Week #58

Yo!

We go on splits about once a week with other missionaries which is fun! It's cool to learn how other missionaries teach. I have no idea how long I'll be zone leader for. I could be here and then after this area go be a zone leader elsewhere or I could stop being zone leader after this area. So I could potentially be ZL for 4 to 11 more months. Just depends what president Brown wants me to do. We aren't working with any less actives right now. We've been trying to find some less actives that are actually willing to progress and have any desire to come back to church. 

We had a good week this week but it was also a little bit of a rough one. We have been struggling with getting people to keep return appointments. It's difficult to teach people when they aren't home for a scheduled teaching appointment. Orlando is still doing pretty good. He didn't come to church this week because he had a family reunion to go to and we didn't get to go to Kirtland either. We are planning to go to Kirtland this Saturday and he should be coming to church this Sunday as well. 

Anthony didn't come to church yesterday either. He is starting teaching tomorrow at the 8th grade level so he's been getting ready for that. He still loves the Book of Mormon and wants to baptized. We might have to push back his date a little bit but he'll for sure be baptized!

We have an investigator named Yvette that we've been working with. She is doing pretty great! She said that she is going to do whatever the spirit tells her to do, so we're just really working with her to recognize the answers that she receives. She's going to come to bible study next week and ease her way into church. I see her getting baptized in the next couple of transfers.

Sorry for the short email, but not a lot happened this week that was worth mentioning. I think the best thing that happened was just that I felt the spirit so strong, and not necessarily at one moment, but throughout the week. The Lord blessed me with the spirit in response to my hard work. I have such a strong testimony that our Heavenly Father always blesses us when we do what he asks us to do. 

Hope you guys have a stellar week! Love you so much!

Love,

Jack

Week #57

Hi Mom!

(The Whitemans and Neilsons were vacationing in Ohio and attended Jackson's ward by chance on Sunday.  They sent us a picture, included at the end of the letter.  It's so great having a stateside missionary!)

It was kind of fun to see the Whitemans even though I don't really know them haha. So we only had one investigator at church on Sunday but the sisters in our ward had an investigator too so we had 2 investigators at our ward which was awesome! Anthony stayed at church all 3 hours and it was so perfect for him! All the talks and all the lessons were so perfectly fit to Anthony's needs, which was amazing! He's still progressing and working towards baptism! He feeds us every single week, too, which is so nice of him. We also helped him this week with some yard work. He has this beautiful house that he co-owns and there was so much work that needed to be done, so we got to help him with that for a little while. 

We picked up a new investigator this last week named Orlando, and he's so AWESOME! We taught him the restoration, and when we told him the first vision he said "This is so awesome! I want to go to this church!" He was so excited about the message! He's coming to church with us this Sunday, and after church we're going to visit historic Kirtland. He's on fire right now, and is so prepared to receive the gospel! 

Then we went and stopped by this potential investigator we have, and her brother answered the door. Our potential investigator wasn't home so we asked her brother if he would be interested in listening to the message that we share and he was super open! We taught him the whole restoration and he loved it!

We are having a lot of fun finding prepared people here in the Shaker Heights area! Those are the only people that we're really teaching right now. Love it here in this ward! The members are great and the investigators we have are strait fire! 

Sounds like you and Dad had an awesome week together! I can't wait to be able to spend time with the family! We are going to have to do some fun things together before Ben leaves on his mission to Australia (prophesy). 

Glad Ben is preparing to serve a mission. The two best things he can do to prepare is read the Book of Mormon and read preach my gospel chapter 3, especially the first 3 lessons. He's going to be such an awesome missionary! 

Coop Keep up the good work with XC! I know its hard to wake up but its such a good thing to be involved with. Can't wait until you start running races! You'll have to be sure to send me all your times.

Liza, I always see little girls probably close to your age that remind me of you so much! Can't wait to see you in 11 months!

Love you guys so much! Glad things are going well back at home! Miss you all so much but there is no place that I would rather be! I love My mission more than anything! Hope you have a good rest of your week! 

