Elder Jacob Elgaaen in Jacksonville, Florida: July 15, 2019 Weekly

This week was a pretty exciting week. On Monday I went on the trade off with elder Crandall and it was pretty fun. We found somebody named Tyler who's super awesome and willing to listen to are message. He had a lot of super deep questions about the plan of salvation and about where we go after we die. We were able to share the plan of salvation with him very briefly and give him a pamphlet to read. On Wednesday we went to district Council to trade back and I had another trade off with the zone leaders. I went to white Springs with elder Brimhall. One of the members took us to a small town about a half hour outside of town & told us that somebody would pick us up at 9 p.m.. They said they do this every week because it's saves in miles. When we got there about 10 minutes after we were walking around is started to rain super hard. We continue to walk around in the rain. We were walking to one of our appointments and walks past 3 police officers. They asked us where we were going and we told them down the street to meet with somebody. They told us that the further we went down that Street the more dangerous it gets. We told them we had been down there before and met with some people. After we walked around the corner and had a 30 minute lesson we were walking to our next appointment and the police officers had arrested a bunch of people. Haha later that day we met with somebody who had given the elders a ride the week before and said he would like to meet with missionaries. We met him at Hardee's and had a super good lesson with him and taught him about the restoration and invited him to read the Book of Mormon. He was super excited to read he started reading right then and there. We also had dinner with a family who had a English bulldog puppy who was super cute. The next day we traded back and Grandpa Girard met us for lunch. The rest of the week consisted of finding in the hot some with little success but lots of good moments to share testimony. In church on Sunday we talked about a conference talk by Elder Ballard. We talked about how happiness is a choice that we make each day. We also talked about how the gospel can bring that happiness as we live it each day through loving God and loving our neighbors. That about sums up my week. I realize that each day we get to make the choice to be happy and to grow are testimonies of Jesus Christ. I know as we search and ponder and pray everyday for those experiences that'll help us grow, we will be able to become our best selves.