Power outage

Sorry my friends, the power was out this past Monday, so I write to you on Friday, the 30th.  The work is progressing well here in Fidjrossé.  Elder Sahue and I are getting lots of work done.  I love you all, and I hope you all have a great week!  I'll write much, much more this coming Monday!

Avec amour,

Elder Jenkins

Hump day

MTC drop off 05/29/13

Pardon a few moments of nostalgia from mom:  One year ago today we put this handsome boy on a plane headed for SLC.  How could one feel so much joy at the same time as having one's heart ripped out?  His sister picked him up in SLC, took him to brunch and then dropped him off at the MTC for the two weeks before the much anticipated journey in Africa began.  My only request was a photo of him waving goodbye to me.  This photo warms my heart every morning.  Over the last year this handsome boy has become a kind, compassionate man who is full of faith, love for God and his fellowman.  His testimony has become stronger and he has increased in wisdom and knowledge.  I am excited to see what the next year holds for him.   

The half way point of a mission is often referred to as "hump day" and camels are used to signify it.  

Elder Jenkins with his camel friend just before his hump day

His camel friend is trying to give him a kiss for me!  

Wanting to remember him at his halfway mark, but also remind him that the best is yet to come.  I found the following analogy online that I personalized and sent him as it summed up my thoughts as we marked this big milestone, along with a pillowcase I made him out of camel fabric.  

My "Search for Truth"

Well, I have a lot of things to share this week, but no time!  I'll try to be as quick and efficient as I can.  I love my new companion, area, and branch.  Life is going great!  I'm learning so much from my new companion.  Many have misjudged him at times (including me), but I've loved getting to see this side of him.  He's a good missionary, and he's got an awesome testimony.  The area is way nice.  Benin is a definite upgrade form Togo as far as houses, restaurants, streets, etc.  It's a lot nicer and cleaner.

The branch is fantastic.  We have EXCELLENT leaders here who help us sooooooo much with the work, and plenty of youth that are preparing for missions and ready to go out with us.  As far as the work, it is progressing well.  We're focusing a bit more on the members and recent converts, but we still have some good progressing investigators.

Anyways, like I said, I'm short on time.  But there's a great lesson that I've learned very recently. Just today, we had something come up between two missionaries in the apartment.  As I sat down with one to hear him out in an effort to help them calm down and take care of things, I had so many things come to my head.  First, I am so grateful for the vision that the gospel of Jesus Christ gives us of life.  There is something much more than what we have here that is waiting for us, something that we cannot even imagine.  This life is nothing but a preparation for the next life.  Every choice we make on this earth influences our future and our eternity.

The vision of life after this is what gives us the drive and perspective to overcome the challenges of this life.  There are always little things that come up, but the gospel gives us the vision to see them for what they are--merely lessons to be learned to help us prepare and to teach us.  They become speed bumps along the road of this life that leads to something that is difficult for us to see in the distance.  So long as we keep an "eternal perspective" on things, we can step back and lay out our priorities according to the will of God.

This life is hard.  That's a fact.  But the blessing for us all is that God stands ready at every moment, arms outstretched, waiting to help us and save us.  He is there.  He is there for every single one of us.  He wants the best things for us.  He wants us to return to live with Him, and the only way to do that is to put our trust in Him and keep His commandments.  In doing that as well as keeping an eternal perspective, we learn to sacrifice ourselves more willingly, to convert ourselves more fully to Him.

I would like to close with a bit of commentary on the third-hour lesson yesterday, entitled "Our Search for Truth."  I LOVED this lesson.  We had some great discussion in our class here in Fidjrossé.  Basically, we must always be seeking after the truth.  In relation to D&C 130:18-19, I thought of a quote from Elder Nelson in this past General  Conference.  The quote is paraphrased due to translation from French, but essentially, he said, "Truth revealed by God will always be truth, whether it be from the laboratory or by revelation."  (You can find the talk he is referring to here.)  I remembered that as I read a quotation from President Smith in the manual, which was along the lines of: "Truth is always truth.  People may reason.  People may doubt.  People may discredit.  But what God has ultimately revealed as truth will always reign over the philosophies of men.  It will take great faith.  There will be many trials.  But once we learn to put our trust in God, we can obtain the knowledge of Eternal Truth."  My apologies if this paragraph has been Elder Jenkins-ized, but I did my best to remember.  ( The lesson in the Joseph Fielding Smith manual can be found here.)

This stuck out to me so much with the world we live in.  So many people try to use reason to discredit God, but in reality, science, through time, has come to prove many of God's eternal principles which were previously misunderstood.  With time, I believe that we will come to understand many more truths from God, whether it be from the laboratory or by revelation.  But we must take caution to not be fooled by the philosophies of Satan, hence the necessity to rely fully and completely on God in accepting and obeying upon His commandments, or "upon the principles of righteousness."

The things that I have learned this week have been great.  Unfortunately, I am out of time, and I must leave you for this week. My heart is full in my current calling to serve the Lord for these two years.  As I approach one year, I have been looking back, remarking my growth in the past year. I have learned so many things; I have grown so much.  But there are still many, many things that I must learn, apply, and re-apply again.  This is my "Search for Truth."

Avec amour,

Elder Jenkins

Bonjour from Bénin!

The new apartment: Elder Merrill (from Utah), Elder Gomun (from Ivory Coast), Elder Izekor (from Nigeria, who I'm replacing, he's going to the office), me, and Elder Sahue (from Ivory Coast) 05.12.14

Bonjour from Bénin!  Well, I got a transfer call last Wednesday, and today they moved me to Bénin!  So, here I am!  My new area is Fidjrossé, and I am with Elder Sahue from Ivory Coast.  The new perks of my area? Well, I can walk out the door of the cyber right now and see the beach.  We can see the beach from our apartment, too.  The cyber is really nice and really quick.  Our apartment has really good natural light as well.

