June 9, 2014

Hey how's everybody this week? I hope really well. And happy birthday

to you Matthew! You old man! This week has been pretty crazy in a good

way for sister Petersen and I, we found two families to teach. The

first one is a little family we met last Wednesday. The mother's name

is Shequita and the dad is Reggie. They were on our potential sheet

from a few years ago and so we decided to stop by and see them. We ended up meeting Shequita first and talking a little bit with her. We then

asked if we could come back later so that we could share a message with

her and she said that would be fine. We took the Reid family with us when

we went back to meet with Shequita and we taught her the message of

the restoration. It went very well and the spirit was very strong. By

the end of the lesson she was in tears and telling us how she wanted

her whole family to hear this message. She also expressed that she and

her family were experiencing difficulties, and she knew that coming

closer to God would help them. We agreed and told her that we would

love to meet and teach her about families and she loved that idea. She

asked us if we could come back the very next day to meet her husband

and we said we could do that, except for when we came back they were

having some drama in their house and we weren’t able to stay. But she 

was glad that we stopped by and told us that she would call us later and

tell us when we could come back. Well we were a little bummed, we thought she was never going to call us back – these types of things happen all the time.  Later that evening she called us and told us

that she was sorry and about earlier in the day.  She said I didn’t want

you to think that I was just leading you all on; I really do want my family

to hear the message that you shared. She said I've talk to my husband

and shared with him he things I've learned about the Book of Mormon

that you gave me, and we agreed together that we need to learn this as

a family. She again apologize for earlier and asked when it was that

we could come back. We told her not to worry about it, and that we

understand that these types of things happen sometimes. We set up a

time that we could come back and teach her family again, and it

will be later this week! The next few days were a bit hard as we tracted

a lot and weren’t having much success. We knocked on a few peoples’

doors and had some interesting interactions with them. I gave one lady

a card and told her to check out the website on it, once she realized

that we were "Mormons" she threw it back in my face and slammed the

door. Some people are so rude. By Sunday night 7:45 PM we still weren’t

seeing much success, as we drove all I could think in my mind was

Heavenly Father please I just need a miracle. Then a name came into my

mind, Richard, a Catholic man Sister Petersen and I had met tracting

in the rain two weeks ago. We decided that we would go over and visit

him and see if he was still interested in hearing a message.  His

brother-in-law Antonio answered the door when we got there and invited

us into his home. He welcomed us to sit on the couch as he gathered

the rest of the family. A little bit odd too - Sister Petersen and I sat

a little nervous as we weren’t prepared that they would welcome us into

their home. Antonio, his wife Gail, their daughter Asia and Richard all

sat around. Antonio then apologized for not welcoming us into their

home two weeks ago, because they were having dinner as a family. We

told them we understood and that everything was fine. Then a moment of

silence came as they all stared at us waiting to hear a message. The first

thing that came to my mind was to share a Mormon message, Earthly

Father, Heavenly Father, and then to talk about families and how the

Book of Mormon can help our families be together forever. We testified

of eternal families and the love our Father in Heaven has for us, we

also talked about how there is a living prophet here today and how we

can come to know that by reading the Book of Mormon. They seemed very

intrigued by it and when we asked them if they would read the it they said yes. The spirit was very strong and they agreed with the things that

we were saying, Antonio told us that we are welcome to come into his

home anytime we wanted. We asked if we could come back the next week

and share more about the restored Gospel and how it can bless their

family. They said yes, so we are looking  forward to seeing the family in a

week. That is pretty much all that's been going on around here. I will

let you know how everything goes! But I have to go now, love you all!

