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
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