospel makes so much sense even though it shouldn't, the gospel isn't logical but it just makes sense to him. He's just so cool. 

Shane also come to church this week! He's awesome! He is hilarious, he's gone on this no carb diet but loves chick fli a so he always wants to go get shakes or lunch with us and his girlfriend Sister Gregory, but chick fil a has carbs! He also wants to make a rap video with us! He's hilarious. He gets half off at a local brewery and he got wind that we love root beer, so we now have a 24 pack of victory root beer, which is so good! 

We had Zone Training this week and as always it was a spiritual party! We just had the spirit so strongly as we studied and learned together! District meeting was really good this week as we talked about helping our gators make their dates. Just so awesome!

The highlight meeting of this week was Mission Tour. Elder Cordón of the 70 came and spoke to us about making the most of our missions. He compared our mission to a mini life. It reminded me of something that Elder Robins told us when he was here he said "Everything you demonstrate in the mission field you will demonstrate after the mission." Elder Cordón spoke about the same things with a mini life. What we do now will impact the rest of our lives. He also talked a lot about writing our tags on our hearts, do we need a tag to be missionaries? To grow close to Christ? To study everyday? Is Christs name written on your heart? 

We had a way cool service opportunity this week! We did some work with a place that does drives for Syrian Refugees, so our stake has been collecting for weeks on end the most random stuff! We got a ride with a member and went down there for a few hours to help with packing and loading and shipping! It was so cool!

We also went to King of Prussia mall on Monday (a half P-Day) and got some way cute clothes at a British store call Primark! So cheap! I almost died because they had a Jamba there! Mm so good!! 

The temple, oh how I love the temple. It's so awesome! We went with Sister Seaman again today and it was just so cool. We had names of these ladies that were so ready. It was a full day too, we did Initiatory, endowment, and sealings! It was so fun! The sealings were cool because we were able to be sealed for the ladies we went through for! My girls name was Annie, and it was such a cool experience to be proxy for Annie. It was one of the most spiritual experiences I've had! So amazing! 

Ps, not writing again until Thanksgiving ☺️

Well I love you all! I love Philadelphia! I love mission life! 

Love,

Sister Josie Jackson

Sent from Downingtown ❤️

Josie and Sister Nutting

Sister Jackson

Spiderwebs and Sister missionaries

What a week!

I hope you all have had a great week and that your Mondays have been a

pleasure! Who knew that Monday could become one of your favorite days

of the week? Not me that's for sure! Life here in DTown is still just

fantastic! I really love it out here and the work is pushing forward

more and more everyday! It's still pretty warm out here, not too hot,

not too cold, all you need is a light jacket! For real though it's

great, I love PA, it's like home to me.

We don't have much to report on this week, we had to wait all week for

the Elders area book so we didn't have a ton of lessons. We finally

got the area book on Friday so we could start contacting people and

man does the area book need to be cleaned out. We were blessed to have

a cleaned out area book when we got to DTown so that we can clean this

one for the next missionaries.

We did have a few service opportunities this week! We served at a

church called Jubilees, which does like a soup kitchen type thing and

it was really fun! The guy who runs it is crazy & it's in Coatesville

so we got some interesting people in there. Lots of homeless people,

it was really fun though! We served at the rest home as usual, which

is always fun! We also did a family night thing with Sister Gregory

(Bergholm, she just got divorced) and her boyfriend Shane, who is

slowly investigating the church! We started helping him build legos,

in fact it's the Imperial star ship, yeah it's pretty cool. It was

super fun!

