It's starting to get unreal how fast time is going by. I've decided
not to tell anyone here when I come home so that I can avoid them
reminding me of it every two seconds. Anytime they ask how long I have
been out I say over a year, and for how long do you have left I just
say less than a year...it works until they ask me what I thought of
the 2nd avengers movie...but so far no one has caught me.
I had an interesting experience this week. My companion had to travel
to get his residency and because we live on the outer rim of
civilization it took him 3 days of traveling to go and come back, so
one if the other brand new missionaries came to be with me for a
couple of days. It was so weird to start speaking English again! And
even more weird to remember what it is like to have a companion who
struggles with the language. It's been over a year since my companion
has spoken Spanish for less time than me! I had forgotten how much
faith is required in the first months of the mission to open your
mouth not knowing what is going to come out. It was incredible to see
that kind of faith again and to be able to watch as the spirit put the
necessary words into his mouth. I also have missed a lot watching
people's faces as we tell them they can be clean from all of their
"pescados" (fish). (Pecados = sin).
One of the sadder experiences of the week was with our miracle from
last week. We had been keeping good contact with her throughout the
week. Miraculously she would go to open up the pamphlet we gave her
and right when she did we would call. It was incredible! Then the day
before our meeting, we called and she told us that the feelings that
she had had dissipated and she no longer wanted to continue learning.
We tried desperately to recover the excitement she had and my
companion just sat next to me in constant prayer, but she decided that
she was no longer interested. We decided to say a prayer together and
then just continue to work. As we were walking the streets a couple
hours later, we stopped in front of a building to watch a nearby
skateboarder who was about to attempt a trick (almost in hopes of
adding another funny mission memory to the cache) when we see the door
open and our walks our friend with her son....we both just kind of
stared at each other not knowing what to say. When we finally put our
jaws back in place, we talked for a little bit about her feelings and
what we experienced together the week before and agreed that God was
calling her, quite blatantly in fact! Yet, after our conversation she
still decided that she needed time to analyze things. It was certainly
saddening for us, but it is a valuable lesson. The foundation of a
testimony is not built by a collection of spiritual revelations or
miraculous experiences; these experiences only help confirm that which
we already know. The foundation is built, brick by brick, from a daily
effort to exercise our faith: line upon line, precept upon precept,
grace by grace. It's not an instant flash of lightning because the
brightness quickly fades. Hopefully she will be able to recover that
feeling or have a strong enough yearning to have it so that she can
seek out the promise to have it always with her.
In other news, my companion is trying to do write his family with the
speech function but the iPad doesn't understand his Spanish....welcome
to my world iPad!
Tomorrow, elder zwick from the quorum of the 70 will be coming to the
mission, hopefully to rain down some fire on us so we can be better.
I'm really excited especially to receive this extra boost to really
give it all I've got in the next couple of months....just please pray
that they don't make me translate for the conference...
I hope you all have a great week!
Elder Jenkins
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