Love,

Jack

PS I am dying with my ties! I'm completely sick of all my ties and could use some more! Thanks

Jackson with Rylie Neilson and Nick Whitman

Jackson and his companion, Elder Davis from Seattle, Washington.

Week #56

Hi Everyone!! 

I can't believe that Bennett is starting mission Prep! That's so great! I'm sure that he'll love it. I feel like it was just yesterday that I started going to mission prep. Good memories there. 

That will be fun to have Hannah and Ryan and Noah around for a good amount of time! 

Had a really great week this week especially with Anthony! He is doing so amazing! He is so willing to give up everything he needs to in order to be baptized. He told us this last week how he knows that the Book of Mormon is true and that he knows he needs to be baptized, but he just isn't ready yet. He's doing really great though.

The rest of our investigators aren't really progressing right now. Dejah is having a really hard time believing in the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith. She believes that she just needs the Bible so we're working with her to help her realize that the Book of Mormon helps to strengthen our faith in Christ. She's moving on Wednesday to go to college so we'll try to get the missionaries over there to meet with her.

This week we've had some intense rain storms! One of the nights after we got home, we looked outside and it was raining harder than I had ever seen before! So out of instinct, being from Arizona, I sprinted outside and ran through the rain and within 15 seconds I was soaked all the way through! Rain is the best!! 

I talked to Elder Brewer a couple of weeks ago and he said that Parker isn't progressing really well, so I don't think that he has a baptismal date. Bob, however, does have a baptismal date and has been to church at least 3 times now which is awesome! Ashland is such a great place and they're doing awesome there. 

Love you so much Mom! Glad you're excited about having your only grandbaby near you! Should be fun! I can't believe you're a grandma! That's super weird! Love you!!!! Have a great week!

Love,

Jack

Week #55

Hi Everyone!

So Moses didn't make it to church on Sunday but hopefully we'll be able to get in contact with him this coming week and teach him. Dejah hasn't gone to school yet but I think she does at the end of this week. We're going to see her today and I'm sure that'll go well. Still sad that we aren't going to be able to teach her after she leaves. 

Elder Davis and I get along really well! We work really well together and have a ton of fun! We also get along really well with the Elders in our apartment. It's just a party all the time in our apartment! It's super awesome! Just a ton of Bro time! 

I love it here in Shaker! We're having some great success with current investigators and we're finding a lot of great, commitable people as well. We found this huge guy named Brian on Saturday when we were tracting. He's 6'5" and weighs at least 300 pounds! It was such a cool experience. As we knocked on his door, Elder Davis turned to me and said, "this guy is going to let us in and we're going to teach him!" The house looked pretty empty, and no one on that street had answered up to that point. Anyway, we heard the door unlock and the door frame was immediately filled by his figure. As we stood there and talked to him, I asked him if we could teach for a few minutes and he was super open to having us come in and share a message with him! We taught the restoration right then and there and then committed him to read the Book of Mormon. We'll see him later this week so hopefully he's read by then! 

Anthony is doing AMAZING!!! We went to Kirtland yesterday with him and had an awesome experience! I took a few pictures so I'll send those to you. Anthony is fasting for the next 3 days to find out if he really does need to be baptized! I love Anthony so much! He's super in tune with the spirit and is reading the Book of Mormon like crazy! He's in Mosiah some where and is loving it all!  He's still shooting for baptism on the 17th of September. He is progressing so much! Love that guy!

Like I said, Dejah is still doing great! She's reading the Book of Mormon a lot too. A lot of good is going on here in the Shaker Heights ward! Love this place so much! I always think I'm not going to like my next area as much as I did my last but I end up loving it no matter where I go! 

Love you guys so much! So glad everything is going well for you guys! I'll see you guys in less than a year!

Have an awesome week!!! 

Love, Jack

                  Elder Scoresby, Elder Davis, and Anthony at Kirtland.

Week #54

Hi Mom!

