The Golden Investigator and King Lamoni's father.

Elder Dagrou and I with Frère Christophe (19) and la petite Soeur Karol (9), 08/24/13

Bonsoir mes amis!

The weeks just keep flying by!  As always, this has been another great one!  To start off, last Saturday we had 2 baptisms (the first two in the new building)!  First was la petite Soeur Karol, whose father was baptized in April and is now serving in the branch Sunday School Presidency.  Second was Christophe.

Christophe is the epitome of a golden investigator.  He is 19 years old, and we found him about a month ago by OVB (Ouvrir Votre Bouche, pretty much door-to-door).  The first lesson went well, but he was a little shy, but he was glad to have us back a second time.  By the third lesson, he was reading everything we gave him to read and then teaching us about everything that he read.  He soon began accompanying us to other appointments that were after his.  One day, after we taught the end of the Plan of Salvation, or God's Plan for us (something that is hard for most people to understand) we had an appointment with a recent convert named Samuel.  He had a question about the end of the Plan of Salvation, and Christophe commenced to respond to his question, even giving examples!  What?!  I've never seen anyone who has learned so quickly.  I've formed a great relationship with him that is going to continue for years and years after I leave Togo.  The only problem for Christophe is that he is a student at the University of Kara, the big city up in the north that is 3 hours away.  The church has not yet arrived there yet because French isn't quite as profound there, but he'll be coming back to Lomé every few months, and I'm not worried about him.  He's already strong enough to do well on his own, and he has just about every resource he needs.

We taught Gabriel again this week, the former Prime Minister.  I swear it's like teaching King Lamoni's father.  If you don't know who that is, get a Book of Mormon and look up Alma Chapter 22.  Not sure what page it is in English; but it's an amazing story of missionary work.  Anyways, with Gabriel, the lessons on the commandments went like this:  "Oh, it's a commandment of God to not smoke?  Well I've been trying for a while, now I have a reason.  Next one!  Oh, it's a commandment of God to worship Him all day Sunday, not just at church?  Not a problem, I love listening to the hymns anyways.  Next one!  No problem giving back 10% to God, it's a commandment!"  His baptism is this Saturday, and I'm very excited for that.  He's definitely prepared to become a member of Christ's Church restored on the earth.

Well, that's about this week.  Things are going great here!  I love and miss you all!

Avec amour,

Elder Jenkins

On top of the church building after the baptism on Saturday,  08/24/13

Semken Ramblings 8.20.13

Hello to all of you,

     Your missionaries are doing well.  We all have our ups and downs, like the waves on the ocean.  Sometimes your on the crest and other times you are in the trough.  Your missionaries are learning the various lessons of life.

    1.  We had a missionary who got sick in about April and after extensive tests and exams we found the problem; which probably started when he was 10 and finally became a problem.  He is from Africa.  He is the only member of his family.  His father in the Military.  President Weed visited with his dad and his dad said that he was supportive.  The elder wanted to return once surgery and recovery was completed.  We hoped so.  He return home, had surgery and received clearance from his physician that he could do the mission labors.  He returned last week.  We were very pleased to have him back.  Several lessons to learn.  Your missionaries are supportive and will be able to learn many lessons from this experience.

  2.  Your sons will learn some more lessons in the next few months about preparation, like food storage.  They are protected here in this mission.  As I believe I have stated there has been a severe drought this past season.  I am told that many, many crops will not be harvested in neighboring countries as well as Togo and Benin.  I don't know the impact on the economy and food availability for sure, but hopefully it won't be to severe.  But, I do hear some talk.

    3.  This past Saturday the church held its annual service project day.  This year rather than having one major project, the branches were clustered into groups and we had 3 or 4.  I think there were about 500 in Benin who participated.  Some worked at a government institution, hospitals and things like that.  We worked side by side with our neighbors of Africa.  There was a lot of excellent TV and Radio coverage.  One set of elders receive 5 significant teaching engagements.  These people who didn't know us before were excited to see us and participate with us.  When in the service of your fellow man, you are in the service of God.

    4.  The elders learn other great lessons.  Sister Semken and I were on an errand later in the day but before the sun goes down (about 7pm).  We got a call from a recent convert.  She is known very well in her company and whenever anyone needs counsel the owners of this prestigious company approach her and ask her to give counsel.  Well, one of the employees was having some problems following the birth of a child about 3 or 4 months ago.  This convert had visited with her before.