Sister Jamison

June 2, 2014 - Lecanto, Fl

Well this week was a pretty dang good one! It truly is amazing how the Lord is able to bless us in the little efforts we put forth as missionaries. We had a great Zone Conference last Tuesday and it really applied to what I have been studying in the Book of Mormon oddly enough. They talked about our purpose as missionaries and of course the usual lessons on key indicators from Preach My Gospel, but they also talked a lot about how to move past when you hit a wall as a missionary and are just tried of doing the same old routine everyday. Well this obviously really caught my attention because I feel like I am just wearing thinner and thinner each day, I am always so tired I want to die, my body always feels in a funk, my patience for tracting in the sun and getting yelled at are at about 2% and sometimes I feel like the days will never end. Being a missionary is so hard, I remember going into the MTC with all the changes that happen, the total consumption of all energy gets taken from you in the first week and you really have to decide in that moment if you can handle this type of schedule, and out of body discomfort for the next couple of years. And that is why I feel as a missionary you hit so many walls on your mission. The adversary works on you like none other and when you are going a hundred miles an hour and Satan puts a wall right in front of you that completely stops you dead in your tracts and you have to figure out how to get around it, you get tired and you wonder what am I doing here.  Sometimes you become lazy, or careless, and you forget just how important your work is and why you are here.  At this last zone conference I hadn't really realized that I had hit one of these walls.  In Ether 2 the Lord has prepared a promised land for the Jaredite people, a place where they can live in peace, and harmony and worship God. A land that is promised to be protected so long as the people obeyed the word of God and worship Him with everything that they had. In other words, ultimate real estate from the Lord.  The Jaredites prepared everything that they had to to go to this "promised land" where they could be free; they traveled far from home through the wilderness. I imagine that would be very hard to travel through the wilderness with so many people consisting of fathers mothers and young children, but none the less, they went forth to receive and inherit this chosen land, once they made it to the sea they built barges so that they could cross the waters to make it to the promised land.  Once they arrived at the beaches, still not to their promised destination, I imagine fatigue, hunger and yet relief had finally crossed them.  They made camp on the beaches, ( a nice place, who wouldn't want to live on a beach?) and settled. And for four years they sat, camped out on the beach, enjoying the sunshine. They were so tired and so done with traveling that once they finally made it to a resting spot, they stopped their journey.  They lost sight of the Promised Land and settled for something less because they did not have the faith nor concern to move on. As a missionary this tends to happen, you work so hard, and you are so tired, that in the same moment things seem to coast at a smooth pace you just stop, you camp on the beach and "chill out" settling for less when the Lord has better things in store for you. After the four years the Lord in Ether speaks to the Brother of Jared, and chastened him for not pressing onward to the Promised Land and receiving the blessing that the Lord had in store for him and his people. ----Wait, stop, the Lord chastened him because the Lord couldn't give him and his people wonderful blessing because they didn't obey------- How dumb would it feel to get in trouble for not getting blessings that will make you happy and prosperous? After this the Brother of Jared re-committed himself to the Lord, he went back and gathered up his people and made the preparations to press forward, and that is exactly what they did.  There are many things that I like about this story, but what I love is that the Lord was still willing to bless them, as long as they repented and went forth. As a missionary or not this applies to everyone.  The Lord wants to bless us but can't if we don't obey Him. And if he has to get mad at us it’s because he wants to give us good things and we are just too stubborn to take them - wow why are we all sooo stubborn. This week our district had made the goal that we were going to set a baptismal date for the month of June, well at the beginning of the week Sister Petersen and I really had no one solid that we could have extended the date too, but we knew that as we made it a goal and really prayed for the Lord to put someone in our path that would accept a date, then it would happen. All week as we would plan in the evenings and during our online proselyting time we would make lists of former investigators and potential investigators that missionaries had met with in the past and work them into our schedule as we would go throughout our day. Well for the first couple of days we weren't seeing any success, just longs days of contacting and tracting. Wednesday night when we returned home from our too long of a day we collapsed to the floor in prayer as we set off to plan for the coming day.  Every single day we had been praying for someone to invite to be baptized and it just hadn't happened yet. Thursday as we went out we ended up going to contact a man named Rudolf Douglas, according to our records, missionaries had given him a Book of Mormon four years ago, but was never able to teach him anything because he worked in New York and New Jersey and was never home. We decided to go and check it out and when we got there Rudolf was very friendly, he is from Guyana, and he is now retired and invited us in to share a message. So we shared the Message of the Restoration and talked about why there are so many churches now days and how we can know which one is the true church.  The spirit was very strong in the lesson and everything we shared, Rudolf agreed with and how it made more sense about the church and Jesus Christ in former times.  At the end of the lesson we invited Rudolf to be baptized in June and he said, " I accept that challenge! But only if I pray and read the Book of Mormon and know that it is true." We said " Of course thats what we want you to do! That is what you must do or you will not know." We also contacted another potential investigator who met missionaries a while back named Shonese, we were able to share a quick overview of the Restoration with her and we asked if we could come back and share it with her family and she said yes! It is amazing the miracles we have seen as we have made goals and worked toward them.  The Lord truly does bless righteous desires of the heart, as we keep moving on and don't camp out on the beach, He is able to bless us with what we need. He is always ready to bless us we just have to allow it. Sister Petersen and I also got to do service for our neighbor this week, Sister Williams (who is related to Elder Andersen---cool) we helped her plant flowers in her front yard. It was nice to do some physical work.  It always feels good to work. I encourage you all to read in the Book of Mormon Ether 2-3 and that's pages 489-494.  It is always good to know and to grow in our testimony, especially when it is better helping us understand our relationship towards Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father.

