LDS Podcast "Latter-Day Lights" - Inspirational LDS Stories
Popular LDS Podcast "Latter-Day Lights" gives members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints the opportunity to share their stories of inspiration and hope to other members throughout the world. Stories that members share on Latter-Day Lights are very entertaining, and cover a wide range of topics, from tragedy, loss, and overcoming difficult challenges, to miracles, humor, and uplifting conversion experiences! If you have an inspirational story that you'd like to share, hosts Scott Brandley and Alisha Coakley would love to hear from you! Visit LatterDayLights.com to share your story and be on the show.
LDS Podcast "Latter-Day Lights" - Inspirational LDS Stories
Stories of Danger, Miracles, and Faith from the Bering Sea: Jake and PJ Jacobsen - Latter-Day Lights
We often talk about navigating life's storms with faith and resilience, but what if that's your actual job?
Jake Jacobsen, a seasoned Bering Sea crab Captain, recounts harrowing tales of survival, miraculous interventions, and spiritual insights that have carried him through incredibly dangerous waters and unimaginable hardships.
His wife PJ, with grace and strength, describes how she found peace amid the storms, trusting Heavenly Father to watch over her husband and family. Together, they reveal how their deep love for each other and their steadfast belief in God's plan have been their anchor through life's tempests.
This is more than just a story of surviving the sea—it’s a powerful testament to God's presence in our lives, even in the midst of overwhelming darkness.
The Jacobsen's' story is a beacon of hope, reminding us that, no matter how fierce the storms we face, we never need to question God's love.
*** Please SHARE Jake and PJ's story and help us spread hope and light to others. ***
To WATCH this episode on YouTube, visit: https://youtu.be/k5MMS8tEB_A
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To READ Jake's book "Chronicles of a Bering Sea Captain", visit (direct link): https://www.amazon.com/Chronicles-Bering-Captain-Jake-Jacobsen/dp/1523639547
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Also, if you have a faith-promoting or inspiring story, or know someone who does, please let us know by going to https://www.latterdaylights.com and reaching out to us.
Hey everyone, I'm Scott Brandley.
Alisha Coakley:And I'm Alisha Coakley. Every member of the church has a story to share, one that can instill faith, invite growth and inspire others.
Scott Brandley:On today's episode we're going to hear how one couple's experience battling raging seas and navigating the storms of life has taught them that they never need to question God's love. Welcome to Latter-day Lights. Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of Latter-day Lights. We're so glad you're here with us today. We have a special treat we have Jake and PJ Jacobson with us today. Welcome to the show, guys. Thank you very much.
Alisha Coakley:I'm so excited. So you guys, Jake, reached out. First of all, I have to say, a name like Jacob Jacobson is just like it needs to be immortalized. It is like one of those names that authors love using, and so I just I think that's amazing. And then, um, when you reached out and you shared a little bit about your story, I was like wow.
Alisha Coakley:Anyway, I'm excited I'm not going to spoil it for our listeners, but it's really, really awesome and so I'm excited to have you on and to hear your wife's perspective and you know, like, how your whole story has come to be. But before we get into that, we were talking a little bit about the show beforehand and you said some really cool stuff about our show, so I just I want you to toot our horns for a second. So how long have you been listening to Latter-day Lights?
Jake Jacobsen:Probably for a month or so, but I think I've listened to most of the episodes.
Alisha Coakley:Binge, binge listening. Huh, that's awesome. And you said something really cool, um, just before we started recording. You know about the show and the people on it and stuff. Will you mind resharing that?
Jake Jacobsen:Oh well, I I appreciate how you let people tell their stories without judgment or criticism and, as you say, everybody has a story, and I enjoy hearing experiences from ordinary church members like myself. If we hear a sacred story from the pulpit, it's typically in a conference talk or something that happened in the early history of the church, and I wonder if some of us are reluctant to share the sacred stories because there are sometimes assumptions made about doing so. So we're happy to be here and to share with anybody who's willing to listen.
Alisha Coakley:Well, I love that. And you said we have a prerequisite right. What do we have to have in order to be someone who could have great experiences? What's that?
Jake Jacobsen:requirement that these kinds of experiences might only happen to church leaders and people in important positions, and for decades, while I was at sea, I only went to church a couple dozen times in a year, if I was lucky. Yet my life has been full of miracles, and so the only prerequisite that I see in receiving miraculous blessings from God is that you exist.
Alisha Coakley:That's it.
Scott Brandley:Check, I love it, I love it, I love it. So why don't you guys tell us a little bit about yourselves?
Jake Jacobsen:Go ahead PJ.
PJ Jacobsen:I was began in Kabul, Afghanistan, where my parents were underground missionaries because you couldn't be open there. But I grew up mostly in the United States and went from University of Houston to Oral Roberts University, to Brigham Young University and crazy things. But I loved all of my education and it taught me everything I needed to know to raise six kids. And I've done a few different things from I'm a midwife and I've been midwife to 12 of my 15 grandbabies. I love the work. I also have a quilting store and a quilting retreat. We bought this old church and refurbished it all and after the kids left we made it into a retreat and we have a blast hosting retreats all year and that's what I do to stay busy wow, is that all I?
Scott Brandley:know, race, go to college three different places.
Alisha Coakley:Wow, is that all what I know? Race, go to college three different places. Buy a church.
PJ Jacobsen:I have my baby store I've had for 38 years and my quilting store for only 12 years. So I stay busy.
Alisha Coakley:Wow.
Jake Jacobsen:That is so cool. Yeah, we live in a little tiny town in the middle of nowhere called Lind, washington, and I actually work a lot on the coast. After fishing, I started a marine services company so I do inspections on ships and insurance work and expert witness work, and so I have my own little company one man company doing that, and I'm executive director of the largest cooperative of crab fishermen working in the Bering Sea and I'm executive director of an arbitration organization. And my retirement plan is I have a little rock shop here in Linden and I sell rocks, or I will when, when I retire one of these days wow, fascinating life.
PJ Jacobsen:I know, yeah, I've never been boring with Jake around ever it sounds like you.
Scott Brandley:Give him run for his money, though.
Alisha Coakley:Oh yeah, for sure, for sure. He's probably just trying to keep up with you, pj, that's it. Well, and we have some pretty cool information. You. You have had a little bit of time on a certain TV show.
Jake Jacobsen:Oh well, yeah, so I'll probably talk about that a little bit later. But when the um I I wasn't, I was only on the on the pilot show for a few seconds for the deadliest catch TV series and uh, but uh, I helped. I became friends with the producer of the show the first producer. There's a different one now and we're still friends now and we communicate a lot. And she said one time we were having dinner and she said it's apparent to me that fishermen are people who can't really operate in normal society. We're the outcasts, we're just odd people that can't function in normal society. So we go out to sea. And there's a lot of truth in that.
Alisha Coakley:I wonder if that's why Jesus picked fishermen as his disciples.
Jake Jacobsen:Probably something else. For people who thought a little differently.
Alisha Coakley:That's really cool.
Scott Brandley:Interesting insight.
Alisha Coakley:I love it. All right. Well, we're going to turn the time over to you guys. Why don't you go ahead and tell us where does your story begin?
Jake Jacobsen:Well, yeah, and before I do I want to talk about a couple of other assumptions people make when hearing sacred stories, and this is teller of the story, is fabricating or embellishing in order to impress others, and this probably happens sometimes. Sometimes years ago, I published a small book of some of my sacred, some of my sacred experiences, and I posted the book online and friends suggested, in a kind way, that I was being a little bit vain and proud, and I did recognize some validity there to their concerns and I removed it from the internet. But this was my first book, so it's not available anywhere except directly for me and I just give them away. So I'm working on an expanded version of that with all my more sacred experiences. But later I published a secular book and that has a lot of the same stories, but without the most important spiritual components, and that's this one that I just want people to know.