Well this convert requested that we come and give her a blessing.  The boss told her to help solve this employees problem.  So, I asked a missionary companionship to assist me.  We arrived at the office and 6:30.  We were greeted by the owner of the business and taken into his small office.  The employee was there and not feeling well.  The owner left the office and said thank you for coming.  I gave some thoughts in English, translated by the convert and the missionaries.  We then had a kneeling prayer.  Just prior to the blessing I asked one elder to give the blessing.  He had to review how to do it. I don't know if it was his first time or not.  I gave him some further instructions and told him to have patience and take in giving the blessing.  A blessing he gave which will be remember by all of us.  At the conclusion of the blessing the young lady stood up and immediately felt better.  The Elder said that it was a wonderful experience.  Only he knows what he learned.  But, another lesson learned by serving.

    We are proud of the way these young men behave.  They learn the blessings of obedience and the the power that comes from magnifying their calling.  It is our privileged to serve side by side with them.  It is a wonderful thing to see the lessons learned.

            Elder Semken

Definitely an adventure!



Loading the debris in the truck African style



Bonjour tout le monde!  Well, another week has flown by!  It's hard to believe I'm past halfway through my second transfer in Africa!  As always, life here is becoming more and more normal, yet the more and more weird things I see around me.



This week has been another great one!  Elder Dagrou and I have been getting along great!  We had our second appointment with the former Prime Minister yesterday after he came to church in the morning.  He said that he loved everything about church and he especially loved how central families are!  He spent the whole lesson talking about his past (just about every detail I think) and how it's brought him to this point today.  He also talked about how it's helped in the search for the truth.  My companion, Elder Dagrou, then made the perfect transition into baptsim and how he will be an outstanding example of the truth for this whole country and for many leaders around the world.  We found that he's already wanting to do missionary work, so we committed him to be baptized in September!  It was great!  We found out how important family is for him yesterday, so tomorrow we're going to see if we can teach the whole family!

On Saturday, we had a service activity somewhere in the business district of Lomé.  Basically, we were just clearing weeds in this one business compound.  However, there wasn't much to do due to lack of tools.  After about 20 minutes of watching 30 people or so work I got bored, so I grabbed a rake that someone wasn't really using and went to look for work.  Fr. Frederick, in my branch, found me and said that there was a big group of tree roots/dirt that needed to be cleared off of some cement.  It was about 2 inches thick of just roots and dirt, so I grabbed my rake and started hammering away.  About 15 minutes later, I had not made too much progress (they were extremely stubborn) and many people told me that I couldn't finish and that I should just stop.  Many of you know, I can be quite stubborn myself at times, so this just made me work even harder.  Finally, I found the main root, which was about 3 inches thick itself, so I grabbed a machete and started hammering away.  Once I cut that, the rest came easily.  It was really just dragging big pieces into the pile.  However, at about 10:30 am (the activity began at 6:00 am) the leaders began to realize that we couldn't finish the whole thing, so they decided to just have everyone stop and leave.  I was a little disappointed because I was so close to finishing!  But we ended and everyone went their own way.

Working hard at the Day of Service

In the end, I was still very grateful for the opportunity to serve.  It actually felt like a normal Saturday at home!  I was extremely dirty, and after I showered, I was exhausted!

That's how the work is going now.  I'm really loving being here and serving the Lord!  Definitely an adventure!

Je vous aime tous!

Elder Jenkins

All the missionaries in Togo who attended the Day of Service (except Doumassesse, who left early)

Elder Mundu and I

The Respectful Politician . . .

Well this week is officially my 2 month anniversary of being in Africa!  I think Elder Kunz was right on Thursday at Zone conference when he said that it hasn't felt like 2 months that I've been here.  In some respects it feels like longer, and in other respects it feels like much, much shorter.  Its been another great week, and as always, I've had some trials, but I've had so many more blessings.

