I bought a girlfriend of mine a Bourbon Jessie 2 years ago. The same thick pebbled leather. I also bought a raisin for myself. I rarely used mine while hers was her only "real" bag and she used it everyday for over a year. You wouldn't believe how wonderful it was a year later. Very soft and pliable and stretched out (in a good way). The bag looked so lived in but still looked terrific in a whole different way. You couldn't imagine that it strecthed and she had tons of stuff crammed in there. Even a water bottle..In a jessie!
But that means you are going to have to USE it. My GF really didn't baby her bag at all and I'm serious when I said she used it everyday. She never had a designer bag and didn't have the money so that was her only bag. I suppose it was a little easier for her to gently stress her bag since it was smaller abd she could stuff it and really work on those outer pockets but believe me, in time they will get totally mushy. I will ask her to take a pic of her bag so I can show it to you.
You could take drastic measures to help the leather soften.
I had a besso once and I wanted it to soften up quickly, so aside from using it and filling it with hardbacked Harry Potter books when I wasnt carrying it, I would roll it up and put it under my husbands pillows at night. He is heavy and he moves around so much in his sleep, and it really helped to break that besso in.