Jackson is home

Hey Y'all,

I am staying in Jackson for another 6 weeks. After I heard, I got on my knees because I have had a little bit of a hard time with some things, and as I did I was overcome with the feeling that I'll be able to get through it. Elder Lakis likes me I think, because he was super happy that we were staying. I think it is because most of the investigators like me a lot and I have the in with them, and they were telling me that they were going to be super sad if I was leaving.

So last week we set a goal to knock for 14 hours. Sadly we didn't achieve that goal, we only got 12 hours in. It was really hard. I had never worked this hard on my mission, doing all that I can to find and teach people. In those 12 hours we found 0 new investigators, again. I was pretty upset because most of my mission, if I put in an hour or two of knocking doors I normally have been able to find someone that is interested in learning. But the past two weeks we knocked a total of 20 hours and nothing. A few people who didn't want to be rude, said that we could come back later.

Monday then rolls along and it's not P-day this week, so we planned to go knock doors at 2 o'clock because that was the only time that we could. Not going to lie I really did not want to go do it. I thought it was pointless and that we would be able to spend our time better doing something else. Also Monday we biked because we are asking our missionaries to bike more and we can't ask them to do something we aren't willing to do. We biked to this area and we knocked 4 doors and then finally in 20 and 1/2 hours we were able to find someone who is willing to use their faith and see if God has truly called a prophet in our day. After we were done with this, the scripture of Alma 26:27 came to mind. It says Now when our hearts were depressed, and we were about to turn back, behold, the Lord comforted us, and said: Go amongst thy brethren, the Lamanites, and bear with patience thine afflictions, and I will give unto you success. I learned a lot. I know that God is not going to let us go through something that we aren't able to handle. There is nothing that is too hard, or too challenging in life. If you are going through something hard, it is because we can do hard things through Christ. Through challenges we grow. We learn and we become a better person once we overcome that trial. So that was pretty cool to learn.

Then when we were doing some finding on Monday, when we ran into an ex navy seal. This dude tried giving us a hard time and was trying to tell me that Mormons don't believe in the Bible. I am at that point of my mission where if someone tries to attack us, I will defend it and shut them down. So when this guy was saying we don't believe in the Bible, I pulled one out of my bag and said, "Why would I carry a King James Bible in my bag if we didn't believe in it?" And I had a pretty sassy tone. He then tried giving me the excuse that we rewrote it. So I told him to read it. He took it and we gave him our number, and told him to call if he needed service or any help. The next morning we got a call and he asked us if we could bring 2 more people to help move a couch. I have never heard of a couch that needs 4 people to move it. We got there and he's like you need more people to move the couch, but we told him we got this. We had to move this couch from a house, across the street into another house. Elder Lakis and I are in our suit pants and we pick it up and move it. This man was surprised! He told us that we must have had the gift of strength just like Sampson. I told him yes we did and just laughed. The couch was heavy but it wasn't that heavy. The hard part about moving any piece of furniture is getting it out the door, but we were able to do it. He then told us that he was super thankful and that he wants us to come teach him Saturday and that he is going to come to church with us.

Another funny story haha, is we met this dude outside smoking so we go up to him and start talking with him. He told us that he has the desire to quit smoking, and we have a program that is 7 days and can help you quit smoking. We offered that and he said he was good, that he just wants to do it on his own. I just laughed. Then we taught him a little bit about how God has called a prophet in our days. This dude then tried calling us Anti-Christ and said that we are leading people away from God and to a prophet. I then asked him a few questions that he could not answer and left him confused, but he was hard-hearted and wouldn't listen to us.

That is pretty much it from me. I hope all is well!!! I love y'all I hope all is well!!

Love Elder Corbett

Knock, knock, knock.....

Good Morning Everyone,

This week has been crazy busy! We went on 3 exchanges. So the First exchange happened with Elder Isaacson. He is a Spanish missionary and is a very good missionary. We went and tried a few of our investigators but this week it seemed like everyone was falling through. I think it is because of spring break. I am hoping next week everyone keeps their appointments they set with us. Anyways Elder Isaacson and I knocked doors for about 2 hours on our exchange and then tried a few potentials but we didn't have a whole lot of luck. But the exchange was fun and I really like Elder Isaacson a lot.

