The Errand of Angels: Week 12 We are on FIRE!

Hello Everyone!!

Guess what?! I love being a missionary!! (Surprised, right?) Guess what else?! I hit my three month mark in a couple days!! Crazyness! Serving the Lord makes time fly by. You should try it sometime ;)

Let's see... the weather here is still a balmy 80 degrees (I think... we never really see the forecast).

The bugs here are still EVERYWHERE... yay... wahoo... I dislike bugs. But lizards are everywhere too and very fun to chase, so I guess it evens out.

Members are still pounding food down us (yay for girl scout cookie season! Yum!).

We had three otters in the pond by our house and a giant turtle (looked like a sea turtle)... like 1 square foot or more and had flippers... epic!! Poor guy must have been lost though.

These  birds also wander around our complex

And the work is still awesome!!!!

Here are some highlights:

We had a less active at church for the first time since they moved into our ward (congregation) boundaries. The members reached out to them in love and friendship. It was awesome! We met with them for the first time earlier this week.

Our recent convert passed the sacrament to us on Sunday!! Sister Foster cried. I had a HUGE smile.

In Relief Society they asked me a question about converts. I started crying. I was sitting next to two recent converts (one was baptized in July and one was Sharon, our baptism my first week in the mission). Sharon put her arm around me and said that she will never forget me... even into her 80s that she would never forget me and that she loves me. More tears. She answered tons of question in gospel principles class on Sunday. She rocks. So do all the recent converts!! I love them all. And all the members. Man, being a missionary is awesome!

We met with the investigator that attended the baptism last week. We were doing a mixture of How To Begin Teaching and the Holy Ghost Dialogue (essentially all we had said is that we aren't perfect teachers) when she stops us dead in our tracks and kind of chastises us for saying we aren't perfect teachers, but then she essentially said it didn't matter what we said because she knew that she would receive her answer from the Holy Ghost and that she would receive it as she reads and prays about The Book of Mormon. Wow. I am glad that we know she fully understands all of that :) She also calls me "the preacher" jokingly because I gave a talk at the baptism that she really liked, and feels like I talk like a preacher. Yay for the Spirit at the baptism!

This week we have been focusing on a couple things, and one of those has been flooding the mission with copies of The Book of Mormon. I think almost every dinner appointment this week contained either doing a Family Mission Plan, committing to do a Family Mission Plan, and/or writing testimonies in copies of The Book of Mormon and giving them away to others. We have heard some awesome missionary experiences from members the last couple weeks :) It is awesome to hear how the gospel of Jesus Christ has blessed people's families.

Before going on... The gospel is truly meant to bless families, which I love!! I know that as families turn their lives unto Christ and His teachings, that they will find greater joy and peace. I also know that families can be together beyond the grave. Marriages and families can last for the eternities, and that death will not eternally part them. I am so excited to be with my family for time and all eternity. These blessings are available through the gospel of Jesus Christ :)

Back to highlights... We did exchanges this week (for 24 hours you switch companions and so either you stay in your area and another missionary comes to work with you or you go to their area. I went to an area that has just opened up again and with a sister who has been out four weeks... Sister Kenagy from Washington. The exchange was awesome and Sister Kenagy is absolutely on fire as a missionary! It is difficult to not have her positive attitude rub off on you :) She had the goal to stop and talk to everyone. This is also one of my goals, which I haven't been the best at the past couple weeks. With both of us working on this we saw amazing things!! Yay for double-greenie fire!! (FYI, new missionaries are sometimes called "greenies"

No, it isn't a chipmunk at her complex.
It is Deba with a mouthfull of Skittles.
It is part of a game. (Maybe she won't trust
me with posting on her blog anymore.)

Before I go on to tell a couple stories, I just have to say that biking as a missionary is awesome. A. Exercise releases endorphins, which equals a happier Sister Jenkins, B. I LOVE working out, and C. there are so many people to always talk to! Wow! It's probably similar for the car missionaries in the sense that there are plenty of people to talk to, I guess I just noticed it more while on a bike.

