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