Jake Jacobsen:I'm not here to sell books. If you buy one, that's fine, it's up to you. They're they're fun stories and probably things you won't believe, but I I had a friend who was a mechanical engineer and he lost his job and so he had a lot of kids and he needed work, so I took him fishing with me and after a few days he said well, if I hadn't seen it for myself, I would never have believed that anyone in the world worked this hard. So I lose people when I start to talk about doing hard physical work and very dangerous conditions for two or three days without sleep. It just wasn't me. We were all that crazy. We all did it and I tell my stories because I want everyone to know that mortality is a manifestation of God's love and in all our hurt, horror, pain and problems, these all have purpose in our personal progress. So I haven't fabricated or embellished anything. I don't need to. My motivation is gratitude towards God and his tender mercies, and if I don't share them, they only benefit me. If all of them, if all of us share them, then an expansive and an expanding foundation of faith, hope and confidence is created for others to build upon.
Jake Jacobsen:We're currently reading in the book of Alma, and in chapter 26 and verses 11 and 12, ammon says I do not boast in my own strength, nor in my wisdom, but behold, my joy is full, yea, my heart is brim with joy and I will rejoice in my God, for I know that I am nothing. As to my strength, I am weak. Therefore, I will not boast of myself, but I will boast of my God, for in his strength, I can do all things. And behold, many mighty miracles have been wrought in this land, for which we praise his name forever, and that's the way I feel. My stories might sound fantastic, but they are true and they are real, and I tell them because people need to know that God is there for them.
Alisha Coakley:I love that. Wow, what an awesome, awesome start. I'm already starting to get goosebumps. I'm like, ooh like start. Like I'm already starting to get goosebumps. I'm like, let's go.
Jake Jacobsen:Another assumption people make is that telling sacred stories like I'm about to share is casting pearls before swine, and some people take this to mean that sacred stories of shared at all should remain within a sacred space. But I have a hard time considering anyone listening to stories of Jesus as swine, and even people who mock have memories and something I say may touch them for good, if not now, perhaps at a time when they're receptive to it. So this podcast is to me, a sacred space. Even if mockers and critics listen, I hope they do. This is real life, organic and raw, and this testifies of Christ.
Scott Brandley:Amen.
Alisha Coakley:Yeah, I was going to say I've viewed that scripture differently lately when I think more about it, and I think about swine, I think about pigs and the fact that they just eat anything, anything and everything. They're just consumers of everything. You know that you put in front of them, right, they don't, they don't care what it is and it's just not important to them. Yet when you have someone say, for instance, like you know, a restaurant critic, right, someone who has cultured taste, who knows what it's like to have, like a delicious steak that's balanced perfectly with vegetables and butter and mashed potato, like they appreciate it more, they slow down more, they enjoy the whole experience. And so to me it's never been like a oh, like you know, there those people are dirty or those people aren't good enough to hear it. It's just that they won't appreciate it, right. So I I love that you brought that up, cause I think that our listeners are definitely. They appreciate things. You know stories like this, so yeah, yeah, good, thank you.
Scott Brandley:Yeah, this. I feel like this is a safe environment for you to share sacred things, you know.
Jake Jacobsen:Yeah Well, I'll share my most sacred and precious possession, and that's my witness of Jesus Christ. I know that he lives. He's not an imaginary friend. He is real and accessible and he loves all of us, everyone. I'm so grateful for his atonement, for his life and his loving guidance in my life, so grateful for his bringing back the plain and precious truths of the gospel through prophets and apostles living in our time. I have a profound respect and gratitude for the millions of people who worship and serve God from many different faith foundations, who do so with amazing light and unbridled love. And despite doctrinal differences. Our hearts and desires are the same. But the Church of Jesus Christ is the repository of revelation and authority on the earth today, and I invite everyone to find out why this church is such a powerful force in preparing people for Christ. I know I have angelic friends who have been with me throughout my life. I've seen mine. My father saw his.
Jake Jacobsen:That said, spiritual experiences don't come to everybody. They don't mean that the recipient is more or less righteous or worthy or better or really anything else. A member of a state presidency once confided with me that he'd never had what he felt was a spiritual experience. He was a faithful church member and a leader because he recognized the great influence for good that it was in his life. Jesus told his disciple Thomas because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed. Blessed are they which have not seen and yet have believed After. I related one particularly sacred experience to a beloved friend. He wondered why he hadn't experienced the same kinds of things, even though he'd faced many difficult situations in his life, and I suggested that his faith was strong enough that he didn't really need it. And that may be a factor, but also, I think, it has to do with our individual plans and purpose for earth life.
Alisha Coakley:Right.
Jake Jacobsen:Many of my most profound and sacred experiences were preparing me for future trials. Some of those I'll relate today. I didn't have these experiences because I'm better than others, but because my life journey is different from others. If you, the listener, have not had spiritual experiences, it's okay. It says nothing about your worth to God. You're precious to him and he loves you. Your plan is different from mine, no less important, no less valid, no less a vehicle for learning. I'm not strong in the same way these faithful people are strong. On the other hand, please don't discount the experiences of others because you haven't had anything similar. Latter-day Lights inspires me because these are stories about people like me, imperfect people, people who try hard to live and to love through crazy challenges. Church members need to know that miracles are not confined to church hierarchy or history. They happen here and now, to us, to you. You may not even know all the things that God is doing for you in your life. Also, so many of my experiences are related to working in an environment of extremity and adversity. But before I get into some of those, I first want to share my first encounter with what I call a celestial communication and provide some background, if that's okay.
Jake Jacobsen:I grew up in the Seattle 8th Ward. When I was 11 or 12, a new institute director spoke in our ward. For those who might be unfamiliar with the church, most larger college campuses have an institute of religion to provide life guidance and instruction for college students and other young people, and I don't remember what this brother said in the talk. But after the meeting ended he walked down the aisle Sorry, I'm pretty emotional, you're good Next to where my family was seated and he was greeting people and shaking hands and as he passed by where I was seated, a very calm and loving voice clearly not my own said this is one of my chosen apostles. But why would God tell something like that to a young boy? I had no idea at the time.
Jake Jacobsen:My oldest sister was a student at the University of Washington and attended this Brothers Institute classes. I need to back up a year. My oldest sister, janice, was allergic to many foods shellfish, dairy nuts, environmental things. She'd get very sick. During one episode in 1967, jan was hospitalized. Late at night the hospital called and they asked my mom to come to the hospital hospital immediately, as Jan was only expected to live for a few hours more. My father was at sea. So my mom called the bishop, who went with another brother to the hospital and gave her a priesthood blessing. She was released from the hospital the next morning. She was fine and hospital-free for the next year.
Jake Jacobsen:She was a very intelligent young lady. She was a senior majoring in anthropology and zoology. She was asked by this director to present a lesson to the institute class on faith, which the director later said was one of the best lessons he had ever heard. Well, after a week after the lesson, jan went into the University of Hospital for some routine allergy tests and one of the allergens they put on her arm sent her into anaphylactic shock. Her lungs filled with fluid and the pain was so intense that she bit her lower lip off. At her funeral, this future apostle offered kind words of love and comfort in celestial context that really helped my family through a very difficult time. I don't know if apostles are allowed to listen to podcasts. Father Holland, I love you. Elder Holland, I love you. Ever since that day I've had a profound love for Elder Holland and I appreciate his Christlike life.
Jake Jacobsen:My father was a commercial fisherman and he owned a small fleet of boats fishing for bottom fish like cod and rockfish in Seoul, off the west coast of Washington and Oregon and British Columbia. Since the age of seven. My older brother and I would go with him during our breaks from school. When I was 15, I worked on a 300-foot factory trawler, one of two sister ships that were the largest factory trawlers in the United States at the time. I won't tell you what I did there because people have a hard time believing it. The next summer I worked on my father's trawler, but that sank when I was 17.