We started the day with teaching a lady at a bus stop. Strange, yes. The woman would not let us go to her house for legitimate safety reasons. But she went from being nice but not really interested in our message, to praying with us and receiving a copy of The Book of Mormon. It was awesome. I know that the gospel will help her overcome her drug addiction she is fighting.The bus came at the perfect time too. What are the chances? 100%!

We contacted a referral we received earlier in the day and prayed with her. Her dog barked the entire time which was very strange for me (normally all animals immediately have their voices silenced by the Holy Ghost). The dog began barking when the prayer started and stopped when it ended. Regardless of this distraction the woman was crying during the prayer. The Spirit really touched her. She loves missionaries and know that there is something different about members of the Church. She wants to have the missionaries over for dinner and was ecstatic to give a referral!

But, another shout out to Sister Foster, my current companion, she rocks!!! I love her so much!!! She loves the work, I love the work. We have been talking to everyone the past couple days and it has been so much fun!! She will be missed as my companion if she gets transferred next week. I love this work! When the focus is right, Heavenly Father blesses you with an increase measure of joy.

Invitation: I can't forget one of these :) Think about five people who you would like to see come unto Christ more. Pray for them and opportunities to help them with this. Either reach out to them yourself or send the missionaries to them (www.mormon.org).

Have a great week!!!!

Sister Jenkins

The Errand of Angels: Week 11 Project Purification sounds like a spiritual marathon

Hello Everyone!

I love being a missionary!!!! If you need a little more happiness in your life, find someone to share your testimony with or someone to serve. Heavenly Father will bless you with an added measure of joy :)

I am so grateful to be here and I LOVE the work. I know that I am here because Heavenly Father wants me to be and I want to ensure that I am always using His time wisely and following the Spirit. I also realize though that I have much to learn and we cannot become perfect in a day (or even in the first three months of being a missionary... wow, is that anniversary coming up soon?!).

There are many miracles in the work because it is God's work. 

A highlight of the week was definitely baptism of our awesome 13-year old investigator. Not only was it exciting to see him get baptized (he was so ready!) by his grandfather, but we also had an investigator who came that absolutely loved the service. We gave her a church tour afterwards and she felt at peace, at home. It was beautiful. I am excited to work more with her. She is very humble and sweet and keeps on reading and praying about The Book of Mormon. Oh, and I gave a talk about baptism at the baptism. Our investigator come up afterwards and complemented me by saying, "You are a preacher!" She is so cute. She is from Jamaica. I totally appreciated her compliment. Yay for the Spirit!

Also, this week has been cool in regard to realizing the very wide variety of people we are teaching. I am so grateful that Heavenly Father has entrusted such individuals to us. I am especially grateful because some of these individuals have a lot of barriers to overcome and it makes me feel comforted to know that Heavenly Father is on my side and that the Spirit is the one that has to convert and not me. I love seeing people slowly become closer to Christ and slowly become converting. This work is so rewarding. Wow, I love it.

My mission zone is doing something right now called "Project Purification." Essentially for the next 40 days (now 32 days) we give up everything distracting us from the work and dedicate ourselves to do everything that we can to find success in the Lord's eyes. This has been a challenge because its changing hearts and habits. You have a list of these things and it sort of develops over time as you add to it. I have learned that I have much to approve upon. I am grateful to learn these things at the start of my mission. Every morning you promise to do or not do the things on your list and every night you follow up with Heavenly Father about how it went. I have not been perfect at this over the last 8 days, but I am so grateful that I am doing this because praying about each of those things specifically has helped remind me to do or not do those things, especially when the time comes to make the choice. Wow, I love it! I have felt an extra measure of help from my Heavenly Father in the work, but also an extra measure of pressure from the adversary because I am trying so hard. Luckily, I have the gift of the Holy Ghost and I know that Heavenly Father will not let me fail if I turn to Him and allow the Atonement of Jesus Christ to enable me with power every step of the way.

