Week:47 ITS BEGINING TO LOOK A LOT LIKE...NAVIDAD

Hello Everyone! 

Finally, I heard a christmas song in the grocery store TODAY! Its about time that Spain got up to speed on the Christmas spirit. However, we did realize that maybe november 15 was a little too earlier to start singing christmas hymns...I think we are probably on our 6 round of singing the 6 that are in spanish. 

Things are really going great here! As Christmas fast approaches, we get to focus so much more on the Savior with people and the hope that His birth brings to us. It really has helped me to remember how fortunate we are to be able to say that He was born, unlike all the old testament believers who had to say with such hope and faith that ¨He would be born.¨ He has already come, He was born, and we can experience the result of what He did here on Earth for each and every one of us. What a blessing it is to be able to declare the message of what has already happened and what that means for us today. 

My companion has obviously been praying, and with great faith might I add, to improve on his english skills because we have been teaching more in english than any other language these past two weeks. Those who we are teaching come from different countries in Africa and have the coolest stories ever! I have learned so much from them, things such as:

-Nigeria has over 250 different tribal languages 

-If you confront a chimpanzee, it will only do to you what you do to it - in other words - if you punch it it will punch you just as hard, if you pet it it will pet you, if you feed it it will feed you...just in case any of you ever find yourselves in a 1 on 1 with a chimpanzee

- There are snakes that if you like cut them in half but dont make sure they are dead, they will follow you and sit outside of your house until you leave again to attack you - scary (you should have seen their faces when I told them I had snakes as a pet)

- How to make FuFU

- how to say hello, how are you, and what is your name in 6 different african languages

There are so many different cultures that exist in this world to which I was absolutely oblivious before coming here!!

This week, we were able to help one of our good friends prepare to be baptized. On Sunday, he entered the waters of baptizm to be cleansed of his sins and to be born again. I had the blessing of being there with him in the water and right after, and he was absolutely speechless. It was apparent that he was experiencing exactly what we had explained to him, the feeling of being totally cleansed and being able to move forward free from the weight of his past life. There is no greater blessing than being able to be there to share these experiences with beloved brothers and sisters of mine. 

One last thing that I really loved from this week. We were in the baptismal service and our bishop here decided to say a few words. Of course we had the service in English so he was feeling a little awkward about not speaking in his native language, but he said that he cherished the opportunity because it helped remind him that we are really all in a native land. We dont belong here. We are children of God and we belong with him. Being in a foreign country helps me to recognize the feeling of being somewhere that is not my home, and it reminds me that we are all foreigners on this earth. We should never forget who we really are, who our father really is, and where we really belong.

Well I hope you all have a great week! Good luck with finals and with school ending!! 

Love,

Elder Jenkins