Musee National

Happy 11/11 everyone!  I captured a picture of my clock at just the right moment today, but I almost missed it because we were at the museum!  Yeah that's right, we went to the museum.  Honestly, it's the small museum I've ever set foot in (well, I mean I haven't been to terribly many museums in my life, soooo yeah...), and it's the NATIONAL museum of Togo!  It's attached to the Palais du Congrès (the Palace of Congress) which is like the big(ish) auditorium where they do a bunch of concerts.

So yeah, every month we have a Zone activity just to have a break from the daily life of missionary work.  Usually we just go and play soccer/ basketball, but every once in a while we like to do something to educate us on the people/ nation so that we can understand them better.  So we went to the museum and saw a bunch of original African stuff, like straight up Voodoo/ slaves.  Yep, that was about it in the museum.  But it was pretty cool!  A bunch of cool looking artifacts.

 

In front of the museum this morning, 11/11/13



Apparently Voodoo priests use this for music

Didn't know they had Vikings in Togo

I got a little excited with the Xylophone (mom here - love seeing the percussionist in him comes out still)



 I think this is a depressed slave

That's the only sign indicating where the museum is from the road.  It was kinda hard to find

The main floor of the museum

The other floor of the museum



The slavery monument in Togo.  I didn't get the good side of it because I felt kind of bad taking a picture of it.  Not really sure if it's permitted or not.

So this week has been fairly normal, other than the fact that my companion and I got a bunch of lessons in.  We were both very happy with how our numbers turned out this week, so now it's time to improve.

I have been very impressed as to how the members of our branch have responded to the Prophet's call to be more united in missionary work between members and the missionaries.  The past 2 weeks we've had 6 people come for the first time that were invited by friends that are members!  And all of the members are so willing to accompany us to the lessons.  My companion and I were getting a little worried because we were running out of people to teach, but our plates have been filled again and we're ready to go!  We're already starting to see early fruits of the labor of the members!  I'm sad that my time in the Wuiti Branch is reaching sunset because I've come to love these people like family, and the work is priming to explode in this area.

 

We had our Primary program this week.  It is a little difficult for them to learn the songs because they do not have a piano, but it was great!

 

With the primary after their program on Sunday! (11/10/13)

 

Sorry, I don't have terribly too much to write this week.  We got to the cyber a little late this week, so not too much time.  I love you all so much, and as always, I share my testimony that I am truly on the Lord's time and His errand, and there is not a better place for me to be right now, regardless of worldly ambitions.  As the Savior said, and I paraphrase, when we seek for the Kingdom of God before all else, everything in our lives will fall into place.  And if something doesn't, it's not important.

Also, I have been brought up to date with the natural disaster in the Philipines, and so I send out a remimnder to please pray for all of those affected by this devastating tragedy, especialy those missionaries valiantly serving the Lord in that area of the world.

I love you all so much!! Have a great week, and make someone's day!

Avec amour,
Elder Jenkins

 

A picture of our Zone from Zone Conference this week!

I forgot to roll my pants back down after putting my shoes back on after cleaning the church building on Saturday, 11/9/13

 

Venance and Benoit and an African Halloween

Hey everyone!  I hope you've all had a wonderful week!  Out here it's been pretty splendid.  Elder Edwards and I decided to celebrate a bit this past Thursday, so I dressed up like a ninja and he carved a pumpkin and we ate some chicken noodle soup and candy.  It was a blast!  Everybody kind of looked at us weird as we went outside to light up our pumpkin, but we didn't care!  The two African missionaries in the apartment got a kick out of it, too!

 

Elder Edwards (the other American in my apartment) bought and carved a pumpkin!

Happy Halloween!  I decided to be a ninja.

I got some mad ninja missionary skills

Everyone just kind of sitting around as Elder Edwards lit it up

Had to pose with the pumpkin

Our little friend

 

Here's a pic of the chicken noodle soup I made.  I put in a few too many noodles so it became a bit of a chicken noodle casserole after I stored it in the fridge.

And I treated myself to an orange Fanta float. DELICIOUS!

Kind of scared me the first time I opened the fridge and a pumpkin was staring back at me

 

We had two baptisms on Saturday!  Venance and Benoit, both of whom are what we call papas since they're both older than 50ish.  But they have both, like Komlan, made some great changes in their life and are now along a new path.  Both are also eager to have us over to teach the rest of their families!

