For thou art called to prune my vineyard...‏

I keep my family close to my heart!
Sister serving in Texas, Brother Serving in Chile & fam in Cali

"for thou art called to prune my vineyard with a mighty pruning, yea, even for the last time..." Doctrine and Covenants 24: 19

 "and it shall be given thee from the time thou shalt go, until the time thou shalt return, what thou shalt do. And thou must open thy mouth at all times, declaring my gospel with the sound of rejoicing. Amen." Doctrine and Covenants 28: 15-16

Well it was so good to see pictures of Austin and the family :) I miss and love you all oh so much! The night before and day that Austin left for his Mission I cried because I wish I could say bye to him and that I could be home loving and hugging my family!! I love you all so much! Austin I am so proud of your decision!! you will see so many miracles! I cant wait for you to hear the REAL Chilean Spanish, hahaha you will die!! its hard to understand them, but yet they have to most beautiful Spanish and are the most loving people, hopefully you gain a few pounds on your mission ;)

Well this week was good, we did and still have to do a lot of walking because we don't have many miles left on our car to drive everywhere, haha well at least its sunny(not so much warm though!) well Monday night we were walking to talk to a referral family, and we saw a dad R and his daughter so we talked to them and some how I got a book of Mormon in his hand, and he wasn't very interested at first! well when I asked if we could come by and share more he said he needs to talk to his wife first... so we didn't get his number or address, and we were sad :/ but as we kept walking to the referral family, we saw R walk upstairs to the apartment right above this family, MIRACLE! haha now we are going to go by and share more :)

Another miracle, A who missionaries have been working with for a couple months, came to church last Sunday, then the activity or Tuesday and then to another activity on Saturday night! it was pretty cool, and amazing work in progress.. she told Hermana K (her fellow shipper in the branch) that she wants to get baptized, but isn't sure about a few things!! hopefully another transfer here and we will see a miracle happen :) Ojala!

Well my bro Austin left on Thursday to Santiago Chile!! crazy how fast that came, but I'm so proud of him!!! well this was a good day, we were walking and met a nice English man and gave him a book of Mormon.. we walked a little more and a Russian stopped us to ask where our church is! HAA that is so rare!! he said he has attended many churches and wants to attend ours one day! his name is L, and he even knew a little bit of Spanish! its the funniest thing hearing a Russian speak Spanish! I have noticed the Lord putting many more Russian speaking people in our path because we talk to them!


We had dinner with a family from the branch, and as we were leaving the little girl wanted to show us "the lights she helped decorate!" so we followed her outside and out of the bushes the dad jumped out in a gorilla suit and we screamed!!! it literally scared the crap out of us because we didn't know that was coming! haha we then went back in the house because the dad wanted to take a picture of us teaching him in his gorilla costume!!! funny

Friday we had a cool little miracle... we only drove 7 miles! wow but a lot of walking. We got in and taught an amazing family from Honduras that we have slowly been working with. we then knocked a door and it was about 8;30pm... a baby started crying and no one answered the door. my companion quietly said a prayer.. then we knocked again and the lady answered the door and immediately said "Hola! pasense. hace frio!" so she let us in without us even saying a word... MIRACLE! we then told her who we were and she said she had recently met with the missionaries... so we set a return appointment so that we could talk with he elders and see fi they are teaching her. turns out the elders never taught her, but they have been trying to get in with her but she is never home.. haaa miracle :) we are going to start teaching her.

Saturday Sister T called us with 2 more referrals (people she had talked to) one of which we actually are teaching his wife, small world!! and another was someone that we actually talked to in winco (we cant remember that) baha but that's cool! we did lots of walking to, and as we were walking by a bus stop we saw a guy but it didn't phase us... when we double looked we realized it was L, a man we taught on his doorstep but haven't seen since! he ripped his ear buds out and was so happy to see us and so apologetic for not calling us... but he was so excited and wants us back over soon!

Fall in Vancouver Washington!!!

embarrassing moment of the week: I feel asleep on my knees for an hour praying Saturday night, hahaha I woke up so confused!

Sunday was a miracle!! remember the guy I mentioned before, B? the one that we talked to at a  bus stop and came to church last Sunday... well he came again!! he loved church! he read the first two chapters in Mosiah since we gave him a scripture to read! he loved it and is super interested to read and learn more... he is an English man so the elders are going to start teaching him :) AHH that little miracle has made me happy!!  lots of little miracles this week. 