Jake Jacobsen:I got my first job on a Bering Sea crab boat. That was in 1971. I kind of liked crab fishing. It was really hard, extremely dangerous, but I got pretty good at it. My deck boss was this wiry, tough Norwegian who taught me to work fast by knocking me down if I was too slow. I got knocked down a lot, so I got very fast, but he was not unkind. He was teaching me to survive the best way he knew how, so he administered a little discomfort to help me avoid a lot of pain. I'm sure there's a lesson in there somewhere.
Alisha Coakley:I just, I want to make a, I want to make a bumper sticker. Let me just administer a little discomfort.
Jake Jacobsen:I love that After a few weeks the captain went home and the deck boss became the new captain and he had a couple of friends come up to work on the boat and he fired me. So I got a job at a crab processing plant in Dutch Harbor. I was there for three weeks when the captain who fired me offered me a raise if I would return to the boat. At the same time I was offered a job as foreman of the processing plant. I was 17 at the time and too dumb to realize that crab fishing in the Bering Sea was dangerous and would become the most dangerous occupation in the US, if not in the world.
Alisha Coakley:So I went fishing. I didn't realize it was that dangerous. I mean, I knew it was dangerous, I didn't realize it was the most dangerous in the US, wow.
Jake Jacobsen:One of your guests I think it was the most dangerous in the us. Wow, one of your guests I think it was vinnie tolman talked about the most dangerous crab fishing in the bering sea and being an underwater welder I haven't welded underwater, but I did uh, I did a lot of diving in alaska in very harsh circumstances. So yeah, that counts.
Alisha Coakley:Yep probably.
Jake Jacobsen:Well, eventually I left the boat and I went to school. At BYU I love science. I inherited my oldest sister's college textbooks and I read and studied those and many others. I took every science class in high school. I even made my own advanced biology class where I studied neural networks and sea anemones. Wow, at BYU I skipped the prerequisites and went right into the interesting science classes.
Jake Jacobsen:But there came a big question of going on a mission. Crab fishermen made a lot of money back then. I didn't want to give that up and I really wanted to study neurophysiology. But two things got in the way. One was my experience with Elder Holland and the other was a seminary teacher named Kirk Anderson. Brother Anderson was a man I greatly admired and loved and respected. After many years of being away from the church, he experienced the sacred witness of the savior and became a man who just exuded the love of Christ. I loved him because he genuinely loved me and and pure love is so compelling. And I admired and respected him because he was a very busy orthopedic surgeon, yet he took time to teach teenagers in early morning seminary.
Jake Jacobsen:I felt my experience with Elder Holland and my relationship to Dr Anderson mandated a serious consideration of a mission. Well, I wasn't going to spend time and money for a mission unless I absolutely knew the church was what it claimed to be. And I had doubts. But I also had a little bit of faith. I started to read the Book of Mormon and to pray, and the more I prayed, the more I felt compelled to pray.
Jake Jacobsen:I prayed many times during the day on my knees in the bathroom, not on my knees in the bathroom, walking to class. I just lived in a state of prayer and I read the Book of Mormon daily. As time went on, my prayers not only became more frequent, but more fervent and sincere. Well, I lived at the time in Taylor Hall at BYU, in the dormitory, and I usually read the scriptures in the second floor of the study room, as my dorm room was too distracting. After about three weeks of pursuing an answer through prayer, I was alone in that room one evening and as I read, I felt a warm, floating sensation. That was a completely new experience for me. I was just embraced in light and love. I don't know what other people experience, but for me it was like parting the veil slightly to allow a beam of love and light to shine through, and it's never left.
Jake Jacobsen:A little wrinkle in the veil is always with me. I knew clearly that Jesus Christ is real, that he is my savior, he is my light. I knew that the Book of Mormon was a testament to him, of him, and that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was the guardian of his restored gospel and divine authority. It was like remembering, but I was totally immersed in love and I've never questioned it, never doubted it, and I've tried it with all the fire I could find. I read and studied materials critical to the church since I was a missionary For some time. I met Tuesday nights with a gentleman named Grant Harrison who was the author of seven books highly critical of the church. I met several times with Gerald and Sandra Tanner, some of the pioneers of modern anti-Mormonism, some of the pioneers of modern anti-Mormonism. It's a very interesting but very abusive genre of literature. I read more recent materials as well. I volunteered for Fair LDS for over a decade. It's a website. Fairldsorg answers gives faithful answers to critical questions and I was somebody wrote in with a question.
Alisha Coakley:I might've been one of the ones that responded Wow, I go to that website all the time still, that's so cool.
Jake Jacobsen:Yeah, it's a very valuable resource.
Alisha Coakley:It is, it's awesome.
Jake Jacobsen:So I've learned a lot about church history and doctrine from church critics Wonderful, fascinating things. There's some very gifted scholars who do good work. Even though I may not agree with some of their conclusions, I like the Tanners, they were sincere people and they always treated me with warmth and respect. They were not scholars and they did some very sloppy work, but you might remember that it was Gerald Tanner who called out the Mark Hoffman letters as forgeries. Of course there are others who are horrible and deliberately falsifying things and they're all over the internet now and things like the CES letter, which contributes nothing to scholarship but is just blatantly biased and deliberately misleading, and Grant Palmer's little book.
Jake Jacobsen:I can't remember what it's called, but I was so disappointed in that as an institute teacher he should have known a lot more about the topics that he tried to address, so it's really no wonder that he left the church. He just didn't know enough. But there is so much in that genre that contributes to our understanding of church history and doctrine. I am so impressed by the complexity and nuances of questions and problems we deal with. It's wonderfully messy, just like true stories are. But anyway, I'm getting a little sideways my decision was an easy decision to serve a mission, because I wanted everybody to experience what I had.
Jake Jacobsen:I still had questions and concerns about evolution and other topics, but they just didn't matter anymore. I knew that the Savior was a reality and that he loved me. Of course, I wanted to have that feeling again and again, so I began to pray for another witness, for confirmation of the truthfulness of what I had experienced. So I prayed again to know of what I had experienced. So I prayed again to know. And so, after enduring this pestering for a few weeks, god did give me a clear and distinct answer and he said I've already told you, I will not tell you again. You had a guest on, I think her name was Mika mika reed, beautiful lady, and she was awesome. She was, and she describes these, these spiritual impressions. The voice is coming from inside and outside, and I think that is probably the most accurate description I can give of what I feel like when I get this prompting. It's not my voice, it's somebody else, but it's like inside me and outside me. I love that description.
Alisha Coakley:Yeah.
Jake Jacobsen:Well, I received a call to serve in the South Africa mission, and at that time there was only one mission. Yeah, well, I received a call to serve in the South Africa mission and at that time there was only one mission Johannesburg, south Africa mission. When I got my mission call, I was fishing crab far west down the Aleutian Island chain and it was so stormy that how I got home is really a story for another day, but I did make it. So I think there's a tension between the tumult that many of us need to progress in life and then the stasis and the stability that we really desire and seek. I saw many miracles and blessings and tender mercies, but the most prolific and profound miracles in my experience occurred in environments of extremity and adversity In Africa in the 1970s. The church was tiny, but most of my miracles took place in one area along the south coast of Natal that had been newly opened for missionary work In Africa in the early 70s. My companion and I were going through a neighborhood, knocking on doors, and I was distinctly told by celestial communication to go to the Lazar's house. My companion questioned why? Well, I had no idea, but I knew better than to question clear and powerful promptings. Of course, there were no cell phones back in those days, the Lazars.
