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