Well I've been reading in Doctrine and Covenants this week, I love it!! I am so grateful for all the trials and patient Joseph Smith had, for all that he did to bring the gospel forward in its fullness for the last time! 

"Leave thy house and home... and speak freely to all; yeah preach, exhort, declare truth, even with a loud voice, with a sound of rejoicing... pray always, and I will pour out my spirit upon you, and great shall be your blessing... behold, canst thou read this without rejoicing and lifting up thy heart for gladness?" Doctrine and Covenants 19: 36-39

...sorry, I love scriptures!!!  Adios! - Hermana Jaeger

Just one week? That felt like a year!

Hola mi familia y amigos! WOW what a crazy week!

8 months this week!!!!!!!!

Lots of things happened both in the Spanish and English world!

un milagro de un hombre ingles: we were walking on the street back to our car, i noticed a guy sitting on the bench at the bus stop. so i said lets take the crosswalk and talk to this guy.. so we did, at first it was awkward, but after a couple minutes we hit it off well.. His name is B.., he has had a rough life recently. he was so open and honest about the bad decisions he has made in his life that have lead him recently to changing and searching for a church... (hmm what a coincidence!) I talked with him about the church, he read a little bit of the book of Mormon before!!! awesome :) even though B.. doesn't speak Spanish we gave him our number and gave him times of church services.... we didn't think anything would happen. he texted us Sunday morning 30 mintues before the english ward started and said he is on his was to church. we freaked out and called the english elders right away to tell them about him!! we rushed to church since we have correlation at 11 with our ward mission leader.. the elders found B and brought him inside the chapel.... after sacrament we saw B.. and he looked so happy, we then realized this Sunday was the primary program. BAHAHAAH!!!! well B.. texted us this morning and said he loved church :) we pray and hope he comes again! even though we cant teach him because he is english, we are all working for the same team, the Lords team!...... after this experiences i realized that "WOW, if we didn't take the cross walk to go and talk to him, he never would have known about the church so soon!" ah what a miracle <3

un milagro de una mujer espanol: missionaries have been working with a wonderful family!! love them so much. A.. has been taught so many things and we don't know why she isn't baptized! she has only been to church once with the other missionaries... we talked and Hermana K.. that was with us said some amazing things that A.. needed to hear... :) Miracle... A.. CAME TO CHURCH!!!!!!! finally after some hard work, faith, and patience we got her to church.. it was literally a miracle i was so shocked..  and sacrament was perfect! they talked about temples and A.. sat by Hermana k.. and after sacrament she said they are going to see the temple and visitors center this week.. WHAT!!!!! i am so shocked :D it was so exciting, i couldn't stop smiling all day at church.

 La familia G :)

un milagro yo no puedo explicar!!!: There is an amazing member here Sister T.., i think i talked about her before.. she is an amazing member missionary. I love her oh so much! We were with her one night to visit her neighbor, but they weren't home... she was hungry and asked if she could grab a bite to eat... i thought sure why not. so we drove with her and she said "here hand me a book of mormon!" we pull up to the window for her to pay and she straight up asks the girl working if she goes to church! i thought WOW how will she give her a book of Mormon in a couple of seconds? but she did it and got a Book of Mormon in her hands!!! so cool :) we then drove away and there was a guy walking on the sidewalk and sister t.. called him over and asked if he had heard of the Book of Mormon.. then she got one into his hands too... 2 books of Mormon in about 5 minutes, i was amazed!!! Sister T.. is amazing, i asked her how she is so brave to do that! she said, and i will never forget it, "Well what's the worst that could happen.. they shoot me? then i'll just go to the Celestial kingdom!" HAHAHAAHA great words of advice :) She give us the best advice and she is an amazing example! She always says "there is only 2 ways you can be, happy or miserable"... and of course i want to be happy!  no matter what we go through or what happens, we can choose what to be!

Well yes it again has been a rough week and defiantly a huge trial of my small faith. I am sad to miss my brother's farewell and departure for Chile, but i love him so much and wish him the best of luck. Chile will love him dearly! This work is not easy, but it is amazing.

