The Circuit Finally Broke

November 22, 2021

Bonjour! Joyeux action de grâces américaine!

Thanksgiving is probably my second favorite holiday (just behind Christmas), but, I’ll admit, this year it’s definitely snuck up on me (probably because Canadian Thanksgiving was over a month ago). The good news though is that now that Veteran’s Day (Remembrance Day here) is over, people have actually started putting up Christmas decorations! It’s getting pretty close to the most wonderful time of the year! In other exciting news, the circuit breaker officially ended this Friday! I’m super excited to start meeting with people in their homes again! As great as it is to finally not be in semi-lockdown, it was completely overshadowed by some of the other amazing things that happened last week!

We started the week off right with a district activity in Saint John on Monday during our preparation day, and then staying with the Saint John Elders overnight for an exchange (Saint John is about an hour and a half away from Moncton we figured we’d kill two birds with one stone and save some kilometers since we’re only allotted a certain amount each month). I was with an Elder Harris, who’s from Alberta, from Alberta and we had a really cool experience teaching a lady who he messaged on Facebook how to pray! After our exchange with Saint John we went straight into another exchange with the missionaries in Hampton (once again to save klicks) and had a good time doing some community service!

The really amazing stuff from this week, though, happened during the weekend. We had an amazing lesson on Saturday with our new friend Jinhai, and for the sake of time I'm just going to copy and paste my journal entry. It's long but it's worth describing in full. 

"We had an incredible lesson with a man that Elder Eich messaged on Facebook through the neighborhood feature named Jinhai Mei. He asked about social events since he wants to get to meet people but Covid is making things difficult so we decided to message him about our upcoming Christmas music night, and when we mentioned it was at our church he said he also wants to learn more about religion! So we set up a chapel tour/lesson for today and it went super well! It was amazing. We showed up to get things ready and Bishop Clarito just happened to be there to check on some stuff since they just finished redoing the gym floor. We had mentioned the tour to him to get permission, but I hadn't invited him since I figured he would be busy. He joined us for the lesson and we actually able to connect to Jinhai in some really cool ways! Bishop gréw up in Hong Kong and was taught the gospel there, and Jinhai's daughter actually went to a Christian school in the Phllapines where Bishop had lived. Jinhai himself is in his mid to late forties and even though he has only been in Canada for two months he speaks pretty good English! He is so incredibly humble and sincere in his desire to learn about God. A few weeks ago he had gone to a church near his home but he was discouraged since he didn't understand anything. We were able to teach Him about God being our loving Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. He told us that in China they are all taught that God doesn't exist since it is controlled by the communist party, but he saw the kindness and good works of Christians and wants to come to know God. We focused a lot on prayer and it was so amazing to be able to testify to Jinhai that it is not too late to build a relationship with God and they Heavenly Father already knows and loves Him. We managed to find a single Mandarin Chinese Book of Mormon in our apartment and we gave it to him with an English Book of Mormon as well. The most amazing part of the lesson however, was inviting him to pray at the end. He studied the section in the pamphlet I had given him about prayer carefully, and then he said one of the most humble and powerful prayers I have ever heard. He started by addressing Heavenly Father and introduced himself as Jinhai Mei from China, it was so pure and reminded me of King Lamoni's father in Alma 22. He thanked God for us and for the hope and Spirit he felt that he could still "build a religion"/relationship with Him. He then closed perfectly in the name of Jesus Christ." 

That was easily one of the most powerful experiences I've had on the mission so far. 

Sunday was also pretty incredible. We ended up having five people come to church online/in person, and that included Jinhai and his 12 year old daughter! They got a ride with a member named Deji who is from Africa and pretty much the coolest guy ever, and he and the rest of the ward did an amazing job of making them feel welcome. It was a really cool sacrament meeting as well since one of the speakers was Sister Makarena from Chile and the theme of the meeting was eternal families, and who doesn't love that? I'm really grateful that our members were so welcoming because Elder Eich and I were also busy greeting 10-12 students and their professor from a local university. They came as part of their religious studies class, and after sacrament meeting we got to hold a Q&A meeting with them during 2nd hour and it was a really cool experience! All of the students were very respectful and genuinely curious about what we believe. At the end one of them even stayed after to ask us for our phone number so we'll see what happens! 

Overall it was a really amazing week, and with the circuit breaker over things are really starting to pick up. I am super excited to see how things progress, and I am so grateful to be a missionary and to be serving here in Moncton! Oh, in case anyone was curious I also finished Saints volume 2, and I have to say that I really liked it! It's crazy just how much persecution the early church faced, but I am so grateful for their perseverance and for their examples of faith! We'll, I hope you all have a great week - eat lots of turkey for me! 

Love you all, 

Elder Jackson