Becoming a Masterpiece

Church this weekend was absolutely incredible! Yesterday in Relief Society, Mayson, taught an amazing lesson about “Living Joyfully in Troubled Times.” During the lesson, an analogy came to my mind about a wood block. I hope the way I describe this can help you visualize how beautiful this sounded in my mind :)

We are like a wood block, told by the Master, a Carpenter, of its potential to become something incredibly beautiful in His hands. In 2 Corinthians 2:9, it says “eye hath not seen, nor ear head, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.”

We know that in order to become that masterpiece, we need to be carved, which I imagine would be a painful process.

The Carpenter knows we are ready to grow, to mold, so He begins the painful process of carving. We can choose to deny His touch perhaps out of fear of the pain, forget His encouraging words and promises, and throw ourselves off the table. The fall would still cause pain and dent the surface, but wouldn’t help us to become something greater. Christ will always lovingly pick up back up. 

We could choose to deny or we could choose to accept His plan. We can choose to submit to His loving hands and tender touch. He can only mold us though if we let Him. We find that as we submit to Him and His plan, the carving process is less painful than we thought. We may not be able to see what He is helping us become, but as we trust in Him, we can find immense joy in the process. As 2 Nephi 2:25 says, “Men are that they might have joy.”

President Ezra Taft Benson testified, “Do we realize that happiness here and now consists of freely, lovingly, joyfully acknowledging God’s will for us—and doing it in all ways and all affairs big and small?”

I know that God loves us. I know that He has a plan. I know that through Christ and His Atonement we can become something more beautiful than we could have ever imagined. Turn your life over to Him and allow Him to mold you during trials. I testify that as you do, life becomes happier even though it’s hard. Immense joy is found is trusting the Savior’s hands – those hands pierced for us.

One of my favorite quotes is from Brother Lawrence E. Corbridge. He says, "Just give it up. Surrender your will to Him. Unconditionally. Withhold nothing. Turn it all over to Him; all of your desires, wishes, dreams and hopes. Be true and faithful in your head and in your heart, not just your behavior. Trust in Him. Trust Him who knows all things. Trust Him who has all power. Trust Him whose love for you is perfect. Trust Him, who alone suffered, paid and atoned for your sins, and your weaknesses as well. Trust Him that He will make of you, immeasurably more, than what you will ever, ever, in all eternity, make of yourself. He will create of you a masterpiece. You will create only a smudge. You will create an ordinary man. He will create a God." 

The Errand of Angels Week 55: Hastening the Work

Singing at outdoor Nativity

This week was absolutely amazing. We worked so hard and Heavenly Father poured out so many blessings that we felt like there was not room enough to receive them... luckily, He is giving us a bigger room as well (I feel like our capacities are expanding).

This week was absolutely amazing. We are, as always, striving to have exact obedience and are seeing many blessings. I have decided that I think there is a difference between exact obedience and perfect obedience. Exact obedience is something we strive for. We become obedient in our hearts and our minds. Our full desire is to serve God and do His will. We truly live our life trying to be a representative of Jesus Christ. Unfortunately, we fall short, repent, and strive again. Maybe fortunately though, because it keeps us close to the Savior and reminds us that it is only through Him this is all possible. Perfect obedience is doing every little thing right - no mistakes. For me, this comparison makes sense. I know I may not perfect obedience, but I know I strive for it every day. I get distracted at times and fall short, but I desire so much to serve God with all my heart, might, mind and strength.

I feel like the adversary is really hitting hard (at least from my end) with trying to bring negative thoughts and contention into the relationship, but I am really trying to cast those thoughts out, pray and repent. The adversary is working hard on families and for missionaries, companionships, to create discontent and to break unity. Remember that Christ showed the perfect example of how to find happiness and unity within a family, and how to overcome any trial. He taught us about faith, repentance, forgiveness, love, respect and hard work. See the "Family Proclamation for more: http://www.lds.org/topics/family-proclamation. This week, Sister Fox and I didn't care much about ourselves, but really tried to focus on God's children. We saw miracles.

God is so good to us! He loves His children so much... every single one of them. This week we saw miracles left and right. So many that it felt like it was three weeks this last week instead of one; the progression of our investigators was amazing!

