Open Your Mouth

March 29 2021

Salut mes amis! 

I hope you've all had a great week! It's kind of hard for me to believe that it's Monday again - so much has happened this week but now it feels like everything just flew by! 

This week made me realize once again how awesome the Riverway Ward is! Elder Jones and I got to participate in a really fun activity this week with the priests in the ward where we got to help them practice teaching missionary lessons. I had a really amazing mission prep group that I got to meet with throughout my senior year, and I felt really cool to share what I've learned to help them as they prepare to serve. I can't believe I was pretty much in their shoes less than a year ago! 

This week in zone/district council we talked a lot about becoming master finders and the importance of just opening your mouth and talking with everyone, and Elder Jones and I both left the meeting bound and determined to talk to anything that moves. We had a little bit of time before the lesson we had scheduled with Ida, so we decided to stop by a park on the way there and say hi to some people. We got there and there were some rougher looking homeless people scattered throughout the park - suddenly talking to everyone became a lot more intimidating. Elder Jones and I decided to make a loop around the park, and the first lady that we said hi to just dropped everything and started talking to us! Her name was Carla and she has a pretty crazy story, but she recognized that we were missionaries and we had a really awesome conversation about God and opposition. In the end, we gave her a Book of Mormon and our phone number so we'll see what comes of that.

That experience really reminded me of Ether 12:6 "ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith." Part of the purpose of this life is to learn to walk by faith and not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7). Many times, God allows us to exercise our faith by letting us take that first step into the dark. In doing so, our faith grows stronger and we are able to experience truth growth. And to top it all of, God blesses us anytime we exercise faith and are obedient to his commandments! We will always be unprofitable servants, not for lack of trying, but because anytime we attempt to pay God back he blesses us and we end up even more indebted to him than we were before. Clearly, running into Carla wasn't a coincidence, it was tender mercy to show us the importance of exercising faith by talking with everyone. All we have to do is open our mouths and try our best - not everyone will listen but things will work out in the end. 

I honestly didn't expect this to happen to me while I was on my mission, but lately I've been really overcome with the "Spirit of Elijah" and with a desire to learn more about my family history. I've spent a large portion of my spare time poring over Family Search and reading the life stories of some of my great grandparents, and it honestly has been so awesome! I feel so much love for the relatives whose stories I read, some of whom I had the opportunity to meet in this life and others who passed away before I was born. Reading about their funny stories and about the little details of their lives is wonderful, but the most amazing part is reading about the spiritual experiences that they recorded. It honestly feels like I'm reading the scriptures except it's the stories of my ancestors. I'd invite everyone who reads this letter to go online or to talk to their parents/grandparents so you can learn more about your ancestors and their stories! 

Love you all! 

Elder Jackson

Also, a member gave us like a 5 gallon tub of ice cream, so that alone made this a great week

And I also found a salsa made specifically for me to complete our collection