Had a pretty good week this week! It went by really fast but I would assume that was because we had meetings on Tuesday

 and Wednesday. Then on Thursday we were on Exchanges in the Euclid area which was a ton of fun. Anthony was out of town this week but we got a text from him and he said that he's still reading the Book of Mormon. He's seriously so amazing, I can't believe how prepared he is! 

Dejah is doing really great as well! She didn't end up coming to church yesterday which was pretty frustrating. She had told us that she was going to come and her mom was going to stay with her. Her mom is pretty protective, which isn't a bad thing at all, but it would be nice if she would let Dejah come to church. We also found out this week that she's getting ready to go to college in about 2 weeks and the college isn't in our area... total bummer. She told us that she's going to come back and visit. She was sad when we told her that she'll be meeting with other missionaries when she moves. It's crazy to me the strong friendship we've been able to build with her so quickly! We'll hopefully see her at church this coming Sunday.

There was one particular contact that was quite miraculous this week! So Friday afternoon we got a text from a member of the ward, telling us that there was a member of the ward moving and they needed help. We weren't able to come until later in the evening and we were only going to be able to help for about 30 minutes. We were debating on whether or not we should go, but I had a strong impression that we should. So we went and the move went great. Now for the miraculous part. Brother Abess, the member moving, had a non member friend, Moses, that was really interested in our missionary service and in our faith. He asked so many great questions and when we told him about the Book of Mormon, he wanted one! We took him over to our truck to get one and when he saw our supply box (box full of literature and dvds) he wanted everything we would give him! Brother Abess then began to bear his testimony to Moses about the truthfulness of the gospel and it was AWESOME!!!! Moses was super interested and said he will be coming to church with Brother Abess this coming Sunday!! Can't wait!! 

We have been talking to everyone in our path this week and it has brought a ton of new people to teach. We haven't turned them all into investigators yet, but hopefully we will this week! Things are going great here in the Shaker Ward! Love the area, love the people, and love the missionaries I'm around. And yes Mom, now that I'm in a less rural area we get to do a ton more with other missionaries in the zone! We didn't get to today, because we had a ton going on. We got a random call this morning from a member in the ward asking us to be on the West side of Cleveland by 11 am. We helped her move some furniture and it took forever so we're super out of time with everything.

Love you so much Family! I miss you guys! Glad things area going well with Karen and that she is able to push through. Hope you all have an amazing week! 

Love,

 Jack

Week #53

Hey!!!

We had a good week this week! I guess I'll just jump right into how our investigators are doing.

So we noticed something terrible this week. We were looking at our map of our area and we realized that Dejah is out of our area and in the sister's area! Still in the ward but just out of where we are supposed to be. We were pretty upset about it but when we talked to the sisters they just told us to keep her! Super glad we get to keep teaching Dejah. She's still doing great! She understands the gospel really well and has a sincere desire to find out if it's true. She wasn't able to make it to church this week. Her Mom for whatever reason didn't want her going but hopefully she'll be able to next week. 

Anthony is doing so great! We were having a hard time contacting him this week which was frustrating but while we were out talking to people around his house, we saw Anthony walking his dog. We ran over to him to talk with him and he was so happy to see us. He has been reading the Book of Mormon like crazy and feels like it is true so we set a baptismal date with him! He was really excited by the invitation. He has a long way to go and he knows that but I know that he'll reach the date we set with him. He is going for the 17th of September. I'm pretty stoked about Anthony! He's amazing.

We really don't have any other investigators. We've been doing a ton of finding this week which is always fun. I love going and talking to people. There are a lot of people that aren't interested at all so my goal is to make them laugh. It makes finding so much more fun and enjoyable. 

The ward here is great! I don't know if I mentioned last week but they are all really excited to do missionary work. We had a member call us today and tell us he has a lady that he wants us to go and teach with him this week so I'll let you know if anything comes from it. 

Anyway, everything is just fine and dandy here. I love this area and all the missionaries in this zone. 

I can't believe Bennett is a senior and Cooper is a freshman! That freaks me out! I love you guys a lot though! Super weird to me that school is about to start! Time goes by way to fast! Love you guys.

Love, 

Jack