I'm seeing more and more decorations here.  (Oh btw, Alabama won, yet people are like: psh I knew that was going to happen.  People are so prideful here)  One time Elder LaCour and I were tracting this one apartment complex.  I saw through a window that there was a bloody hand reaching through the blinds and I said "woah dude watch out!"  I saw Elder Lacour jump like 5 feet cuz he thought there was going to be a spider or something.  haha he was so mad.

  As far as finding new investigators, this week was not that eventful.  Most people focused on preparing for the game.  Last saturday was crazy.  People everywhere.  You'd feel like a fish swimming upstream.  I could not ride my bike that far without getting off and walking.  We really couldn't do any work.  We could have talked to people and gave them cards, but they most likely would have thrown them away.  So for the most part we were in our home, with the other missionaries in our area: Elder Osiemo (OCMO) and Elder Peters.

  We have been biking and walking alot this past week.  I became really exhausted.  It feels like my heels are no longer on my feet anymore.  The past couple weeks I wake up tired, feeling like sleep has not done that much to regain strength.  So one night I had a deep personal prayer, wishing to have the strength to gain my heels back.  I think this was friday night.  The next day it almost felt like a miracle.  Every muscle in my body felt like they got restored or something.  Personal prayer can be powerful.

  This week we will plan on tracting more. But for the most part try and contact the people we already visited that looks interested.  We do have quite a few.

Have a good week!

I have a lot of "favorite scriptures" but I guess the one I like a lot is 2 Corinthians 7: 10-11. (Godly sorrow vs. worldly sorrow).

blessings,

Elder Jacob Miklich

It sounds really exciting at home.  The great pumpkin is manifesting itself once more this year.  People are getting into the spirit of Halloween.  Over here, not that many houses are decorated.  If anything they are getting excited for the football game to happen this saturday, which is a homegame playing Mississippi state.  Both Alabama and Mississippi state are undefeated, so us missionaries are pretty scared to see what will happen this saturday.  Here they have parades and other things for the occasion.

  As far as Halloween goes, I'm pretty excited.  The Tuscaloosa ward will have a trunk or treat on oct 30th.  I don't think we will be tracting.

  Jeremy's letter reminded me of what happened this week.  So we were looking through the area book to find people to teach.  There are very few, and its kind of hard to contact them.  So we were looking through the "former investigators" to find out why the missionaries decided to drop these people.  Most of the reasons were contacting problems: couldn't get a hold of them, address doesn't exist, not progressing, etc.  But then there was a reason that said: "received a call from him and he said 'leave me alone!'"  And I was like dang, what did missionaries do to scare them away like that haha.  Then there was one that said: "I have received an answer to my prayers, and it is not to get baptized."  ...So we don't have many people from the area book to teach.  But mainly because the previous missionaries don't know how to put down the correct address.  We put in one of the investigator's address in the gps, and it lead us to the middle of nowhere lol.  We thought, she doesn't live in a tent does she?

  So, for most of our time we have been tracting.  Believe it or not, we have been really successful.  Last week we almost taught 40 lessons.  Most of them may not be that effective but at least we planted a lot of seeds, and help them develop their faith somewhat.  Probably only 3 of that 40 are new investigators.  I've been told that a lesson is just teaching at least one doctrine and sending an invitation.

  This place is strange.  Half of it is high-class student housing, but right next to them are the projects.  Just across the street from us is this beat up brickhouse apartments.  We tracted them one night and found out it is filled with "sorcerers, murderers, whoremongers, etc" lol  We actually found one that straight told us he is involved in a gang and that he worships Satan.  We asked him why and he said "just cuz" lol he was so high.  Among all these people, most of them said we're not interested, occasionally we would run into a baptist and talking to them would get nowhere.  But we did knock into a door.  A boy answered.  I asked is your mom or dad home?  He said yea hold on.  He was watching adventure time btw.  A lady named Lora came up and invited us in.  Our conversation with her was very interesting, we knew this experience was going to be different cuz she let us in.  We found out her Grandfather, uncle, and nephew recently passed away before we taught her anything.  We taught her the plan of salvation which explains to us where we came from, why we are here, and where we are going.  We could tell this message brought so much comfort to her life.  We gave her a book of mormon.  She seems like someone who would want to know more.