KODJO Gabriel (courtesy of a google search)

One of the cool things of the week happened yesterday.  It was about 5 o'clock in the evening, and Elder Dagrou and I were waiting to meet a member from the Doumassesse Branch to take us to meet his friend.  We saw a really nice Toyota 4runner (same exact car as Président Weed) pull up and roll down the window and wave us over.  Not what I was expecting.  We got in the car and started on our way to the appointment.  The member of the Doumassesee branch is Frère Laurent, and he's a professor at the University of Lomé.  Based on his attire (an extremely nice suit, especially for Africa), I as really interested to see who we were going to meet.  We pulled up to a very large house that was very well guarded.  As we approached the door, a modestly dressed, very friendly man greeted us, and I was like "Ok, this should be good!"  Nope, that was just one of the guards.  He led us into to the home and up a flight of stairs into the bureau (office) where we met our appointment.  His name is KODJO Gabriel, and I got the impression that he is a very respected--as well as respectful-- man.  I then found out he is the former Prime Minister of Togo.  WHAT?!  Now I was focused.  Overall, the lesson went great.  He was very interested and has done a lot of research.  Frère Laurent was a classmate and good friend of his at university in France, so we had a good rep going in.  Like I said, it was a very good lesson, and he was very interested in what we had to say.  I have to say, I was surprised to see how humble he was to have a 19 year-old and a 22 year-old talk to him about God, but we gave him a Book of Mormon to start reading, and he committed to come to church this next Sunday with Frère Laurent!  We set up an appointment with him for next Sunday and introduced him to mormon.org as well.  We walked back down to Frère Laurent's car having some friendly conversation. I found that as a politician, his english is very good (he correctly guessed that I'm American).

Anyways, that's my cool story this week!  In other news, the Zone Leaders, who live in my apartment, are doing splits with Doumassesse this week, so Elder Peterson will be sleeping over Tuesday night!  Very excited for that, not only to have another American in my apartment, but my best friend in Africa as well!

Hope all is well back at home.  I love and miss you all very much!

Avec amour,

Elder Jenkins

(Note from mom - his SD card would not upload again today.  Let's hope for next week.  He forwarded me this picture from Zone Conference last Thursday.)  

He was running out of time, so he could only quickly tell me who the Americans were: from left to right:  Pres. and Sis. Weed, Elder Kunz, Elder Buxton, Elder Landeen, Elder Shearer, Elder Poll, Elder Jenkins, Elder Peterson, Elder Hawkins, Elder Edwards, Elder Hales, Elder Haggard, Elder Rybin, Elder and Sister Eastmond

Missionary work is a work of miracles . . .

Another week gone and more stories to tell.  Each week I marvel at how quickly the time has passed, but yet the United States feels like another life ago.

So I was thinking a bit about what I should write today, and the only thing that came to mind was miracles.  Many people today believe that miracles don't exist anymore, but I have seen and witnessed many around me in my life.  For instance, this past Sunday, yesterday our branch, the Wuiti branch, moved to a new building that's right in the middle of our area.  It is much more convenient for many of the members rather than walking 15-30 minutes or paying for a moto.  Together as a branch, we have really been coming together this past week to bring many visitors and friends to church this week.  Honestly, I had no idea how it was going to go.  Often times we invite many, many people, but a few are all we've ever had come.

The chapel in the new building is much longer than the last and can fit 80 chairs inside.  At the beginning of the meeting, a little over half of the chairs were filled, which was already more than normal (about 40 or so).  However, during the first parts of the meeting, more and more people kept coming in.  Eventually, we had to bring chairs from upstairs and place them outside.  Many of us spent the most part of the meeting standing.  Towards the end the branch clerk got a count, which came in at 115!  This was absolutely a miracle and an answer to the the prayers of many people, including me.  Over 50 of the people present were visitors and friends of those who are members!  Officially, we had 28 sign the visitor sheet, but many had a spouse and a family present as well.  We looked over the sheet afterwards and 10 who signed live in areas assigned to other missionaries, so we have plenty to share as well!  Only 4 of those who signed the sheet were invited by Elder Dagrou and I, so my testimony of what can happen when the members get involved in missionary work was really strengthened.

After the meeting, we had a big party on the second level of the church building, which over looks the major road just below.  Soeur N'Guessan, the Relief Society President, organized and bought a lot a lot a lot of the same fabric for everybody to wear, the men for ties and the women for dresses.  The fabric for these kinds of special occasions here is called pagne (pronounced like pine).  It's a little stiff at first, but it really lasts well.  Also, it's EVERYWHERE.  You never have to worry about trying to find pagne.  It's just finding the right pagne, because there's millions of different patterns.  My goal for the mission is to buy a different outfit of pagne for every area that I serve in.

