Another Chapter Begins

July 19, 2021

Bonjour! 

And just like that, another transfer is over! More so than any other transfer so far, I am amazed by how quickly the last six weeks have flown by! I have learned and grown a lot during my time in Merced, and I'm happy to say that I will have the opportunity to continue serving in Merced for the foreseeable future! Elder Priestley will be leaving for the wonderful city of Clovis and my new companion will be Elder Price! I don't know anything about him since he is coming straight from the MTC, but I am excited and grateful for the opportunity to train once again! 

This week was fairly standard for the most part, but there were some real highlights that I'll try my best to cover! We had our last zone council of the transfer, and as usual it was a great experience. I love all of the other missionaries here that I get to serve around and I am especially grateful for our leaders for giving us a really unique opportunity to just reflect on the last six weeks and how we have grown and improved. A big focus of this transfer in our mission has been the Plan of Salvation, and I just want to bear my testimony once again of how amazing the Plan of Salvation truly is! I feel a little bit like Jacob in 2 Nephi 9 because I honestly can't stress enough just how significant the Plan of Salvation is! It demonstrates so clearly that God truly is our loving Heavenly Father and that He knows and loves each of His children. It teaches us the true significance of Christ's life and atoning sacrifice and the eternal significance of choosing to follow the Covenant Path. It teaches us who we really are and gives us an idea of what we can become. It is something that every single person in the world and even every single person that has ever lived needs to learn and understand. There are so many incredible chapters in the Book of Mormon that testify powerful of God's Plan of Happiness, but if I had to choose one to recommend I would suggest re-reading 2 Nephi 9, I know that you will feel the Spirit strengthen your testimony of the Plan of Salvation as you do so! 

The other big highlight of this week was a ward pool party that we got to attend! As you might expect, we didn't get in the water, but I was totally fine with that because it gave me more time to talk with our friend Angel! He has been in Mexico for the last few weeks so this was my first real opportunity to meet him and he is awesome! Angel is a non-member, but he has become really good friends with many of the members in the ward, in fact, he actually went hiking with one of our members in Yosemite this week! We found out that we both love singing and we were able to spend a few hours just hanging out with other members in our ward playing corn hole and a fun game called crossnet which is basically just four square mixed with volleyball. The funniest part of the party though was a mini concert put on by some of the members of our ward, including our ward mission leader! Listening to them brought back fond memories of rocking out last year in East of the Cornmill, shout out to all of my wonderful bandmates for all the fun experiences we got to share! 

It was sad having Elder Priestley say his goodbyes at church this Sunday, but it was really awesome to see both Thomas and Angel come to church and enjoy being there! I am so excited to see how they progress and for this coming transfer, I love being a missionary! 

Love you all, 

Elder Jackson