Jake Jacobsen:We went to the Lazars' house. They were a wonderful family who had been members of the church for only a few weeks and most of the members of the branch were gathered there. They said elders, what took you so long? We've been praying for an hour. Wow, no cell phones. They called the missionaries on the prayer line. Do you want to know why they called us there? Yeah Well, brother Slobert, the branch president, had injured his back and he was the only other Melchizedek priesthood holder for miles and he was bent over in intense pain and could not straighten up.
Jake Jacobsen:I don't know why they took him to the Lazar's house, but the Lazar's were there and the Slobberts were all there and that was almost the whole branch. Well, my companion and I, we had no idea what we were doing. Giving a priesthood blessing was a first for both of us. We didn't really do anything but stand there, endowed with the priesthood and the presence of God. My companion anointed and I sealed with some simple words and Brother Slaubert straightened his back and adjusted his shoulders a bit and he said with a big smile thanks, elders.
Scott Brandley:Wow man.
Jake Jacobsen:Cell phones are amazing and they're wonderful, and faith doesn't require a service plan. I'm not saying we should dump our phones to promote faith. Miracles will come in different ways. I have lots of other mission experiences for another day, including having guns put to my head twice, witnessing a man being stabbed to death over a loaf of bread, a woman kicked and beaten in the street, being in the middle of a race riot and coming under machine gun fire by Zambian terrorists in Rhodesia. It was an interesting mission and I love that. After returning home from africa, I was lost. I lived so close to the spirit daily and loving and serving god and my fellow earthlings. I loved africa and I just didn't want to go home. But after a couple of extensions, they they said I had to. Transitioning to post-mission life was very difficult. I wasn't even called to be a home teacher. Many Sundays I donned my missionary suit and I walked the streets of Provo, utah, scriptures in hand.
Scott Brandley:Wow, yeah, I just kind of felt lost and forgotten.
Jake Jacobsen:Post-mission. I fished half the year and I went to school for half the year. Eventually I earned a master's degree in zoology and physiology and I was accepted into a PhD program at St Louis University with a full-ride scholarship and a teaching position. University with a full ride scholarship and a teaching position. But at that time I was married with three children, so I got the bright idea that I would fish another year and that would be give me enough money to finish my doctorate. Unfortunately, the crab population crashed that year and for the next few years I just struggled to support the family and I never made it to St Louis.
Jake Jacobsen:Years ago I received a call from this lady I told you about who's a producer of the Deadliest Catch show and she was producing the pilot and it was called America's Deadliest Season. Well, at the time I was captain of a crab boat and also executive director of the Fisherman's Collective Bargaining Association. I negotiated prices with the crab processors and I've done that since 1993. I do it today. The pilot was successful and so Deadliest Catch became a very popular reality TV show and it gave people some perspective as to what working in the Bering Sea was like. This helped me to share my stories because I thought well, maybe if people saw the show they'd believe me.
Alisha Coakley:Right right.
Jake Jacobsen:Well, crab fishing is a lot safer now, primarily due to changes in the way that the fisheries are managed. It used to be a derby style fishery, where you had to catch as much as you could in the shortest time possible, and so that made the fishery very dangerous, because we were doing crazy things like staying up three days without sleep. So we were now operating under a quota system that no longer requires working without sleep. So we're now operating under a quota system that no longer requires working without sleep and working through the bad weather and storms and all that nonsense. Crab fishing is still dangerous, don't get me wrong, but the deadliest days I hope are fortunately behind us, gotcha.
PJ Jacobsen:A lot because of him and what he's done.
Alisha Coakley:Really.
PJ Jacobsen:Yes.
Jake Jacobsen:Wow. I was on a federal advisory committee for 13 years dealing with fishing vessel safety, so I tried to do what I could to make the sea a safer environment to people. Make the sea a safer environment to people when I pulled away from the dock. My goal of course I wanted to make money, but my goal was to bring everybody back alive and I'm so blessed that I never lost a person. Really, I never lost anybody. Oh, that is a blessing. Yeah, it is. When I became a captain, I realized how difficult it is to stay awake in a warm wheelhouse compared to the cold and wet conditions on deck during the longer seasons. I generally try to sleep at least three or four hours every night, but sometimes it's just really hard to stop. Three days without sleep was really my limit. Many times on my third night without sleep, I would hallucinate. Well, you probably don't get a lot of guests coming on your podcast talking about their hallucinations. You're the first, I think.
Jake Jacobsen:People think that all religious experience is a hallucination, right I?
Jake Jacobsen:know, both and they are very distinguishable. And your viewers may wonder if I use coffee or energy drinks or no-dose or amphetamines or meth. No, I've never used coffee, never used alcohol or tobacco, certainly not drugs like cocaine or meth, although it was common at the time. My hallucinations were from sleep deprivation. I never hallucinated on deck, no matter how long I worked and I worked five days with just tiny naps here and there. When I was on deck. I'd never hallucinate.
Jake Jacobsen:My hallucinations always occurred when I was in the wheelhouse. One occasion I saw a dock with a little cottage on the end and the cottage had a moss-covered roof and there were planters all around with beautiful flowers arranged in pots. Pj was standing at the end of the dock waving at me. Wow, I got the boat right alongside the dock, made the perfect landing on that dock and then my crew threw out the grappling hook and pulled the buoys in and my hallucination vanished. Just another crab pot. It wasn't unusual for me to be driving the boat down a street between buildings waiting at stop signs. Every time I came to a crab pot I thought it was a stop sign.
Jake Jacobsen:And so I'd stop and the crew would pick up the pot and I'd go on and sometimes I'd be driving down a river with forests and mountains on each side, or traveling down dirt roads with fields and farmhouses and white picket fences. One night I was a milkman. I was stopping at each building which was each crab pot.
PJ Jacobsen:Crazy, huh I was delivering milk.
Jake Jacobsen:Another occasion I was looking out the back window at my crew and I couldn't figure out who they were or what they were doing at my crew and I couldn't figure out who they were or what they were doing, and it finally dawned on me that they were picking flowers for my grandmother's friends and that made all the sense in the world to me and I happily went back to work.
Alisha Coakley:Wow.
Jake Jacobsen:Of course I understand how foolish it is to work to exhaustion, but it's what we all did. I was there to work, make money for my family, my crew, my boat, and it was kind of you know, I'll sleep when I'm dead kind of thing. Sometimes that event happened earlier than later for a lot of us.
Jake Jacobsen:I'm amazed that, as irrational as my thoughts may have been, I didn't make mistakes. I didn't cause accidents. I believe I was protected through my folly. One night I completely blacked out. The weather was quite rough and I was on my third night without sleep, was quite rough, and I was on my third night without sleep. I was fishing with 250 crab pots, and they were in two areas that were separated by 30 miles, and I wanted to consolidate them in the better of the areas, and so I didn't want to stop until I had all my pots on good fishing. And as we got towards the end of the pots in the one area, I was getting more and more crab in the pots. So the deck boss called up to the wheelhouse and asked me if I wanted to set the pots back. If you've seen the show when they're on good fishing, they set the pots back again instead of putting them on deck, and I told him no, I want you to stack them, I want you to move them. I want to move them up by our race car pots. In my exhausted mind, I saw my pots in the better area as cars on the other side of an oval racetrack, and so I wanted to move them all to the ones that do the racetrack. I had about three hours of work left, 34 pots left to stack on deck.
Jake Jacobsen:When I blacked out I woke up as the last pot was coming on board. The sun was just starting to rise and the weather had improved. All my pots were stacked on deck. Wow, I had no recollection of how they got there. Every pot has a number and I keep a list of every pot with its GPS coordinates and every pot the crew calls the number of crab in the pot up to the wheelhouse. So I keep a count, a tally, of how much crab we have, and so when I pull the pot I'd cross it off the list and I'd record the number of crab in the pot. Well, my last 34 pots were not crossed off. No crab counts were recorded and I had the crew count the pots on deck twice and none were missing. When the deck was secured for travel, the deck boss came to the wheelhouse. He said that was some great driving last night.