Love you all, Sister Jamison

May 26, 2014 - Memorial Day/New companion, Sister Petersen

Hey family,

How are you this week? I hope really well! Well this week has been kind of long ha-ha Well I have a new companion and her name is Sister Petersen and she is from Draper, UT, of course everyone is from Utah. But she is pretty cool, she is 20, tall, really thin, she doesn't talk much but that's ok, she is a sweet girl and we get along well!  This week has been a little shy of

Sister Petersen and I have done a lot of tracting and I mean A LOT! But that's ok, that's how you find people. We also have had some really good lessons with Darien this week. Sadly, he told us that he is on probation right now, so we had to cancel his baptism for this Saturday. He was really bummed as were we, but we were able to teach him about repentance and why restitution is so important and he understood why he needed to make up for what he had done. He is still really determined to be baptized and he said that he would work hard and try to make it there by next year. Unless he pays his fines then he can of course be baptized earlier, but we will see. Darien really loves this gospel and all that he is learning and is really doing very well. He still comes to church and is making friends with people in the ward so that is good. We don't really have many other people right now that we are teaching, but we are working with a lot of less actives and so that is good. I love working with less actives, Peter and Paul are doing well. They both better understand why church is so important and making more of an effort to come to church and keep the commandants. Well I had an interesting experience this week.  So the other day Sister Petersen and I were out tracting and we were going around saying prayers with people.  We knocked on a door and a young lady answered, she looked about 19 and we asked if we could pray with her and she said, "that is so weird that you are at my house, I was just talking to my son about God, so sure come on in." So we went in and there were two other young girls in there around the same age, another one of them had a young child like 4 or 5 and then  2 guys that were boyfriends to 2 of the other women and the girl that answered the door was single, but anyways, we went in and sat on the couch.  The house was a bit messy and unkempt, there was tons of alcohol and cigarettes on the table and everyone was very messy and yelling/ cussing at one another, not in a mad way just as normal conversation, but very weird to me.  We were able to say a prayer barely with all the noise and then the girls in the house were kind of trying to get a feel for us and they started asking us all these questions, like how old we were, if we drank, if we smoked, if we knew how to tork or whatever and if we partied, junk like that and we both just said no, and with the most shocked look on all their faces they all bragged about how much of a drunk they all were and how they partied and what not. They then were making comments like, well girls you need to go out and live, and all I could think in my head was "Are you kidding me?" They sit at home all day, none of them have jobs, and they smoke and drink all day, go to parties at night and are trying to raise 2 children under the age of 5 all together. That doesn't sounds like life at all to me or that I am missing out on anything. They asked us what we have done with our lives being so amused at the fact that we were in our 20's and had done nothing and all we could say was, well we both were at a university before we came here doing XY&Z, we are now serving an 18 month full time mission, I have volunteered and been a mentor in a program for underprivileged children, I have had the opportunity to travel some, I have had several different jobs and learned different things from those, I practice music and art all the time, except for not as much now because I am on a mission, when I go home I plan to continue studying and bettering myself in anyway that I can, and it was like that all went in one ear and out the other to them.  It was maddening almost, and yet after all of that their only response was, "well, ya but when are you actually going to go out and live?" I had nothing to say, what could I have said? Their definition of living and mine are worlds apart, and no matter what I said they could still not fathom the fact that I did not "party" and therefore had zero life experience. Last October in the priesthood session of general conference Elder Uchtdorf gives a talk called "You Can Do It Now" and in there he says, "One of the adversary's methods to prevent us from progressing is to confuse us about who we really are and what we really desire."  Is that not true? I am so shocked at the way people live so contently in these kinds of situations and think that its going to bring them happiness, or that they have really accomplished much.  It is the perfect example of getting what you want in the moment and not realizing how it could destroy you later, what was funny about being with those girls is they all talked about things that they wanted to do, be rich, be smart, be whatever and yet they have all coped out for drugs and alcohol and their excuse is well I'm just a drunk anyways or whatever.  Elder Uchtdorf also says, " Satan's purpose is to tempt us to exchange the priceless pearls of true happiness and eternal values for a fake plastic trinket that is merely an illusion and counterfeit of happiness and joy." So many people aren't willing to work for what they want, so they do what is easy and live in discontent. Anything that is virtuous, lovely or of good report or praise worthy, shouldn't we all seek after these things? How cunning is the adversary!? The gospel is the only thing that will help us to see past these counterfeits, to know what is truly of worth and what brings real happiness.  Anything that shortchanges you of the blessings of eternity is never worth it. God want's us to be happy and successful, yet so many aren't? Well maybe that is because so many really aren't following God at all. The counsel and promises from the living day prophets are so important, as we listen to them "the gates of hell shall not prevail against you."

