🏔️ Welcome to Oakhurst! 🗻

April 5, 2021

Hey everyone!! 

It’s been a while! Sorry for the lack of emails, pdays in Oakhurst have been busy! I guess I’ll just flash back a little bit and hit some of the highlights from the last three weeks:

I got to go to “transfer hub” for the first time ever and it was a dream come true! It was sad having to say goodbye to Elder Jones, but the drive up to Fresno was a lot of fun and a welcome change of pace after weeks of biking around together. We blasted some piano guys and jammed out all the way to the Temple parking lot (aka the transfer hub). Basically, all of the missionaries who are being transferred or getting hosted in another apartment until the trainees arrive all meet up in the temple parking and work out the understandably complex logistics of switching cars, moving luggage, and basically getting each missionary to where they need to go. The crowning moment of transfer hub was finally getting to see the one, the only, Elder Dallin Hall in person! Elder Hall is a large part of why I was so excited about my reassignment to the California Fresno mission and I’d been anticipating getting to say hi to him again for over four months, and I was not disappointed!

Transfer hub also fulfilled another dream that I honestly never thought would come true, Elder Allred and I are officially companions! As much as I loved getting to talk to him once or twice a week over Facebook Messenger with the atrocious cell service I had back in my apartment in Visalia, it’s a lot nicer to be able to hangout with him face to face. Being around him again has brought back a lot of fond memories from our time in the online MTC, and it was a little surprising to realize how much time has passed since then!

 As of last week I have been a missionary for 6 months!! How crazy is that? I’ve realized there are still so many things I want to learn and become before the end of my mission, and I know from what other missionaries have told me that time will only continue to pass faster and faster, but the good news is that 18 months still sounds like a long time haha

Transfer hub happened on Tuesday in Fresno and our trainee wasn’t going to arrive until Thursday, so Elder Allred and I got to spend a few days being hosted by some wonderful missionaries that are serving in Fresno: Elder Davis and Elder Robley. Elder Davis and Elder Robley both served in Thailand before Covid, and they shared lots of wacky and memorable stories from their time there. Even though we only got to stay with them for three days, I can definitely say that they are some of my favorite people I’ve met on my mission and that it was a blast living with them! Thursday was a really exciting day though because Elder Allred and I got to meet our trainee: Elder Bryce! He’s a really awesome guy who is super smart but also really well rounded and very humble! Elder Bryce is an awesome guy and it’s been a pleasure getting to serve with him so far!

The other really cool thing that happened is that Elder Allred, Elder Bryce, and I all got to go through the Fresno temple! There was only one missionary left in our entire mission who hadn’t had a chance to go through the temple for the first time, and it just so happens that he and Elder Allred were companions last transfer and they had extra room in the temple session so we got to join him! In addition to Elder Allred’s previous companion, we also got to go through with our mission president and his wife, and talking with them in the temple after the session is one of my favorite memories I’ve made so far on my mission! It makes me sad to think that will probably be my only time going through the temple with them, but I’m so grateful that I got to do it; it was a wonderful spiritual experience! I can testify that temples truly are the houses of the Lord, and that the special Spirit that is inside each of them is palpable!

The biggest highlight from two weeks ago was getting to go hiking with our friends that we’ve been teaching named Clay! He is a really awesome guy that I’d already read a lot about since I’ve been keeping up with Elder Allred’s emails haha. Clay Clay lives way up in the mountains and he took us to see some beautiful waterfalls on a trail that he and his son had made themselves - it was honestly so much fun! The best part of the hike, though, was definitely when we stopped to eat lunch in front of a waterfall and started having a discussion about the Gospel. Clay already has a powerful testimony of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon and that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God, and I can’t wait to keep meeting with him! Sitting there seemingly in the middle of the wilderness, I shared Alma 32:28 and we talked about the analogy of faith as a seed, and it was honestly just so awesome! As it says in Alma 32, I know that if you take the time to pray and study the scriptures we will see our faith grow into a beautiful and majestic tree and you will be able to taste of the true joy that comes from the Gospel of Jesus Christ! That has to be another of my favorite memories from the mission so far.

The last highlight that I want to talk about in this insanely long letter (props to you if you’ve read this far!) is General Conference! Easter has always been one of my favorite holidays (I even wrote letters to the Easter Bunny as a kid), but having Conference on top really made it a special day. This was my first Easter as a missionary, and for the first time in my life I felt like I was actually able to spiritually prepare for Easter and remember the story of the Savior’s final week. I was so struck by his unbelievable humility and selflessness that he demonstrated, and I am just so grateful for everything that he has done for me and the entire world. I’m so grateful for the Gospel and the knowledge it gives us not only of what Christ has done for us but who he is! He is perfect, and He loves each one of us perfectly.

General Conference was really uplifting, and I would invite any of you who haven’t seen it yet to watch it! There were so many awesome talks that I can’t wait to study further, and I’m sure that all of you who watched it felt the same, so I want to invite all of you reading this to reread your favorite talk and ask yourself why is it your favorite. Why is it that it stood out to you or that you felt the influence of the Spirit while you listened to it? Figure out what the Spirit was saying to you, and think of something that you want to start doing or stop doing as a result. This is something I am going to do myself, and I know that the impressions you will receive will be personal revelation from our Heavenly Father, and that if you follow those promptings your faith will grow and you will have more joy in your life!

Love you all,

Elder Jackson