 

 The baptism on Satuday, 11/2/13.  Venance is next to me and Benoit is next to Elder Mbala with President Sam in the middle

Then, yesterday, Sunday, we got to watch General Conference!  It was such a great experience, and the Spirit was tangibly there.  After the Book of Mormon and the temple, General conference is my third testimony of the truth and power of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  We truly do have the opportunity twice a year to listen to and receive the messages of a true prophet of God, his two counselors, the 12 apostles, and other appointed authorities that have been so carefully prepared according to the Spirit of God.  The 15 men at the head of this church (the Prophet, his 2 counselors, and the 12 apostles) have truly been called to lead the Lord's only true church on the earth today, and when they speak, it is truly by the power of God.

General Conference set up on Sunday!  It was different watching in French, but the Spirit was definitely still there carry the messages that we needed to hear!

We had four people come to visit us at church yesterday, one of which we have already taught and 3 that were invited by friends to come, and they all loved it.  They were so amazed to feel the Spirit and love that resides in every single message at General Conference.  Honestly, I agree with President Monson, Sunday morning session was probably the overall most spiritual session I ever watched, music included.  But these four people absolutely loved their visits, and I'm very excited to go visit them this week.

Well, that's about it.  Oh!  I forgot to mention that we got to experience a solar eclipse here on Sunday!  Right as we were leaving church it was in place, so I was careful not to look at the sun.  But the lighting was really eerie.  It was kind of a twilight zone feel, which was pretty awesome.  It also cooled down so that helped on the way back to the apartment.

Have a great week everyone.  I love you all!

 

Avec amour,
Elder Jenkins

 

This little guy decided to go creeping in as I was cleaning the kitchen this morning!

Note from mom:  I received a couple more pictures this morning from Elder and Sister Christensen, who are serving in Togo with Elder Jenkins. 

 

"The Doctor" doing his job 10/27/13

With the other Southern Elder Preston, Elder Preston Burkhart from Atlanta

 

The Doctor

Well, this week officially marks my 20th week in Africa!!!  It's moving along, but I can't lie, this week I kinda got a glimpse of how long 2 years is.  Considering it's been 5 months and I still have 18 to go, I did get a bit sad this at the end of this week.  However, the work is progressing! 

One story that I want to share from this past week is with one of our amis, Benoit.  He is Komlan's best friend and we teach them together.  He was supposed to be baptised this past Saturday, but in our lesson on Wednesday he shared something.  He shared that he had read the first few chapters of the Book of Mormon and the story of Laman and Lemuel binding Nephi in the desert really touched him; the fact that Nephi immediately forgave them.  He said that when he read this, he felt like he there was someone he needed to forgive before being baptized.  I was sooooo happy for him!  So his baptism should be this Saturday!  The Book of Mormon is true, and I was so happy to see that Benoit is already prepared to receive his own personal revelation in scripture study.

As I thought about what I wrote last week, I completely forgot to write about the blood drive that we had!  It was a blast!  No, I didn't give blood (I mean, I'm kinda in Africa).  But there were a bunch of us missionaries just kinda sitting around doing nothing, so I started looking for stuff to do.  The lady who was in charge of it all was over taking the weight and blood pressure of all of the donors and looked especially bored.  So I went up to her and asked her if I could help.  She asked if I knew how to take blood pressure, and thanks to Blain, my trainer at BYU, I do!  It's probably one of the easiest things on earth to do, but I was glad to have something to do.  So the whole time I was taking people's blood pressure, whether they were just taking pre-donating measurements or someone had fainted (yeah, there were like 4).  But, due to the stethoscope, everyone started calling me Doctor, and it still hasn't died down, even a week and a half after.  Anyways, it was fun.  I was occupied and happy, but we had an amazing turn out.  I think the number of donors was anywhere between 30 and 40!

Just doing my job.

Saturday at the blood drive.  I got a little bored when we got a bit stopped up on donors due to only having three doctors there to extract.

After that, not terribly too much this week during the week.  However, this past Saturday and Sunday, we had the open house and dedication of the Kégué building, so I got to see lots of familiar faces!  We also had some investigators come and check it out, too! 

Here's a good look at the Kégué building.

The weather was beautiful!

They set up pictures depicting a bit of what our church is all about throughout the church and it's grounds.

Saturday was the open house.  In the Chapel/extension of the chapel they had a projector set up showing a bunch of media from EFY/ General Conference.  Then, they had a room set up for all of the 5 auxiliaries in the Church, Elder's Quorum (adult men), Relief Society (adult women), Young Men, Young Women, and Primary (children).  As we were walking around the building checking things out, we got to the primary room.  Just next to the primary room was the infirmerie/ first aid room.  I peeked my head in to see what it was, and then all of the sudden "Doctor!  We have a coat for you today!"  So yeah, I stayed in the first aid room FOR 5 HOURS!  All I did was give out aspirin and tell people to drink lots of water.  So that's all I got to do until at 3 we had a baptism when we got to baptize Frederic!  His dad has been meeting with us for about 2 or 3 months, but just doesn't feel like he is quite ready yet.  However, he asked us to teach and baptize his son.  Frederic is 10 years old, and he soaks everything in like a thirsty sponge.  It's ridiculous how quickly he learns!  Children are truly amazing when it comes to the gospel.  After the baptism we stayed to accompany the last stragglers of the open house/chat with other missionaries, and then we went home.