To continue my thoughts of Christ from last week:

"We have a champion, a Savior, who walked through the valley of the shadow of death on our behalf. He gave Himself as a ransom for our sins. No one has ever had greater love than this--Jesus Christ, the Lamb without blemish, willingly, laid Himself on the altar of sacrifice and paid the price for our sins to 'the uttermost farthing.' He took upon Himself our suffering. He took our burdens, our guilt upon His shoulders." - President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, "You Can Do It Now!"

I am so grateful for our Savior and Redeemer Jesus Christ. Blessed be His name!

Day 9: 1 Nephi 17:7 I am grateful Christ knows how to heal us

Day 10: Proverbs 28:13 I am grateful that through Christ and true repentance, we can be cleansed from our sins

Day 11: Alma 58:11 I am grateful Christ gives peace

Day 12: 1 Peter 3:6 I am grateful that Christ causes the gospel to be preached even to the dead

Day 13: 2 Nephi 31:5 I am grateful Christ showed us obedience

Day 14: 2 Timothy 3:15 I am grateful Christ shows us the importance of learning

Day 15: 3 Nephi 12:24 I am grateful Christ cares about what is in our hearts

I know this is Christ's true church. I know He knows us and loves us. I know He is our Savior. I know He will come again. I know He lives.

I invite you to look up or share a message from mormon.org with someone this week.

Sisters Christmas Party

Have a wonderful week!

Sister Jenkins

The Errand of Angels Week 54: I am Thankful for Christ

I have asked my mother to post different things on my blog. You will notice that I am just going to use this for a quick testimony each week. If you would like to receive a copy of my weekly letter to my family, please comment here with your email address and my mother can forward it to you, if I am okay with it.

Crèche Exhibit

This month we are focusing on reasons we are grateful for Christ. Here are the reasons from the last week:

Dec 1: 2 Nephi 25:26 Intro the our month of gratitude for Christ

Dec 2: Matt. 14:27 We are grateful for Christ because with Him we don't need to fear the futrue

Dec 3: Mosiah 13:7 We are grateful that through Christ we can have salvation

Dec 4: John 14:21 We are grateful for the commandments Christ gives us so we can feel His and God's love

Dec 5: 1 Nephi 17:36 We are grateful that under the direction of God, Christ created this earth for us

Dec 6: Ephesians 4:11-14 We are grateful that Christ has give us prophets and apostles today

Dec 7: 2 Nephi 31:10 We are grateful for Christ because he is the perfect example

Dec 8: Matt. 11:28-30 We are grateful that Christ has promised us that life will be easy as we fully rely on Him

I know that Jesus Christ is my Savior and that He performed the Atonement. I know this is His gospel and He is at the head of this Church.

Why are you grateful for Christ this Christmas?

Have a great week!

LIVE NATIVITY

Sister Jenkins

The Errand of Angels Week 53: Running for the Gospel

 Hi Everyone!

Happy Thanksgiving (again)! Just thought I would wish it to you one more time. Welcome to December in Florida... 80 degrees. Although, we did have it down to 40 degrees Thanksgiving morning for a couple hours. That was nice.

Funny of the Week: Last night we were at a member's house and as we were walking out I saw a GIANT mouse of the rug in the kitchen. I pointed it out to Sister Fox, and she asked, "is that real?" I thought it was, but how do you point that out to someone? So, I just asked Maggie, "is that real?" She was pretty calm, but basically said, "I don't like mice." Well, I am pretty much not scared of anything but spiders, thankfully, so I went and grabbed a small garbage can, put it covering the mouse, and took the rug and the garbage can, and the mouse outside. We put it across the street kind of in this ditch. The mouse wasn't moving much (I think it ate one of her plastic containers... poor mouse), but at least it was safe outside. On the way out we went and looked at it again and realized the neighbor whose house was next to the ditch was watching us. Whoops... should have thought about what the neighbor might think with putting the mouse so close to his house. 

