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