Week 17: Elder Jenkins Weekly Email: RIP Elder Whetten

Well, the time has finally come. This week I will be killing my dad (mission lingo, which Im still getting used to with dads, and moms [trainers] and people dying as missionaries) and will be welcoming in my second companion in the mission. It really is sad to see Elder Whetten go, but I´m excited to see what new things I can learn from my new companion. I don´t know much about him other than he is a native from Argentina...meaning he speaks absolutely no english. Its a little scary to think that the person who I will be with every second of every day won´t even be able to communicate perfectly with me, but I know I will learn a TON of spanish within this time and maybe a little bit about dealing with communication issues, which I´m sure will help in my future endeavors with the opposite sex, who quite often seem like they are speaking a different language....

I was totally fine with leaving the mission with just one being sick story, but alas that was not the plan. This week, we decided to go to a restaurant called CHE! after a district meeting. It is an Argentin Barbeque, which is styled the same as the Brazillian Buffet places. The layout is, you pay a fixed price, sit at a table, and people bring around a collection of 8-12 different kinds of meat for you to eat on giant swords, and they do so until you are dead or sick of meat. Well, we went, and as 19-21 year old boys, we couldn´t possibly let someone else eat more than the other. SO WE ATE. As we walked....waddled...out of the restaurant I knew it was going to be a bad night, but I didn´t even know the half of it. 2 Hours later, we went to teach a family, and afterwards they told us to wait just a minute before we left. They then brought out a huge bowl of lental soup, and the biggest plate of rice that has ever been made with a piece of meat on top of it. Just looking at it made me want to die. I tried as hard as I could to eat it all, but in my mind I had the image of someone blowing up a balloon and the balloon being at that point where it could explode any second, and then you wonder why the stupid person is still trying to blow it up....well Im sure my stomach was wondering why I was trying to make it explode. We got done with about half of it and just told her how sorry we were but that we couldn´t finish. We practically fell down the stairs, went home, and I think my body was in so much pain that i fainted instead of fell asleep. I don´t think I ever want to see, smell, or eat a piece of meat ever again in my life. 

Other than that little incident this week was great. Elder Whetten and I had one of the most spiritual lessons that I have had during my time here on the mission. We were preparing to teach one of our investigators a topic that we were a little aprehensive about teaching. We didn´t know how we would explain it or if she would freak out, but we decided to go in and just let the spirit guide us. As we taught her, we both felt like it was the right time to share the doctrine that we were a little afraid to share. As we taught and testified about this beautiful knowledge that the scriptures teach, she began to cry. She told us that her whole life she had been practically waiting for this knowledge and how much comfort and peace she felt as we explained it to her. 

Elder Whetten always explains to me that when we feel fear, we have to distinguish if its the spirit telling us not to do it, or if its the devil trying to keep us from doing something right. Most often times, the fealings of fear we have are just Satan trying to get us not to change, not to listen, not to act, or not to share something that could really change someone´s life. In this moment, I realized that we really had nothing to fear and that true doctrine, pure knowledge, will always help someone come closer to Christ, not push them away. 

This next week, I will be in charge of teaching another missionary everything I have learned about this area in the 12 weeks that I have been here, in another language. It´s a scary thought, but I always know that it´s an opportunity to grow and I can´t wait. I´ll miss Elder Whetten, but I know his future wife needs him more now than I do haha 

Highlights for this upcoming week will be getting my new companion, and IPADS ARE OFFICIALLY HERE. We will be getting them Thursday along with a training from the president´s assistants, so my next weekly email will be on an ipad. CAN´T WAIT!

Thanks to all who are keeping up with my life here in Spain! I hope and wish the best for you all and thank you for your support and prayers. 

Love,

Elder Jenkins

Things I learned

1. I never realized, but the stop signs here actually say STOP, In English!...it now makes sense why the people here don´t actually stop at them

2. The word Samuri actually means, ¨one who serves¨

3. If you try to wash the dead bugs off the car with a dish sponge, it will scratch the paint (Elder Whetten learned this one, not me)

4. When you see someone coming at you with a giant pole, they are probably going to hit you, RUN

5. There is no ¨I¨ in missionary work

6. There is a limit to how much meat you can and should eat