Alisha Coakley:Thanks for being in this safe.
Jake Jacobsen:Wow, wow.
Alisha Coakley:And you have no recollection of driving the boat at all.
Jake Jacobsen:No, for hours, was it hours and hours? Or like how long was it? Yeah, three hours. My last 34 pots probably about three hours. That was some great driving.
Jake Jacobsen:I just was glad he didn't ask me what about my race car comments right well, no one should confuse hallucinations with visions or revelation given by the Spirit of God. I've had visions, personal revelation, spiritual promptings. There's different from my sleep-deprived illusions, as night is today. Some psychologists may have an explanation as to why I could work for three hours, not recording my numbers or remembering anything during that time, but I believe that I had heavenly help from my friends. One day, broad daylight, I was driving north on the 405 in Bellevue and fairly heavy traffic, but it was fast moving and while I was driving saw a vision of my car upside down in the median. I had two broken arms and I was trying to reach for my cell phone to call PJ. As a result of that vision, I applied my brakes and seconds later a truck changed lanes without looking, hitting a small red car that had been next to me. The red car swerved in front of me and a chunk of red metal went flying past my right side. Had I not slowed, the red car would have hit me, apparently sending me into the median upside down, resulting in two broken arms.
Jake Jacobsen:One night at sea I was asleep in my stateroom. I awoke suddenly from the sound of the ship's alarms. I jumped out of my bunk, opened the door to the wheelhouse, I asked the crewman on watch what the alarm was. He hadn't heard any alarm, so I slid down the ladder to the engine room to discover the bilges were being filled with rising water. I was able to start the bilge pumps and secure the flooding before the water reached anything. Vital power to the alarm panel was off, probably an accidental or unnoticed bump of the switch by somebody leaving his rain gear in the warm engine room to dry. There was no alarm.
Alisha Coakley:Wow.
Jake Jacobsen:But I heard one and it woke me up. Well, I've had a lot of other visions and celestial communications that I won't be sharing today, but I do want to share one or two more celestial communications, priesthood blessing and one more vision, if I can. It was a January night, around 3 am. I was working on deck. A winter gale swept across the Bering Sea with fierce freezing winds and blinding snow squalls. At the time we were fishing for pollock and we were delivering at sea to a Korean processing ship. So in those days, in the 70s and early 80s, we did what was called joint venture fishing. Early 80s we did what was called joint venture fishing. There wasn't enough American processors to handle all the fish that we could catch, and so we partnered with foreign countries. So I fished with the Chinese, the Koreans, polish, russians, japanese. Most of the time I fished for the Koreans, the time I fished for the Koreans. So I was on deck getting ready to transfer our fish to the Korean processing ship and we were hauling back the gear and there were 30-foot seas rolling all around us and they'd occasionally dump on our stern and soon we had a 75-ton bag of fish filling our stern ramp and trailing behind the boat like a big green caterpillar. You've never seen 75 tons of fish in one net. It's pretty big, yeah, that's 100, 120 tons of fish at a time. But then we use 75-ton caught in. So the net is wound on a big drum, a net reel at the stern and at that time, as I mentioned, we were doing the joint benchers and the end of the net can be disconnected and that's where the fish is and it's called a caught end, even if it has poll. Where the fish is and it's called a caught end even if it has pollock in it, it's still called a caught end. And so we transfer that. We hook up some cables to a long line and the processing ship would send us a long hauser that we'd shackle into our net and we'd send it over to them.
Jake Jacobsen:So as we made preparations to transfer a fish, this enormous wave just towered above us and it filled the deck around me and I was grasping all over to find something to hang on to, but I couldn't find anything and I was swept overboard. The wave also lifted up to 75 tons of fish, demonstrating the power of the ocean, and it caused the winch hook to fall out. So it released the net back into the sea, it was still hooked up to our net reel by a couple of shackles. So I was bobbing behind the boat with around 20 tons of fish that had come out of the net and looking at these two large spinning propellers in the water about eight feet in front of me and I was being pulled towards them. So I was having some frantic thoughts of my wife and my children and all these thoughts coalesced into a single question is this how I will die? And the question was answered in the voice inside and outside, and it was a calm and reassuring answer and the voice said no, this is not your time.
Jake Jacobsen:So I was in freezing water, middle of winter, blinding snowstorm. My dad, who was captain of the boat, didn't even know I was overboard. The rest of the crew were washed around the boat too. They remained on the boat but they had been knocked down and filled with water and they were trying to regain their composure. They didn't know I was overboard. They looked around and they couldn't find me. So they looked behind the boat. By that time the boat pushed forward a little bit and I was probably 40, 50 feet behind the boat. But I was calm because I'd been told that I would survive. I was able to grab the last expansion strap on the caught end the line that goes around the caught end to contain the fish from bolting out bigger in the net. I grabbed that strap and I held on to it. I was able to get back on the boat. I was so warm that I didn't even go in and change my clothes. I just continued to work until all the work was done. Only then did I go in and change my clothes. Wow.
PJ Jacobsen:Wow, his dad said gee Viz, you're trying to get out of work.
Jake Jacobsen:The warmth was the love of God, no hallucination. Next thing, I'm going to tell kind of an odd story about healing. In 1992, I spent five months in the Russian Sea of Okhotsk fishing crab on a 180-foot crab boat and processing ship combination crab boat and processor. It was difficult to be in Russia so far from home. While I was there I was offered a job in the United States running the Pacific Sun, which was a 98-foot crab boat. I took the job because I was only able to call home for three minutes a month. Yeah, wow, it was real expensive to use a satellite phone.
Jake Jacobsen:That day at least we had a satellite phone uh-huh we uh were boarded by the russian navy at that time and they came on board with their klishnikov rifles and they lined up on the deck and the six officers came up to the wheelhouse and one of the officers started copying our contract with the Russian company by hand. And this was a big document, probably 15 pages. And I said would you like to use the copy machine? And he said you have copy machine. There are only six in Moscow. But anyway, back to the Pacific Sun.
Jake Jacobsen:I took that job on the Pacific Sun and when I saw the boat a few months later my heart sank. The skipper had made an error in judgment and the prop was bent and the shaft was bent and the engine was wrecked. It had to be completely rebuilt. So I was late getting fishing.
Jake Jacobsen:When I finally made it to the fishing grounds, about a week after the season opened, I was really fortunate to find a large school of crab all by myself, no other boats around me. Large school of crab all by myself, no other boats around me. So in four days we filled the boat with 120,000 pounds of crab and took them to the small village of Akhitan where a large processing barge would buy our crab by the time we reached Akhitan, the wind was blowing 60 knots from the north and it was really cold. It was rough even in the protected waters of the bay. While we were offloading our crabs, several of our three-inch diameter mooring lines snapped, and it actually one time the line didn't snap, it tore the cleat right off our bulwarks and the cleat hit my engineer in the shoulder and knocked him out cold.
Jake Jacobsen:A few inches. More would have killed him. Yikes. When we finished offloading, the wind was still blowing 60 knots and temperatures had dropped to well below freezing. Normally I wouldn't consider charging out into such severe weather, but the radio reports indicated that the sea ice was moving rapidly towards my crab pots. Sea ice in the Bering Sea. When the wind blows from the north, the ice flows packed together and they form a wall of ice that can quickly cover the fishing grounds, and any crab pots left in its path are unlikely to ever be seen again really so if my pots were taken by the ice, my season would be over, my family, my crew would be in a world of hurt.