Then a few hours later we went on exchanges with the assistants to the president. I went with Elder Scoresby and he is one of my favorite missionaries in the mission. We worked really hard and taught a few good lessons. I learned a lot from him as we went out for the day. We ended our day off at Buffalo Wild Wings where we enjoyed some wings and then also enjoyed some college basketball :)

Then Friday we had interviews which went really well. President Olson and I had a really good chat and I am looking forward to finishing my mission strong. Later that day everything fell through again, which was tough but we knocked some doors and tried some media referrals.

Then Saturday was a super long day. At 11:00 we headed out the door saying we aren't going to stop knocking doors until we have found a new investigator. So we did just that, we even took a lunch with us so we could eat in the car, so we wouldn't have to travel and waste time. We knocked for 2 hours and found no one... only a few good contacts that said come back but we didn't get to teach anything. As we were having lunch we got a call from one of the district leaders in our zone telling us that he just got off the phone with a companionship and that they were struggling together. Elder Lakis and I made time to go and do an exchange for the rest of the day with them. The funny thing is once I left Elder Lakis and the missionary he was with found a new investigator knocking doors. When I went with the other missionary we knocked for probably 2 more hours. We didn't find anyone new, but we did have a good lesson with this guy. He wasn't sure when he would be home for us to come back. I feel like I was facing a trial of my faith, to see if I was going to give up if I didn't see the success that I wanted. Elder Lakis and I talked about it last night and when we were with the assistants they told us that they knocked doors for 14 hours in one week. So we set that as our goal for this week! We are going to be fasting and expecting miracles this week. Well I miss each and everyone of you! I hope that you are doing well.

Love Elder Corbett

1 Silas and me thuggin it up

2 Elder Scoresby and I

3 Elder Loveless and I

4 Lil Rhianna and I

5 Elder Jex and Elder Isaacson

6 Elder Lakis and Acazeion during a lesson

#Buildtheneed

This week has been pretty hectic. To start off we have been teaching a lot of people. It seems like God just keeps blessing us as we keep finding more more people who want to hear about the gospel. This is a good thing but it keeps us pretty busy. We currently cover all of the city of Jackson so we have to spend a lot of time traveling back and forth because so many people want to meet with us and a lot of them request Bibles. At the start of the transfer we had 36 on contacted referrals for Bibles, but now we're down into the low 20s so we're making progress. The cool thing is that these people are prepared for you to come in and share a message about Jesus Christ. We have had some pretty cool experiences with some of the Bible referrals. Most of our teaching pools come from them and a lot of them are working towards a baptism. One of them actually came to church yesterday, his name is Jacob. Our Mission President was at church and taught the gospel principles class and he was very impressed with him.

So Wednesday was our zone conference! Elder Lakis and I had an hour to teach our zone on how to be a successful missionary. So we taught them how to help their investigators keep commitments. I thought it went really well. I learned a lot preparing for this. We also had a little fun with it. We had the sisters make bookmarks because they are crafty and would do a good job, and on it we had it say #Buildtheneed and on the back it has a promise of if you build it they will come. Not a lot of people got the reference from Field of Dreams, but me and my companion thought it was pretty funny.

Then It was an amazing time. We got our smartphones and began to learn how to use them. It's been a struggle for me. I feel like I am an old person using technology for the first time, because I have been so used to paper and pen that adjusting to technology has been pretty hard. We use apps that I have never used before. Once we get the hang of it, all will be well and the work will hasten! Another hard part about it is getting the phone back and staying away from old habits, like wasting my life on social media and just scrolling through Facebook. This will be really good for me back when I get home, because I won't spend as much time on social media like I used to.

After zone conference we went on an exchange and I got to go with Elder Ritchie. He's a good missionary. We had 2 good lessons and found 2 new investigators which was good. I guess my last story comes from last night Elder Lakis and I made an appointment to go see a Bible referral. We show up to her house and she has like 5 girls and 1 boy!! Her house was pretty crazy because this week is spring break! But we were able to teach the mom. We taught her the restoration and she loved it. We invited her to be baptized and she said, "I definitely want to." I was so excited because she was so prepared. She was looking for a new church home. Hopefully she can bring her kids with her because that's what the branch needs!!

Well that's it from me! I hope each one of you have a good week and if you want to email a brother I am totally okay with that!

