Week 39: Be humble or be humbled

Hello everyone! Happy Halloween!!

They apparently do celebrate Halloween here, but it's a pretty recent
thing. A lot of people don't trick or treat and I showed someone a
carved pumpkin and they were appalled. I'm hoping maybe that night,
people will give us candy for knocking their doors.

The weeks are flying by and I continue to be humbled by my amazing
companion, elder Miller, and all the other miracles the Lord has
placed in our path. Honestly, I've never felt more tired in my life,
but I've never been happier either.

We are still working out with "the hulk" man every other morning. We
just stand around some parallel bars doing dips for an hour as he
tells us his life stories about living through a war in Serbia, the
streets of Italy, and how he got to be so buff. I'll get a picture
with him soon, but I'm waiting to see if some workout results come
first....

His wife said something to us during a lesson that I thought was so
incredible. So many times we hear people say, I only believe in what I
can see. Instead, this woman told us, "I'm not content In only
believing what I see." Her comment really made me thing. We have so
many other senses: touch, taste, smell, hearing, and most importantly,
what we feel in our heart. It's seems pretty unsatisfying to me to
only depend on sight to tell you what is really there.

On Tuesday, my testimony of Gods existence and of His hand in our
lives was strengthened as I was humbled beyond belief. As the night
started, we began to go to our first appointment. Within the next 5
minutes, every single one of our other appointments, and the one which
we were going to, fell through. We called backups: nothing. We called
3rd backups: nothing. At that point, I really kind of gave up on the
night, figured we would try again tomorrow, and began to just
aimlessly walk around the city with a horrible attitude written on my
forehead. Even worse, I began to get frustrated with my companion
because he still seemed to have hope even though it was apparent our
night would be a failure. After about an hour of aimless walking and
silence, elder Miller asked me if we should say a prayer...I was so
filled with pride and frustration that I actually told him no and
continued to walk. After a couple of minutes, I realized how immature
my response had been and we stopped at a bench to take a little break.
I read a scripture, we said a prayer, and I felt recharged and ready.
We begs to contact every living thing that passed us. This lasted for
about 15 minutes before I fell back into pouting again. It was the
last hour of the night and I thought to just endure. We walked down a
road and elder Miller cautiously asked if we should try to visit this
couple who we had a tried a couple of times before. I told him no, and
kept walking. "We have already tried them, twice before," I thought,
"and both times they rejected us or left us aT the door. Why would we
try now?" As we walked by their house, I figured one more rejection
couldn't make the night any worse. So I turned up to go to their
house. As we knocked on the door, not even expecting an answer, the
door quickly opened and the husband invited us in without us even
saying anything. We began to talk and in the first 2 minutes She was
bawling, explaining to us how her life has gone so far off track that
she doesn't even know what to do. She said she had been praying all
day to find some way to be happy and to be able to return back to
Jesus Christ and give her life to him, but she didn't know how. I sat
there listening in awe. After I had been so unworthy all night, how
did the Lord still see fit to use me as an instrument to lift someone
else's burden? We had an incredible lesson with them and we were able
to set up another appointment for later in the week. Now they have a
baptismal date and they came to church this past week and loved it. We
got out of the appointment and all I could do was just give my Compie
a hug and tell him I was sorry. It was definitely a lesson for me.
Like my dad always says, be humble or be humbled, it's your choice. I
definitely felt humbled as the Lord showed me who is really the one in
charge of this work.

Thank you all for the love, support, and prayers. I wish you all the best.

Elder Jenkins

Miracles in Málaga week 38

Hello friends and family,

I've gotten to the point right now where I feel like I have been out
here for a long time, and yet I still have a large amount of time
left. Luckily, the time isn't passing by too quickly so that I can
enjoy this amazing opportunity to serve the people here in Spain.

Elder Miller is certainly one of the main sources of enjoyment. He
just wakes up with a smile every single morning, ready to work, but
still patient in those morning hours when I'm not so smiley. Of course
there are the occasional funny Spanish mistakes here and there, but
I've actually been so impressed with his Spanish in such a short time.
He did stand up in front of the church and say "I just want you all to
know that I love myself"...there were some weird looks, but I'm sure
they got the point.