Scott Brandley:So I headed north jeez stupid, into the storm hurt so I headed north, jeez Stupid Into the storm. I've seen this. This is a movie. This is a movie with George Clooney.
Jake Jacobsen:Even though I was going slowly into the sea, we taking water over, completely over the wheelhouse, we were making ice, but the the seas were knocking it off again. Suddenly this enormous wave reared up and it was a huge rogue wave. It was probably 50 feet tall and it was coming straight at me and I didn't have time to get out of the way. I was doomed. It was only a few years before that I lost a friend who was killed when a huge wave punched the windows out of his wheelhouse and pinned him up against the back of the wheelhouse and it killed him. So I just had those thoughts going through my mind in the milliseconds that it took. Well, the wave hit the wheelhouse with a deafening crash and seawater poured in all around me, and when it subsided I was soaked but I wasn't hurt. And I was surprised to see all my windows were still there. Well, how could that be? There's about three feet of seawater sloshing around the wheelhouse floor. Well, all our windows were made of one-half-inch thick tempered glass, except for an odd window that was right in front of me and that was made of plexiglass, and it had bowed inward enough to allow about 30 gallons of water to squirt in around its edge.
Jake Jacobsen:Well, all my electronics appeared to be okay, except for the steering. The boat veered hard to port and the rudder failed to correct the course and I took the engine out of gear. The boat was just pitching wildly as I tried to figure out what was wrong with the steering. Floundering in the heavy seas, ice was building up on our windward side and within a few hours we were going to capsize. There was no other means of steerage, so I had to get the steering fixed, or we were all dead. The steering fixed or we were all dead. Trace the problem to a steering function selection switch. So it interfaced the gyro compass with the steering compass and the jog levers and the autopilot. Well, the switch is about three inches in diameter, about eight inches long, had a whole bunch of colored wires coming out of it. I tried taking it apart. We were still getting hit by waves on the port side, so it was like trying to repair a computer on a roller coaster. As I dug into it Easy for you, right, I mean wow, this thing was hopelessly damaged.
Jake Jacobsen:Some of the metal parts had melted and were scarred. Plastic pieces had been fused together. It was a mess, and so my only thought was to give it a blessing. I sent the engineer off on some errand to get him out of the wheelhouse, and I put my hands, can you say it?
PJ Jacobsen:He put his hands on the disassembled switch and, in the name of Jesus Christ and by authority of the priesthood, he blessed it that it would work. He tried to put it back together but several metal rings were supposed to line up in a certain way. But no matter how he tried, they would not were supposed to line up in a certain way, but no matter how I tried, they would not.
Jake Jacobsen:So I wired it back in anyway and I switched on the power and instead of blowing up, it actually swung to center.
Scott Brandley:It worked.
Jake Jacobsen:Wow, Wow. The next morning the weather subsided and the ice was only a few miles from our gear, and we had enough time to move it to a safer spot. Five days later, we were headed to Dutch Harbor with a load of crab. In Dutch Harbor, the technician came down to vote and took out the switch, took it back to his shop and he just said there was no way this could have possibly worked.
Alisha Coakley:Wow there was one way Wow.
Jake Jacobsen:Well, I have a lot of stories from my days at Sea, but I want to focus on some of the more personal things that your audience might find a bit more relevant to them. To meet this lovely lady, it took a vision, a divine voice and a powerful prompting to put me in a position to meet her, to marry a girl that would be strong enough to endure marriage to me. When it was time for me to enter the mission home, I got a ride to Utah with my sister, my second oldest sister, nancy. Before dropping me off at the Salt Lake Temple, she stopped to visit a friend and during that time I had a vision. She stopped to visit a friend and during that time I had a vision. I saw the silhouette of a girl sitting on a bench. She was slender, with very long hair. I had no idea what that was about, so I just tucked it away.
Jake Jacobsen:My sister dropped me off at the temple so I could be endowed before reporting to the mission home. Back then, missionaries went to the mission home in Salt Lake for three days where we were taught in the upper room of the Salt Lake Temple. What a beautiful experience that was. That's amazing.
Alisha Coakley:That is really cool.
Jake Jacobsen:From there, the English-speaking missionaries would go directly to their missions and those needing a language would go down to the LTM, the language training mission in Provo, which is where I went. There was a wonderful young lady who waited almost three years for me while I went to sea and then served a mission. So my priority after returning home was to travel to Utah and get engaged. So I drove. When I got home from my mission, I drove to Provo praying about this decision. On the way and somewhere between Boise and Burley, idaho, my prayers were answered with an undeniable, very loud voice saying no.
Jake Jacobsen:Wow I had to break a tender heart which was agonizing and awkward and horrible. I had to break a tender heart which was agonizing and awkward and horrible and it took many months to gather the courage just to ask another girl out. I was in a weird student ward with freshman girls and many returned missionary boys. Men, boys, they're boys.
Scott Brandley:Now that we look back. They're boys. They're boys Now that we look back, they're boys.
Jake Jacobsen:So this is probably a year or two after I got home from my mission.
Alisha Coakley:Two years.
Jake Jacobsen:And I was invited by a friend to attend his ward, which was replete with eligible marriage-minded sisters. Well, I told you about the producer that said that fishermen are people who don't function well in normal society. Yeah, that was totally me. I'm very awkward in social situations. I'm much more comfortable yelling at my crew. So my experience wasn't very positive. But they put me into a family home evening group and I thought maybe there I could crack the social cement that I encountered at church. And arriving at the assigned apartment, a young lady opened the door and I asked is this the right place for family home evening? And she said yes and left the door open and walked away. That word was the only word spoken to me that entire evening. I thought well, this is the Lord saying I don't belong here. My friend Brant. He asked me to try one more Sunday, so I did.
Jake Jacobsen:Saturday morning I was working in my pet store. I owned a pet store in Provo. While going to BYU. I got a prompting that I would be asked to speak in Brent's ward the next day, and so I started working from a talk, working on a talk, and every little while I would consider how ridiculous that was. Why did they ask me to speak.
Jake Jacobsen:I'm not a member of the ward and I was apparently invisible. I'm not a member of the ward and I was apparently invisible, and then I would get the prompting again and I would return to working on the talk. Until late that night I continued to write and think it was silly and then write some more In that ward. Sunday school was before sacrament meeting and I finished my talk instead of listening to the lesson. Before the lesson ended, I'd finished my talk and a brother popped into the room and motioned for me to come out. He said the speaker had just called in sick and asked if I'd be willing to speak, and so the tender mercy here is that I just don't speak well extemporaneously. I need it all written out, and if you don't believe that there's my text, I'm sorry for breaking the fourth wall or whatever you call it oh you're good, just focus wall, or whatever you call it.
Jake Jacobsen:Oh you're good, just focus.
Jake Jacobsen:Well, I gave my talk. After the meeting I was surrounded by sisters. They handed me slips of paper with their names and phone numbers on it. The next day, at family home evening, everyone spoke, spoke to me, wanted my opinion on every question. Well, I stayed in that ward and every sunday after church I would enjoy dinner with my friend brant and his very kind wife. Cheryl Brent had a sister named Helen who came to stay with him for a while and we became friends and Helen volunteered to be my social secretary. I dated Wednesdays, fridays and Saturdays. Helen called the girls and arranged the date because I was too lame to actually ask a girl myself. Again, a lot more comfortable on the deck of a ship. Well, this went on for some time and one Sunday Helen mentioned that she had a friend who just moved to Provo from Tulsa, oklahoma, where she had attended Oral Roberts University and just transferred to BYU. Bj was a recent convert to the church and there was one other member of the church there also and she reactivated him.
Scott Brandley:Wow.
Jake Jacobsen:Well, helen suggested that all three of us go to a fireside together, and so we did. The next week I had an empty date night and I didn't know who to ask, and Helen suggested that I ask this new girl. So I agreed, and after that I never went out with anybody else.