Baptism with Frederic and his family on 10/26/13!  (Frederic is the one in the Winnie the Pooh shirt.  We had to take pictures after the baptism due to the open house that was still going on, but it was great for people to come and see what a baptism is like!)

Sunday was an incredible experience.  We had church at 9 in the morning and then the dedication at 2 pm.  At 12 we went back to the apartment to eat and found that the Be Kpota missionaries came back with the other missionaries in our apartment because their house is so far.  So we had 8 mouths to feed at lunch!!!!  I cooked for the four Americans (Me, Elder Edwards, Elder Ringle, and Elder Haggard - no complaints with that group!) and Elder Kabedeh cooked for all the Africans (Elder Kabedeh, Elder Mbala, Elder Kouadio, and Elder Soanantenaina).  It was busy, but we made it.  The Dedication started at 2, so I prepared quickly and we finished eating at 1:45, but one Elder from Be Kpota was convinced that it started at 2:30 so he took his time eating.  We got there right at about 2:30, and I felt the eyes of President Weed following us from the stand as we found our seats. 

Anyways, it was an amazing meeting with great speakers, even though we only got to hear half of them.  But the last three were Sister Weed, President Weed, and an Area Seventy from Côte d'Ivoire, who is the former mission president of the Côte d'Ivoire mission, which included Togo in his day.  Something that President shared really touched me.  While he was bearing his testimony, he shared the story of the First Vision of Joseph Smith.  As he recounted the story, he remarked that at the very moment that God the Father and Jesus Christ appeared to Joseph, the last Dispensation of God's only true church on the earth was opened, never to be destroyed again.  He then explained how we live in this dispensation today, and we have the truth right in front of us and it's our duty to share it with the world.  I want to add my testimony onto that of President Weed.  I KNOW THAT THESE THINGS ARE TRUE!!!  The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the only true church of God on the earth today!  Period.  This church is, and always has been, led by Jesus Christ himself through a living prophet.  This work is truly moving forward like the stone cut without hands out of the mountain, rolling forth to fill the whole earth as described in Daniel 2:44-45.

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

 

Avec amour,

Elder Jenkins

Here's a look at President Preuss (our Branch President) at his desk.  Apparently his grandpa was captain of a major German U-boat during WWII and sunk a bunch of Americans, which is why his name is German.



The stadium right next to the church building.  Its the main stadium of Togo (it's the biggest).  Overall feel?  I'd give it a Junior College rating.  But a high level Junior College.





Sunset from the stadium.



Helicopter, skydiving and pictures . . .

It's still crazy to me how the weeks fly by, yet only 17 weeks ago I was still at home!

It's getting a little bit harder to think of things to write about, not because we aren't doing anything, but just because from my end, everything looks almost the same.  Good news from this past month is that I am finally learning how to live in Africa.  With Elder Edwards in the home and with the diet/ budget that I created at the beginning of the month, I'm no longer exhausted of food and money at the end of the month!

Another crazy thing, our secteur is right next to the airport, so we always have airplanes flying over the apartment.  However, this week, there wer a helicopter flying around most of the days.  We didn't really know why, until Friday.  The helicopter was hovering over the airport, and my companion was a little suspicious because he saw a lot with the paratroopers during the war in Côte d'Ivoire.  All of the sudden we saw parachutes opening up!  In total there were about 8!  Well, that was random!  Anyways, about an hour later we were about to teach some members when we saw the helicopter again!  This time, I felt comfortable taking pictures as we weren't in the street.  It reminded me a lot of Kaleb, and made me miss home a little bit, but it was still fun to see how some people reacted to it hahaha.

Parachute!

Well, that's about it this week!  Not too many stories, but I'll try to think of some good ones for next week.  I love and miss you all so much, but I know that I am on the Lord's errand and doing His work, which brings me comfort and drive every single day.

Avec amour,
Elder Jenkins



It got so hot this week; we had to wear our hats!



Soeur Gilbette's dog had puppies!!! They're ADORABLE.

Making pate rouge, one of my favorites!



With the Eastmonds before they left for Benin!  We got a new couple, the Christensens from Reno, Nevada!

Made some fried rice this week!  It was delicious!