Highlights of the Week:

On Thanksgiving we ran the Turkey Trot in Clearwater! We tried to talk with many people. We also talked to a man for the entire run who was in Utah last weekend and visited Temple Square. And get this, his wife is an ASL Interpreter! Yup, that is absolutely amazing! It was a really nice experience. We didn't want the missionaries to come by yet, but is excited to read The Book of Mormon. Lots of members came up and talked to us and were excited to see us out, and as we passed others we could hear them reading our shirts and then talking briefly about mormon.org. I felt like the race was great exposure. Hopefully we will get to run another soon!!

On Thanksgiving we also went to a couple members homes and had delicious food (thank you!!), and we also had some great lessons with some single women and some of our investigators. It was awesome! One of our recent converts was watching the Macey's Day Parade and then all of a sudden she heard the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. She went into the TV room and the channel had switched to the Church's Thanksgiving broadcast. She figured she would listen to it. So she did, after it was done the TV switched back to the Macey's Day Parade. Yup... the Lord really wants her back at church :)

We had a referral from a teenager the other day that ended up being an unknown less active (we got the information to transfer the records here). The teenager (probably 13) walked us over to the woman's house and asked if we could say a prayer with her. It was awesome. The teenager's mom is a potential investigator of ours.

Remember that deaf woman I met at Kmart my first week in Seffner? Well she called the other day via video relay interpreting service, and will be coming to a stake activity this Saturday.

We had a lesson with a less active who had tons of questions about the Plan of Salvation. She initially let us come over for service and is now ready for us to share the lessons with her. It was a beautiful experience!

We now have four baptismal date sets, which is a huge blessing. One of them we had really wanted to set this week (and he did too), but the lesson didn't work out this week and he doesn't have a phone. Well, we met him and his member friend while we were biking. We had a great lesson with them on the street and set the date! He is very excited!

Yesterday I was exhausted. Absolutely and completely. We were biking and I was dragging. Through a lot of prayer, Heavenly Father blessed me to have the energy to finish the day. That was awesome!

Study of the Week: I love reading about Christ's life. I have been studying recently, Christ-like attributes, His sermons in both Matthew 5-7 and 3 Nephi 12-14, and I have been re-reading the gospels. Christ is so bold with his questions and so loving. He has so much faith and rewards us with blessings based on the tiniest bit of faith.

Invitation of the Week: Have you invited a non-member or less-active friend or family member to an activity, to church, or to hear about the gospel? Time is soon running out for the challenge from General Conference... only 23 days left til Christmas.

Have a great day!

Sister Jenkins

The Errand of Angels Week 52: Thankful for My Mission

Hello Everyone!!

Happy Thanksgiving this coming week! Oh, and Happy One-Year Mark this Thanksgiving for me! I cannot think of a better day to have my one-year mark on!

Here are a couple reasons I am grateful for my mission:

-Seeing people's lives change

-Opportunities to testify

-Lots of time set apart to study the scriptures (two hours daily)

-Meeting great new friends (companions!)

-Working hard (and learning to work harder)

-Growing my relationship with God and Christ

-Learning to how become a better mother (in the future)

-Living simply (out of three suitcases)

-Learning to make good, quick judgements based on Holy Ghost, and sound reasoning

-Appreciating the blessings from God more.

There are so many more. I am truly grateful for my mission and for the opportunity to learn and grow.

Isn't the lizard cute?

Some of the blessings we saw this week:

Jeff and Mickey are wonderful! They have been reading all the assignments, and re-reading them. They gave a member (their neighbor) a ride to church, stayed for all three hours (even though Mickey's foot was swelling pretty bad), and received a Priesthood blessing after church. It has been so cool to see their transformation. They are happier and seem so in love. They feel like a burden has been lifted from their shoulders. Jeff is very excited to be baptized. Every time we go over to their house it is cleaner and more organized and smells less of smoke. It is awesome.

Sister Hewitt invited a friend over that we have been trying to meet with for quite some time. He became a new investigator in the first visit and wants to be baptized. He came to church. He could not possibly have a better fellowshipper in Sister Hewitt. She has been sharing the gospel with everyone and it is so exciting to see the fruits of her labors.

We have some young women who are learning the Sacrament prayers in ASL so that they can help interpret. That has been a cool service opportunity for me... it is helping them with their Young Women value projects. One is even teaching Sister Aussicker with us (she is the deaf woman), it is awesome! Sister Aussicker is so funny by the way! She makes us laugh every single visit. The members who are getting to know her love her and her sense of humor.