Love Elder Corbett

1) This is some of my mission friends! Elder Curtis and Elder Williams. We call Elder Williams Elder Incrediboy from the incredibles because he looks like him

2) Elder Lakis and I when we got our smart phones

3) Elder Ritchie and Elder Curtis

An eventful week

Greetings from the deep South:)

This week has been so eventful that this is going to be a long email, haha. To start it off we taught a Methodist group of about 20 guys with the Stake President and his brother. The only bad thing was that I was setting down something and I ripped my suit pants. And it wasn't a small rip, but it was giant haha. The reason why I ripped them was because I bent down the wrong way. Luckily it can be fixed because it ripped on a seam and luckily I have two pairs of pants. A nice lady from our branch is going to fix them for me.

Then we went on an exchange this week with the Clinton Elders. I went with Elder Curtis and the cool thing is that we played football against each other. He was one of the corners from Box Elder that was covering me. I always give him a hard time because he was the one that got the penalty that gave us the last play where we scored. That was a fun exchange. We saw 2 of our investigators and did some finding.

Another funny story was that on Thursday I was back with Elder Lakis. We went tracting and had some interesting experiences. The first door we met this really cool man who was very respectful, then we met this interesting lady to put it nicely. She had this crazy purple gray hair and when we knocked on the door she came and said, "I was just praying to God and he told me that two Mormon missionaries were at my door." I just thought to myself, OH NO, haha. She then went to ramble on about us needing to show her the gold plates and all that stuff. She was being quite rude to us. Then Elder Lakis asked, "Is there?" and she stopped him and freaked out on him for asking if there was anyone who is going through a hard time, because she wouldn't give us their name if there were. Right then I was boiling with heat but I held it in. I realized I can't say something mean back as I am a representative of Jesus Christ. We just told her that we wish she has a good day and left. It's funny how people like her will be rude, but if you are rude back they get mad. They are all one sided. but oh well.

Then we met this crazy guy that invited us in and sat us down. All he had was a couch and some giant speakers facing the couch. He proceeded to tell us that he had just came to Jesus and that he used to be possessed by the devil, but his friend prayed for him and the devil left. He then asked if he could play a song for us and as it was playing super loud, he got up and left. I think I have seen to many horror films, but I looked at Elder Lakis and I was like should we leave? We both thought he was going to come out with a gun or something to kill us. But I was so happy to see that he just had 3 glasses of wine, haha. We luckily had an appointment to go to so we dipped out of there real quick. It's funny how we had all of these crazy experiences but we also had a lot of spiritual ones.

Last week we met a man from South Africa who has such high respect for the Mormon faith. He wanted to know more about us, so we began to teach him. He is super serious about it! I don't think my whole mission, that I have found someone so sincere. We had a spiritual lesson with him and invited him to be baptized. He told us if he knew it was true, that he would. I honestly have so much love for this guy.

Then Thursday after we had those crazy experiences, we went with our Branch President. He took us to a less active member and we are now helping him reactive. His fiancé also wants to be baptized.

Then on Saturday we went out tracting again and we prayed asking God that we might find a new investigator, while we knocked doors for the next hour. Literally the first door was the one haha. We taught him the restoration. He really liked it and accepted a Book of Mormon and is going to be reading it. It's really funny that God see's how hard we are working and he may not bless us in the ways we think, but he always blesses us! I have seen that a ton on my mission. We may go tracting for a while and have no success but then we may get a bible referral that is awesome, or someone we talk to on the streets will be interested! I love it so much!

Another cool thing that is going to be happening is that Gladys Knight is going to be coming to the Jackson Stake and doing a musical fireside! This is going to be happening April 26th, so next transfer. I am so excited for it because this is just what the stake needs. It is going to be such an easy way to get members to help with the work. "Would you like to come to a Gladys Knight Musical fireside at with me?" That is so simple and easy. The Jackson Zone is about to turn up!

We will get smart phones on Wednesday. I will be able to use Facebook. So don't be surprised if you get a friend request from me and think what a bad missionary Elder Corbett is being for getting on Facebook, haha. I love you all!!

Elder Corbett

1 & 2 My ripped pants haha

3 Some church that looked pretty cool

We just went to a banquet to do service and I met a few people that you might know! I met Mo Williams and got a picture with him! Then I also shook the hand of Bailey Howel.