The lessons we did have this week were awesome! We taught Denise again

and she's just progressing really well, she's been baptized for a year

now and just still really has the gospel click for her. It's so cool

to see how it has changed her life! We also had Oscar, he's so fun, it

honestly feels like we are teaching a member most of the time which

makes it really cool too see how much he has progressed!! He's just

awesome, December can't come fast enough for him! Sister Nutting

taught Maurice while I was in P1 on exchanges and he's still doing

great! He's coming to church on Sunday whoot, whoot!! Ugh I love it

when people just get it, it's so hard to see people just not

understand what you are talking about. When I was in P1, Sister Payne

and I taught Sister Cholo, and she is the coolest, she wants to go to

the temple so bad to do her family names, she was really tired so we

just testified of the temple and family history and it was so

powerful. Testimonies are powerful people!! Family history is really

cool when you think about it, it's helping you understand the people

who came before you, it helps you grow closer to them and then to your

Father in Heaven who wants you to know your ancestors, and your

ancestors want to know you. Doing family history work is the only way

to do that, write it down for your children, find and take names to

the temple if you can, write and keep your our journal for your

children's children's children, you never know who will benefit from

the family history you do. Whether it's great or small, it all

matters.

Another thing we did on exchanges was some service for a member in the

P1 Ward. She just moved back to PA from Texas and is moving into her

fathers old house. Which hasn't been lived in for three plus years.

Sister Payne and I were in charge of cleaning out the add on that was

full of chairs and tables and junk. It wasn't too bad, except the

chairs and tables were covered in spider webs, some of them even had

like the sacks that their babies are in (or maybe their kills? I

dunno) anyway, in order to clean the chairs we had to pop the sacks.

Don't worry I died inside like three times. I also killed two wolf

spiders so that was fun. You should've heard me on one "I think it's

dead....oh, it's alive. ITS ALIVE." Its fine, I'm still terrified of

them. It was fun though, just know that spiderwebs and sister

missionaries don't always mix well. We were covered in dust and web

after the fact. Oh so fun!

So Darren, do y'all remember Darren? Here's a quick refresher for you

if you don't. He was the gator I invited to be baptized on my second

day out here in glorious PA, and then the one who also dropped us like

threeish weeks later. Anyway we were in his neighborhood the other day

and he got into his car as we were walking close to his house, he

drove past us and stopped to talk to us and just said it was good to

see us and that he is sorry that we couldn't agree, we talked to him

for a minute and said our goodbyes. That night we got out of our

dinner appointment and checked our phone to make sure that Oscar

didn't cancel and we had a text from Darren, at first we were like oh

cool, and then we read it....MIRACLES HAPPEN PEOPLE, I was legit

crying for a hot minute after reading the text. Oh, ha, I should tell

you want he said. He said how good it was to see us, that he had been

thinking about us and that in the few months we've stopped meeting

he's gone to different church's and nothing has made him feel like he

did when he was meeting with us sooo he wants to take lessons again

and come to church and AHHH, the tears of true joy and gratitude for

our Father in Heaven were real!! The Holy Ghost is real y'all and He

works miracles for missionaries as we do the things we are supposed to

be doing! God is great!

We had an awesome district meeting this week, our District Leader gave

us a quote that he heard. He said "the best way to share the message,

is to be the message." How true is that!? If we aren't acting like a

member of the church, or being an example of good people how are we

going to share what we want others to know? We aren't. If we aren't

being the best person we can be and acting like who we say we are,

then people aren't going to believe us when we tell them something.

It's amazing to see what being the message really means, especially

with the holiday season coming up, I encourage all of you to be the

message, whatever that message maybe. Whether it's being a more

Christlike person, being more loving, or more kind and charitable

towards others, be the message you want other people to have, to know,

and to become.

It's weird to think that I've been on my mission for two months now,

people ask me how long I've been out and I'm always like oh a few

weeks, but really I've only got 16ish months left doing the Lords

work, how weird is that?? So weird. I love my mission, I know I say

that every email but seriously, I love my mission, more than I ever

thought I would. I love my companion too, she's an amazing missionary

and has done her very best. Preparing to help her go home is going to

be so hard, but knowing I'll see her again is a blessing. That's one

thing I'll always love about the mission, you find the people you'll

be friends with forever out here. The things you go through as a

companionship and as missionaries just binds you together, it becomes

less like a friendship and more like a sisterhood. Sister Nutting has

become more than just a friend to me, she's truly become my older

sister. She's so funny, this week she lost her iPad and we were

freaking out for a hot minute but we found it don't worry. We have the

same sense of humor if that gives you any idea of how our

companionship works! The Lord truly knows what we need, and he knew

I'd need a companion that I got along with as my trainer or I wouldn't

have been as humbled to listen to her as I have been. She's made me

into a better version of who I am and helped me become a better

missionary along the way. I couldn't imagine doing this without her.

