Week 21

First off, I have to apologize if my last two letters have been
slightly depressing in tone. I pr poise I'm happier than I ever have
been and things are going great. I Blame my high school English
classes for teaching me to write super dramatically, and sometimes I
go a little overboard haha. Things are going great here in Cartagena
with elder Striebeck! It's been getting hotter and hotter everyday,
which makes it really hard to walk around and try to do missionary
work...good thing we have a car! Haha and yeah the other missionaries
do hate me and my comp

However, it seems that my days of air conditioning and cruising the
Spanish countryside have come to an end. My companion received a phone
call this week and he will be training a new missionary, which also
means that I will be saying good bye to my first area. It's been
pretty hard not to be kind of sad. Starting out here has been a real
blessing, a place where the work moves so fast and all of the members
are supportive and loving and with a car, but I know the lord has
other things for me to learn that I can't learn here. I thought I
escaped my first summer in Spain, but alas the time has come for me to
experience the true missionary life.

This week, I realized one of the things I dislike most about Spain. In
America there is a flap in the plumbing system that only allows the
water to go one way, away from your bathroom. Well here they don't
have that so you always get to wake up to the sweet smell of.....yeah.
However, that is not the worst of the problems. The absence of the
flaps also allows for the entrance of cockroaches into your house. I
don't think I've ever felt more fear than I have walking in the
bathroom to wash my hands and practically shaking hands with a
cockroach. And yes, I scream like a little girl when I see them....my
excuse is growing up with three older sisters in the house I never
learned how to scream like a man.

We saw a ton of miracles this week. We have been waiting for two of
our investigators to get their papers to get married. This past week
we decided to fast and prayer so that their papers came in, and when
we went to check the next day they were in!! That might not seem like
a miracle, but here in Spain it takes FOREVER and a day to get your
papers to be married. We also were called by a member of the church to
go to the hospital and give her a blessing this week. The doctors told
her that she would probably be in there for minimum 12 days. The next
day she walked out of the hospital perfectly fine!

Everything here is going great! Thank your for all of your support and
prayers. I am loving being a missionary, and I know that this is what
the Lord wants me to be doing. I hope you all have a great week. You
will be in my prayers!

Love, Elder Jenkins

Things I learned:

1. The best way to kill a cockroach is run away and make your companion do it
2. The only street sign that is the same here is the stop sign
3. You can only be your best as you learn to depend on others
4. Patience is inversely proportional to how many continuous hours you
have been speaking a different language
5. Warriors won the NBA finals....( I have my sources)
6. Michael Jordan died .... ( I have bad sources as well) according to
a Facebook post an investigator saw
7. There are over 20 provinces in Argentina and only 3 or 4 talk with
the famous "sho" accent, but the people from those cities are the ones
who are on television most and what not
8. When you fall asleep praying you wake up forty minutes later with
really hurt knees

Have a great week!

Week 20

Summer is officially here! It's really hot, there are ferraris and
luxury European cars everywhere, trick planes flying around everywhere
in formations and the beaches are filled. At first I thought having an
area right by the beach was a curse, being able to see it and not go.
Then I realized that the average age of the people here is 83...I
think not being allowed to go to the beach is a blessing. Also, it
rained here for the 2nd time in all my time here, for 20 minutes. Did
I mention it's really hot...

Interesting experience: One of our investigators offered to go to
church every week for a month if I took his younger sister to the
United States and married her...I told him he would have to get
baptized after the month for me to even consider it....we are still in
discussion.

Elder striebeck and I had an amazing week. We worked really hard,
persevered through personal trials and were able to end the week
blessed with a baptism. This 14 year old boy is such a strong example
to me. He comes from one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in our
area, and I've heard friends and even adults making fun of him for
meeting with us, but still he decided to make this decision from his
own desires. Even though he is a little rowdy, and turns the chapel
into a Lucha libre sometimes, he is a light to those around him and
I'm so grateful to have played a part in his decision to make this
change.

