July 7, 2014

Hello!

How are things in Sunny STG? Super good I hope! Well this week has been a pretty good one. Richard is doing really well and has accepted a baptismal date for this month WOHOOO! I am way excited for him. We talked a lot about baptism last time we were there with him and he basically said that nothing could be holding him back from being baptized, so that is so great! He really is so humble and just want's to learn as much as he can. He really loves the gospel! We also have been working with a lot of less actives in the ward, some of them have started coming back to church, which is so good. I guess there are changes being made to Preach My Gospel as far as the Recent Converts are concerned and that lesson five in PMG is to be taught before baptism (only missionaries will understand what that means) and that missionaries are responsible for teaching the new members the discussions over again because they just are getting done the way they should with the wards. So that is going to be a big responsibility to take care of. But it will be ok, the goal is to get these people to the temple and if that is what it takes then that is what we must do! We are also supposed to visit them a whole lot more and really keep record of how their whole first year as a member along with the help of the ward council is going. So all that really results in is wayyyy longer weekly planning which already kills me, but hey what do ya do? Sister Petersen and I were also able to do service for a member in our ward who is getting remarried soon. He was packing up something’s and no one in the ward would help him and so we offered and goodness I can see why. This poor brother is basically a junkie hoarder and has more stuff than any human being should ever have.  We spent a good chunk of time packing up a collection of "Precious Moments" sculptures (look that up on Google if you don't know what that is- they are hideous) and he had whole display cases of them, so anyways as we were packing them up he came over with a pen and pad and said "Sisters I need to know everything Precious Moments that I have so I want you to write the names of them all down for my inventory, and here is a dry paint brush you can use to dust them of before you pack them."  ok...... That took forever Then after that he had us go through and pack and write the names down of his beanie baby collection, which I can't tell you how many display cases he had of those, and everything had a special pile that it had to go in and certain ones couldn't be packed with other ones. If it were me I'd throw them all in a big tub and called it good. Oh well........... It was nice to be able to do service, so for that I'm grateful. We also have sort of a potential that we could be teaching here in the next few weeks that sounds way legit. His name is Brandon and he is a truck driver that is out of town a lot and about 4 weeks he requested a Book of Mormon from mormon.org and so the elders went by to give it to him only to figure out that Brandon lives on our side and he wasn't home when the elders stopped by. So they told us about it and I guess the elders had called him and asked when he would be home and he said not for a few weeks, and to try back later-which usually means- don't come back- but any who last week I remember about this Brandon guy and that he should have been back by now and so I looked for him on Facebook and I messaged him and he wrote me and said that he downloaded the Book of Mormon and has been listening to it as he drives and that he was praying one day that God would make it possible for him to obtain a physical copy of it on the road, and then he pulled up to a truck stop and some member of the church happened to see him and start talking to him and GAVE HIM A BOOK OF MORMON and said something like "I think this will be very important for you and will help you come closer to God." Or something like that and so he has been reading that and he said that he is almost all the way through it and that when he is home in a couple of weeks that he would love to meet with us and talk about what he has read and our church! So I am pretty excited about him. I told him that we could do online lessons if he would like, but he hasn't gotten back to me yet. But I will let you all know if that goes anywhere because that is pretty darn cool if you ask me! See miracles! Member missionary work is work is seriously the best and so important, you just never know what impact it will have on the people you meet. All of you should get a Book of Mormon and give it to someone; the Lord will bless you and guide you as you try to do His work.  Love you all!

Sister Jamison

Pictures - June 2014

Jessie's clay sculpture of a man with his brain falling out.

A clay sculpture of Jessie by 15 year old Eli 

Sunset -the Gulf of Mexico

Jessie at the Gulf of Mexico

June 30, 2014

Hey,

Well this week wasn't too exciting, but that's ok haha. We ended up dropping a lot of our investigators, which is always really hard. But if they aren't ready then they aren't and you just gotta move on and find those that are. But Richard is doing so great! I don't know if I said this last week, but he is reading the Book of Mormon, Gospel Principles and Teachings of the Presidents every day! and he is loving church as well. He was so excited that he learned how to read the music in church last Sunday that he sang out real loud yesterday in church, which is good. Then during sacrament Richard opened up his Book of Mormon and pointed to Mosiah 18:17, which says " And they were called the church of God, or the church of Christ, from that time forward. And it came to pass that whosoever was baptized by the power and authority of God was added to His church."  and he said "Sister, this is why we are here." I asked him how did he find that so fast as we were sitting there, and he said "Sister I've been reading, and I’m just good at this." I smiled and said yes you are Richard! I am way happy for him; he really is doing so well. This week when we went over for a lesson he said "Sister what is the D&C's? I see the references, but I don't find them in this book." So we were able to explain to him about the Doctrine and Covenants and give him a triple combination so that he could continue his studies! We also set a baptismal date for Richard in July, he feels that it is a bit soon because he doesn't "know it all" yet but we are helping him to understand that it is ok not to "know it all". He will get there though!

Well this morning we went to the Gulf of Mexico, the part we were at wasn't super nice, but it was cool to see. We played Frisbee for a little bit and that was fun. I am way tired though; hopefully I can rest for a second today! hahaha probably not..... Well I wish I had more exciting things to say but I don't haha Love you all See ya soon!

Sister Jamison

District 13 June 23, 2014

June 23, 2014

Hey family!

