Sacramento Week 19

Dear Family & Friends,

Today I am feeling very blessed and full of gratitude! I'm thankful for the great week we had, for my companion, for the support and encouragement I receive from countless emails, letters, and packages. I'm thankful for the past 6 months I have had to serve the Lord (yes, tomorrow I turn 6 in "mission years" and this time next year I'll be going home... crazy) and I wouldn't trade my experiences for anything!

First I just have to tell you a cool tender mercy moment for me. As you know, my theme for my mission this year is "valiance". Every day I pray for opportunities to become valiant and to be a noble, courageous, strong, faithful, obedient missionary. We were teaching a less active family a practice lesson this week and at the end, the dad turned to his family and said: "These sisters were called and prepared before they came to Earth to preach the gospel and do what they do. They were valiant spirits up in Heaven set apart just for this". He had no idea I needed to hear that word "valiant"; he had no idea how much that meant to me. But Heavenly Father knew I needed that reassurance that I was in fact a valiant spirit in the pre-earth life who promised the Lord I would help His great work. It touched my heart! You never know what you might say to impact someone.

We met with Shelly, our church-hopping investigator, and a lady who is a convert from our ward. We went to get frozen yogurt and it was the perfect, comfortable environment for a casual discussion about the church and conversion. They ended up having a lot in common! Shelly had nothing but nice things to say about us as missionaries, the Mormon church, and Mormons in general. Come on Shelly, you need to just become one! Slowly but surely. They didn't come to church again yesterday but we'll keep trying.

Larry is praying (seriously) about April 19th for baptism! We have faith that this is really going to happen! We watched the video "Finding Faith in Christ" and talked about how to show Christ we are willing to follow Him. The Spirit was very strong and we invited him to be baptized on April 19th. Though he didn't say yes or no, I've known Larry long enough to know his serious pondering face. And he is seriously pondering!

Quick funny story. We saw Larry earlier in the week, just talking to him outside on the doorstep, when a lady came up and tried to sell him something from an electric/gas company. He kindly declined and then started telling her all about Mormons and how she needed to meet with us missionaries. It was the greatest thing ever! She quickly walked (actually she kind of ran) away but he kept yelling after her "Come back! We're talking about ordinances and sacraments and covenants..." Hahahaha. I laughed really hard, a real true sincere laugh, for the first time in what seems like forever. Made my day! Larry is awesome.

Other highlights of the week... the Otts came to church and Sister Ott and the boys stayed all 3 hours! We also helped a less active family with yard work and another less active lady fixed one of my skirts for me. I love how people are just so willing to help us out! We found another 2 new investigators this week so we're excited about that. Joyce and Stevie, our new investigators from last week, both bailed on their appointments. Welcome to the life of a missionary.

On Saturday we had exchanges again and I went to Rancho Cordova for the day with Sister Dalley. If there was such thing as a missionary sleepover, that would be it! I really enjoyed being in her area and seeing her investigators. She is a great Sister Training Leader and that day I had a lot of fun. They have a car so we drove to all their appointments. I can't believe I am saying this, but I actually really missed my bike! Yes, I missed my squeaky, cheap, pedal-brake baby blue and white beach cruiser bike. I admit it! Biking is a blessing. It's great exercise, good for the fresh air, and it's so much easier to talk to people.

We had an amazing Zone Training on Friday from President Lewis that was probably one of the best trainings so far. My favorite part was when President showed us a movie clip (normally we can't watch anything but church movies- this was a special exception) from the Christian football movie "Facing the Giants". We watched the part where the Coach has Brock do the death crawl all the way across the field. As Brock took each step blindfolded, with another player on his back, the Coach yelled and pushed him the entire way. Brock was only going to go half way, but by the end, as he took off his blindfold, he realized he made it across the entire field.

The Lord is my coach, and just like the Coach told Brock, the Lord is saying to me, "Come on Sister Jorgensen, I need you! Come on! You can do it! Don't give up on me! Just give me your best!" Sometimes I may feel like I am in the dark with hundreds of pounds of weight on my shoulders, trying to accomplish a seemingly impossible task, but I don't know my potential unless I give it my all. My coach wants my best effort on my mission and that's what I am striving to give Him each and every day! It's called "missionary WORK" for a reason. I am here because I I answered His call and I volunteered to this work. Yes coach, you can count on me!

I want you each to know how much you mean to me and all I want to do is make you proud of me. I want to make my family proud, my friends proud, and most importantly, my coach, the Lord, proud!

Love,
Sister Jorgensen