As we are entering into this new year, may we all find these gifts that we are looking for.

The sun rising on 2015 

Happy new year!!!  It feels weird that 2015 is already here!  This is my year!

This past week has been wonderful. We've had some good experiences, and we've seen some really good progression in the work!  Our favorite couple (the ones of whom I sent a picture a couple of weeks ago) decided together that they want to be baptised!  That was very exciting.  We've still got a bit of a ways to go with them, but we'll make it.

So this week, I have seen God's hand working miracles in me.  For those who know me, patience is definitely not my forté.  I struggle with it for others around me, but I'm extremely impatient on myself.  Even the smallest of things can easily set me off.

I have been desiring this gift from God for quite some time.  I have been trying to work on it, but it seems to have been coming very slowly.  I have noticed the difference over the months of my mission, but it still seemed like I wasn't quite grasping it.  For the past few months, I have been noticing that my patience has been getting stronger and stronger, but still not complete.  However, this past week was full of stressful situations.  Through God's grace and gift, reflecting on these experiences, there was only one brief time where I got flustered and a bit upset, and that because members were asking to find, pay for, and direct a taxi to a place that I didn't even know!  But even then I cooled off very quickly and we were able to get the situation sorted out.

Ether 12:27 is true.  The Lord can take our weaknesses, and through His Infinite Atonement, make them strengths.  I have become a changed man.  Ever since I studied President Uchtdorf's talk, "Lord, Is It I?", I have really been searching for the strength to see my own faults and the resolution to those before I even look at others.  There were many situations this past week that could have led to me blaming everyone else first, but thanks to this new-found gift from God, I was able to calmly look at what I did not do correctly and how I could have helped others do better as well.  With faith in Jesus Christ, everything worked out in the end.  The Gospel of Jesus Christ--in its true and living form in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints--is truly a gospel of peace and hope and patience.

My apologies for being a bit short this week, but I want you to know that I know that through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, we CAN acquire His holy attributes.  They may not all come at once and they may not all come perfectly, but they will come as long as we diligently seek them.

I love you all so much, and I invite you all to diligently seek for the best gifts and attributes of Christ.  As we are entering into this new year, may we all find these gifts that we are looking for, even if it's just 1 or 2.  As long as we seek diligently, other gifts WILL follow (Matt. 25:14-23).

Avec amour,

Elder Jenkins

The baptism of Yannick!  First one in Akpakpa!

So I decided to clean our window nets to let more air in the room on the 31st.  It was a "dirty job" literally, but the results are fantastic!  This is ours.

Compared with the other companionship's window.