Sounds like everyone has been so busy lately with a lot of exciting things going on, that's nice to hear that you all are staying busy. 

Well this week was a busy one, Sister Petersen and I are really being tried I think haha 

We had some really good lessons set up this week with Shequita and her family and every single one fell through.  Needless to say we were bummed out.  She kept canceling on us and we just think that she is not interested right now, but that she is too nice to say so.  So on Saturday when we went over with the Silva family to have a lesson, Shequita didn't answer. So we left her a note and just told her that we were sorry that we missed her and that we could see that she was really busy at the moment, and that if she was still interested in learning about the gospel that we would be happy to come back by. She hasn't called us since then and so that is a bummer. This last Tuesday we also had a lesson with Richard that fell through, we went to his house with the Vega's and he was sitting outside. He looked very stressed and told us that it was not a good day for him. Apparently his sister and brother-in-law were having some marital problems and that they had been fighting all day about splitting up and that everyone was going to have to move out of the house. So way drama, Richard was very stressed because he didn't know where he was going to go, and of course that made us stressed because we didn't want to lose him because he is so prepared! Well so we left and he told us to call him in a few days to see how things are so we did that and it was still seemed to be a mess at his house.  We told him that we were keeping him in our prayers and that we knew that Heavenly Father would help out his family at this time and that things would work out because he was supposed to learn the gospel.  After we had gotten off the phone we realized what we had promised and we were a little nervous. We decided that we needed to say a prayer right then and there for Richard so that things would work out in a way that he could stay and continue to learn the gospel. Later that evening we were out with a member, Sister Rodriguez and we had decided to go over to Richards to see how he was and share a message with him. Richard was happy to see us and we could tell things were still not going well. We shared our message and then invited Richard to church and promised him that if he would make the effort to come that Heavenly Father would bless his family and he said I hope you are right. We said a prayer with him and then we were on our way.  Yesterday at church when the Vega's walked in Richard was with them. He looked a lot happier that day and we were so excited that he had made arrangements to come to church. After it was all over Richard was smiling and seemed to be so much calmer than he had been all week.  Sister Lyons the young womens president came up to introduce herself and asked Richard how he liked church and he responded " I loved it, I want to come back tomorrow!" It was pretty cute.  After she left I was asking Richard how things were going at home and he smiled and said, things are getting better, I asked him if he still had to move, and he say no they are letting me stay. MIRACLE! I was so happy to hear that, I told Richard that Heavenly Father really is looking out for him and he said I know he is. It was so good! We have another lesson with him tomorrow night with Brother and Sister Rodriquez, we are teaching the POS and so it should go really well.  We also have been working with a less active lady in our ward Sister Stratton, we were able to start teaching her the lessons and we invited her to church and she said she would come, so this is good.  She wasn't able to come yesterday because she had a procedure done on Friday and so she has been resting and trying to recover from that. But hopefully we can get her there this Sunday! This week is the last week of the transfer, which is crazy. It has felt pretty slow for me, but I know that it is going to get faster. Once I start the new transfer next week I will only have 2 more to go. That is so weird to think.  I need to start getting ready for school. I really hope to be able to go back to the U and start the spring semester. We will see how that goes. Well have a good week! Talk to you later! 

Sister Jamison

June 16, 2014

Hello Family! 

How are you all doing this week! Happy Father's Day and Happy Birthday Matt! Hope those all went well for everyone!  Well this week was pretty good. We had been having some really bad thunderstorms and we had a small tornado pass through.  It didn't do too much damage, although sadly some people’s homes got some damage.  There is a less active lady in our ward that we have been visiting-Sister Stratton- and we went over to see how she was doing and her house got hit pretty badly, there was a big hole in the back of her house and half of the furniture in her house was on the lawn. She was pretty distraught about it, as anyone would be.  But she now has it all back together; she just needs to get the hole fixed and all the trees around her house that have fallen.  We are pretty lucky that it didn't come by where we live, which is only about 2 and a half miles away. There are a lot of trees in the area though that have been snapped like twigs. That is going to be a big clean up just because these tress are massive.  We are starting into hurricane season though, so things like this will start happening a lot more often. But that's ok; they aren't as bad as they sound. Well anyways on to happier news!!! So this week we were able to go back to Shequitas and teach her and her husband and the lesson went very well. They are so into the gospel and learning together it is great! They were also really excited to come to church yesterday, but ended up not being able to come because the night before their 10 year old son Reggie was riding his bike down a hill and wearing flip flops and his foot caught the ground and it just flipped him right off.  He landed on his head and got an abrasion poor kid, so they were in the emergency room Saturday night and stayed home with him on Sunday so that he could rest. I don't blame them. We also were able to have a really good lesson with Richard this week.  We had the Vega family come with us and that was so good. Sister Vega grew up Jehovah Witness and then converted, and brother Vega is from Puerto Rico, so he was able to explain things that didn't make sense to Richard in Spanish, and it really, really helped.  It gets really frustrating for me in a situation like that because I understand most everything that is being said I just can't respond! Haha so I am grateful for the members that come and help! We didn't really have anything else too exciting this week haha; it's been a tad slow. But we are still working hard even in all this crazy weather!  I wish I could write more today but I really have no time:/ But I love you all and I will write next week!

Sister Jamison!

June 2014 - Lecanto, Florida