It's Raining Miracles! (and rain)

June 20, 2022

Bonjour à tous! 

The end/start of a transfer is always busy when you change companions, and this week was no exception! For our last few days together Elder Lund and I ran around visiting as many friends and members as possible before he went up to my old stomping grounds in Quebec city. Elder Lund was an excellent missionary and I’ll definitely miss him. As I mentioned in my last letter, I served around Elder Freestone in Quebec City and he is as awesome as I remember! We’ve already seen a huge downpouring of blessings (and rain) during our time together. Despite the wet weather we had some good success finding new people to teach this week, and there’s one in particular that I’d like to share. 

After spending almost an hour and a half making calls and texts in our car after a dinner appointment with some members, Elder Freestone and I set out to visit some people who had previously been taught by missionaries, and at one of the apartment we visited a large Quebecois man in a tank top and a baseball hat that said “Redeemed - Ephesians 1:7.” The person we were looking for wasn’t home, but once we explained that we were missionaries he asked us if we had some time to talk and let us right in! His name is Danny and he is a very passionnant evangelical Christian, and we were able to have a really amazing discussion about our faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement. As our conversation progressed he was surprised to learn that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the church that believes in the Book of Mormon, and as we explained that God has once again restored His Gospel in its fullness through a modern day prophet he was open to studying and praying about it himself! He said that he had a beautiful faith in Christ, and it was a really awesome spiritual experience to be able to build on common ground with a fellow Christian before explaining how we can strengthen our faith in Christ through the Book of Mormon.

I also want to take a moment just to mention how wonderful the members in our ward are. Every Thursday we and the Sister missionaries hold an English class at our church building. It just so happened that there was a relief society picnic going on at the same time, and since it was pouring outside they ended up relocating to the gym. Due to the heavy rain the only people that came to the class were some members who were already at the indoor picnic. Elder Freestone and I were about to head out since the Sisters had the English class covered and we hadn’t eaten dinner yet, but before we knew it we were seated in the church’s kitchen with relief society members giving us all sorts of food to eat. Needless to say we ate well and left with plenty of leftovers haha. It ended up working out perfectly since we got to help them clean up afterwards and it was a great way for Elder Freestone to meet lots of members on his first day, but more than anything else it was just another example of the incredible love and generosity of the members of this church, and I am so grateful to be a part of their ward family! 

Also, I know it’s a day late but bonne fête de pères! Last year I ended up speaking on Mother’s day, and fittingly enough we got a text on Saturday morning asking us to speak on Father’s day. As most of you already know, I have a pretty amazing father so it wasn’t too hard to speak about how much he has taught me and how grateful I am for him. I was a little nervous to give a talk in French for only the second time, but in the end I think the gift of tongues definitely kicked in. 

Another huge miracle from this week is that we had Sylvain and his girlfriend at church as well as our new friend Jourdany and his entire family! I “met” Jourdany very briefly about a week or two ago as we were driving down a busy street. I saw him walking on the sidewalk, and I had the prompting to talk to him so I rolled down my window and very quickly explained that we were missionaries and handed him a car with our phone number and the half written address of our chapel. Much to my surprise, he texted us to ask for the rest of our chapel address, and we were able to meet with him and his family on Saturday. He and his wife are from Haiti and they have three little girls that are seriously so cute. I can’t wait to keep teaching them!

Love you all,

Elder Jackson