Ay yous! I hope that each of you had a fantastic week this last week

and that you all are ready to hear about my adventures in Broomall!

Its been quite the week of adjustment I can tell you that much!

Broomall is honestly not that different from Downingtown, its

different in someways but the same in a lot of other ways. I have yet

to find the Coatesville of Broomall so I am keeping my eyes peeled for

the humblest of areas out here! Its pretty cool to be in President

Randall's ward though, it was weird to walk into sacrament meeting and

see him and the whole family just chillin on the pews, but cool at the

same time.

We have done a lot of knocking on doors and talking with people

because the peeps we work with aren't overly fond of holding their

appointments a lot of the time. Even the people we talked to who

seemed interested dont want us to come back most of the time, but the

work must go on!

We do have a few gators that we meet with and some recent converts

that we work closely with. One recent convert is named Kevin. Kevin is

so cool. He is 17 years old and just decided to go to church with his

Mormon friend one day, so he went and just kept going. Then he started

taking the lessons and was baptized in November! He is way cool, when

we meet with him we aren't really teaching him, we are just discussing

items with him. Its kind of like a giant comp study.

Another recent convert is a lady named Ann Maloney. Ann was baptized

in December and found out about the church because of the temple. She

wanted to do a tour of the temple so one Saturday she showed up at the

church to see the whole idea. She went down into Philly and toured the

temple and just kept going from there. She is hilarious and talks so

much, half of the lesson is just her talking about worldly stuff and

the other half if focused on the point at hand. She loves President

Trump, she kept talking about how he is like King David in the Bible.

It was actually pretty funny.

We have one investigator that we are working with who has a date. His

name is James Hansen and hes is ten years old. His mom is a member

(just reactivated actually), his step dad is a recent convert named

John Sayles (we also work with him, he's way cool) and then his dad

was a member of the church. Anyway, James is the sweetest little boy

with a few mental disabilities, so of course I fell in love with him

right way. I just have that soft spot for special needs kids. He is a

little hard to keep focused at times but he has a love for Christ that

is incredible, he loves his family so much and loves the church.

Especially cub scouts. He is getting baptized on March 12th and is

super excited!

This week we had the missionary broadcast which was awesome, it was

very inspired and was focused on teaching repentance and baptizing

converts. It was just a great training on how to better teach and work

with people. They also released a new schedule for missionaries that

is pretty cool! It has been created to give missionaries more agency

and freedom to work. We now have an hour and a half to get ready in

the mornings, we do our planning sessions in the morning and personal

study. Then we have from 10-9 to do comp study, language study and

proselyte. Lunch is 30 minutes and dinner is an hour. We also can go

to bed between 9-10:30 which gives a chance for a little more sleep so

that we can be more prepared for the next day. Pday has also been

lengthened, instead of starting at 10 and going until 6, it goes from

8 until 6. So its going to be awesome to work and have a little more

agency in things.

We also met with a former investigator and his sister. Charlie and Ann

Doyle are in their nineties and are incredibly interesting people who

we probably wont meet with again. We met with them twice and Charlie

doesn't believe in a lot of things. He spent most of our last lesson

trying to convince us that Christ is not divine and that there isn't

life after this one, we just blink out of existence. Ann doesnt talk

much because Charlie does all of the talking, but she was a little

more open and interested in the BOM but after the second meeting with

her she told us that she is a devout Catholic and isn't interested in

converting. The worst part though is that Charlie always asked us if

we had made a sale that day because he is convinced that we are

salesmen. Which we are not, we are invitesmen. we aren't selling

anything, we are just inviting others to grow closer to Christ.

My first Sunday in Broomall was awesomely hectic. It was ward counsel,

and so there were a lot of people there who I met who are from the

stake so I didnt know anyone and was a little nervous to meet

everyone. We walked into the chapel and guess who walks up to us

because he is in the stake young men's presidency? That is right

Brother Seaman. I was so happy to see him! Nothing like a familiar

face in a new situation.

Sister Shin and I are getting a long really well! There is a little

bit of a language barrier because we dont think in the same language

but we are adjusting to each other and moving right along with the

work.  I had an experience this week that I think I needed in order to

understand her a little bit more. If you didnt know already this week

we had the Korean New Year (Happy New Year Y'all) and so we went to

dinner at a Korean members house (there are so many Koreans here) and

since I was the only American the language was mostly Korean. On

occasion if they had a question for me it would be in English but I

was pretty much in a situation were I did not speak the language and I

didn't know what kind of food I was putting into my mouth. I felt

pretty much alone and awkward. It was even hard to eat because I had

to quickly master the chopstick! I think i needed to have that

experience to see where she comes from, to be in her shoes for a

little bit. Her English is really good, sometimes I cant understand

her when she says something like repentance because her r's turn into

l's so she says lepentance, or President Landall. I'm getting there

though, it's actually kind of cute how she pronounces some words. She

also sings primary songs in Korean all the time, its pretty cute.

There is a really good scripture I found in my studies this week. Its

Mosiah 2:34, in short there is a phrase that is says that I love. It

says "Render to Him all that you are" I was pondering this phrase

because as humans we let the natural man take over sometimes. We

convince ourselves that we can do this life alone, that we dont need

Christ. Sometimes we decide to hold on to the little things that are

keeping us from progressing because we dont want to loose them.

Sometimes we expect to be fully converted and have rendered everything

over, but then become frustrated when we find out that we aren't where

we would like to be in terms of conversion. President Monson once said

"Life by the yard is hard, but by the inch its a cinch." I believe

that is also the formula to render ourselves fully to Christ. By the

yard its hard, but by the inch its a cinch. If we make the conscious

choice each day to be a little better than we were yesterday we will

make it to where we want to be, and to where Heavenly Father knows we

can become.

Life isn't easy, it isn't supposed to be. We are to be tested and

tried. We are to stumble and fall. But that doesnt mean we quit

trying. We keep standing back up, we pass every test, and we do not

give up. President Hinkley once said "We are a people with a present

and future. Don't muff your opportunities. Be excellent." With Christ

we can be excellent. Christ isn't going to leave us along just because

we messed up, or we aren't fully rendered to Him. He wants to help us

learn and grow and become.

Its a hard life without Christ, its an easier life with Him.

I love you all. I miss you all. I love our Savior and I know He lives.

Much love from PA,

Sister Jackson

 

Josie and Sister Shin