There are so many more blessings than that. We had so many times this week where it was 100% perfect timing, we had three investigators and three returning members at church. It is beautiful!

Ohhhhhh, Great Harvest Bread. What a treat.

And I am trying to give myself more to the Lord. I am here to give 100% of my self - thoughts, heart, actions. I want to come home knowing I did that.

My invitation to you: Write down ten things you are grateful for in your journal, and have a prayer of gratitude with your family for the many blessings of God. Not just a quick prayer over Thanksgiving dinner, but a prayer that comes after discussion from each of your family members about what you are grateful for.

Have a great week!

Sister Jenkins

The Errand of Angels Week 51: Baptismal Date Set

Time for new shoes

Maybe I should have buried these with honors

Hello Everyone!

Well, seeing as I hit my year mark next week, I think this week is 51. Wow! Yup, year mark is in 10 days. I hope you all miss me. Haha.

This week was really good with LOTS of blessings and miracles.

Funny of the Week: So, we had a good funny of the week to share. We were walking down the road and these two old men drive up on their bikes and and whistle at us and pat the back of the seats (signaling us to get on and go for a ride). Obviously there wasn't even a particle of a possibility that we would get on, but we about died laughing when a couple minutes later we thought of what the look would be on President Cusick's face if we was stopped at a light and we pulled up next to him on the back of motorcycles. Oh man, it was too funny! But don't worry, not a possibility AT ALL!

Miracles/Blessings/Highlights of the Week:

Last week we were at Costco getting lots of food (this week we don't have a car, so we have to stock up!) We were in line and about to check out with this woman comes up to us, introduces herself (as a member in Riverview) and says, "Today is my son's birthday. He has almost been out on his mission a year. He is missing home today. I really want to do this for you." And then buys $80 of groceries for us. We stood there in awe, thanked her, and teared up. We have been trying to be so good about our money and Heavenly Father has been pouring out the blessings on us. We had to thank Him so much for this one. 

CUTE, and only $20

We have been teaching a wonderful woman named Teresa. She does not have much experience with church throughout her life. It was been such a blessing to teach her. She says some of the most thought out prayers that I have ever heard and she is a great example to me. Every time she prays she says something, waits (to receive an answer from God), thinks about what to ask for, and then says something else, and repeats the silence. The first time she prayed if The Book of Mormon was true and what we were teaching was true she felt so much peace. Through prayer and the Holy Ghost we can know of any spiritual truth. It was powerful. After her prayer we invited her to be baptized January 11 and she accepted. We are so grateful and excited. Heidi and Legion (recent converts in this area) are excited to come join the lessons with her. She explained how the day that we met her while we were biking on the street she was having a really bad day. Her car wasn't working and that is why she was walking. She acknowledges though that everything happens for a reason. 

Our deaf sister

 

A cool miracle we saw was with lesson focus... which is sometimes out of our circle of influence, but we can still strive our best. We have been having a hard time keeping some lessons to the suggested 45 minute range or keeping them focused. We have many investigators who can literally talk for 30 minutes straight if they weren't continually interrupted. We know that there is a nice balance between listening and controlling the lesson. With two such investigators we had been praying, discussing, and planning all week long on how to do this. We had a lesson with them Saturday night; almost the entire lesson was focused and the discussion was led by the Spirit (and this was without the DVD that we were planning on showing). It was a beautiful witness to me of how important prayer, preparation, and faith are. 

Our deaf less active came to church yesterday. In the process, we discovered a man from the Brandon ward who is studying ASL that can help interpret, and two young women and a relief society sister who want to begin coming to the lessons and preparing to interpret for parts of church. This should take little time on our part to prepare them to help interpret. This was a huge blessing because we were worried about her feeling welcome, friendshipped, and being able to understand the lessons after I left.

I love my mission and I am so grateful to be here! It has been a huge blessing! Every moment of every day is so beautiful :) Even those that you just have to laugh at, like the biker guys.

Invitation: Try thinking a little extra about your prayers this week while you saw them.

Thanks Rachel for the Outback gift card. We ate the whole thing

Have a great day!

