Joyeux Halloween! 🎃👻🎃🦇

 November 1, 2021

Salut mes êtres chers! 

This week was a little bit less of a groundhog week, but once again time went by really quickly! We had another zone conference (a meeting with all of the missionaries in our "zone" which consists of the missionaries in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick and our mission leaders) and exchanges with the Fredericton Elders so it was a good time! Sometimes it can be easy to get into a rhythm with life; whether it's with missionary work, school, work, or even just taking care of kids, but it's really important to sometimes break things up and reflect. If you don't stop to look back every now and then it's really difficult to measure your progress! You can find joy and satisfaction in how you have improved and, of course, identify what areas you want to improve on in the future! 

Since we're somewhat limited in what in-person finding activities we can do, you probably won't be surprised to hear that once again I made a lot of phone calls this week, but it turned out to be really good! With the extra time for contacting through technology I feel like I've been better at taking a step back and seeing the big picture so I can make sure we're staying in touch with all of our friends and members. I have been trying to be more organized and have greater urgency in finding (this is the Lord's work after all!) and I feel it has really been paying off. I got in touch with some people who hadn't heard from missionaries in a long time, and there were some awesome experiences! 

I talked to a lady named Antoinette in French and, oh boy, once again French over the phone can be difficult. I saw in my notes that I had called her not too long ago, but with the language barrier being such a struggle I had literally no idea what we had talked about. I'll admit that I was nervous to call again and speak in French, but I decided to follow my impression and just call her. I was praying really hard the whole time for the gift of tongues, and I have to say that my prayer was answered when she ended up switching to English just long enough for me to figure out what she had been trying to say. Not quite how I expected that prayer to answer but I'll take it haha We talked and texted after and she actually sounds interested so I'm super excited about that! 

The other awesome call experience was getting back in touch with our friend Christine who I talked about in a previous email (her son was the one with the bunny). We haven't been able to meet since the circuit breaker (semi-lock down) started, but we stopped by a few weeks ago in-between the Saturday morning and afternoon sessions of general conference. I gave her a card with the times of the conference sessions written on it, and seemingly by chance the card I grabbed had the question "How will God answer my prayers?" printed on it. It turns out that when we had knocked Christine had been in the process of praying and she thought it was a really cool sign! Christine also said that she has read a little bit in the Book of Mormon, and I got to answer some of her questions and I am super excited to meet with her again, hopefully at a park sometime this week.

Zone conference was as always an awesome experience, but I won't go into all the details for the sake of time. Suffice it to say that I learned a lot and there were some really cool changes announced that I think will really help us work better with members! The funnest part about zone conference, though, was probably the night before. Since it's a bit of a trek to get to Halifax, some of the other New Brunswick missionaries spent the night at our house so they didn't have to make the entire trip in one sitting. Having six Elders in one apartment truly was a dream come true, even if it meant having to sleep on the couch haha

On another exciting note, Halloween happened! Or so I'm told… I'll be honest I'm not sure if it's just the restrictions or what but Canadians don't seem to be super festive haha We didn't see a single trick or treaters all day. The only indication we had that it was Halloween was a kid biking past our car at one point dressed as a zombie and covered in fake blood. I was super weirded out until I remembered that it was Halloween haha I did end up having a good Halloween though because we got to help our friends Nick and Melissa move! Moving is always a blast and they thankfully didn't have anything too heavy. 

In other news, the circuit breaker was extended another week which we kind of saw coming, but we are un-phased! 

Love you all, 

Elder Jackson