Well I love you all and I hope and pray for you all the time.

Sister Jamison

May 19, 2014 - Lecanto, Florida

Hello,

Well this week was pretty good. It was the last week of the transfer, which is crazy to think that it has already gone by.  Sister Murphy is getting moved which I am pretty sad about, but it's ok she's been in Lecanto for a long time so she needs a change. I wonder who I will be with next!  So 2 huge miracles happened this week.  Basically this whole transfer Sister Murphy and I have been trying to meet with these 2 less active guys in the ward, and they have been super impossible to get a hold of. We really have only met with the both of them maybe once or twice. But anyways the one (Paul) we were able to meet with this last Friday and his daughter was actually one of our investigators for a while, but we were able to meet with him and he was telling us about how he was a little upset that his daughter Sylvia.  She wants to stay with the Lutheran Faith for right now because that is where she goes to school and all her friends are there so that only makes sense. But we were able to have a really spiritual lesson with him and we were also very bold with him and told him that if his daughter has chosen to go with another choice at this time then that’s ok, but as a member he has made covenants with God and so he has an obligation to come to church and partake of the blessings.  Paul understood what we were saying and told us that he knows that he needs to come back to church.  We encouraged him to work it out with his daughter on Sundays so that he can come.  He told us that he was going to work it out and see what he could do. Paul knows that he needs to come back after 40 years of inactivity, he has forgotten so much but when we are able to meet with him he really feels the spirit and knows what he needs to do.  We also tried to meet with a less active of about 18 years named Peter who completely fell away, became a biker, tattooed up and has a lovely tongue piercing.  He really is a great person though, well anyways we weren't able to meet with him but he showed up to church on Sunday! He remembers many of the members that have been in that ward for ages which made him not so timid to be there, Paul also came to church and sat with us in the front which he hates to do.  I was so shocked to see the both of them there, but so excited that they actually came!  It was a great Sunday too, it was stake conference for us and Elder Rasband came and spoke to us. He focused his talk on the family and how important teaching the gospel in the family is.  He talked about the quote by President McKay that goes " No success can compensate for failure in the home" and how failure only occurs when we stop trying. It was nice because you were able to really understand that even if you teach your children and they choose otherwise, that you only fail when you stop trying with them. We cannot of course choose for our children and it is not the fault of a parent who has tried to teach the gospel to unresponsive children who choose different paths, but if we fail or "stop" at what we can do to bring them closer to their Savior through the gospel of Jesus Christ, then we have failed.  It was a very good talk to say the least. The biggest thing I think I have been learning lately is how much the gospel impacts the family life. I cannot imagine not having it and I don't know how families get along without it??? The gospel helps to shield the family in so many ways.  Every single day without fail I see different dynamics of family life and the issues that come and in my mind I relate everything to the gospel. Whatever situation it is I can always without fail think of an aspect of the gospel that could have easily prevented that problem or hardship, or could now fix it. The gospel is the ultimate life insurance.  Once again I am so grateful that I grew up in gospel-centered home, what a world of difference that makes.

