Elder Jaxson Scown

Hey y'all!! This week has been an absolute rollercoaster of emotions! Definitely the hardest week being a missionary thus far! But I am so grateful for my reliance on the Lord to help me get through this week and the weeks to come! Despite it being a really hard week I was able to learn a lot of lessons and ways to better cope with stress. That I am extremely grateful for. I've needed to heavily rely on prayer this week and it has brought me so much closer to Christ and my Heavenly Father.  Anyways, we didn't have many lessons this week which is probably why it was so longggg ahah! We spent most hours of the day just finding people over the phone making hundreds of calls a day. We had a pretty successful week and were able to get 8 return appointments!! 6 of those 9 are now in our teaching pool as new friends and that is absolutely INSANE! The weeks prior we were lucky to get two. Miracles are happening all over in the Syracuse mission and we even got attention from Preside...

WOWZA! This week has been filled with so many miracles! We are truly seeing God's elect coming forth and it has been a blessing to see them progress. We have set up 4 return appointments this week just from calling random numbers and I want to talk about a couple of them! What a Spirit-filled week!  On Tuesday, we were able to have zone conference! Guess where?!? The Sacred Grove!! It was such an amazing experience! We drove two and a half hours to get there and we were welcomed by our AMAZING mission president and his wife, President and Sister Vest! There were about 50 missionaries with us and I was able to meet some of them which was so nice! President Vest has keys to the church history sites so we were able to go through Joseph Smith's home before we went into the grove! We had about 45 minutes to be alone in the grove just to ponder, pray, read in our scriptures and write in our journal. It was such an awesome experience and I felt the Spirit so strongly and it was so pea...

Hi guys! I cannot believe that it is already week 8! I feel like the time is starting to pick up a lot faster so that is good! I finally get out of quarantine later today and I am so beyond stoked! This week has been pretty slow with finding people, not going to lie we found I think 2 new people to teach this week after hundreds and hundreds of calls. I'm pretty sure one of them just wants to Bible bash us so we will see how that goes, we teach him tomorrow. But he seems like a nice guy!  My companions are so awesome they make the mission so fun! Thank heavens they love Christopher Nolan just as much as I do we love quoting the Dark Knight and Inception. We also listen to the Interstellar soundtrack just about every night which is so awesome. We have been teaching this guy named Jeremy and he is so awesome and we have seen a lot of progress with him the past two weeks. We have been going through the commandments with him slowly because we don't know what ones he struggles with ...

  HELLO MY AMAZING FRIENDS AND FAMILY!!  Wow! I have so much to tell you! I apologize for not writing a weekly email last Monday I was really busy getting settled into my my new place and I just didn't have any time. But I'm back! How has everyone's week been? There is so much I have to say so I am just going to start from the beginning.   A little over a week ago, I said goodbye to the most amazing district ever and my at home MTC teachers, Hermano Gallegos and Hermana Mejia. I am going to miss them so much. All of them exemplified Christlike love and compassion. We had so much fun together and they have truly impacted my life! To everyone in my district: I hope you have a great time wherever you are serving and I love you all so much! The at home MTC experience has been suprisingly life changing and my Spanish has improved so much because of it.  The Last Pic with my amazing CCM District I also said goodbye to my MTC companion, Elder Johnston,  on Saturday nig...

Que en el mundo?!? Where has the time gone?? This email will be the last email I write in the at home MTC and that is absolutely crazy! I got my flight plans and I leave this Monday, September 28th at 6:00am!! I am so beyond stoked to get out there and serve my fellow brothers and sisters. This week has been the same as all the others filled with TRC's, fake investigator lessons, and a ton of espanol.  I  went through the temple on Saturday! I was so blessed to have some of my favorite people (family, leaders and friends) come join me in this huge milestone in my life! The garments are comfy to say the least, I had to retire all of my short shorts, sad to see them go. But I am so beyond grateful to have a temple so close by and the opportunity we have to go there to come closer to God. It is truly a blessing we often take for granted.  Gilbert Temple  9/19/2020 I had an interview with my mission president over zoom today! His name is President Vest and he's...

Hola a todos!!! It is absolutely insane that I am already ONE MONTH into the mission! Where did the time go?? I am absolutely loving every second of it and I am so eager to go out and finally teach some real people!! Sorry I didn't write an email last week nothing crazy really happened so I just sent the link to my farewell! Thank you to everyone who listened to my farewell and sent me really nice texts. It truly meant so much to me!! These past two weeks consisted of the same 7 hours worth of classes and teaching TRCs and fake "investigators". I guess you can say my district and I have started to get a little restless and we have all just about reached that point in the MTC where we just want to get out and go teach. I'm definitely going to need to stay very disciplined these next couple of weeks haha! I feel like I have learned enough Spanish to get around but maybe that's just my arrogance talking. My farewell talk went amazing! It was one of the first times I ...

Hellooooooooo everyone! Week 2 of the at home MTC is down the hatch! I can't believe how fast it has blown by! I feel like at this point I have fully adjusted to my new life and accepted that this is what it's gonna be like for 99 more weeks. But hey, don't get me wrong I am absolutely loving it! I have learned so much and my Spanish has been improving exponentially. The fact that I am now able to sit down and actually read a book has been shocking to me and my family ahaha. I don't think I have ever studied more in my entire life and I am starting to build some amazing study habits which will definitely be a saving grace in college. My high school study habits were a hot mess! I set very high goals for myself from the beginning of this MTC experience and I have worked my way up to memorizing 80-100 new words everyday! At least for the past three days or so. I have learned so much from the scriptures this past week and my testimony for them grows stronger each and every...