Gladys Knight

What's up everyone?

I hope all is going well for you. This week has been crazy busy. I don't think I have ever been so busy in my entire life haha.

So to start off we had zone conference on Monday where we taught for about 2 hours. Then we had p-day on Tuesday with an exchange that night that went until Wednesday. Wednesday we did 3 hours of service at the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame, and then worked for the rest of the day. Thursday we had the Gladys knight fireside.

This was such an amazing day. It started at 12:30 in the afternoon and the day ended for us around 1 am. To describe the day - I was over all of the missionaries that were helping with the event. So I was the supervisor pretty much haha. We learned what we needed to do and went to work. We started greeting everyone around 4:00 and handing out brochures to the event. In the brochure there is a card you can fill out where you put down your name, number, and address, and then you will receive a gift from Gladys. This gift consists of a sampler CD of 3 songs they sing, a Book of Mormon, and the restoration video. 247 people filled them out and turned them in!! This is amazing. That's 247 people who are expecting us to come over and teach them about the restoration!!

We have had such great success this week from it. Our area received about 50 of those referrals and we found 15 new investigators from it. We still have a lot more to contact. This has been an amazing thing to get the branch and other units to gain a missionary mindset!! I am excited to see all of the success that will come from it.

Also during the event there is a part at the very end where they sing a song called smile and the missionaries come in from the side and dance and sing along. We all know that I am not a dancer, but I danced in front of about 1500 people hahaha. One of the people who is part of the SUV, was talking with us after, and he was like who was the big tall kid that danced with no rhythm. He was talking about another elder, and not me luckily haha.

But I had a lot of fun getting to talk with so many people. This event wasn't anything I excepted. I sort of wish we had the fun up-beat gospel music to sing at church every week. It would definitely make the 3 hours go by a lot faster.

Then Elder Scoresby went on exchanges with me on Sunday because an unit that doesn't have missionaries received a lot of referrals. We met up with the missionaries that cover the unit, but they live 2 hours away from it, and their main priority is another unit. I had so much fun we had a 2 hour drive up to this area. Luckily Elder Scoresby and I are good friends so we talked the whole time. We also taught 2 amazing people. One was the branch presidents sister and the other was a lady who recited the restoration video to us haha. They both are excited to read the Book of Mormon. That's the amazing thing about the event, she didn't really testify about Joseph Smith or the restoration, but a lot of people want to read the Book of Mormon which is amazing. That's about it from me!

Love Elder Corbett

Zone Conference

What’s up everyone?

This week was pretty good, we had a lot of work to do. We had to plan out and teach zone conference. It went really well. We taught three ways that we can help our investigators that have baptismal dates progress, and also about being safe with our new phones. I had a lot of fun teaching it.

This week was just a normal missionary week, so not a whole lot to say. We continue to teach a lot of people. Elder Lakis and I cover the entire city of Jackson! Its nuts because that is about 200,000 people for just 2 of us. We have really been relying on the spirit to guide us to those who are prepared, because its like finding a needle in a hay stack haha.

To give an update on John, he has been going through a lot. He doesn't have a whole lot of family support. We gave him a blessing because he had a bunch of problems. Yesterday he went to the doctor and they are all gone!

Sorry there is not a whole lot else to talk about. This next week there will be a ton because we have the Gladys Knight event and we are going to be crazy busy. (Plus as I am ending my mission, there is a lot more to do on p-day than email haha) sorry!!

I love y'all!

Elder Corbett

The bathtub pic is so you can see the water as it is filling it up - haha. That’s why we drink bottle water in Jackson.

A week of miracles.

What's up everyone!!!

This week has been a week of miracles. It seems like God keeps blessing us more and more each day! This week we found 7 new people to teach, and a lot of potentials. It's crazy a few weeks ago I was so discouraged, because nothing was working for us, and we have been working so hard. Now we barely have anytime during the week because we are teaching people like crazy.

Tuesday we went on exchanges and I went with Elder Isaacson and he is the model missionary! He is such a good guy. I don't think he does anything wrong. I had a ton of fun with him. We got on our bikes and rode about 10 miles total. My last exchange with him we knocked doors for 2 hours and had 0 success, but this time it was the 3rd door and we found a family of 2 to teach! So I am very grateful for that!