Alma 26: 27-31 (my mission life!)

A la bora! learn it. live it. love it.
Cuidase mi familia <3

I'm not going to give up

Good morning, good Monday, good p-day!

Happy fall to everyone, it is so gorgeous here in Vancouver, freezing and leaves everywhere! Well i love you all so much, thank you (again) for all the support! i really do appreciate it :)

Las Hermanas

I never thought a part of my life would be consisted of worrying about the futures of SO MANY people. Every time i talk to someone I hesitate because i want them to have what i have and to know that its true, but i don't know how to express that in a couple seconds!!! It's so hard when you see someone progressing and feel it, but then some how Satan gets ahold of them and confuses them..... It was a tough week. a lot of out investigators told us they have no interest in changing or listening to us. For many days i continued to wonder "why am i out here? nothing is happening?" I worry about everything! I want so bad for people to know this gospel. This is the hardest work i have ever done. it is such a spiritual work that no one can describe, they must experience.

This week our most progressing investigator, B, told us she felt in her heart that she needs to go back to her old church.. she feels its right and that its where she belongs.. my heart about broke, and i almost started to cry... she said she didn't know how to tell us, but that she just wanted to be honest... I felt as if we did something wrong or as if we didn't try hard enough. It felt like someone broke up with me haha. We love her so much and she was so prepared, and she knows it too! its so hard to leave something when you felt nothing go wrong... we did everything we could, we taught with clarity, she had the most amazing friend/fellow shipper, and she came to church with her kids, everything... we tried, so hard... finding her and having her come to church was my "ah-ha" moment of why i am a missionary... and now that we are not teaching her any more its my "what the heck?" moment of why i am a missionary. we accepted what she had told us, because she truly prayed for an answer, and that is what she said she received and we cant deny it! it tore my heart... but we expressed our love for her, and she did the same to us. we peacefully left a strong spirit in her home by singing a song. :) It was a hard good-bye for teaching her, but we still want to visit her before either one of us gets transferred... We know that in the future will be the right opportunity for her, ojala!

Later that day and the next day a few more people dropped us.. i keep thinking 'how the heck is Christ supposed to come when no one is accepting the gospel?" this truly is the best time to serve a mission but one of the hardest times.

the next couple days we had no success, we had no lessons.. but we got outside and we tried, but i guess we didn't try hard enough. Heavenly Father makes sure we still have faith, because i thought everything was going so great and awesome! but now is the trial of faith, to get back up and keep pushing along, keep knocking those doors, searching day and night for those people, or that one person who is waiting!

Vancouver Sky

so yes, after a long rough week it is a sunny and new week! I am not a perfect missionary, nor will i ever be. i am trying my best to work towards strengthening my testimony of the savior and of his gospel... its tough as a missionary .. its hard because there is not enough time in the day to study and remember things, there is no time to take a day off and reflect, you just keep working and moving along.  sorry this is a long and depressing email, but I'm working on trying a little harder to be a little better each day.

Doctrine and Covenants 20: 37 ...having a determination to serve him to the end...

on the bright side, my companion is so awesome and has learned a little Russian from one of our Russian friends, and she was able to use it while talking to a Russian lady. ahah it was so cool!

I love you all so much, everyone asks how long Ive been out.. yup 8 months... they say "almost to half way!' and then i freak out, where has the time gone?! I had one baptism i had in Hood River.  right when i feel success for the lords work, everything turns into dust. i know its Heavenly father testing my faith, i have patience, i cant wait... i question things to easy. gahh its my weakness!

I love this work and i am not going to give up!! yes i will struggle, every missionary will.. but there is such a determination in me to finish this mission, to try my best to change someones life, whether i see it or not i know one day i will see a miracle that i was apart of.  i love this gospel and i know it is true!

we did have little miracles this week, sister T(an amazing member missionary) found a family at the store!! They are interested in us visiting them, so hopefully that happens this week!