Well, my peeps, I love and miss you all. I invite you to take time

this week and remember our Heavenly Fathers love for us, just take

time at the end of each day to think through the blessings He has

given you and the little miracles He blessed you with that day,

because I know He blesses each of you everyday. I promise you as you

notice those things and take that time to thank Him for them He will

give you more and more blessings, and I know I could be a little more

grateful for the little things this holiday season. Feel free to shoot

me an email if you have any cool experiences you'd like to share, I'd

love to hear how you see Heavenly Fathers hand in your life. Never

forget how much He loves you, how much He cares for you, and how much

He wants to bless you. His blessings are always raining from heaven,

so take the time to put away your umbrellas and go dance in the rain.

Love you all!

Have a great week!

Sister Jackson

Sent from Downingtown ❤️

Josie, Oscar, and Sister Nutting

Sister Josie Jackson

Sister Jackson and Sister Nutting

Sister Jackson

Happy Halloween!

Wow, that's weird. It's still August right? I just left home right? I

haven't been in PA for SIX WEEK RIGHT?! Ugh, too fast people. Too

fast! No transfer news here, oh WAIT, there is. Our Elders who covered

half of the ward are getting doubled out, and we are not getting new

elders in. Sister Nutting and I are the only missionaries for the

entire D-Town area, if you're wonder what that includes look at a map

of PA. Our area is from Parkersburg (literally the edge of the

mission) to Exton and then up to Honey Brooke and down to Delaware,

it's fine. We get Coatesville though! Man, Coatesville. It's a great

place to be! I'm just like PRES COME ON IM STILL A BABY AND YOUVE

DOUBLED ME IN TWICE. it's fine, I still love President, he's the

coolest. It's just a sign for the rest of my mission right? I'll be

doubled in everywhere. My address has not changed so don't worry about

that, I'll be here in D-Town until January 17th most likely.

Sadly this week we had to drop three investigators Vinobh & Anu Samuel

were dropped because they would not come to church or accept baptism,

it's cool, gotta do what you've gotta do. We also dropped a guy named

Jim, we haven't even met him because he refuses to call us back so

that's fun. We gained all the elders investigators so we can't

complain, plus with the Samuels it just started to feel like we were

wasting not only our time but also theirs. So it was a clean break you

could say!

Man this week was crazy, hard to believe that it was all this week! On

Tuesday this week Sister Nutting got sick so we were inside all the

day long until our appointment at 5 for an FHE with a family in our

ward. It's okay though, I called a lot of people. Most of them didn't

want to talk to me but most were pretty nice. The week got better from

there! We had lots of lessons with RCLA's and some investigators!

Oscar, oh Oscar, I just love him. He made us food this week and man it

was so good I can't even tell you how good it was. It sucked though

because Sister Nutting and I had literally just had dinner with a

family at Olive Garden so we were so full. It was not funny. He's

doing really well though! He loves the Gospel and he's starting to get

more from his Book of Mormon readings! We love him for sure! Maurice

is a man that we just started meeting with and he's so cool! We showed

him a short video on the first vision and he was like "I have never

seen this video before but what was happening was so familiar." WHAT?!

He's just too cool. Too cool guys. When you're looking and praying for

the elect you find the ones praying and looking for you! He's also

read up to 2 Nephi 8 in about a week and a half so I mean, wow. Before

we dropped her we also taught Anu, she gave us this weird Indian candy

called Soan Papdi. It's like a buttery, nutty cotton candy thing. It's

weird. If you can find it, try it. Just do it.