This week was absolutely full of miracles. I am not sure if it is just
the faith of elder Miller, or maybe I have just been so oblivious
these past weeks, but we were able to see the hand of the lord so many
times. I'll just share one example. Last week we were sitting on the
train, it was late, we were on our way home, and I really just wanted
to read some of the Book of Mormon. I could tell my companion was a
little ancy to talk to someone, but he couldn't find someone to talk
to and I wasn't being very helpful in his pursuit. Then I head him say
hi to someone, and he quickly turned to me and said "elder, that guy
put down his phone and he said hi to me...I think he would talk to
us..." At that point in time I kind of gave him an "are you serious,
no one actually WANTS to talk to us" look and so he just kind of
looked down in disappointment and said never mind. At that point, I
was sufficiently chastised by the spirit that I put down my book and
started up a conversation with the guy. It turns out he is from
Finland (there is an elder in our ward from Finland) and he DID WANT
to talk to us and find more out about the book we were reading. We got
his number, but he didn't feel comfortable about giving us his house
number. We were able to meet again after that, but we kind of lost
contact with him after a week.

One morning, we decided to go and try to contact this girl who had
given us her number and address like 3 weeks before. We had tried
going to the house a couple of times, but never had an answer. This
time, we went to the door and knocked and imagine our surprise when
instead of the girl we expected, out came the man from the train....he
looked about as surprised as we were and explained to us that he had
lived in that house for 3 years and was interested to know how we
found his house...we were wondering the same thing, but it's no
question that the hand of the Lord was involved in us going to 1 out
of 900 doors that was his. Then as we went down to the street and
talked to him, a lady came up and tapped my shoulder. She was a
Russian lady who we had met a couple nights earlier. When we met her,
I was super frustrated because I had some pamphlets and stuff in
Russian in my bag but had taken them out. Well that morning, I just
saw them again and decided to throw them in there just in case. Lo and
behold, she found us as we talked to the train guy and I was able to
give them to her.

There were more miracles similar to this one all throughout the week.
So much that I'm like 5 days behind in writing in my journal! I know
that the miracles have always been there, but I have just kind of lost
the hope and the faith to find them in these past weeks. My new
companion is really helping me to remember that they are always there.

I'll just end with a quote from one of my favorite scriptures from the
past week , "wherefore, whoso believeth in God might with surety hope
for a better world..." Have hope my friends, in whatever may come in
life, because there is always good to come.

Have a great week. Thank you for love, support, and prayers.

Elder Jenkins

Adiós Elder Reeder, bienvenidos Elder Miller

Hello everyone!

It's so unbelievable to think that it is already a new month, and
almost a new year. Time is flying by, but only because I'm having the
time of my life:)

This week was especially special because I got to meet my new
companion. There were about 31 other missionaries there in the church
waiting to accept the new missionaries. When they all came in, it was
so incredible to see and feel their excitement and hope for what their
missions would mean to them. I was so nervous just waiting there and
wondering who would be my new companion! Finally, the waiting was over
and I was introduced to my new companion....ELDER MILLER! He is
probably one of the most amazing missionaries I've ever met and
honestly is training me. He is from west valley, you guessed it, UTAH,
and is the first missionary from his family. He is always smiling,
doesn't let anyone pass without saying hello and asking how they are,
and will not let you live 5 minutes without complimenting you. He is
well prepared to work and i am so excited to learn from him and work
with him. He is the trainee that every missionary hopes for and I hope
that I can be the trainer he deserves.

Other than that things are going great here. It was an amazing
opportunity to watch the general conference and hear the guidance from
God for us today. I know there are a to of things that I have to
change and work on and now I can focus on doing them! Spain is great!
The weather is cooling down and we have a month left of waking up at
7:30 so life is still good.

Sorry I don't have a lot of funny or amazing stories. Everything is
moving super fast so we are just trying to get our feet back under us.
We did have a pretty funny conversation as elder Miller found that
there were two toilet looking things in the bathroom and was trying to
figure out what the second one was for (the bidet). I'm sure more
cultural experience stories will come. I love you all and wish the
best for you this week.

Love, elder Jenkins

1. Our weaknesses help us just as much as our strengths do
2. Faith is either increasing or decreasing, it's never stagnant. It
increases as it is exercised
3. Believing comes by choice, not by chance
4. There is nothing impressive about skepticism
5. Don't be critical of the barriers that keep us safe
6. We don't need to endure our trials, but learn from our trials