Tender Mercy

August 16, 2021

Rebonjour encore! 

Well, it's been yet another deceptively quick week! Looking back, I can hardly remember what happened but I feel confident in saying that it was all super good! 

I think part of what made this week so fast was that we had exchanges twice this week. Personally, I love exchanges! It's always a breath of fresh air as well as a great learning experience. There are six Elders here in Merced, four English and two Spanish, and one of my favorite parts of being in Merced is how often I get to interact with all of them! The other English Elders, Elder Greene and Elder Rydalch, are our roommates and also our zone leaders and the Spanish Elders, Elder Basteen and Elder Morris, are our district leader and his comp. I could write a paragraph about each of them explaining why I love them so much, but suffice it to say that I am super grateful to serve around each of them! I've had the opportunity to serve around many different types of people during my mission, but it always amazes me and strengthens my testimony to see how universally the Gospel has blessed each of our lives and to hear their testimonies of it. 

I went on exchanges with Elder Greene and then Elder Basteen, and we had some really awesome experiences during both of them! Elder Greene felt prompted to knock on a door and we ended up finding a less active member whose records aren't here who was super grateful to see us and expressed her desire to have the church more fully in her life and in the lives of her kids. The next day, Elder Basteen and I had a really powerful lesson with Sister Thill and her son Michael. They were both older and while Michael had been baptized, he has never been involved in the church and Sister Thill has not been active since she married her husband who wasn't a member. As we started talking about the importance of the Book of Mormon Michael told us that he had never read it and Sister Thill said she has only read parts of it. I felt the Spirit very powerfully as Elder Basteen and I bore testimony of the Book of Mormon and I was overjoyed when they both agreed to read and pray about it! 

On Saturday night I experienced a very profound and extremely personal tender mercy. For the sake of time I'm just going to copy and paste it directly from my journal, but just for context my brother Trey gave me a carabiner and an oil vial that he used during his service as a missionary in Mexico and I have carried it with me for pretty much my whole mission. 

Experienced a truly tender mercy today. We were biking and I saw my carabiner was flipped so I went to fix it because I'm always paranoid Trey's oil vial will fall off. I thought I heard something as I adjusted it but it didn't sound metallic so I kept biking and looked down at the now repositioned carabiner only to find that the vial was missing. It was between 7:30 and 7:45 so things were starting to get kind of dark and to make things worse the curbside was covered in dead leaves. 

The first thing I did was say a prayer. I care very deeply about that vial and I have been very conscious not to lose it, but I also didn't want to take it off my carabiner because I like always having it with me. I start scanning the street and running my shoe through the leaves to no avail. This went on for about five or ten minutes and then I said another prayer. Somewhere in that time a man in a truck stopped to ask if we needed help and we told him something just fell off my key chain and we were looking for it. He drove off and then a few minutes later he passed us again and even offered to lend us a flashlight and while it was a really kind gesture we politely declined and he drove off again. Maybe that was why this had to happen. 

It was getting close to 8 and we were supposed to have a call over messenger with the specialists at 8 to discuss the video project that we recently learned we are in charge of. I said a final verbal prayer with Elder Price and walked to our bikes and started to walk back with my bike with my front light on. I saw a man on the other side of the street who was sitting down watering his yard and remembered passing him which gave me the realization that the vial could actually be farther back than I had initially thought. We searched for a little longer and then right as I was ready to accept the loss of the vial the specialists called. I turned back to Elder Price to say that it was alright and that we should get going and as I went to answer the specialist's call to tell them we were going to need another 15 minutes to bike home, lo and behold there was the oil vial right in front of me! It was a literal miracle. I'm convinced that God waited until I was resolved and ready to give up to guide me to the vial so I would be unable to deny that it was a miracle. 

That experience was a very personal witness to me of the power of prayer and also the importance of faith! I have heard countless stories of events like that taking place and I knew as soon as I lost the oil vial that God could help us find it, but it wasn't until after the trial of that faith that God answered my prayer. He waited until the last minute so there would be no doubt in my mind that it was a miracle and that he was the one that made it possible. Prayer is something I'm constantly trying to improve at, but I just want to testify that it works! God hears and answers every prayer, but He does so according to His and it is all part of His perfect plan! If you ever are in trouble or don't know what to do, don't forget to pray. And even if it doesn't seem like your prayers are answered at first, keep praying and know that God hears you and that He loves you! 

Sorry for the extra long email, thanks to all of you who read them and for all of the support and love that you give me! 

Love you all, 

Elder Jackson