I love how the Atonement is described in a talk, "His Grace is Sufficient," by Brad Wilcox (http://www.lds.org/new-era/2012/08/his-grace-is-sufficient?lang=eng&query=his+grace+sufficient). My invitation to all of you this week is to read this talk and write in your journal what you can do to be more "changed by grace" and "learn Heaven."

Trusting in Christ enough to use his Atonement at all times takes faith. I am grateful to a Priesthood leader of mine who shared with me his testimony of faith this week. Here are some quotes he shared with it. I hope that he doesn't mind me sharing his testimony. It was so simple yet so beautiful and powerful:

 "To have faith is to have confidence in something or someone.  The Lord has revealed himself and his perfect character, possessing in their fulness all the attributes of love, knowledge, justice, mercy, unchangeableness, power, and every other needful thing, so as to enable the mind of man to place confidence in him without reservation.   (Bible Dictionary, p. 669)

 “Faith is a principle of action and of power, and by it one can command the elements and/or heal the sick, or influence any number of circumstances when occasion warrants.  Even more important, by faith one obtains a remission of sins and eventually can stand in the presence of God.  All true faith must be based upon correct knowledge or it cannot produce the desired results.  Faith in Jesus Christ is the first principle of the gospel and is more than belief, since true faith always moves its possessor to some kind of physical and mental action; it carries an assurance of the fulfillment of the things hoped for.  . . Where there is true faith there are miracles, visions, dreams, healings, and all the gifts of God that he gives to his saints. . .” (Bible Dictionary p. 670)

I'm thankful that the first principle of the gospel is faith in Jesus Christ. What a blessing to know that Jesus Christ is always available to us and that through Him we can obtain our fondest desires. He is the source of all good things. What a blessing it is that He invites us to come unto Him.  What a blessing that He allows us to extend that invitation to others.

Here are some thoughts from my Mission President:

"A simple, eternal truth is that our true happiness is found in seeking the happiness of others. 

We know that Alma and the sons of Mosiah “were men of sound understanding and they had searched the scriptures diligently, that they might know the word of God. But this was not all; they had given themselves to much prayer, and fasting”… Alma 17:2-3They were not content to casually prepare to be missionaries. There is a price to pay to know God-and they paid it. We can say the right words and teach correct principles, but to preach with power, we must pay the price…we must demand more of ourselves every day. Ask yourself if what you’re doing today is getting you closer to where you want to be tomorrow. If you want to be as good as Ammon, you need to demand more of yourself. 

“Since time is so precious a commodity, we must not be dismayed when the time permitted to savor success seems so small on occasion.  High moments are soon followed by fresh challenges.  It could scarcely be otherwise, for none of us would for long want to be banqueting over our blessings while others stood without, waiting for the touch of our lives and talents.” Neal A. Maxwell.  

Sisters and Elders “wherefore you must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ” 2 Nephi 31:20. never being content with what was OK yesterday. I promise you that as you demand more of yourselves, your capacity to work will increase. ..and ‘angels will be round about you to bear you up.’"

I know that through the Atonement of Christ we can become better each day. He will help us. He will enable us to become our best selves and then tomorrow become even better. Do not get discouraged if improvement and perfection does not come today. Just like it mentioned in the talk by Brad Wilcox, we are learning Heaven. Learning takes time. Changing takes time. Christ will help us every step of the way.

I love you all! Thank you for your support and prayers!!

Sister Jenkins

The Errand of Angels: Week 10 PIZZA CHALLENGE WINNER

Hello Everyone!

Oh how I love the Lord! As a missionary I am supposed to "love the Lord and serve him the very best that I can." This is what I am striving to do every day of my mission.

So today I am sick at my own fault. Pride. Oh the Jenkins' pride. It runs deep. Real deep. Deep like 4 lbs of pizza deep.