So apparently many of you have been asking about the food.  Here there are really three types of food:  pate (corn flour mixed with water and heated VERY hot), rice and spaghetti.  However, there's many, many, many different sauces, which is how people mix it up.  For instance, yesterday after church, there was pate, spaghetti, and rice, with 5 or 6 different sauces.  Oh! and pima.  Everybody adds pima in some sort of way to everything.  Pima is just any sort of spicy pepper, and it's freaking spicy.  So the sauces that I love are sauce rouge and Aubergine.  I tried the one that tastes like the zoo again this past week, and it wasn't bad at all.  Wasn't quite good yet, but it didn't taste like the zoo and I ate it without gagging.  At home, as I'm the only American in the apartment, I usually just cook by myself.  Kaleb, along with all of my Brazilian friends, you will be happy to know that feijaoda has become almost essential to my diet.  Rice, beans, onion, and hot-dogs are really easy to find and mix together, but I've added some African taste to it by adding pima and garlic.  Its really quite delicious.  Especially when fried.  That's another thing, the Africans fry just about everything.

Well, I'm out of time, but that's life here now!  It's an amazingly incredible experience, and I wouldn't 
change it for anything!!!  I love you all!

Avec amour,

Elder Jenkins

(Note from mom:  He tried several times to upload pictures this week and finally thought they had gone.  Unfortunately all I received was the email with the description of the pictures and no attachment.  Hopefully next week he can try again so we can see the new chapel and the branch in their matching dresses and ties.)

Update 09/23/13 - he sent the pictures for this post!

Serving it up!

In the new chapel the night before!

My favorite picture of the whole day!  Left to right:  Elder Dagrou, Christian, me, Frederick, and Bashir

Gracia got a little tired.  That's one thing about Africa: when in gatherings like this, women will take other women's babies and strap them on their back.  For instance, Gracia is Soeur Assamagan's daughter, but Soeur Gilbette has her in the picture.

My plate: rice a roni with pima, pate rouge with a boiled egg, and fried chicken.  All delcious!  Very African tasts to them but they were great!

Everyone that was left after about an hour and a half of partying

Semken Ramblings 8.2.13

To all:

      This early morning I walked to the local bakery.  As I entered I could smell the aroma of hot fresh bread which filled the whole bakery.  It reminded me of  the homemade bread made by Francine and my mother too.  Two minutes is all it took for me to return home and slice the hot bread.  I put butter on it and wished that I had some honey.  What a wonderful way to start the day.  

     We do not have any new missionaries coming or going home in August.  This will allow the missionaries to settle in without any interruptions that are caused by entering the mission field.  That isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it provides a time for some longer term planning, and teaching of their investigators by the same set of missionaries.

      We now will have 18 new missionaries coming to the mission on October 16th.  Who knows if they will send more then.  They are all from Africa.  We do know that we will get another 6 sisters by then. Bringing the number to 18.  I think we will slowly continue the number of missionaries up to 120.  We will have about 110 by January.  I wouldn't be surprised to see more.  We could double the number of missionaries in our mission.  All of the missionaries would continue to teach 7 or more lessons a day.  However, it is very important to grow prudently.  We are climbing mountains one step at a time.  We do it as the Lord wants it done.  Constant and Consistent.

     These young men and women are well prepared as they enter their field of labor.  Sure, they have a lot to learn, but they are ready for this great task.

      Someone said, I hope that You, elder Semken don't judge Benin and Togo on just the city life that we see.  Please don't leave until you have seen more of the countries.  Last week, the President and his wife along with Francine and I were invited to travel about 1 1/2 hours north of Cotonou to visit a village of only 600,000 where a member grew up.  He showed us some marvelous scenery and groves of Teak Trees, etc.  I took the time to look for and photograph butterflies.  Yes, this is a beautiful country.

     The rainy season that didn't happen.  I am told that this was one of the driest seasons recorded.  Many of the crops will not produce.  There is a second mini season that starts in about a month and lasts for about 2 months.  I hope these people get the proper and necessary rain for the production of food.

     A branch was divided last week; and I know two more will be divided in a the next month or so.  So, you can see your missionaries are doing their work well.  they appreciate your support.

      See, you later,

             elder semken