We also had the Bangura family again! Sister Bangura has a job

interview tomorrow and we re hoping and praying that it goes well

because she wants to come back to church so bad. She misses it so

much. She tells us everytime we come over that she misses it. She has

that desire and we are just hoping it all works out! We also had

Philomena Smith this week, we just stopped by randomly and she

happened to be home! She's a little harder to get through too, she

doesn't see the reason behind why she needs to come to church every

Sunday but she wants to have Gods protection for her and her children,

so who knows, maybe we can use that to get through to her somehow!

We taught Iryna and Denise again this week as well! Iryna is still the

coolest, she talked a lot about her life back in Ukraine a lot and her

family that still lives there. She's got an awesome testimony of the

Gospel and of family history. She is hoping to get to the temple soon

so that she can be baptized for her mom! I love her! Denise is going

great as well! She came to church this week for the first time in

about 2 weeks, her living situation is still a little weird but there

is really nothing we can do to help that, she can't live on her own

and wouldn't leave her kids, but her kids are a big part of the

problem, Coatesville man.

Sarah Dise, where do I start? She's a very interesting lady. First off

she goes to the West Chester ward but lives in the D-Town ward. She

also doesn't need lessons or anything but likes to use the

missionaries as her "spiritual therapists" which isn't a bad thing but

it's hard for us because we have so much work to be doing and she is

the type of person who needs what she needs now and nothing else

matters but that. We are hoping to find a way to work with her around

all that but who knows.

We had a ward Halloween party this week and it was so fun! The Sagers

were in charge and I love that family! They're a family I would come

back to visit! They are just cute and fun and so creative. It was

awesome! We also carved some pumpkins this week at correlation, I'll

send pictures!

Creepy story of the week. So Saturday we were helping set up for the

party and then had to go straight to correlation. So we start driving

and the GPS tells us to turn so we do, soon enough we are on this road

with weeds overgrown on it, overturned shopping carts, an overgrown

gazebo, and some of those old laundry basket rolling things just in

the middle of the road (like Addams family type stuff K?). We reach

the top of said creepy road & it's totally blocked off. Sister Nutting

and I are officially freaked out and late for correlation by this

point. Anyway we turn around and finally make it to correlation and

tell Brother Borneman this story. We were literally driving the road

to the old insane asylum of the D-Town area. It's fine. Just headed to

a haunted hospital as missionaries NBD.

On another note, we got to meet the elders progressing investigator

Susie yesterday so that she would know who is going to start teaching

her. She was as drunk as a skunk. It was so sad, the elders didn't

even know she was drunk until we asked them later if she had Word of

Wisdom issues. Again, Coatesville man. Just kidding, she was still way

sweet and seemed excited to meet with us and learn more! She told us

that she loves to read the BOM so drunk or not we can't complain!

All in all it was a great week! I love and miss you all!

Love,

Sister Jackson

Ward Halloween Party

Love from PA

Vampires!

Add caption

I'm wiped out this week. Batteries are not included on missionary work

& man does the spirit drain!

Hello all though! I hope you all had a great week! Here's the

highlight if you haven't 😉

Well this week was crazy. We had dinner appointments again where we

were able to grow closer too and strengthen our members! One of the

sisters we visited with this week had a missionary experience the next

day! She was taking her oldest to the bus stop and ran into a lady who

lives in her building. This sister had just moved into our ward & the

lady asked her if she had made any friends yet, when the sister

responded that she had made lots of them this lady was surprised. The

sister explained that we have a ward family and the lady was so

interested that she agreed to come to church and meet with the

missionaries! We can all be missionaries whenever and wherever!

We had service at Simpson Meadows again and these old people are so

funny! I'll send a selfie that we took with the ones we work with!

They're just cute and even though they don't have their memories they

usually remember us because of our name tags! It's so fun!

We also met a lady in our complex named Cordelia. Cordelia is an older

lady who is lived across the country and in many different places in

Europe. We were looking at a tree that was changing into it fall

colors right in front of her house and she thought we were students.