  So if I could give any advice for someone who would want to go on a mission. (sam lol)  I would say do it. Don't expect it to be this exciting experience where everybody is happy and what not.  It's only like that in the mtc lol.  Serving a mission is hard. It is very humbling.  I realized really quickly how much I do not know.  Especially when teaching.  One time it got to the point where I cried because I thought I was so inadequate in teaching.  Now I don't even know why I cried.  That's a silly reason to cry.  God knows we are not perfect.  He is just happy to see how far we came.  It took another missionary to tell me that.  So if you want to go on a mission, do it.  You will grow so much even if you think you didn't help anybody else grow.  I also hear that it blesses our families.  Elder Osiemo, he is from Kenya, said ever since he has been on a mission 4 people from his family got baptized, which was a surprise to him because last time he saw them they were crazy haha.  Elder Osiemo reminds me of jt sometimes.

  Its great to see this family grow together so much, especially this time of the year.  Happiness is all that matters.

Congratulations Melissa

Elder Jacob Miklich

(I got more time to email this time yes!)

Hello Family,

 I just read melissa's letter that she sent a couple minutes ago. She's engaged? Whaat? Thats exciting! congratulations. I will be waiting for the date. I hear from dad that Jerr and I are getting ties for the occasion? That would be awesome.

Alabama is such an interesting place.  My first area is Tuscaloosa, AL.  My companion, Elder Lacour, told me "I hope you like football."  At first I didn't know what he meant until our ride down there I saw all over the place "A" flags, representing the Alabama Crimson Tide.  It's a college neighborhood.  There is red everywhere.  Football is so big over here its pretty much part of their godhead:  Jesus Christ, Paul Bryant (first coach), and Saban (Current coach).  Its crazy here.  It's kind of funny though because we as missionaries would be praying that Alabama would win a home game, otherwise the people here would be in a really bad mood.  There would be no body to contact or tract.

  This week was kind of interesting, we got a referral about somebody who wanted to learn more.  We went to his apartment and he wasn't there.  So we start to tract the apartment.  We knocked on this door where this guy answered.  He is going to school for law, and we found he was a very liberal thinker, like my companion.  As we talked with him, he always had a smile on him and very receptive to what we said.  We told him we may drop by again to talk to him more.

  We came back like 2 days later to see this referral we had.  He answered the door and taught him a little bit.  We found out that he was just interested in the facts of our scripture, so we gave him a book of mormon and introduced it to him.  He said he feels very prepared to read it now haha.  We gave him our number if he had any questions.  I don't think he is really going to be investigating the church.  I guess we'll see.  We dropped by the law student's room again.  We became really good friends with him.  He was comfortable to share his questions, and we answered them.  He is presbytarian and was interested in how the leadership in the church was organized.  He was able to really understand what we say.  We taught him the first lesson, the restoration.  We asked if he had questions, and he said, no that makes sense.  This guy is what we missionaries call, golden.  We gave him a book of mormon, he said he'll read it.  We talked about baptism, he said once he learns more he'll get baptized.  So we set an appointment with him to teach him more.

  People here are really nice, even when they are part of another religion.  There was only one person I saw that didn't have a background in a belief in God or Jesus Christ, he's chinese.  We actually taught him a lesson and the spirit was so strong there that I actually had to take a break after to recap what just happened.

Dang it I got to go.

Well I'm doing great everybody.

Take care.

Jacob Miklich

how is everybody doing? It feels real nice to be out of the mtc right now. The first day was a little hectic cuz I was too stressed out to talk to people. But then once I got to the mission home, it started to get real relaxing. President and sister Holzapfel are awesome! The first thing Pres. Holzapfel told me was if I was able to talk to my parents. I told him I talked to my dad but not my mom. Next thing I knew he pulled out his phone and asked for her number. He was really thoughtful for that.

People here are real nice, from what I've seen so far. I've notice that some people will tell you straight up what is on their mind. But I tend to like it.

I must say, the food here is amazing pretty much every where I go.

Right now I am in Tuscaloosa, AL which will be a college area. The person training me is Elder Lacour, he told me I hope you like football cuz where we are going is where people worship it. Its weird to be somewhere where there was nothing but white people, and now it is just 50/50 white/black. I feel like I'm at home now haha.

My bike starting getting problems but i think its fixed now.

Well I got to go now, hope you all are doing well.

take care,

Jacob

ps.

My mailing address is 900 Hargrove Rd. Apt 121 Tuscaloosa, AL 35401

10/2/12

  It is great to see things moving along back home. It is weird to say that I have been gone for 2 weeks now, it feels like yesterday that I left. Only one week left and I am gone once again! Time does feel irrelevant when being a missionary.
  My teacher is still crazy and still a jerk but I love him.
A lot has happened since I have been here. and i dont have time to say it all, so ill just send pictures and try and explain. I got a companion who is alot like me. a member from my district had to go home, so one elder had to join my companionship, so now I am in a trio!! its weird.
Unfortunately I have to go, but take care all!
love you all
Jacob