Becoming like our Heavenly Father ...

Wow.  I honestly have never seen time go so quickly.  The weeks now seem like nothing at all.  As time has been lessening for my full-time service as a missionary, I have been pondering on what the Lord wants me to learn most before I return.  He has showed this in a powerful way.

A little under three weeks ago, I was affected by an emergency transfer.  My companion, who had less than a week in the mission field, had to return home due to passport issues.  That same day, I received Elder Affri as my new companion, who is from Ivory Coast and has been out for over 16 months.  At first, I was a bit worried about having a companion with so much time out on a mission.  But this abrupt change soon became one of the greatest blessings of my mission.

In our area, we have several investigators who have a myriad of individual problems.  I wouldn't say that we have a TON of investigators, but we have enough to where we're not stressed.  So, in seeking ways to improve our area, Elder Affri suggested several great ideas that I had not even thought of.  In carrying them out this week, we have seen so much progress.  Each of the investigators that have marriage obstacles to overcome are taking conscious steps to show their faith and overcome those obstacles.  One of them even invited us over to his house this morning to workout with him!  I think that was a huge step with him.

Our workout room this morning.  That's one of our investigators.  He's awesome!

Doin' some work. 

Goodness gracious it's been a long time...

All-in-all, I think the Lord's message has been very clear to me: I need to learn to be humble.  I have much studying to get done and even more practice and effort to put in, but I am so grateful for a loving Father who cares enough for me to show me what I can do to become more like Him.  And that's it really.  That's why we're here on this earth: to grow line upon line and precept upon precept to become more like Him.  We cannot be perfect in this life, but we can get as close to it as we are willing to go, and how much more we will be advantaged in the next life as we will be continuing in our growth there as well.

I testify that our Heavenly Father loves us and watches over us.  It isn't easy, but He will always show us what we must do to become like Him.  Through His Son's Atonement, we can improve little by little, drawing closer and closer to perfection everyday.

I love you all so much.  Have a wonderful week!

Avec amour,

Elder Jenkins

So we took on the project of cleaning the rest of the window nettings this week, and I decided to have a bit of fun with it before we got to work.

This is what we call a doghouse here.  That way, the dogs won't get hot!

A view from the branch building.