Sister Jacobsen Massachusetts Boston Mission

Yesterday was awesome! We had 2 baptisms! José Antonio and Stacy. It was amazing and they were both so happy. Stacy's baptism almost didn't happen because it was supposed to snow yesterday and her mom was worried that if she made a bunch of food, it wouldn't get eaten. We had to go over to their house Sunday morning to convince her that the baptism is more important than the food. I'm very glad she came around. We made stacy a prayer pillow the other day to help her to remember to say her prayers at night, and she loved it. It was a great experience seeing them both get baptized. José was the one who I extended the invitation to be baptized one of my first days here.

So my mp3 player I have is stupid and only decides to work every once and a while, and recently it deleted all the songs except for the christmas ones haha. Soooo if any of you happen to be putting together a package for me, it wouldn't mind there being some CDs in there ;)

Last week I met 2 sisters that were 19 years old! It was crazy, they were so little and doe-eyed, but there were excited to be here. It's a big difference to see them compared to my companion who is 25 and also goes home in a couple weeks. She has been sad and afraid to return the civilian life, so I've been trying to keep her spirits up.

I found this talk by Elder Bendar in and Ensign and I loved it. I didn't have a change to finish it but I wanted to share it with you. I love the way he puts things that makes it very clear. It talks about the enabling power of the atonement, it mentions how when nephi was bound with rope by his brothers he didn't pray to change his circumstance, he prayed for the strength to change his circumstance. This is a very important thing for us to remember. The atonement doesn't make our trails disappear, it gives us the strength to overcome them.

http://www.lds.org/ensign/2012/04/the-atonement-and-the-journey-of-mortality?lang=eng&query=atonement+journey+mortality

Anyway I love you all and hope you are doing great! Remember to do missionary work! All it takes is to invite someone to come closer to Christ, even if it is just something small they can do.

Con Amor,

Hermana Jacobsen

Week 8 (email sent 2/20)

Hola!

Como estan? So I wrote down things all week to write to you guys in a little notebook so I could remember and it's in my backpack, which is in the car... So I will try and remember. Monday was another holiday so the library was closed again. It's so hard to find another time during the week to do emails. Monday's really are so important, if you don't get something done then you wont have to do it another time. We had zone conference yesterday where there were 3 zones all together and spent most of the day in more trainings from the mission presidency. It was really good, I always love hearing from President Packard, and we also got to hear from President Christensen who wrote that book about member missionary work.

So we've had this investigator who is married to a member and wants to get baptized but she needs to quit smoking first. That has been a real struggle for her. She has the desire but she has been smoking for like 40 years and her son smokes so every time she quits it doesn't last very long because her son is sitting there smoking in front of her. We have talked to him about helping her and he doesn't seem very optimistic about her quitting. She has just been through the ringer the past couple months. First of all she can't see very well (which doesn't help with keeping her reading the scriptures) so she has been trying to get a surgery done to fix her sight, and she wants to do that before she gets baptized because she wants to be able to see everything. But every time she has an appointment for her surgery, she ends up sick in the hospital. She has had all sorts of sickness the past few months. And she has been depressed and not wanting to see anyone, which makes her smoke. We would be the only people she would see during the week except for her family. Her husband has been loving, but it's also not very good because he does everything for her so she doesn't have to and that doesn't help her depression. Well right now her husband is in the hospital in Boston, he had a swollen knee and it became septic, so he will be there for a few weeks. She is in the hospital in Salem because she has gall stones. The funny thing is that she got her gall bladder out 34 years ago, so there was one that developed in one of the ducts, which is very rare. Even though they are both in the hospital there are 2 blessings that come from it. 1) her husband can't pamper her 2) she isn't smoking. She is going to have to reschedule her surgery for her eyes because of course it was supposed to be this week. And hopefully we can help keep her from smoking when she gets home. Satan is working very hard to keep her from getting baptized. Not just her too there is supposed to be another storm this weekend, not as bad but still might cause us to reschedule stacy's and jose antonio's baptisms again. Pray for us!

Well I need to get going we have to get to an appointment but I love you all. Thanks for all your prayers, I get strength from them every day!

Love,

Hermana Jacobsen

This lady wouldn't let Emily and her companion help her.

Week 7 (email sent 2/11)

Hey Everyone,

I'm alive!! The storm "Nemo" hit and we were stuck inside our apartment for 2 days. This is a picture of our car after we were finally okayed to go outside on saturday, but the city still had a restriction on driving. It was a $500 fine and if you caused an accident it was a year in jail. We just went around the complex and helped people dig out their cars. A lot of people wouldn't accept our help though. Some thought we were expecting money. That is just really sad to me. Can't someone do a good deed anymore without expecting money? My poor Puerto Rican companion just about froze though. She had never seen more than a few inches of snow. We were finally okayed to drive yesterday morning but church had been cancelled. So we went around trying to visit everyone we knew but only got in to 2 houses, it was a little frustrating. Also, because of the storm Jose Antonio's baptism had been moved to next week. And stacy's baptism is being moved to 2 weeks. So I don't have any pictures to show you yet but I do have a picture of the guy who was baptized last week. He still isn't confirmed yet since church was cancelled yesterday. There is always something that I think of during the week that I want to tell you guys but by the time I get here I don't remember it so I'm going to go now. Love you!

Con Amor,
Hermana Jacobsen

Boston Week 6 (email sent 2/6)

Hello everyone!

This week has been awesome! The sister's training was amazing. It started at 9 AM and we didn't get home until 11 PM. We were exhausted. We just had a bunch of different trainings on stuff like studies, planning, health, just different aspects of the mission and then we went and had dinner at president's house and he announced to us all the new areas for sisters this next transfer. We have a lot of history making stuff going on. He opened Nantucket and is sending sisters there. It only has 5 members on the whole island, and it takes 2 hours to get there by boat. Since they don't have enough for a branch yet they are called a group. Who knew that you could be too small to be a branch? They are also opening the first ever area for Portuguese sisters We have only ever had Portuguese elders here, but now they are starting to call sisters too. I don't know if I ever told you but we have english, spanish, portuguese, and haitian creole missions here. We used to have cambodian too but that kind of died out. It is a very diverse place here. We had a baptism this week! Technically the Elders were teaching him but he is the husband of a member we see every week for dinner. He just got out of prison and had read the entire bible in the 6 months he was there. He came to us and said he wanted to be baptized. It was awesome. He is getting confirmed this sunday. Also this sunday is the baptism of Jose Antonio who I've told you about before and next wednesday we have one for a girl named stacy who is a 9 year old of a less active member. So this week is going to be great! I hope you are all doing well! I'll talk to you soon!

Con Amor,

Hermana Jacobsen

Boston Week 5 Pictures

"This book is awesome, Clayton Christanson is in our mission presidency and he wrote this book about member missionary work and gave it to all of us. You should get one and read it :D"