We were discussing how pretty the colors looked and she called us over

to explain to us what type of tree it was, the name of the tree has

escaped my mind so don't ask. She then asked us where we were from and

what we were doing. we talked to her for a little while about her life

and she was super cool and nice. She told us anytime we walked by and

she was sitting outside to stop and talk to her! We are hoping to keep

talking with her and eventually bring up the church, she knows we are

missionaries for our church but she didn't really want to talk about

religion.

The temple. Oh, the temple. Sister Nutting and I had such a good time.

It was so beautiful and the peace around the temple is crazy. It's in

the center of Philadelphia which is not a quiet place if you're

curious, but as soon as you walk onto the grounds you don't even

realize it anymore. The noise fades into the background and the spirit

overwhelms your senses. It was, ugh, I can't even describe what it was

like to go through the temple here. It's always going to hold a very

special spot in my heart because PA has become home, and the temple in

Philly just fills me with warm fuzzies. I dare say it's the most

beautiful temple I've gone through. There is not a city in the world

who needed this temple more than Philadelphia and the brethren knew

that. It's amazing to see the impact it's had on the community here,

people are just attracted to the spirit that resides there, the

comfort that is found. It's beautiful. I can't wait to go back and

just soak it all in through my mission.

We did a lot with RCLA's this week (recent converts, less actives) we

met with Iryna again, she's so cool! There is always the Bangura

family that we do FHE with every week and their awesome, we want her

to get to church so bad but we don't know what else we can say to help

her understand, plus she works every Sunday so it's not like we can

tell her "quit your job so you can come to church, the Lord will pay

your bills" so yeah. We have Denise who is an RC and her daughter who

is an LA but they live in Coatesville which is out of our area but

since there is no man the elders gave her to us! She's cool! We also

had lessons with a lady named Bonnie, she's way cool too! Has a lot of

medical issues and can't really walk so it's hard for her to get to

church because her wheelchair doesn't collapse, she wants to go to the

Philly temple really bad though so we are trying to figure out what we

can do to help her get there!

OSCAR oh man Oscar! He's just the best! He's finally started reading

and understanding his scriptures! He always has questions about his

reading and he makes sure he is understanding it correctly! He's just

the best, no lie. We also had a lesson with Maurice this week, Sister

Ashcraft (our STL) and I tracted into him when we were on exchanges.

He doesn't really have a religion but he's interested in learning

more. Sister Nutting and I gave him a Book of Mormon a few days later,

we set up a time to go back and teach him about the Book of Mormon but

it ended up falling through because we couldn't find a woman to come

teaching with us, it's whatever. We talked to him two days later

though when we had to cancel because we were around his place anyway

and he told us that in those two days he had read the whole first book

of Nephi! WHAT?! That never happens! He had really cool insights about

Laman and Lemuel and their hard heartedness and murmurings and how he

can apply that to his own life by listening to Sister Nutting and I

instead of being hard hearted towards us and our message. We set up a

time to go visit him later that week. When we met with him he was

pumped to learn about the Book of Mormon and why we have it. It was so

cool. I love this work!

Speaking of things that were so cool, Elder Robbins came and spoke to

our mission!! It was cool to see all the missionaries in one place!

Elder Robbins had really cool insight on Christlike Attributes and how

there are a lot more than just the nine that are included in Preach My

Gospel. He also talked about how our mission life can apply to our

married life in a few years and it was way cool! He talked a lot about

making sure that we don't put a lot of emphasis on where we serve but

more on how we serve. I learned a lot from him and how much the

mission life prepares us for the rest of our lives. The spirit was so

strong in that meeting, and again it was draining, but so powerful. I

was really impressed by the spirit during his talk about how

everything I'm demonstrating or going to demonstrate in the mission

field I'm going to demonstrate when I get home as well. It was just a

great talk about increasing faith, becoming more Christlike, and how

important it is to prepare for the future. It was so good! Plus it was

cool to meet the missionaries!

That's all that happened this week! I love the mission, I love D-Town,

I love Philadelphia, I love my companion, I love my mission president

but really I love each and everyone of you.

I love our Savior.