Sister Jenkins

The Errand of Angels Week 48: Tender Mercies and ASL

Hello Everyone!

I hope you all are well!

First and foremost, THANK YOU to all the Veteran's who have served this country... who have protected us and our rights, especially our rights for religious freedom. Thank you. Thank you to all those who are currently serving. Thank you, David, for all of your service! And thank you for being a great husband to my Sister. Thank you to your family.

This week was awesome!!! and hard at times... but mostly, awesome!!!

Guess what?! 

We have been trying to find less active members and this week we found one that is deaf!! What a blessing!! We have tried her so many times, but haven't knocked hard enough for her to know we were at the door. She is so sweet and wonderful and will hopefully be at church this next week. It was also a tender mercy to have a little bit of the gift of tongues, because in our first meeting of her I knew exactly almost everything she signed and I knew all the vocabulary to communicate back. Granted, I am fluent in ASL, but I am still not perfect and only typically use it twice a day for my morning and evening personal prayers. The next meeting we had with her wasn't as perfect, which was a great testimony that Heavenly Father did indeed bless me with the gift of tongues on that first visit. He has been pushing me to study ASL more, which is hard with our schedule, but I have been blessed to watch The Book of Mormon and the pamphlets we teach from in ASL here and there. It is a good reminder.

There were so many other tender mercies this week as well, especially with 100% perfect timing! Here you go (not in order):

Remember that lady that I mentioned that we prayed with on  Halloween and she started crying? We haven't been able to get in contact with her... doesn't have money for a phone, etc... well, this week God helped us see her at a bus stop at a totally different time than before. We were able to have a quick lesson with the Atonement with her... helped her see that her little children didn't need to be baptized yet until they could choose, but she wants us to help her prepare for baptism. I have faith we will see her again soon.

You have gotta love Florida. This was off a member's tree with 3 guavas off another tree.

We also were able to do a lot of service! Which we love :) We helped a Veteran who had just gotten surgery on both his feet, to saw some branches. He is a preacher and is awesome. 

He introduced us to his neighbor, a sweet woman in her 80s that works like an ox... she gave us a referral for another sweet, older woman, and we also got to help her with some cleaning that requires a lot of bending. This woman wakes up around 5 AM, cleans her house, and then serves people for the rest of the day. She gives homeless people and poor people rides to go get food. She is amazing. She is Baptist. I don't know if I have ever publicly thanked our Christian brothers and sisters for all the service they do. I really appreciate their dedication to Christ and their work towards the "cause of Christians." We need more people in the world who strive to live their testimonies of Christ.

So, I bring up service not to get popularity points, but because I am so grateful when people give us the opportunity to serve!! Also, because I feel humble doing it... as a missionary, I am a representative of Christ, and I want to model my life after Him. He did so much service, and I am grateful for any opportunity to do the same. I love it.

A really cool perfect planning miracle. In weekly planning we pencil planned to see a family Wednesday at 5, but the way our appointments worked and the fact that we were on bike, it just wasn't going to work, so we didn't call them to schedule for that day. Guess what?! They called us and scheduled to pick us up at 5 that day for dinner. I am so grateful and humble for perfect planning.

Mickey and Jeff are so wonderful! They came to church this Sunday. Jeff hasn't set foot in a church for about 15 years. He said it felt like a huge weight was lifted off of his shoulders. They have multiple friends that are members. 

We also invited a homeless man to church, and he came! It was so exciting. He is super sweet. He said he will be back next week.

So anyways, today was mostly just sharing the tender mercies of the Lord, which I am so grateful for! I truly love this work. Every week brings a deeper testimony, a greater love for our Savior, and beautiful and sweet opportunities to serve.

Oh, and thank you for those who have been praying we will get fed. I don't know if you are, but we received over $45 in free groceries this week, plus more food in the mail. We really appreciated it. Thank you!

Invitation: Doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith. With The Book of Mormon musical coming up (we have it here for the next two weeks), many people are hearing false things about our church. If you don't have a testimony of its truth for yourself, read The Book of Mormon, pray, and find out. If you do have a testimony or if you don't know what Mormons believe, become more educated so you can educate others. Try out Mormon.org.

Have a wonderful week!

Sister Jenkins

A missionary pyramid