Joyeuses Pâques!

April 18, 2022

I know it’s a little bit late, but Joyeuses Pâques!

This was another one of those weeks that simultaneously flew by and also could have been two different weeks, but it was really great! I don’t have a ton of time to write today so I’m going to focus on talking about two really cool experiences we had this week. 

Friday night we saw one of the coolest miracles on my mission. We decided to walk around and neighborhood and visit some of the people who lived nearby us who had met with missionaries in the past and we hoped to talk to whoever we encoutered while we were out and about. Well we got out of the car, and started searching for the first address, but the records we were using are actually paper so that made it a little bit easier said than done haha. We ended up misjudging from Google maps and going to the wrong street so we made a loop all the way to the next street over. The person we were looking for wasn’t home so we continued on our way making sure to say hi to people and strike up coversations with them. We were walking down the side of the street without a side walk when we noticed a guy talking on the phone on the other side of the street. We said hi and waved at him, but I figured he would keep walking since he was already talking to someone. Much to my surprise, he told the person he was talking to that he needed to call them back and then he crossed the street and came over to start talking to us! His name is Jason (pronounced “Jayzon”) and he recognized that we were missionaries from our tags and it turns out that he is really wanting to come closer to God and had recently tried praying to Him for the first time. Jason had pretty much hit rock bottom, and while he and his family have never been religous he wants to change his life and he believes that there must be something out there. We were able to testify of the blessings that come from the Gospel and when Jason asked us what it takes to have faith in God I had the priviledge of sharing one of my favorite verses from the Book of Mormon, Alma 32:27, and testifying that if we can no more than desire to believe and God he will work with us. We ended up giving him a copy of the Book of Mormon and he was so grateful he actually tried to pay for iti with a ten dollar bill haha. It was honestly just a really special and humbling experience. What made it even more amazing in hindsight is that we were initially planning to do our street contacting/visits in the afternoon, but then weekly planning ended up taking longer than planned and an over the phone lesson that we had scheduled with some members for that night got moved to before dinner. It was another undeniable example that God truly does place us and the people we need to meet into each others paths and that He truly does hear and answer every prayer!

I’ve always loved Easter, but since becoming a missionary it’s really taken on a whole deeper meaning for me. I love the eggs, and the baskets, and the bunnies, and the candy just as much as everyone esle, but I am so grateful for the special opportunity we have to celebrate the Savior’s ressurection as we partake of the sacrament in remebrance of Him and His atonement. Church this week was overall just a really spiritual experience with wonderful talks and a lesson about Jesus Christ and His Atonement, and it was really awesome to be able to have our friend Martin there as well as a less active member named Steven who hasn’t been to church in a while. During Sunday school we read one of my favorite scriptures, John 14:27, where the Savior promises to give His disciples His peace, and it really clicked with me that the Savior gives us His peace in a way that is different from the world’s way. The world’s version of peace invovles the abscense of conflict, but what makes the Savior’s peace remarkable is that it can be with us no matter what. He has overcome the world, sin, and death and becasue of Him so can we. I am so eternally grateful for Him and the gift of His Atonement. He is Risen!

The second really amazing experience that I want to share was meeting with our new friend George! I have been talking to him over Facebook for the last couple of weeks, and we finally met up since he asked me and my companion to try and help him with his computer science homework. I told him I wasn’t sure how much we would be able to help, but I was willing to take a leap of faith haha. He is from Cameroon and  We go over to his house and he shows us his assignments that are all in French, but the assignment he wanted help for was actually just learning some of the basics of using Excel. I’m not super familiar with Excel myself, but lo and behold my companion Elder Van Orman is a spreadsheet wizard so with his knowledge and a the gift of tongues we were able to help him figure everything out! George actually has a young family as well so my biggest contribution much of the time ended up being distracting his really adorable son Uriel haha. George also watched General Conference when I sent him a link to it the other week so we were able to talk a little bit about how our church was established and how it is led by modern day prophets, and he is excited to learn more! 

Well, that’s about all the time that I have but I love you all!

Elder Jackson