Maple and even more Miracles

March 21, 2022

Salut tout le monde!

Another week down, and with it the so approaches the end of yet another transfer. The transfer will end this coming Thursday, so last night we received our transfer news and there are going to be some changes! Sadly, Elder Felix will be leaving for Gatineau (a French city right across the river from Ottawa), and I will be staying put in the Charlesbourg branch of Quebec! Crazy to see how fast time has passed this past transfer, and a lot of great stuff happened this week so let's get into it! 

Tuesday morning we were able to meet with Gondo again, and it was a really spiritual lesson! We got to talk a little bit about life after death and how God will give all of His children to hear and accept the Gospel, and he completely agreed with that restored truth. We then read together in the Book of Mormon, and at the end we had a cool experience when Gondo asked us point blank to share our testimony of how we know these things are true. It was wonderful to bear my testimony that God really does reveal truths to us personally and that I know that the Book of Mormon and this church are true, and I felt the Spirit bear witness that what I had said was true. Feeling the Spirit testify through you is really one of the greatest parts of being a missionary!

It's been really fun having young adult people to work with these past few weeks since we once again had the chance to attend the YSA activity! We played volleyball this time, and we were joined by our new friend Orane and it was a ton of fun! There was such a positive and uplifting atmosphere the whole time as we all tried our best but didn't really keep score, and at the end Elder Felix and I got to share a spiritual thought!

This Wednesday we had the treat of eating dinner with the Ferland family again! The drive was beautiful, the food was delicious, the puppies were adorable, the kids were funny, and the stories were memorable. What more could you ask for! Afterwards we had the unique experience of talking with President Ferland about how to improve correlation between missionaries and local missionaries since he is in the mission presidency, and to top everything off we got to stay at his house to watch a special broadcast by Sister Harkness about how to teach children! Sister Harkness was previously in the primary general presidency so she was in charge of the church organization for children throughout the entire world! Needless to say, it was a great learning experience.

Thursday was also really memorable since we had our last district council of the transfer and exchanges with the YSA Elders! I was with Elder Reed and we had a really great time! Although as per usual with exchanges, I think we stayed up a little too late after lights out talking to each other haha. At district council we talked about what it means to be a successful missionary, and of all the points in PMG I'd have to say that is probably my favorite. The highlight of the exchange though was getting to meet with Orane at his apartment. It turns out he's pretty crazy talented at a lot of stuff! He insisted on teaching us how to play darts properly, and then proceeded to work on a painting as we were teaching him. Definitely a unique experience I won't ever forget!

I'll throw in something fun that we did today for pday that was super fun: we got to visit an authentic cabin à sucre! A cabin à sucre is basically where maple sap is collected, boiled, and then turned into all sorts of maple goodness! It was all owned and operated by one family, and they've been doing this for generations so it was crazy good! were lucky enough to have one of the workers pour out some freshly boiled maple sap on snow which then turned into incredible delicious maple candy. 

This week was also really unique because we ended up giving a total of five priesthood blessings (priesthood bearers in our church are able to give people blessings of healing/comfort just like in the Bible), and I ended up being the voice for three blessings in French. Each blessing was such a unique experience, and in each one I know that I had the privilege of being an instrument in the Lord's hands to bless one of His children. The words I said (especially those that were in French) really didn't come from me, and I just want to share my testimony that priesthood power is real. This is Christ's restored church, and in it we have the same priesthood power and authority he gave to his apostles.

Love you all,

Elder Jackson