Alisha Coakley:Oh, I heard that.
Jake Jacobsen:And sometime after that first date, I was sitting in Brent's room and PJ was sitting on the piano bench, and the sun came through the window and I saw her silhouette, with her slender figure and her long, long hair, and it was my vision, but in real life.
Scott Brandley:It's very cool.
Jake Jacobsen:In august 8th 1988 was the day before the birth of our fourth child, a son we would name justin. Do you want to talk about the family a little bit?
PJ Jacobsen:yeah, I had. Yeah, justin was a real sweet heart. He had a very tender heart. And we had three older kids Jake, a real Jake.
PJ Jacobsen:Tonda, which meant love in Xhosa, an African language, and our Shree, oh yeah, sweet in Persian, what we spoke in afghanistan. And um I had had a miscarriage um two years after tanda, and then five years later we had another son, justin, and then we had also Jeshua and Jared. But when Justin was five years old we were sitting at the table eating grilled cheese sandwiches. I still remember that.
PJ Jacobsen:And Justin says Mom, do you remember when I died in your tummy and came back again after Shireen, me, and came back again after Shireen, my jaw just dropped, wow, and I had never discussed miscarriage with him or anything about that. And here I called Jake immediately and repeated it, just because I was still in shock, and he said oh yeah, he still has one foot on the other side of the veil, he isn't all the way here yet. Wow, it didn't faze him at all to hear that from our son. But, boy, it was amazing to me and that was a real eye-opener for me of how Heavenly Father works. And he was supposed to be in our family. He was a very special one.
Jake Jacobsen:I understand intellectually the elegance of our Heavenly Father's individual design for our lives and his purpose in allowing problems and perils and death. Spiritually, however, I struggle sometimes to maintain that perspective. I hope the afterlife is a place where we can share our stories of mortality and learn from the lives of others and I believe we'll be grateful for every trial and rejoice in every difficult struggle, even if we think we've failed catastrophically. We will find healing from all the horrors we may experience here. I'm grateful for trials endured and problems passed. At the same time I don't really want any more. My heart aches for my great-great-great-grandmother, who was a slave girl from Senegal, and I really want so much to embrace her and to weep with her. At the same time I have to believe that she cherishes her experiences here, even the most bitter experiences, and the embrace I long for would not be for pity or for sorrow, but for her treatment here on earth, but for the love and joy that I feel for her so poignantly. I long to embrace my great grandmother, lydia, for her treatment here on earth, but for the love and joy that I feel for her so poignantly. I long to embrace my great-grandmother, lydia, who so tenderly watched over my mother from the other side.
Jake Jacobsen:Even as my mother's experiences on earth drew to a close, she would alert caretakers and help from beyond when caretakers weren't available. Alert caretakers and help from beyond when caretakers weren't available. With my mom, I long to express my love and gratitude to my angel friends who've watched over me through storms of all kinds and who saved my life on occasion and, as I said, even ran my boat when I was incapacitated. Most of all, I want to thank them for the friends, for the powerful love that they expressed as they stood before me in the temple. Yet, with that perspective and belief, and despite so many witnesses, I still struggle with faith, with fear, with failure. I hold myself responsible when my children wander, when I know that they have their own plan and purpose. Knowing my fragile faith and my delicate feelings, if you can't tell I'm pretty emotional.
PJ Jacobsen:I think that's come with older age. Because he was such a tough, I was going to say yeah, a captain of a boat on the Bering Sea.
Scott Brandley:You got a soft spot there.
Jake Jacobsen:Well, on the day before Justin's birth, I had a vision, and it was mid-morning. I was wide awake. It was no hallucination. I walked down the hallway to my bedroom door. I didn't open the door, but I could see through it. What I saw was not a bedroom but a funeral for my unborn son. He'd grown to adulthood and he was lying in a coffin. He'd grown to adulthood and he was lying in a coffin. I saw a man in uniform come to the door. Several people were in the room. I couldn't tell who they were. The vision closed with the realization that Justin would die in early adulthood.
Jake Jacobsen:I didn't know what to do. I couldn't tell PJ how could I? That time we didn't even know he was a Justin. He might have been a Justine. We just didn't know what to do. I couldn't tell PJ how could I? That time we didn't even know he was a Justin. He might have been a Justine. We just didn't know. Well, justin was born the next day and my wife wondered for years why I was acting so strangely. I had a newborn son and all I knew about him was that we would see his death. Life went on and I tucked my vision away.
Jake Jacobsen:Justin was called on a mission to Tennessee, but he struggled with his faith and he asked to be released early, and it was during this time that I shared the funeral vision with PJ. I found Justin a job on a fishing boat in Alaska and over the next year he next few years he worked as a Bering Sea crab fisherman and he learned the trade quickly and was good, and the owner of the small fleet of boats he worked for shared with me that Justin was in line next in line to be the captain of one of his boats. So at this time Justin had not been active in the church for a few years, but still a very kind, loving, generous person. After visiting with Justin one day, pj asked what had happened with my vision. As Justin was now 30 and he was still alive, I expressed hope that, like the city of Nineveh, conditions had changed and perhaps the prophecy of his early death was no longer a part of God's plan for his life.
Jake Jacobsen:Well, two weeks later, justin put a gun to his head and ended his life. Sorry, just made no sense. He showed no signs of the depression. He had a great job, he had lots of money, owned a nice home, had a brand new Dodge Charger. He had plans with friends for the next day. He had Christmas presents for us in the trunk of his car, although I knew it was coming, I didn't know it was coming in that way, with that much crushing force. Even with 30 years to prepare. It was just so hard. Without the tender mercy of that vision, it would have been so much harder. My heart goes out to every parent who's lost a child, especially those who've lost a child in suicide. I think of Justin every day.
Jake Jacobsen:What could I have done? What should I have done? I don't know. When Justin and his brothers, his younger brothers, left the church, I called a close friend and, after tearfully telling of my concerns for these sons, this wise brother asked where is your faith? I now ask myself that question whenever I feel anxieties over the decisions of my children, and it helps. But the truth is I do have trouble trusting God's plan. I still hurt, I still question, I still weep. In Home Depot I saw a young man that looked just like Justin from behind and I ran up to him to see his face behind. And I ran up to him to see his face. It wasn't Justin. Justin was gone. I burst into tears in the home appliance section.
Jake Jacobsen:Well, despite a life filled with miracles and tender mercies and visions and revelations, promptings and profound miracles and wonders, I still want my way over a loving Heavenly Father's plan and purpose. I want somehow to circumvent the agency of my children. But that is not the Father's plan. I love my Heavenly Parents and I love the Savior. I've never felt anger towards them. It's not in my nature. I have a shallow understanding of the Savior's atonement, but I believe in his healing providence and limitless love. Intellectually, and perhaps spiritually, I do trust in the perfection of their plan. That emotionally, it's still hard. Yeah, thank you. I appreciate you allowing me to share a few stories with you today.
Alisha Coakley:Wow, you just got my heart, oh, my goodness, and I'm. I'm sitting here and you know, as a as a wife and a mother, I can't help but continually like give my attention to PJ too and I'm just like curious PJ, like when these things were happening. You know how was it for you, you know, did you have any inklings, were you? You know how did you keep your faith, sending your husband off into those dangerous conditions all the time? And then you know what I mean, like having all of these spiritual things that came back. You know stories that he shared with you. Where was your experience at with this?
PJ Jacobsen:First rule he wasn't allowed to tell me the details until he was home safe. Okay, until he was home safe, okay.
