August 25, 2014

Hey Family, 

How are you today! I hope really good, wow time is flying by, I feel like I just emailed you yesterday! This morning Sister Petersen and Sister Thomson and Sister Conger and I got to go over to one of our members houses (Sister Davis) and help her to paint some lawn furniture and her potting shed shutters it was fun, but I am all tired out now and way dirty! Sister Davis is really great though, her poor husband is literally dying and she needs a lot of help with things, and so it was nice to be able to go over and help her and help her get her mind off of things. This week has also just been full of miracles. The work here is progressing and Heavenly Father is blessing us so much! We started out the week with that amazing zone conference that I told you about on Tuesday which really gave everyone a second wind to go out there and do his or her best. Me especially, haha every time I go to things like that I feel like I need to repent and work so much harder, and then when I do I see so many miracles. Gosh why can't I just be super all the time, well still working on that of course! haha On Wednesday Sister Petersen and I were out in good old Beverly Hills trying to visit some of our potentials investigators and nothing was really going that well. And as we were walking down the street we saw this older man and lady sitting outside smoking so we decided to go and talk to them. Well we ended up staying for about 30 minutes and talked about what we do as missionaries a.k.a HTBT ( how to begin teaching) for those of you who understand what that means! And the man Kelly's grandson Daniel ended up coming out to listen and then Daniels Cousin who is married to the lady Kim who was sitting there also ended up coming home and sat in and listened, it was so great! But any who, Daniel is 20 and is a youth minister at the Church of the Nazarene, his cousin Jim was also a Pentecostal pastor for 9 years locally, and Kelly was a pastor of some sorts in his days as well, so as they were telling us all this you can only imagine that I got a little nervous but it all worked out ok! Haha we just did an overview of the restoration and they were all interested in having us come back and talk to them more. The old man Kelly really liked us because he thought that we were young, cute and really knowledgeable about what we were preaching and he appreciates when people actually know what they are talking about haha in his words. Kim wasn't as interested but she sat and listened for a little bit. But we were able to give them a Book of Mormon and we invited them to read certain things before we were to come back and also the pamphlets that we hand out and they said they would! Well when we went back the only one who had read was Daniel, and he wasn't home at the time so we decided to talk more to Kelly and he was telling us all about his preaching days and all the other weird stuff he used to do (exorcisms and stuff) kinda weird, but he started to talk about all these different things and he kept saying oh don't worry Daniel will be back and you can teach him, I'm too old to convert anyways. But I do appreciate talking to you ladies. Well so in my mind I am all worried and thinking to myself, Heavenly Father what on earth am I supposed to say? He's got me so confused and I am struggling to figure out how to bring the spirit into all this madness.  Well then perfectly at that moment Kim asked a question about the "after life" and what was going to happen to her because her back ground is catholic and I guess they teach a lot of things about who is going to Heaven and Hell and she's all worried because people always tell her that she is going to Hell and all kinds of crap and she had also wondered what happens to the people that never get the opportunity to hear about Jesus Christ and do they go to Hell? And we told her of course not, God would not be a just God if he did not give them the opportunity, and she was like that's what I would think, but that's not what they tell me. Well then Daniel walked up and unfortunately Kim went inside, but Sister Petersen and I felt so strong that we should teach the Plan of Salvation. So we ended up doing just that and was able to show them both in the Bible about how the gospel is preached to those that are dead, and she and Kelly were just going off about how that made so much more sense than anything they had ever heard before and yadda yadda and as we were teaching and using the Book of Mormon and Bible together they kept saying how it made so much sense to them and how that is the closest thing they had heard to the truth than from anyone else. It was so great. We then left them with some additional things to read, and Kelly said that we had really peeked his interest with the knowledge that we had and that he was going to have to read the book of ours. It was so cool to go from you're not going to convert me to I wanna read your book. And then Daniel was just awesome because he read what we had asked him to last time and prayed as well. I am really excited to go and see them this next week and teach them more. They seem really promising! Haha I don't know what it is about me and preachers but I always seem to find them! Anyways Brandon is doing so well this week too it’s amazing! So we had a lesson with him on the Word of Wisdom and it went perfectly, he didn't have a problem with a single thing on there and he was telling us how he used to have problems with smoking and drinking and tea, but that he decided a long time ago that he needed to kick those habits and so he really had no problem accepting them. It was a miracle. We also taught him about the importance of a prophet and being obedient and how it will bless our lives and he really did well with that one too. I am so happy for him! My only concern with him was that we were going to have to really remind him and sort of beat into him haha that he HAD to go church these next two weeks or that he couldn't be baptized and I was really worried about how I was going to help him understand how important it was. Well it was totally another answer to prayers, because when we met with him he is the one who brought it up and said "Man sisters I really need to find a church this week so that I can be baptized." Ha he is so good! And so he was able to find a church this week and he went in Flagstaff, AZ and he loved it! After church he told us all about the things he learned and the questions that he had, and what a good experience he had. We were so happy that he was able to find one. Haha poor guy though, the ward he found was a YSA ward and after church he messaged us and said, "That ward was so different, I'm pretty sure I could have been most of their dads, I felt really old." Haha and so we explained to him that it was a Young Single Adult ward and that not all wards are like that. But he enjoyed it anyways and was asking us if we did as many activities as that ward does. We said not exactly, but we do have activities haha I was so glad that he was able to go to church though, I have been praying all week for that! So he just has to go one time and I hope that he will have the same luck being able to local a church so easy like he did this time. I am really so shocked all the time that this is even happening, I never in my life thought I would be teaching the gospel over the internet like this, and not only that but find someone who is ready to be baptized and receive the gospel. The Lord really is hastening the work right now and I am so glad that I get to be apart of it.  With the Internet we have the capability of flooding the earth with the gospel as Elder Bednar says and now is the time! We are so lucky that Heavenly Father is providing us with the tools, now we just have to use them for good. It is amazing what a simple message will do to spark someone’s interest, and not only that it is so easy to be a missionary online! No more worrying about awkward moments with people, or feeling like you don't know what to say. The Internet solves so many of those

issues that members have when sharing the gospel. Haha I mean I still am awkward everyday of my life and I have to go knock on peoples doors, but that's just part of being a missionary, but you all have it so easy! Take FULL advantage! When Brandon get's baptized on September 6th, that will be the first in history Florida Orlando Mission online investigator who lives within our mission boundaries to get baptized, and all because of the internet. I can't even believe that it is happening with Sister Petersen and I either, I see so many great missionaries in this mission and I think they so could have done better than me at this, but I guess the Lord saw otherwise. I am just as grateful as can be haha I feel like I just need to extend my mission another year or so, so that I can catch up on all the Internet MIRACLES I missed in the beginning! 

Everything else here is going well right now too. Mike our other investigator is doing pretty well, he doesn’t really understand some basic things and so we are working on that with him. Hopefully we can help him understand. But then again he isn't so super on keeping his commitments and so that has a lot to do with it as well. But we are just working with him. But we are already going into week three of this transfer and I cannot believe it, time is going by so fast, ahhhhhhh... I don't even know what to think haha I feel like I am going to be such a weirdo when I get home haha

Well I love you all and I hope that you have a good week! 

Sister Jamison