This week, I really saw how much of a blessing the iPads can be in the
work. I've been spending almost every moment of free time watching
Mormon messages and other videos to try and give myself a wide
understanding of what I have in my artillery. This week it really paid
off as we were able to listen to people's problems, doubts, and needs
and choose videos that could speak to their hearts better than we
could. We really saw how effectively a great Mormon message can bring
the spirit and help people gain an understanding of the principles of
the gospel. What a blessing to have the iPads in the missionary work.

Last Monday, I relieved a slightly discouraging letter from my mom
regarding the condition of my grandfather, who recently suffered from
a stroke that left him in a short coma and then in a child like state
of recovery. After a couple of months, his recovery stopped and last
week it was evident that he was going to pass away. There are two very
similar phrases in Spanish. One is ¿por qué? And The other is ¿para
qué? Por que asks why did this happen? why me? why now? while para que
asks the question, for what purpose? In this case, I decided to use
the latter and look for ways in which I could learn and help other
with this experience. In 3 different lessons this week, I encountered
investigators who had just lost loved ones or were passing through a
really hard health trial and I was able to draw upon my feelings about
my grandpa to understand how they felt and to help them find comfort
in this hard time. Now I'm not suggesting that my grandpa died in this
moment so that I could help these people, but by asking para que
instead of por que I was able to find a way to help others passing
through the same things as me. I am so thankful for a knowledge of the
plan that God has for all of His children, a plan that has helped give
me a wider outlook on this life and a plan that allows us to feel
peace and comfort in a time when the natural thought process is
despair and sorrow. More than that, I'm grateful for the opportunity
that I have to share that message of hope with others and help them
persevere through the problems they encounter.

The work is going great and we are working hard. I wake up and go to
bed sweating, and not just because we don't have air conditioning. The
Spanish is going great and I'm glad that the more I'm talking, the
more I'm adding to my arsenal of funny Spanish mistake stories. I wish
the best for all of you in the coming week and thank you for your
support and prayers always!

love,
Elder Jenkins

Things I learned:
1. People who look up instead of down run into walls less often (thats
symbolic and literal)
2. You can park ANYWHERE in ANY WAY here in Spain as long as a car can
still get past
3.  If you try to flip an omelette in the air without a nonstick pan
your omelette will fly everywhere
4. Anything worth doing is worth doing hasta que duela - until it hurts
5. No one in Spain has yards
6. The coolest candy here is a candy shaped like a hot pepper, it's
super sweet and covered in sugar but then it gets really really spicy!
7. The lord is willing to help you through any trial if you're willing
to extend your hand

Mission Pictures

Week 19

Wow. It's going to be a nice break writing an entire letter in English
after a week of speaking more Spanish than I ever have in my life! I
look back to those days in the mtc when we had "Spanish fasts" for a
day and just laugh at how difficult I thought that was. Now it's like
everyday is a Spanish fast. The worst part is my patience level is at
an all time low after a whole day of trying to speak another language
but when I get mad I can't really say anything because all I know to
do in Spanish is talk about Jesus.

Sorry I don't have any really funny Spanish mistakes or crazy
missionary work stories to tell this week. Elder Striebeck and I spent
the week trying to get on our feet, introducing him to people in the
area and setting our goals for what we want to do over these next 5
weeks. I can already tell that I'm growing a lot from this
companionship and from having to take the lead until my companion
learns the area.

I'll end with this story. So 10 weeks ago, more or less, elder Whetten
decided to make a giant bowl of gazpacho for elder van Leeuwen.
Gazpacho is basically tomatoes, vinegar, and other spices all blended
up and chilled. Well, 5 weeks ago I saw the bowl on the bottom shelf
of the fridge and told elder VL that he should eat it or throw it
away. 2 weeks ago, Elder Van Leeuwen and Whetten left. 1 week ago, I
was going to make cookies but for the life of me couldn't find the
giant bowl. 3 days ago, I was looking on the bottom shelf of the
fridge for my apples and saw the bowl....I removed the bowl...I
uncovered the bowl of what I thought was gazpacho. What I found was a
giant bowl of half frozen gazpacho and half frozen mold. The bad thing
is, I'm sure that not even close to the worst thing people have found
in the missionaries fridge...

