Hey Everyone,
I know it's been a while since I've written an email, which is my bad. So, to those who haven't gotten the news, I was transferred last month from Orem to Eagle Mountain, with a new companion, Elder Ma'ake! He's great, he is from Arizona, and has been out a few months. His dad and half of his family are Tongan. He's a good missionary, and a hard worker. However, he might need some prayers because he doesn't like chocolate and baked desserts (cookies, pies, brownies, cake), and here in Utah you can't go five feet without being offered a bottle of water and a cookie.
We cover a stake in west Eagle Mountain. The area here is great, with tons of potential. However, the amount of food I have access to has massively decreased sadly :(. There’s just not much out here. We have been teaching about fifteen families, almost all unbaptized children from inactive or part member families, but also a few adults. One of the youth just got baptized since I got here. His name is Kayl and he's pretty cool.
Some good news. We also just started teaching a few new people and setup appointments to teach even more! One of the people we are teaching are so close to baptism, she's just afraid her family back in Indonesia might shun her for joining.
We have been seeing miracles lately of being in the right place at the right time. We were able to provide support to a granddaughter who just had to put her daughter in a mental clinic. We were also able to share messages which people expressed was exactly what they needed. Half the time I don't even think it was the message, I think it was the presence of the spirit which our message brought.
Sad news, another person in our district went home to serve a service mission for a number of reasons, mental and physical. He will probably be much happier in that capacity, but we will miss him here in Utah. He is a great guy with a great testimony.
I also went on an exchange this week with one of our Zone Leaders which went amazing. We taught two families. The first one was a couple who was very kind and fed us a meal. But they are looking very much for physical evidence of the Book of Mormon’s truthfulness, and unfortunately don't trust the spirit. The second family, on the other hand, were amazing!! They are from Romania and have wanted to learn more about our church, since being here in Utah. We taught them the plan of salvation and afterward the dad expressed how it makes so much sense and how he feels like his entire life he's been searching for truth and other religions have part of it, but what we are saying seems to have all of it. Near the end I asked them if they believed what we are saying is true and they said yes!! They are going to be fire.
Yesterday I gave a talk in church about time management. I tried to focus the talk on habits, priorities, spending time with Christ, and serving within our callings. Ironically, I was overprepared, so my talk had 30 minutes of content and I only had ten minutes to speak. So I had to use time management within a talk about using time wisely. I guess that’s how the Lord teaches us.
Since I finished up my two-month study on the words of Isaiah, I have been focusing on finishing the Book of Mormon one last time before the end of my mission. There are so many amazing scriptures that I seem to find every time I read. I have also been studying the topic of Light since it seems to resonate with me so much. The more that I study light, the more I realize how deep of a topic it is.
I have also been studying about Godly hope - which hope is an abiding trust in the Lord. This type of hope means having a relationship with God & Christ. It means trusting them enough to take action, even when it's hard. It means moving through the dark tunnels in our life to the light, even when it's far away. It was great to study because I ended up giving a training on it in District Council.
We also just had a mission devotional recently based on the verses in Moses 6 and discussed the following words: water, blood, spirit, baptism, sacrament, sanctification, justification, and priesthood. Every time I go back to the appendages of the atonement there is so much more to learn.
I hope everyone had an amazing week.
Elder Cluff
Note from Heidi/Mom: Jacob returns home on Thursday, March 9th. His homecoming talk will be Sunday, March 12th, at 10:30am in Sherwood. You are invited to come! He will be heading to BYU-Idaho April 13th.
