Week 2 The MAC CHICKEN and Real Madrid 2/5/2015

The sound of Elder Jenkins is starting to get more and more familiar
as I realize that I am actually a missionary! It´s a crazy feeling,
but at the same time it’s the most fulfilling feeling that I have ever
encountered, even with my limited experience so far!
I love this country more and more every single day. Last P-day, we
traveled to the Puerta Del Sol in the Heart of Madrid. It is pretty
much Spain´s equivalent of Time´s square and is filled with stores,
street performers, and such beautiful buildings. I got to try my first
real Spanish food outside of what they serve here at the MTC, and of
course it had to be churros and hot chocolate. What I got was
definitely not what I was expecting, however. The churros has zero
sugar or cinnamon, and the hot chocolate was super thick, and
impossible to drink. Luckily someone told me that you don´t drink the
hot chocolate, you dip your churros in it. It was pretty good, but the
chocolate they have here tastes like semi-sweet chocolate you would
use to bake with, not really what I was expecting after coming from
American chocolate. ALSO, I passed a Mcdonalds and was ASTOUNDED when
I found out that no one in my family decided to tell me that they came
out with a MCCHICKEN BIG MAC sandwich. I´m hoping it´s not just a
European thing so that I can eat them for the rest of my days. I have
yet to try it but I´ll be sure to let you all know when I do.
Today, we are going to the Real Madrid Futbol Stadium so that should
be pretty exciting. Apparently it´s like the Mecca of futbol and a
place that you have to see before you die if you even like sports at
all.
Some of the greatest experiences I have had here at the MTC have been
the scariest as well. One of those is most certainly the Park. There
is a park in the center of Madrid that used to only be open to
royalty, but is now open to the public and the wave of Mormon
Missionaries who ambush it at 2 oclock every Saturday. We get assigned
a brand new companion, usually someone who doesn´t speak Spanish and
is here learning Russian or French so we can help them understand
Spanish, and we hit the streets of the park to preach this gospel to
anyone who will listen. It´s an eye opening experience as you quickly
realize the rejection that is impending for the next two years of your
life, but at the same time a day of rejection is totally worth the
couple of people who decide to listen to the message. It is crazy to
think how much someone´s life could be changed just because I said
hello to them at a park and tried to give them a book in broken
Spanish.
We also do a LOT of role playing here, all in Spanish of course. We
have teachers who pretend to be investigators who we teach every day
for two weeks. At the beginning, it was kind of hard to take the role
plays seriously, but as we got to know our investigators and their
stories and taught them the lessons became very real. The situations
that we are put in are real life situations and the spirit that is
present is absolutely authentic. It´s honestly breathtaking when you
walk away from a lesson where the spirit was so strong. Role plays
also give us a lovely repertoire of stories from missionaries who are
still trying to get the hang of this language. For instance, in our
first lesson, we decided to kind of stray of the lesson plan. Now I am
in a trio companionship, and so as two of us deviated, one of the
missionaries kind of missed the memo. So one of my companions bore his
testimony about the family and how our investigator could see her son
who passed away again, I followed and testified about the same, after
which, my third companion chimmed in about how Jesus Christ
established a church when he was on the earth. We got quite an
interesting look from our investigator needless to say. This week we
will get new “investigators” and I get to start this whole process
over again.
The best part of the MTC is by far the devotionals that we get to hear
everyweek. Because we aren´t in Provo, we don´t get the luxury of
being in the same room as the apostles and other speakers, but we do
get to watch them in our classrooms and the spirit is the same. The
talks that we hear from those inspired men change my view on this
work, this gospel, and how I am to live my life. Additionally, we get
the amazing devotionals by the mtc president here. He has so much love
for all of us and I can definitely feel that he cares about us and
this work more than anything.
Food Update: Food is still a working progress, but I am working hard.
I was so excited when I walked into the comedor and saw that we were
having hamburgers and hot dogs one night!...Until I tasted them. I
would say out of all the things I love about Spain, there are
definitely some things I miss about America.
I am so happy for this opportunity that I have been given to serve the
Lord in Spain. Today we also got to go to the temple here in Madrid
for the first time and thinking about how I was with my family the
last time I was in a temple was a little disheartening, but I have
faith that they are okay and have had a spiritual confirmation
multiple times every day that what I am out here doing is the best
thing I could possibly be doing right now. Thanks for all the prayers
and the thoughts. Until next week, Adios.
5 Things I learned this week: (I decided to drop down from 10 because
that’s a little audacious for just the MTC)
1.      I actually have found that I ENJOY writing in my journal – congrats
Mom, 19 years of nagging finally paid off ;)
2.      There is Power in Planning for lessons, even if you already know
everything you are going to teach. Putting in the time to plan makes
all the difference.
3.      The weather in Spain is CRAZY! One second it´s sunny, the next its
hailing, and we even got some flurries this week. It´s pretty cold,
but all that I hear about Malaga is how hot it is, so I´m excited to
see if I can last in the frying pan.
4.      I got the answer to one of the questions I have always wondered
this week. “How do I know if a prompting is from the Holy Ghost or if
its just me?” The answer, in the words of Elder Bednar, “Quit worrying
about it and press forward. The Lord will guide you, but he shouldn´t
have to yell at you!”
5.      If you can, find the talk on the Character of Christ by Elder David
A. Bednar. It is one of the most powerful talks regarding The Savior
and who He was that I have ever heard.