We then taught John. We finally taught him the restoration. It went well he didn't grasp it all the way, but we have taught him a few times this week and he totally understands why we need a restoration. It was funny. He was asking about the trinity vs the Godhead and we gave one example of Jesus praying to God and he was on board haha. We got teaching the next lesson and he was bashing on everyone who believes in the trinity. I was laughing!

We also have been passing out a ton of Gladys Knight cards and sadly people are like yeah I want to come, but no one calls for tickets. Hopefully the members come through! That's how it is supposed to work.

This week we did a challenge with the zone to invite every investigator to church each day because we have been lacking in it. It went well and the zone had a lot more people at church. We had 14 people give us a, I'll be there no matter what, and 4 that we talked to Sunday morning and they told us they were on their way, But guess what? They didn't show up. But the people we didn't invite but have taught before, showed up! How crazy is that.

This describes the culture of Jackson. When it doesn't require them to do anything they are fine with it, but the second it requires commitment they don't come through. I think it's because the government has given them so much for free that they don't want to work, because they still get a check. It's like they are fine living in poverty. The Book of Mormon prophets would describe them as a people full of idleness. Haha, I just read that in my studies this week and thought of this. I wish some of these people would understand self reliance. It's amazing to see how the Book of Mormon is written for our day and how we can apply it in our lives! I love reading and studying it.

I hope everyone has had a good week!!

Love Elder Corbett

Four years!!

Good Morning Everyone! I just want to start off by giving my brother, Landon, a shout out for getting his call to Peru! He is going to kill it down there, if he can learn to like the food haha! The sad thing is, that he is going to be leaving July 18th and I get home July 27th. So we literally are going to be missing each other for 4 years. Luckily, I got to go to high school and play football with him, but it's a hard thing to grasp right now. The cool thing is, that this is a sacrifice, and when we sacrifice then the blessings of heaven pour out upon us.

This week has been interesting. On Monday when we were playing basketball, Elder Lakis sprained his ankle pretty bad. So this week has been a slower one. But we have witnessed miracles because Elder Lakis has been a trooper and gone out and still worked.

We currently have dropped a lot of our investigators because they have been flakey on us. Like they want us to come teach them because they feel good around us, but when we leave it's like they forget everything and never make changes. We decided to put some of them on the back burner and focus on the ones that keep their commitments and come to church.

Right now we are teaching an ex-navy seal named John. He is such a good guy and has a heart full of gratitude. He loves a ton and it has been really cool to teach him. When we first contacted him he told us that he only believes in the Bible, and that Mormons don't believe in the bible and I got angry. I whipped out a Bible and was like oh yeah, what is this then haha. We gave him our card and then that's when he asked us to come move that couch. We have seen him a lot lately and yesterday we were able to introduce the Book of Mormon to him. He was hesitant at first but we told him to try it and to ask God. It has been cool to see the miracles he has witnessed in his life.

This week we had MLC and that was a lot of fun! I got to see some of my mission friends and talk with them. Also it was a really good learning experience, and it was also very spiritual. Our mission has been struggling with baptizing people, so we had a great discussion on how we can encourage them.

Also something that we have been doing with our zone this transfer is that we have been issuing them zone challenges to help them extend their faith. It was really neat to see these miracles that the missionaries would report to us. There was one set of missionaries that were at the library. There was a group that was having an event and one of the missionaries asked the head guy if he could say the opening prayer and bear his testimony after. This was the challenge to see who could bear the most testimonies each day to non members. The idea behind this was to get our missionaries to open their mouths and extend their faith. It's pretty neat what happens when you actually fulfill your calling to preach the gospel. Miracles happen! Something that I say is there is no growth in comfort zone. And when we get out of our comfort zone we grow. I know that's how we can grow our faith and testimonies is to get out of the comfort zone and open our mouths to our friends and families. Sharing the gospel is what brings happiness.

I love y'all and hope that you have a good week! I wouldn't mind hearing from some of you haha!!

Love Elder Corbett