The Miralce Blitz

June 6, 2022

Salut! 

I don’t have a ton of time to write today since today was district pday (we met up with some other missionaries that live near us and played beach volleyball and got ice cream afterwards!), but I will do my best to summarize what was yet another whirlwind of a week.

The biggest thing to mention right of the bat is that this week we had zone conference! I have always looked forward to zone conference each transfer, but this transfer my companion and I have some extra responsibilities so it was even busier than usual. Getting everything prepared was somewhat stressful, but in the end everything went smoothly and it ended up being a truly unforgettable experience! The theme of this conference was enduring to the end, and President and Sister Harkness shared some powerful teachings about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and how it changes us as we make it a part of our lives. President Harkness was a world class tennis player, and he made a powerful analogy between tennis and the importance of practice/patterns and pattern of conversion through faith, repentance, making and keeping covenants, receiving the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end by repeating each step as part of a repetitive and iterative process. 

What made this zone conference truly unique from previous zone conferences was that immediately following the end of the conference, every missionary in our zone participated in a finding blitz. We all paired off into temporary companionships and then we spent the next four hours finding in the city of Longueuil and the surrounding area, and we switched companions once again halfway through the blitz. I helped arrange everything, and I was nervously excited to see how it would go but it was an awesome experience! I don’t have the time to go into the details, but I know we were guided by the Spirit as we acted in faith as we talked with everyone and I and everyone else in our zone of truly saw miracles.

And of course I want to mention some exchanges from this week since they are always memorable experiences. The first exchange I went on this week was with Elder Spaulding, and we had a ton of fun together in Lemoyne which is just south of my area. Elder Spaulding and I were among the four Elders who opened New Brunswick when we first got to Canada, and it was a lot of fun to be reunited in a French area at last. We spent a lot of time out street contacting, and we had a great time. Elder Spaulding is a ton of fun, and I was pleasantly surprised by how positive pretty much all of our contacts were. Even when people weren’t interested in our message, we all left feeling respected and uplifted. Elder Spaulding was reassigned to Florida temporarily and he actually spent 9 months speaking Hatian Creole, and we ended up having a dinner appointment that night with a family who are originally from Haiti! The food was amazing, and the members were so kind of faithful. I have absolutely loved getting to know so many different cultures on my mission, and now I can add Haiti to the list! 

My other exchange this week was pretty unique since it was with Elder Howe, who funnily enough is another member of the original New Brunswick four, and it took place in his area in Montreal! We were only able to be together for half a day, but during that short time a lot happened. We had a lesson with his friend Tim where we read 2 Nephi 31, and after asking some inspired questions Tim expressed his testimony that he knows the Book of Mormon is true and he expressed his desire to be baptized! We also spent about an hour finding in Montreal, and Elder Howe was honestly a machine when it came to talking to everyone. He invited everyone we talked to to come to church with us, even the people in the cars next to us when we were stuck in traffic and the people sitting on a bus at a bus stop. He truly has no shame in sharing the Gospel.

The thing I’ll say is a quick update on our friends Sylvain and the Pindi family. The Pindi family is still doing well. They still just need to be civilly married before they can be baptized, but they are still so solid and we’ve started involving the Sister missionaries now to help the mom get more integrated into the ward. There were some real miracles with Sylvain this week since he managed to get a new job that will allow him to come to church every week! It was a real answer to his and our prayers. We weren’t able to meet for a lesson this week so we weren’t able to finish teaching about tithing, but Sylvain came to church once again this week and he surprised my companion and I by bringing his tithing with him! After explaining that he doesn’t have to pay tithing yet since he hasn’t been baptized a member of the church, he was able to talk with our Bishop and make a donation for the poor and needy in our area. He knows that God answered his prayers to get a better job, and it is amazing to see his faith and gratitude. Sylvain is also already past the Book of Enos in the Book of Mormon, and I am really excited how the Gospel of Jesus Christ will continue to bless him and change his life!

Love,

Elder Jackson