Sister Carlee Jacklin: Love From Minnesota!!!

Hello Family!!!

This week has been an adventure!!!

Love From Minnesota!!! (Take 2)

Sorry!!!

I pushed a button and it didn't like it and sent my email! whoops! Well, it sounds like everyone had an awesome week! I am excited about Connor's performance and I am sure it will sound super cool! You'll have to tape a full show so I can watch it when I get back! And I really want to go looking for topaz with you next summer! :) And that story made me laugh super hard! haha! I could picture it in my head and I was laughing so hard! She is gonna be a tough cookie! :)

Well, like I said in my incomplete email, we had a great week filled with adventures! We decided to go to the temple this week so we switched our pday to Friday so we could go and worked on Monday. We have a lady in our ward that we have a good relationship with and she had us come over to her house to do our laundry and mend some of our clothes. I had a rip in the slit of my purple skirt that I have tried to fix my whole mission! And the cool thing about the way she mends sister's clothes is that she doesn't do it herself but she teaches us how to do it! So I learned how to fix some basic things! So I won't be needing replacements! :) HOORAY! Then we did some service for her and had lunch at her house and then she showed us some of her family pictures and showed us some of the family history stuff that she has. And the best thing she showed us was a bible that came across the plains! And we got to touch it! It was so cool! After that we went and had a super good lesson with the C's! K was having a rough day and we were talking to her about it and Sister Kirkby got the impression that we needed to read from the Book of Mormon with her but didn't know what chapter. I felt that we needed to read from Ether 12 but I have as of late been doubting my abilities as a missionary so I second guessed myself like I had been doing all week and then thought to myself, "Ah forget about it!" and told her that we would be reading from Ether 12. And it ended up being exactly what she needed. So I have been working on being confident in myself again as a missionary and it has been paying off!

Then on Tuesday we had MLC or Missionary Leadership Conference and I sent you the video of our sad loss! We only lost by one cup! And if we had won, we would have gotten our pictures on this huge trophy! But it was fun! :) We talked about having the faith to find new people to teach and we got super pumped! We also talked about getting people to church and that really pumped us up too! AND because of that, we got 6 people to church! huzzah! :) Then, after MLC, we were able to have a lesson in the mission home with Sister Forbes and it was AMAZING! First, both of the missionaries that started K's lessons are both Sister Training Leaders so we surprised her by having them there and it made her day! Then we had our lesson and Sister Forbes was inspired enough to follow the prompting to share how she came in contact with the church. Sister Forbes is a first generation member in her family and to this day she is still the only member. That has been one of K's struggles is that her family is Born Again Christian and they are not excited about her getting baptized. So, it really helped K to see that the choice that she is making will be a blessing to her and her family in the end! Plus, we found out that we don't have to do any paper work for Salt Lake for her to be baptized so we told her to pray about a date. I will get to that later in my email again.

Wednesday we had a wonderful district meeting from our new District Leader, Elder Richins. Just a little info on him. He is so stinking humble! He is an amazing missionary and he is also lined up to play baseball for BYU when he gets back. But he never boasts in himself and it is so cool! He is now training one of the new missionaries as a district leader and he is Spanish speaking! whoa! We talked about finding ways to talk to everyone and got some great ideas, especially when school starts! We will use them when contacting on college campuses. Then we went and had a lesson with D and this is probably one of the most funny lessons I have had with him. So, we were reading in the bible about faith in Hebrews and D out of the blue asked us if we thought Star was a good name for a girl. Sister Kirkby said no so he started asking us what names would be good for a girl. Well, then he talked about how his mom likes biblical names and asked if there were girl names in the bible so we started naming them off to him. Well, as we started reading again, D read ahead and then stopped us and asked, "What about Harlot?" I couldn't stop laughing! Sister Kirkby had to explain what a harlot was and his eyes got really big and he said, "Oh! Not that then! That would be bad!" It was sooooo funny! We couldn't stop laughing! :)

Then we went to see a woman that had been taught by the sisters for a long time named M. M. and she wasn't home so we started our way back to go to institute and then Sister Kirkby and I said hi to this man and then he wouldn't stop looking over at us. Sister Kirkby, after getting in the car said, "I feel like we should have talked to him" So, I suggested that we just pull up in the car (bad move I know) and she thought about it and said, "Well, we could pull up and see if he knows M." Well, we awkwardly pulled up to him and low and behold he listened to us for a second! Until he realized that we were Mormons. But it was good driving away knowing that we at least tried talking to him. :)

Institute was great and we learned a lot from Brother Miller's lesson! And K came too!

Then on Friday we went to the temple and we went with our Branch Mission Leader Mi Nam and the Burnsville Sisters. We had them sleep over and we had a blast! And we got a mighty fine picture of Sister Clegg clonked out during personal studies. We had an amazing time and I got a super awesome tender mercy! When we walked in, Sister Moss, my Relief Society President in Anoka was there and I got to give her a hug and say hi! And then, she ended up helping me at the end of the endowment session! It was a much needed trip!

Saturday we had N's baptism and it was wonderful! She was smiling from ear to ear and a ton of people came to support her! Plus we made sure that most of the people involved, including speakers, were the young women! It went really well and T, N's member friend, had her brother T baptize her! It was cool! :) They almost had to do it twice because her elbow was out but he got her down. She told us after that she was a little concerned that he wouldn't bring her back up. :) haha!

Sunday, we got 6 people to church and they all had a wonderful experience! Then we got T AND K to President's fireside and it was amazing! We heard from mostly teenagers that made the decision on their own to be baptized! Then, at the end, instead of speaking, Sister Forbes went and picked two missionaries that are converts to bear their testimonies and conversion stories. One was Sister Soe who is a native Karen speaker and she talked about how even though she didn't understand or speak very good English, she knew that the gospel was true. Because of that, K felt in her heart that she was out of excuses and that she needed to stop fighting the testimony that she has because she knows it is true! It was awesome! She then texted us later that night saying, "You guys just need to help me get baptized as soon as possible" so we will be picking a date with her and working towards it.

So, this week has been great! The area is doing well and we will be looking forward to some mild weather this week. We had a gnarly thunderstorm last night which reallly cooled the air. So I am happy about that! It was really hot last week! But yeah! We will also be looking forward to receiving teewees or black boxes as a mission at mission conference tonight so I have been practicing and I am getting really good at going the speed limit. :)

Something that I would like from you guys is pictures! :)

Anyways! That was a long winded one! Our week was packed! :) Love you

Love,

Sister Jacklin