There is this pizza challenge where three people eat a 28" pizza with 5 toppings in 60 minutes. Obviously I wouldn't stand for the Elders telling me I couldn't do it. So I did it. Well, I had two crusts left and a little piece of pizza. I gave up trying to pound it down as quickly when one of the Elders had to step out 3/4 of the way through his second slice. I almost finished though. See attached picture for the "before" pizza picture. Anyways, I will push through the pain to share the gospel today!

Oh and btw, all the missionaries and the pizza place owners were very impressed with me. Mission accomplished. Pretty sure I will now be extremely humbled and learn my lesson from the sickness. Already wondering if my pride was worth it... Well, at least it was fun!

It makes me sick just looking at this. Blek. Those are my little crusts. Truly not very much left. The other slice in the picture isn't mine.

Anyways, what a different week this has been since last week. Wow! Our companionship started out right this week and it helped magnify the Spirit. It was awesome to get home and know that we spent the day following the promptings of the Holy Ghost to know where to go, what to do and what to say. Wow. Our week wasn't perfect, but there were many days where that was the case. Third week in a row with 30+ lessons. This week was great though, because there were days when we had hardly any lessons but we knew we were spending the time exactly as we needed to. What a blessing!

Some highlights of the week:

We have four investigators who have now said that they are going to read The Book of Mormon and pray about it. All of them were already reading but had chosen not to pray previously. We are so excited to hear the results from their prayers!

We had an appointment fall through this week, which meant we had a little extra time for an appointment that we had before it that we knew we were going to have to start late. We were planning on teaching about the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ with a less active family. Well, the 15-year old son had a friend who was there so we taught all of them. The Spirit was very strong and everyone was involved in the lesson. The friend was hanging on to every word of the First Vision. The friend felt like the Restoration was "heartwarming." We explained this was the Spirit. He said he would read The Book of Mormon, pray about it, and possibly invite his family to take the discussions - he wants them to. Another blessing of having a lesson fall through.

We were heading to another appointment that I was quite nervous about. This was the second visit and on the first visit the person had tried to "Bible bash" a little... essentially share scriptures they thought disproved our message. Which they didn't. We believe in the Bible and the gospel of Jesus Christ on earth today is the same gospel that existed in His day. Anyways, while travelling there Sister Foster felt like we should talk about eternal families and The Family: A Proclamation to the World (http://www.lds.org/topics/family-proclamation?lang=eng) instead - what an inspired change! I felt great about the change and the lesson went marvelous. The person even shared that they now better understood scriptures from the Bible about the family and did believe that family relationships could be eternal (which previously they did not believe it). The Spirit was really strong. I am so grateful for promptings of the Spirit and for Sister Foster who is willing to act on them!

Sister Foster is really awesome. I truly do love her and she is great. I am so grateful we have each other and the Spirit to help teach others.

I know that families can be together forever! Marriage can last beyond the grave. I really know that to be true. We have this available to us because of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Speaking of families, my niece, Morgan Irons, is awesome: http://www.lds.org/church/news/an-incredible-young-lady-wins-national-scholarship?lang=eng (FYI, so are all my other nieces and nephews).

What will a Harry Potter wand do in the hands of a Mormon?

With Valentine's Day coming up, I want you to think what you can do to show your love for the Lord more. http://www.lds.org/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/4?lang=eng

FYI, here is a video of my Mission President: http://mormon.org/bruce/

Have an excellent week!!!

Sister Jenkins

The Errand of Angels: Week 9 Their testimonies strengthened me as a missionary.

Hello Everyone!

So guess what is so cool?! Elder Neil A. Anderson will be presiding at our Stake (no not a wooden stake and no not a delicious slab of meat... a Stake consists of multiple congregations) Conference at the end of March :) It will be wonderful to have an Apostle at our church meetings. Our current Stake President is going to be a mission president soon, so we will get a new one. So cool! I feel so blessed!