Love,

Sister Josie D. Jackson

(Your favorite missionary)

Sent from Downingtown ❤️

Josie and Sister Nutting

Josie outside the Philadelphia Temple

Josie and Sister Nutting

Josie

Wazzup!!

Good morning from Downingtown! I hope you all had a fantastic week and if you didn't here's my email to, as my hero Victoria Beckham once sang, spice up your life. ;)

This week has been good! Philly was truly amazing! After philly we had service at a place called CYWA, where on the second Monday of every month the church goes and feeds the homeless of Coatsville. That was super cool! We also got to do some service for a member in our ward Sister Seaman! She's my favorite! I love her so much! The Seamans are just an awesome family! 

We met with some RCLA's this week! We do tend to do that a lot as you may have noticed. Sister O'Conner was super cool, we walked in and started talking with her she told us she has some Word of wisdom problems but that she wants to come back to church one day. We also met with the Bangura family again they're so cool the only problem is their mom works every Sunday and we can't really tell her to quit her job because she is to provide for her family somehow so we're working with her to see what we can do to help her come back to church. We met with a lady in Coatesville her name is Denise she's been a convert about a year now she was super cool. She has faith in Christ and what he did for us and she's just really awesome. We also met with Iryna, oh man Iryna, she makes such good food! She's been a convert of about a year, she's taking temple prep right now to be sealed to her husband Jeremy. They met each other in the Ukraine while he was serving his mission and then they reconnected when she moved back to United States after she finished getting her degree in the UK.

We taught Oscar again this week he's super awesome, and doing super well. He finally read from the book of Mormon all by himself and was understanding the things that he read so we are super excited to keep working with him and continue to have him grow his testimonies that he can prepare to be baptized in December! We also met with the Samual family again we are having a struggle with them because we think there's a language barrier and they don't fully comprehend all of her teaching them. They also haven't come to church yet even though we've invited them multiple times so we are wondering how truly interested they are.

We met with an investigator this week her name is Theresa, she's from Liberia. She was super cool we walked in and give her a scripture from the holy Bible and also from the book of Mormon and she told us that she wants to re-center her life in Christ because since she's come to the states she has not her life centered on Christ. We're hoping to continue to meet with her and to teach her a little bit more about what we believe so that she can understand and hopefully want to become a member of the church. We also tracked it into a few people Maurice and Jeff they're both super cool. Maurice doesn't really have a religion but he accepted the book of Mormon and gave us a return appointment so that was really cool. We also met Jeff. Jeff had been taking lessons in Lancaster before he moved out here to Downingtown and he actually gone to a church before so we're hoping to continue to meet with him and to continue to help him understand the Gospel.

We had zone conference this week and it was super cool they talked a lot about making sure our planning sessions and study sessions are being used effectively. It was awesome to get some suggestions on how to better study for investigators in to make sure that we are putting specifically for them to each night so we can teach them to the best of our ability the next day.

The Downingtown Dodge. So this week we had a dinner appointment with Sister Bergholm and we left on time to get there on time and we arrive to her house to find out that the address on LDS Tools was actually her sisters house. So we called her to see what her actual address was and we put it in the GPS and it said she still live 30 minutes away. So we drive for 30 minutes and we end up in basically what you would imagine it's homage country. Pull up to the house and there are no lights on so we call her to see if you're at the right place and we are not. So we put in her correct address and we're still 15 minutes away I'm she was super cool about it though and we made it there and had some delicious Mexican food that she made. she is a super cool lady who is dating a non-member who was also there and he excepted our pass along card challenge like to the biggest extent. He posted about on Facebook he's been sharing it with people and he wants to meet with us again so we're hoping that we can continue to teach him in to have her become her own missionary so that they can become a family. 

We also met a lady who only believes in science and not God. Yes we quoted nacho libre for like 10 minutes.

This week has been awesome! I love being a missionary, I love Philadelphia, I love all of you. You're the greatest!

Love,

Sister Jackson

Sent from Downingtown ❤️

Heart attacked

Josie

Josie and Sister Nutting