Well, like always, I hope everything is going well in all of your
lives. I can't believe how fast time is flying! Pretty soon I'll be
counting down the weeks instead of counting them up, but that not a
day I'm looking forward to. Until next week!

Love,
Elder jenkins

Week 18: Tecnología en España!

I definitely never thought I would be typing my email on the
touchscreen of an iPad mini, and yet here I am! This past week the
entire Spain Malaga mission received their iPads, a tangible example
of how the lord is is hastening his work! Not much has changed with
the introductions of the iPads for now. We are still waiting for a
couple features to pass through European laws, but for now we are just
trying to figure out how to incorporate them into the lessons and make
sure we aren't wasting time on them. The church did do a pretty good
job of guarding them though and we practically cant do anything with
out wifi. Still, I'm super grateful to have them and excited to see
game changing ways to use them.

As if getting iPads wasn't enough of a change, my daddy died this past
week (RIP  and I got a new companion...welcome elder STRIEBECK! Elder
Striebeck is a native from Argentina, but he doesn't talk with the
famous Argentinian "sho" accent which is good for me so I can
understand him better, and doesn't speak any English, which is also
doing wonders for my Spanish. We speak Spanish all day everyday, so
much Spanish that it's hard for me to write in my journal every night
because I've begun to think in Spanish instead of English. He is 20
years old, served 6 months in Argentina waiting for his visa, and has
been here for another 6 months after that. He is super guapissimo and
loves the missionary work so much, is so funny and has a strong desire
to work hard. I can tell we are going to make a great team!
A hard thing about the mission is all the changes that happen. It's
like every 6 weeks we have to start over again, getting to know new
people, saying goodbye to friends you have made or having to learn how
to work In a totally new place or way. Right now, all I know about
missionary work is what I learned from my trainer and now I'm learning
that there are different ways to plan, contact, or teach and it's hard
to make those kinds of changes, but I'm glad I have this opportunity
to evaluate what I have been doing and see what I can do better.

Because of the hassle of transfer week, it was pretty hard to get a
solid week of work in but we had some great experiences together for
our first week. One in particular I'd like to share with you all. So
there is this place that we have in our area, even though it's really
far away from us, just because it used to be a sister missionary area
but they were too scared to go there, and then when they gave it to
the elders the elders were too afraid to walk there, so we got it
because we have the car. Needless to say, it's a pretty
underprivileged area. Well we have an investigator there who we teach
and as we were driving in we saw him with like a group of 12 of his
friends all playing so we drove up to talk to him. We asked him if he
could meet with us For a little bit, and all his friends were asking
if they could come too, so I kinda joked and told them that we were
going to have a Mormon party at this kids house. Well we went to his
house and were talking, and we heard what sounded like a stampede in
the stairwell. Then like 20 kids just started piling into this room
and we had no clue what to do! We managed to get control for just
enough time to share a little message and then run for our lives.
On that same theme, for some reason our ward at church decided to have
a special class that included the teachers for the class of ALL kids
in the church, and left us in charge of that class. It was the
craziest hour of my life trying to control a giant group of kids in a
language that they spoke better than me. I think I almost died, but at
the end I was able to share a spiritual thought and experience the
ability that children have to feel the spirit. Every week I get to be
in the primary with them playing piano and feeling the spirit that
they have and it truly is a blessing.
I would say this week, I began to understand a little better why Jesus
Christ wanted the little children to come to Him, why he wanted to
bless them and teach them, but at the same time, I understand why I'm
here on a mission instead of being a father right now....

Life in Spain is going great. The weather is so nice, hot during the
day and chilly during the night. The missionary work is going great. A
lot of changes are about to happen and are happening, but I welcome
the changes as a chance to grow. Hope everything is going great in all
of your lives and I continue to pray for all of you. Have a great
week!

Love,

Elder Jenkins

Things I learned
1. A way to say someone is rich is to say they have pasta
2. The parable of the nut. Sometimes you have to apply a little bit of
pressure to break a nut open and get to the good part, but if you
press to hard you can crack the nut and crush the inside too.
3. Investigators become your family
4. No right turns on red here
5. LOTS of Spanish words
Sent from my iPad