I feel like Sacrament Meeting yesterday was for me and Sister Foster. We had 20 people bear their testimonies during the time and all were so powerful and perfect for missionary work (and for comforting me). During the Sacrament I was praying so hard for one of our investigators who didn't make it to church (don't worry, its not the 13-year old... he is rock solid for his upcoming baptism). Side note, I don't think I have ever prayed so much or so hard for others as I have on my mission, except when Dad was going to get his heart surgery. Wow, praying for others' eternity with such fervent effort is amazing. I feel so blessed for this opportunity. Anyways, so I was praying for this investigator and honestly quite tearful just desiring her to come unto the beauty of the gospel. Then Sacrament Meeting testimonies hit and I was blown away with how many people I have had the opportunity to touch or other missionaries to have the opportunity to touch. I may not be able to fully understand the extent of how my work will affect those I teach, but I know it will be tremendous.

We had a couple less actives bear their testimonies and one hasn't done so since she was 17 and now she is almost 50. Her testimony was beautiful and I could not be more proud of her.

Here are some of my favorite quotes from the meeting:

"Grace and truth are my friends"

"I attend church alone, but I am not alone" (she is the only member in her family)

"With the Lord I can do hard things" (coming from a woman who has experienced many health issues, but is still standing firm in the faith)

"Do all you can to stand"

"How do you ever learn if you don't let go of the walls?" (question his daughter asked him while they were at a skating rink for her birthday)

"I am mortal and learning each and every day"

"If you seek the love you will feel it"

Many people shared their stories of the missionaries finding them and joining the Church. One man and his wife prayed to find the true church and the next day the missionaries knocked on his door. He said he was a tough nut to crack, but he had now been a member for many, many years.

One other great quote from the day, "Act as a honeybee and look for the sweet in the thorniest of bushes." This was mentioned as we discussed how our words can have power to affect others and so we need to choose to present our words in a loving and supportive way.

I am so grateful to be a missionary.

Also, I am so grateful for all the life experiences that prepared me for now and to relate to people. It makes me wonder if I had any life experiences to NOT help me on my mission, but for other times. I have been truly blessed to be able to relate to so many and have something to talk about with almost everyone. I am sooooo grateful that God has been preparing me my entire life up until now to serve a mission. I have no doubts this is where He wants me to be. I am so grateful that I realized this was God's will and followed the prompting to serve. I will never regret this decision. There is no place than I rather be at the front of the battle field fighting for the eternal salvation of the souls of men! My mission is already going by way too fast.

So, to add to all the other testimonies born in Sacrament Meeting. I know that God is our loving Heavenly Father. I know that the Gospel blesses families. I know that God answers prayers. God has answered my prayers and because of this I know that the Bible is the word of God as far as it is translated correctly. I know that The Book of Mormon is the word of God as well. I know that we having a living prophet who directs the Church today. And I know that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is once again on earth in its fullness preparatory to the second coming of the Savior.

FYI, we beat 30 lessons this week. 31. Woo! Twas Awesome.

The biggest challenge we face is working with people that don't have an open heart when they read The Bible, The Book of Mormon or pray. They confess to know God and to want to come closer to Him, but then refuse to take the steps that can bring guidance to their lives and help them know for themselves that our message is true. When you have questions about the truth, invite the Holy Ghost into your life by prayer and study of the scriptures with an open heart, willing to act on the answer you receive. God will answer your prayers. He may not answer in the time or manner you expect, but He will answer (James 1:5 and Moroni 10:3-5).

My challenge this week: Share a truth you know to be true with someone else. Maybe that Jesus Christ is your Savior. That Heavenly Father loves everyone on earth. As you do this, especially about the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Holy Ghost will testify that it is true. You can change someone's life, even if it is a family member or a person you are passing on the street. You can and should pray for strength and inspiration. Heavenly Father will bless you with those. Hesitant about doing this? Here are great suggestions for being a missionary yourself: http://www.lds.org/liahona/2013/02/a-word-for-the-hesitant-missionary

Enjoy the picture of the gator sign we found :)

Have a great week! 

Sister Jenkins