 Doctrine and covenants 90:11

so here is a letter of joy my mission president emailed to all the missionaries! THIS is my focus this week and the rest of my mission. truly words given to him from the Spirit, he knew i(and many other missionaries) needed to hear this:

"Sometimes even the very best get distracted. In the mission field, the most common distraction is discouragement. We all get discouraged at times because this is hard work and success is more important than any other work we will ever do, so discouragement is always going to be part of the calling. It may be impossible to avoid discouragement, but it is essential that we do not give in to it. Trying to avoid discouragement in the mission field is sort of like trying to avoid the rain in Washington. We know it will happen so the key is in dealing with it. To be sure, it is one of Satan's best tools.

One of the best ways to deal with discouragement is to keep things in perspective. Elder Maxwell said this: "This life's temporal lens distorts. The things of the moment are grossly magnified, and the things of eternity are blurred or diminished. Even something as small as a man's thumb, when held very near the eye, can blind him to the very large sun. Yet the sun is still there. Blindness is brought upon the man by himself. When we draw other things too close, placing them first, we obscure our vision of heaven."

In this great work of salvation, we cannot know what the Lord will do in the next few seconds of our life. We can only do what He has asked us to do and do it with faith in Him whose work this is. Take for example the work of a stonecutter. I take this quote from Jacob Riis: "When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two,and I know it was not that blow that did it but all those that had gone before."

So it is with us, we can never know which person will be the one that will accept our message even though we have talked with a hundred people all ready, it may well be that hundred and first one that will be golden. Let's keep our mission in perspective and that will allow us to deal with temporary bouts with discouragement. As we do, we will see the hand of the Lord in all we do.

May the Lord bless the great Washington Vancouver Mission
President and Sister Taylor

Have a great week, i love you all! A la obra!  ~  Alma 29: 8-10

This week, WOW! (I don't have Google, so I patiently wait for an answer from God)

well we ended this week with finding 8 new investigators... SOOOO much to email in so little time! So ill try to break it down...

We meet some crazy... confused... people here who try to break down my testimony of this gospel. they try to confuse me with their belief..  I have heard many questions relating to the authority of God, who is God, what happens to us after this life, and things about the book of Mormon.. I never have an answer right away, only a simple testimony.. but as i ponder and study these things i hear, i receive answers one after another of why i am here, why i believe this gospel and what my purpose is as a person in this chaotic world... It is hard to express the thoughts i have and things i see, but i do have a strong witness that we have weaknesses and trials ONLY to build us up to something better! We need not to fear because we have to Lords true gospel in our hands!

La verdad!!!

Well Wednesday was transfer day which means everyone in the mission normally has a slow day getting situated. but since my comp and i were staying together we new we needed to work extra hard! after a long and amazing day, we found 6 new investigators!!! 4 of which are an amazing family found by a member!! Oh this is the most adorable family! and they are all baptism age, WOO HOO! We of course taught them the restoration and gave them a book of Mormon, we emphasized Christ coming to America and that they could read his words, they became so excited and curious to know what Christ said!! They responded "wow, I never knew this book existed... I can't wait to read!" Ah this is an 
amazing and prepared family :)

Thursday i met a very humble man.. his name was R.. He appeared intimidating, but never judge someone by what you see! we approached him and hew as so respectful and interested in what we had to share.. after an amazing conversation about the gospel of Jesus Christ he began to tell us the hard life he has... i have never had so much respect for someone before. he is supporting his family and moving back home to help his dad, .... R.. has such a strong spirit. I testified to him that God loves him and will help him! We gave him a book of Mormon and said a powerful prayer with him. The spirit was so strong, i knew the spirit testified to him! I hope that one day he will red the book of Mormon and remember what he felt that day we talked with him and that he will have a desire to make covenants with God :)

We also had an amazing OYM with two sweet hispanic ladies on the street.. they were not interested at first, but after asking them questions about their beliefs they created the desire to hear what we share... only 1 wanted us to come back over, but we were able to leave them both with a Book of Mormon... I feel it is so important to leave everyone with a Book of Mormon, one day they will pick up the book and read!! I love the feeling when people ask us if we have something they can read!! It makes me so excited to share about the word of God and give them the opportunity to read and see for themselves :)

Friday my companion and I had an amazing lesson with B.., she prayed about baptism but still feels like she hasn't received an answer, or that her answer is the dream her husband had about going back to their previous church... after a very powerful and spirit directed lesson we asked if she had been reading the Book of Mormon.. said said no.. then we knew why she had not received an answer!! we promised that God will give her an answer if she puts in the effort! we read with her about Christ in America and Moroni's promise and she committed to read the rest and to pray :) I hope and pray she does these things, because I KNOW she will find these things true :) She loves us coming over and teaching her.. she expressed the love she has for us and for the branch!

