Elder Jacob Elgaaen in Jacksonville, Florida: March 14, 2018 Wowzers!

This was an interesting past week and a half fish. We had a lot going on and a lot of weird things happening. First off, the highlight was probably listening to Lynn G. Robins talk to us at our zone conference. What a guy! Some other things that happened were making medical trips to Gainesville 2×, 2 awesome lessons with GoPaul, a bunch of exchanges, going to bed early, and EGGS!

To start, Elder Lynn G Robins came and spoke to us for our zone conference. The main topic that he spoke on was Hope. He shared how the Lord knows all things. He knows the past, present, and future. We each experience hard trials and have sorrows in this life and need somewhere to look and make our goal. He gave an example. Imagine you were stranded in the middle of the ocean. There was no indicator of where you were and nowhere to go. You have close to 0 motivation to paddle because you could be traveling further away and quickening your death. But if in the horizon you see a island, you will have 100% motivation and 5× the strength to work to get to that island. I really liked this image and it really explains each of our lives. Some feel lost with nowhere to go. In this situation there is little encouragement or excitement to act. But as we set that end goal and desire to get there, we will work our hardest and be motivated to take the journey. He also talked about repentance. Here are some notes from that:

REPENTANCE

- Doing anything that brings you closer to God is repentance

- Blessing

- Repentance can be tough. Temptation enters a door that may intentionally been left adjar or open(Having rated R movies available on Netflix even though we may not watch them)

- Repentance Requires The Redeemer; Alma 34

- Any way other than the Lord's way is multiple choice misery

- Signs That Are on the road to repentance (Stop, One Way, HOV)

- ‎Alma 34:15-18; Celestial Repentance

- Repentance doesn't erase consequences

- We can strive to have a perfect day but we will fall short daily. Repentance is a lifetime curriculum. We don't have repentance because we might sin, we have repentance because we will sin. There is no other way, repentance is the only way!

Medical stuff loves Elder Gibby! 1st, we had to go to Gainesville for Elder Gibby because of counseling. He has been stressing way to much and so he has to meet with some lady every other week. We were suppose to be an hour at his appointment and had to be super strict with time because we had someone dropping off dinner at 5 and she had somewhere to be. Also we had an exchange starting at 6 so we had to be at the church by then. Gainesville is about a 30 minute drive from Alachua where our apartment is and our apartment is 15 minutes from the church. We got to Elder Gibby,'s appointment at 3:30 when it started. I sat outside in the chapel and waited. Come 5 i was tempted to go knock on the door and tell him were late. Soon after he came out. We got our food delivered to one of our neighbors and ended up having a 5 minute dinner so we made it to our exchange on time. Very stressful day! On Saturday, Elder Gibby's eye was hurting and we ended up going to the Insta-care to get it checked out. He had scratched his eye and that made our day very limited. After we got back from Gainesville, it was about 7:30 and Elder Gibby eye was hurting so we turned all the lights off and still any light hurt so we ended up going to bed super early at 8! It turned out to be good because daylight savings was the next day! Anyways, we our both doing okay... or at least I am! Haha.

We had a bunch of exchanges this week were a member goes out with us and helps us in our missionary efforts. There is an awesome spirit present when members come. We got to meet with one of our investigators, GoPaul twice during the past week and ended up inviting him to baptism. He said yes! We still need to set a date with him which we plan to do tonight at dinner.

And last of all, EGGS! I had asked some members if they could spare some eggs because being out in the country, there are tons of chickens. I ended up getting 108 eggs from church and it was awesome! Haha I usually eat 8 Eggs a day which can get expensive so the more eggs the better!

Well I hope you all had a great spiritually filling week so far. Remember Christ in all you do and you will be blessed. I love you all and am so grateful for your love. I feel your love for me and find strength in your testimonies. Keep on keeping on! Love ya!

Random Thought:

Remember it's hard for Heavenly Father to steer a parked car! Faith without works is dead!