The One with The World Cup

Hallo My Sun-Tanned Family! 

I was so grateful to hear about the fun that you had together! Though it might make me sad, but it didn’t! I hope you all feel rejuvenated and ready to tackle the world!!!

This week was awesome! We had our Zone Conference on Thursday and we all felt so much love from the Brown's because our mission was struggling a little bit as we mourned the early return home of some disobedient elders, but President and Sister Brown were right there to bring our big family together closer than ever! I was sad for the elders, but it taught me a lot about not judging people that go home early. The atonement is so real and we all have felt so much love for them as they start on the road back to healing in their homewards! I hope they can feel the power of a whole army of missionaries praying for them!

This week, we taught the Plan of Salvation A LOT! Sometimes it is hard to teach because you want to give them every aspect of the plan that makes it so perfect, but you have to start with the basics! It is so eye opening though. It is amazing how many people do not know what happens after this life. I am so grateful to be a messenger of this good news! 

I love you guys and I am so glad that you are home safe!

Love, JJ

RANDOMS

- All the cows in Germany are Brown... just in case you are curious. They are BEAUTIFUL!!!

- We tried going dooring Sunday night and we found out REAL QUICK that that was a bad idea because the World Cup game was playing. The Germans were not too happy when we interrupted their Football! The whole ward is in mourning because apparently, they lost! It has been so fun, though, to see all the German flags everywhere!

- We joined our district with another district and instead of having them get tickets to come to Munich, we tried skyping them in, but the connection was not working... then, the other set of sisters in our district had to leave early for an appointment, but we are not allowed to have one set of sisters and one set of elders alone in the church building together so we had to take chairs outside to finish it! It was a great big, fun, memorable, mess!

The One When I Pressed Play

Well, I would say that Germany is ALMOST like California, but I would be lying! It is quite different! I thought I would be a lot more annoyed when this day came that my family was out vacationing without me, but it is not too bad! I hope you guys are loving the sun, the water, the books, the naps, and most of all, THE FAMILY TIME!!!

This has been a pretty great week! It is hot beyond hot, but we keep having these afternoon thunderstorms that are my FAVORITE!!! I love being out in the rain!!!

We are praying really hard for our investigator Mathias because we have lost contact with himand we have no idea why. Satan works so hard on those people that he knows are ready to receive the covenant of baptism and he tries to prevent them from receiving that gift of the Holy Ghost that is our personal combat companion against all of his tricks.

Our other Investigator is named Fred. He is from Uganda. He is the sweetest thing ever! He has a hearing problem so when we teach him, we have to almost yell, but somehow the spirit is always there! It has been one of my first opportunities having a strong ward family close enough to have the lessons in their home and WOW does it make a difference! If nothing else, please open up your homes to the missionaries and their investigators. It is amazing getting to teach side by side with people that have such strong testimonies. 

So, there are a couple main dooring approaches that I have used on my mission. We usually switch it up based on how the people in the area are reacting. Yesterday, we were dooring and we decided to go with the "We are sharing a video about Jesus Christ" approach because there were soooo many Catholics. I used that approach for the first 4 months of my mission and I have used it every once in a while, since then. This week was my first time that I had the oppertunity to press play on that video. A man opened the door and he had the brightest smile. He said that he would love to see the video and after the video, he shared his testimony with us of our Savior Jesus Christ and then he started asking us questions about what church we belong to. He had heard of the Mormon church, but the only thing he had heard was that "they believe in another bible". We got to share with him how we believe in The Bible and The Book of Mormon. We taught him a little bit about the history of the book and then we read Moroni's beautiful promise together on his doorstep. He was grateful that we gave him a copy and he agreed to read it and pray about it. I have a testimony of the Book of Mormon and its convincing power. My FAVORITE sentence to share with people is "It is either true, or it is not. We invite people to find the answer out for themselves through reading it and then praying to God to know if it is true." HOW COOL IS THAT? It is a self-sustaining truth. We do not have to prove its validity, we simply get to bring it to people and invite them to find out for themselves! 

That is true about every aspect of the Gospel. YOU can find out for yourself. If you do not know if god loves you or where you stand in his sight, if you do no know how to find peace in your crazy days or you are struggling with a commandment. You can ALWAYS search, ponder, and pray and God has promised you that he will answer you.

I am so grateful for his love and his infinite grace as we try to be just a little better every day. 

Love you! 

Love, Jaylen

RANDOMS:

- Some members bought our groceries this week and it was the SWEETEST think EVER! They were so excited to show us all of the things they got for us! My heart...

- The amount of GREEN will never stop blowing my mind... I love the desert and I am so proud of my cactus roots, but green exists people!!!

- I attached pictures of: THE CUTEST BOYS EVER (I love them to death). Sister Grundvig (a freakishly tall girl) next to a small door. An example of the beautiful doors we find while dooring. A cactus!!!

The One with The Plan of Salvation

Hallo Family!!!

I hope you have had a great first week of summer! I am a little bit jealous, but momma always said, “The Greater the Sacrifice the Greater the Blessing!” I am just grateful that I am serving in a place with beautiful mountains that we can go hiking in instead of beautiful oceans that I cannot go swimming in!!! Blessings! 

We had an area conference where they record it in Utah and broadcast it to a certain area. I remember having it at home with a couple other states, but this one was over a large portion of Europe. I loved all the talks, but one was especially good. You might have heard it? No idea! Anyways, it was the new Primary President and she talked about how so many things can cause us to falter and doubt in our lives, but there is something that we can do that will help us to always conquer over those rough times. She said that we should review every morning in our minds the Pan of Salvation. That rang true in my heart because I can trace the stem of my testimony back to the Plan of Salvation. That beautiful, PERFECT plan that teaches us where we came from, why we are here, and where we are going. I saw this quote in a talk by Elder Sabin and he said, "In our premortal life we shouted for joy at the opportunity to experience mortality. We were ‘all in’ as we excitedly made the decision to be valiant defenders of our Heavenly Father’s plan. It is time to stand up and defend His plan again!" We all chose to come to this earth and to follow this plan of Happiness. Now, we have the opportunity to LEARN IT and to TEACH IT! 

Why did Christ come to the earth? Why did he die for us? Why did we need a restoration? So that we could have the opportunity to live with God forever. And that is a blessing that we get to share with others. When I am afraid to share the gospel with someone I just imagine that person watching a video of their life on earth and them seeing how CLOSE they were to having the truth, but because I was afraid, they were kept from it. I don’t want that to happen! I want to reach as many people as possible, so the truth can reach those who are searching! 

What a beautiful opportunity!

Love, JJ

Randoms:

- We have an ausstellung this week and it was POORING on the way over. We were so scared! BUT God helped us out and cleared it up just long enough for us to go out and find!

- We had the awesome surprise to be able to have interviews with Elder Sabin this week (a member of the 70) and he is seriously the coolest guy ever! I aspire to have that much maturity and knowledge in the Gospel!

- We were finding this week and a man came up with us to Bible bash. He kept saying how he was right because he took classes on that stuff for like 7 years. After we broke away, Sister Grundvig said "Education aint got nothin on THIS testimony" in the sassiest voice I have ever heard! I DIED! It is true though. The Gospel cannot be taught only in a classroom. it has to be taught to your heart. That is the only way we can distinguish the "truth" from all the thoughts of men.

- We found a Statue of Liberty in someone’s backyard so as they were closing the door on us, we asked if we could take a picture!