Friday night my companion had an amazing idea.... we read King Benjamins address to his people, we read in The Book of Mormon Mosiah chapters 2-6... WE spiritually prepared ourselves to be intune with the spirit for conference the next 2 days.... WOW it truly was amazing how much more i received and retained from this conference than from any other conference... i loved it!

Saturday was a day filled with the spirit. we listened to conference and also taught 3 amazing lessons! That day was a day of miracles. Saturday morning we had an amazing breakfast with the Pedro family from the branch, they cooked some amazing food! I felt loved and close to feeling the love of a family :)

La familia P..., we had breakfast with them saturday before conference :)

Sunday morning was my favorite session of conference i have EVER listened too! I knew that before the Prophet even said that haha. It was so filled and directed by the spirit!

well Sunday night our appointment fell through, so we started walking around... we found a guy who appeared to be white cleaning his car... listening to spanish music!! hahaha i couldn't tell if he spoke spanish or if he just liked the music.. after talking and getting to know him he for some reason reminded me of my dad :) he spends all his time working in construction to send money to his family in Mexico. he is from Ca and is planning to move back soon. He grew up a Jehovah's Wittiness's but is interested in what we have to share! as I walked away all I could think about was my father... And how much I would want him to have the gospel if he didn't already have it. I feel an instant connection to my investigators here and want them to have what me and my family have! I am so excited to teach him and share my testimony with him. i hope something happens with him, i know we met him for a reason!

Passed by the church for an appointment and saw the Hermanas
from the R... practicing a dance!!

Another miracle happened during the last hour on Sunday night... we received a referral from the Elders to visit a lady named E.. We decided for some reason to visit her at 8pm last night.. there was a reason we did! She opened the door and saw our badges. she let us in RIGHT away :) she is so humble and so close to the spirit.. She talked with us, telling us her life story for an hour... all in Spanish! I knew that she simply needed someone to talk to, someone to express her feelings too, even though i could not understand everything. One thing i love to do is to patiently sit and listen to people, so i knew(again) that there was a reason we met E.. at that exact moment... She has been through a very rough life. We shared a simple scripture and she loved it so much. She is so intune with feeling  the spirit! We asked her if she would want to be with her kids for eternity, and she began to cry and said yes, of course! I testified of families and this gospel. she is interested to have us back over! i hope all goes well with her, she is so prepared!!!

As i conclude my VERY long email this week i want you to all know how much i love you! I love my mission! i love the savior!!! conference was amazing, we watched it at the church with about 20 other missionaries haha. I felt the spirit and love of my family as we sang called to serve! I thought of my sister in Texas and my brother who will soon be off to Chile! and as the choir sang Abide with me'tis even tide, i again thought of my family and how soon i will be reunited with them :) almost half way done with my mission i know the time will soon come when i can hug and love everyone again!!! I know God was speaking so clearly to us all this conference, with one of the last talks given by Elder Russell M. Nelson I would blink and i would see the face of Christ... I felt as if Christ was speaking directly to each one of us individually! i imagined Heavenly Father talking of his beloved son Jesus Christ and preparing him to teach the world... I felt as if the whole general conference was spoken by the savior :) it was a neat experience i cant explain!  The topics of the strength of women, the authority of the priesthood, and usage of our bodies and the family all touched my heart! and many other things which meant to much to me. i love this gospel! it isn't easy to live and understand, but it defiantly isn't impossible!!

one amazing experience I had this morning was an answer to one of my questions(and since i don't have google or access to explore, i had to patiently wait for an answer from God). I have been asked so many times why my tag says "saints"... I pondered this for many weeks.... and said to say i didn't really know why, i knew there was a reason but i didn't have an answer.. until today!! the word "saint" in the Bible Dictionary is: those who have entered into the Christian covenant by baptism.... and then I received the answer that "latter-day saints"  -those who have entered into the New and EVER LASTING covenant by baptism(and many other ordinances). I know this is the true church! :) i love it so much!!

a la obra!

con amor,

Hermana Jaeger