Elder Jacob Elgaaen in Jacksonville, Florida: December 3, 2018 Happy December!

This week was a good and long week. We accomplished our finding goal of 3 new people by Tuesday and so we focused a lot more on the people we are already teaching. We had planned to do a Christmas parade on the 1st of December as a kickoff for the light the world. We weren't too organized on the efforts or getting a trailer together to ride on/next to on bikes with lights. A good thing was because of weather, it got moved to next week so we didn't have to stress a lot about getting the float together.

In my study this week, I was reading about the Atonement. It was really good and made me think about how much Christ did for us. Also something that is super important to understand about the Atonement is that we all have our agency to use it in our lives. We choose to make change and be cleansed from our sins and mistakes. Nobody forces us to do those things. Another important part about the Atonement is the best time to make change is now! We shouldn't procrastinate the day of our repentance. It goes along with the saying, The best time to do that was last year. The second best time is now! As we repent, we are cleansed from our sins and are able to experience the most happiness and joy not only in this life but in the next life.

2 Nephi 9:41

O then, my beloved brethren, come unto the Lord, the Holy One. Remember that his paths are righteous. Behold, the way for man is narrow, but it lieth in a straight course before him, and the keeper of the gate is the Holy One of Israel; and he employeth no servant there; and there is none other way save it be by the gate; for he cannot be deceived, for the Lord God is his name.

Sunday was a fairly eventful day. We went over the new home centered church curriculum for the new year and I am super excited to see the difference it makes studying more in the home and the increased abundance of the spirit that will be in our Sunday meetings. After church, we found a super awesome guy. We were in a area about a week back and we prayed to see where we should go and I felt like we should go to this house right next to where we parked but Elder Jenson and Gardner felt we should go a different direction and said that before I did so I just went with it. We did find someone but even after when we headed back to the car, I felt like we should knock on this particular house. We didn't but ended up being back there and I said we should knock on this particular door. We found Joshua who is super elect and open to the message we shared. We had a good conversation with him and he is super funny and awesome. We also got to watch the Christmas Devotional which was super good. It really helped me refocus on the true purpose of the Christmas Season and have an increased desire to go out and serve. I really liked the talk about having a spiritual heart evaluation. If we had an instrument that measured how spiritually healthy we are where would it be at? I know Christmas is a great time to do as the prophet counseled in Loving like christ, forgiving As Christ, repenting to come closer to christ and eventually returning to live with Christ and God with the most happiness! I hope each of you take the chance to light the world this Christmas season and make this a season of love so we can truly light the world! I love you all!