PJ Jacobsen:And I just told Heavenly Father from the beginning I've got six kids to take care of. I don't have time to worry about him too. I'm going to leave that to you. You're going to have to do the worrying about him and take care of him, because there's nothing I can do from here. So you have to do it all because I can't. And so I just worried about the kids. And then we were thrilled when he made it home. He promised he always would and he always did. So I can't complain. Yeah, he always took wonderful care of us and was a wonderful leader for our family and I I know those boys will be back someday there's. They're just two good kids they're. They're just wonderful people. But I just had to leave it up to heavenly father. I couldn't do it, even thinking about it. It was too scary to think about what he was doing.
Alisha Coakley:That it takes some massive amounts of faith to like put that aside. You know I'm I worry about everything. I should try your method. I'm too busy to worry about this, Heavenly father, you worry. I'm too busy to worry about this, Heavenly Father, you worry. Oh, wow.
PJ Jacobsen:Yeah, it takes a special type of person that can handle that. You two were made for each other, I think For sure we will.
Scott Brandley:We celebrated 46 years oh wow.
Alisha Coakley:That's incredible.
PJ Jacobsen:Wow.
Jake Jacobsen:We've had our trials, but we've's incredible.
Alisha Coakley:Wow, we've had our trials, but we we've made it through somehow. Yeah, oh, you know, normally I I have just tons of thoughts and questions and things, but I, I just felt the spirit so strongly through this whole episode that I I don't even want to contribute anything, cause I just want it to like I want to stay in this bubble. You know, I just don't want to stay in this bubble. It was such a beautiful story and the things that you guys have gone through, that you've overcome, that you're overcoming still, oh, my heart just really goes out to you guys and I'm so, I feel so blessed to have like gotten to see a little piece of your story today.
Jake Jacobsen:So, thank you yeah, I'm gonna.
Scott Brandley:I'm gonna second Alisha on that. I don't know what else I can add to that. Just thank you for having the courage to share that with us and and you're going to touch a lot of people's hearts, I think um one thing, one thing I will say yeah.
PJ Jacobsen:Sorry for something I would say.
Scott Brandley:Oh, that's fine. Actually, it makes me feel good, because if you can cry and you're like super tough, like that shows me that I guess I can too sometimes. But what I was going to say is you've had a lot of trials in your life and you've seen a lot of miracles in your life and you're still having trials today. You know, I think that's a good lesson for all of us Even when we've gone through incredibly difficult things, god's still going to put more trials in our path and we have to keep having that faith, exercising that faith that things are going to work out, and I think you guys are living examples of that.
Alisha Coakley:Yeah, absolutely, and I I think you know for me, I, having done this show for um, we're coming on two. No, we just had two years two and a half.
Alisha Coakley:Yeah, you know it's, um, the stories that we've heard and the testimonies that have been shared, no matter how tragic or devastating or dark or hard um those experiences were for our guests, I can tell you that it has. It has brought so much light. There has just been so much beauty and love, and this eternal perspective that has come in bits and pieces with every single story that's been shared. And so, for me personally, it helps solidify my testimony that, yes, there is opposition in all things, but our heavenly father will always make sure that, like the good far exceeds the bad, that that our reach. You know that our experiences are not just for us, they really are for everybody to have, and so, um, I just think it's you guys are just such a beautiful testimony of it, a testament of that you know.
Scott Brandley:You know, Alisha, that kind of gives me an idea. Every episode that we have almost is like a square on a quilt and when you put them all together, you come up with this beautiful design, this beautiful quilt that just, I don't know, creates this warmth and this, I don't know, this amazing work of art of all, all the people's faith and struggles and everything together. It's kind of cool.
PJ Jacobsen:Yeah.
Alisha Coakley:Well, I'm. I'm going to encourage you to put your first book back out there for everybody, cause I want to read more and keep at it. Keep sharing your story, both of you guys. You know we're going to have to hurt or if we're gonna have to be without that person. You know, and I know for you guys it's your son, but that you've also had other losses in your life to that contribute to that, and I think that all of that pain and sorrow and the hardness that we experience is just going to be magnified for the good in the end, when we are able to be back where our true home is. You know, I think that there's just going to be so much love and so much happiness that all of all of that stuff that we've gone through is going to feel like nothing anymore, you know. So brighter days are ahead, calmer seasons are ahead, and I don't know if you guys are just such an awesome couple, so thank you so much for coming on here today and make me ball like a baby.
PJ Jacobsen:Well, you can see, it still affects me and I live through it with them. And you read his book and the biggest comeback everybody says is how did you survive to tell that story you? Know, it's amazing still, and I knew it all and still have, yeah.
Alisha Coakley:Well, it's just so late to love. You know what I mean. Like that was what I felt. Sorry, scott, I was going to say the same thing.
Scott Brandley:I was going to say the same thing. It's very obvious that you guys love each other and you're all in together and that's really inspiring. No matter what stormy seas are ahead or calm seas, like Alisha said, you guys are going to make it because just you love each other and you're all in. It's very obvious to see that's. That's really cool.
Alisha Coakley:Yeah, wow. Well, before we wrap up, are there any final thoughts that you guys have? Anything else you'd like to leave for listeners for today?
Jake Jacobsen:Final thoughts today. Well, I think that no one need question the love God has for them In the midst of all our problems and spiritual dilemmas, whatever feelings that we have, whatever feelings that we have abandonment, anger towards God these are common but really they're unwarranted. God loves you and is doing for you what you need, no more and no less. The question we should always ask is not if God loves us, but if we love him. Serving others, despite our own problems and pain, is truly a manifestation of our love for God. And I'm not saying I'm good at it, I'm not, but it is nevertheless true and everybody should know that.
Alisha Coakley:I love that PJ. What about you? Any last thoughts?
PJ Jacobsen:Oh, he said it so well. I just hang on his coat tails and fly with him.
Alisha Coakley:Yeah, wow. Well, thank you guys so much again for coming on today and for sharing some of your stories with us and sharing your light and your love and your testimony. It has just been, it's been so edifying really, just like an absolutely edifying episode. So it's going to carry us through for a while. I think it's definitely going to carry us through for a while and and thank you to our listeners, you know, for for taking the time to listen to these stories and especially for taking the time to share them with others.
Alisha Coakley:Um, scott and I are just going to ask that you guys continually do your five second missionary work. It's not as dangerous as jumping on a ship and going out to sea in the middle of an ice storm and being thrown off behind 75 tons of fish. It's a very simple thing. You just click a button and just share this story with others. We would really really appreciate it and it would. It would just be awesome to be able to get the Jacobson story out there for everyone. So do your part. Click that share button, comment. Let us know what you guys loved from this episode. We would love to hear from you.
Scott Brandley:Yeah, thank you think it's ironic. You know we talk about navigating the storms of life, but you literally have navigated the storms of life, yeah, but if, if, uh, any of you guys have a story. It might not be, you know, a captain of the Bering sea, but you, we all, have a story to share and every story is important. So if you have one, go to latterdaylightscom and let's get you on the show. You can be one of those squares on the quilt that makes an amazing tapestry of faith with us and light. And I know your square is going to be a ship with a 50-foot wave going up it. I can just picture it already.
Scott Brandley:But you're going to make it over that wave. You're going to make it over it.
Alisha Coakley:Absolutely. Wow. Well, thank you guys. So much again. We really appreciate you know our listeners. We appreciate the Jacobsons coming on here today and sharing their story. I think that's all we have for you. I don't think there's anything else that can be said in any other way. So we really appreciate it.
Jake Jacobsen:Yeah, thank you so much.
Alisha Coakley:Yeah, all right, guys. Well, that's all we have for you today, so be sure to tune in for another episode of Latter-day Lights next week and until then, we hope you guys do everything you can to be the light, feel the light and share the light. I'll talk to you later.
Scott Brandley:Take care everybody. Bye, bye, bye.