Well I love you all and I got to get off now! Talk to you later!

Sister Jamison

May 5, 2014

Hey family!

Well this week has been pretty good. Sister Murphy and I have been working a ton with the less actives and part member families here and it has been going pretty good. We have so many less actives and part member families we could make 3 more wards just from ours, but no one comes to church (haha) however, we are working really hard to meet with all these people and see where they are at. We also had the opportunity to go and do service this week for Habitat for Humanity.  We were supposed to help in building a house, but we got rained out, so we ended up going to the ware house and helping out there for like 3 hours so that was fun.  We did a lot or organizing and cleaning, etc. things like that. I also unfortunately got a sinus infection... ugh it is miserable but I have still been able to work so that is good. I went to the doctor this morning and got a prescription and so I am hoping that it will help.  I hate being sick as a missionary, there is so much to do and so little time and you just feel like you can't let it slip away from you because this is all you have.  I really hate when I feel that I don't get as much done, as I want to. Well I just have to tell you all again how grateful I am for the gospel and how having a gospel-centered home really has blessed me so much.  During our service at for Habitat for Humanity this week there was a woman there promoting classes that we can either take or that we can sign up to give to teach things to less fortunate people such as " How to have a healthy relationship with friends, family or special others, how to cook simple healthy dinners, how to do laundry, how to maintain proper hygiene, how to avoid sexually transmitted diseases, etc." I also heard many of the volunteers complaining about their children's education and how they should not be wasting time learning about history or complex mathematics, but how to cook and sew and fix a car and fill out taxes, you know the "everyday stuff" All I can say is that I was shocked.

All of these classes you could pay to go an learn basic things that will help you to be a better person, or feel better or what not and all I could think was, that there should be no need to have to pay to learn any of these things. Most of everything that they were mentioning are things that a person should learn in the home, basic skills that you practice growing up. I am so grateful for the structure of the gospel and the importance of families and learning in families.  Most of, if not all of, my life skills, and how to live day to day and function as a person has come from what I learned in the home, or in the homes of friends. It is so sad to see these basic things that people struggle with and the only honest answer that could help them is the gospel. Centering our lives around Jesus Christ and his teachings and the teachings of our living latter-day prophets protects us and helps us to be the people we want to be, it gives us motivation to be better, be smarter, want to do more, expand ourselves. I wish everyone would realize what a fool proof system the gospel is. Jesus Christ is a foundation that will not fall, which means his teachings are perfect and cannot fail.  When we have complications in our lives regarding the consequences of our own decisions it is because we have not lived up to the teachings of Jesus Christ, not because His teaching were inadequate for our particular circumstances.  The gospel is so vital, that is why we need to share it!

Well family I would write more but I am going to be talking to you on Sunday! I cant wait and I am not positive when I will be calling, but you all can plan on around 4ish Utah time and so that would be 5 Texas time! Love you all!

Sister Jamison