Other than that, I'm not really sure what my area is like.  I've actually only been here for like two hours, so I haven't been able to touch too much here.  But the ride today was fantastic.  Many great views of the coast of Togo and Bénin.  In total is was about 4 hours.  But it went by quick.  Especially the Togo side.  It was weird to go through customs again on the border, considering that the last time that I did that was at the very beginning of my mission.

With Elder Peterson in the van 05.12.14

Togo palm trees 05.12.14

The beach near the border was BEAUTIFUL!!!!!  I didn't know that beaches like that exist here! 05.12.14

Another shot of the beach 05.12.14

This past week has been great.  After receiving the transfer call on Wednesday, I was able to get a few good-byes in before leaving today.  Church was interesting as they had been remodeling and weren't even close to finishing on Sunday, so it felt even more informal than usual, but the spirit was still there.  I was able to bear my testimony as well.  The Baguida branch is a very special branch, and they have grown very close to my heart.

One last picture with Peter from the Wuiti branch before he leaves for his mission next week!

I crouched down to take a picture with a few of the Primary kids on Sunday, and then they attacked me!  05.11.14

The work in progress. 05.11.14

           My old room is now yellow! 05.11.14

Well, I don't have terribly much to add this week.  This work has brought many, many experiences into my life that I could never have dreamed of.  I love this work and I love this mission.  I am very excited again for the things that I will be able to learn with my new companion.  Every companion teaches us very valuable lessons that will help us with the rest of our lives.

Enjoy a wonderful week.  My week will be spent with learning my new area and getting situated, so hopefully next week I'll have more stories!

I love you all so much!  Have a great week!

Avec amour,
Elder Jenkins

Celebrating my birthday with a few members! 05.05.14

From the baptism of PATAKA.  He's an awesome man that has progressed so well.  His brother will be baptized next Saturday, but unfortunately I am now in a different country. 05.10.14

Elder Stagg sent this picture of Elder Jenkins right after the baptism on 05.10.14 (note from Mom - this came just as we were walking out of a baptism here in Florida - at the same time I was speaking at a baptism in Florida, Elder Jenkins was playing the piano and performing a baptism in Africa - sure makes the distance apart seem a lot smaller)

Feeding my new camel friend!

He's super nice!!!!!

Ok, maybe even TOO nice!

How close to the line?

Eating Djekoumé at Folly's

Hello all.  This past week has been full of trials as well as blessings.  I think it will be enough to say that it has been a roller coaster-type week.  After coming down with the flu on Wednesday and having it affect me throughout the rest of the week in varying degrees, and then with Zone Conference on Friday and General Conference on Sunday, I was left physically and emotionally exhausted yesterday (Sunday) night.

Zone Conference was amazing.  It was my favorite one so far.  My favorite lesson was Sister Weed's.  She started by explaining that the Ebola fever has NOT been reported in Togo or Benin.  In fact, it has only been found in Gabon and I believe Liberia (not terribly sure that the countries are right), which are very far from us.  She said that the missionaries in the countries affected are staying, so we have nothing to fear.  In the past 20 years, there have been 2,000 reported cases of which 1,500 were fatal.  It's hard to get, but it kills.

After that happy note, she explained the story of three truck drivers all seeking employment.  The question posed to the three drivers was how they would cross the ridge of a mountain on a very dangerous road, one side of which dropped directly off to a 200-foot cliff.  The first said that he could get 6 inches from the edge no sweat.  The second said that he could do 3, no hesitation.  The third said that he could stay as far away from the edge as was humanly possible.  She then asked, "Who do you think got the job?"

The reaction of half the missionaries kind of made me chuckle.  All of the Americans have heard the story before and so we all just kept quiet to let others participate.  However, there were many nationalities that had never before heard this story and were left a bit dumbfounded.  When the answer was finally shared, she drew a line down the whiteboard and wrote "good" on one side and "evil" on the other.  She then drew two "X"s, one just on the good side of the line and the other on the edge of the whiteboard, on the good side.  She asked which person would be more likely to endure to the end.  This time, everyone in the room understood clearly and gave the clear answer.

She then turned the lesson into almost and "up-in-your-face, fire-in-your-eyes, football-coach caliber" lesson along the lines of Elder Holland's Priesthood Session talk in the October 2011 General Conference.  However, it wasn't exactly the same caliber because she doesn't quite have the same voice as Elder Holland, but it was still piercing.  She explained that it is not good enough to see how close we can get to the line between good and evil, because then we start to slowly cross the line until we fall into things that we can't get out of by ourselves.

We need to to stay as far away from the line as possible.  It is then that we become true disciples of Christ.  It is there that we become converted to the gospel.  It is in the Lord's camp that we find protection against the evils in the world instead of help to get out of things that we shouldn't have gotten into.

It was a great lesson on obedience for all of us.
 

President and Sister Weed said that we will be having one last round of Interviews and Zone Conferences in June before they return home on July 1st!  That seems so weird!

Anyways, that about sums up my week.  My birthday was nothing special, but I thank you all for my birthday wishes.  I look forward to eating the delicious cake that my mom sent me to make tonight at family home evening. 

Smoothing the batter

Most important step of the whole process.

Out of the baking dish.

Starting the icing.

After icing.

Final product

Elder Bile's birthday present that he gave me

I love you all.  Have a great week, and don't just let the time pass by.

Avec amour,
Elder Jenkins

Elder Kongolo pulled this out this week.  I laughed.  I was tempted to ask him if he's ever worked at Best Buy, but he has not idea what it is!!!

 I thought these looked so cool.  The picture doesn't capture them really.

I was really tempted to buy these.