More Tender Mercies

It's amazing the mysteries that are uncovered when we study the
scriptures! (Email me your own captions at
preston.jenkins@myldsmail.net)

Holy cow!  It's hard to believe that it's already been a week!  This past week absolutely flew!  I don't have terribly much news.  It is hard for me to believe that it's already April this week.

Well, for this week, I just wanted to share a major driving force that has recently been re-ignited in my missionary flame.  This force is the Tender Mercies of the Lord.

"But behold, I Nephi will show unto you that the tender mercies of the Lord are over all those whom he hath chosen, because of their faith, to make them mighty even unto the power of deliverance." (1 Nephi 1:20)

So what started all of this was a visit from the Assistants on Saturday night.  They were leaving very early Sunday morning to get back to their Branch at 9 Benin time because they had a confirmation. When they came by, I received a letter package from my grandpa.  I opened this package to find a booklet written by a religious professor at BYU, Mark Ogletree.  I saw the title, "Tender Mercies and Thomas S. Monson," and was greatly intrigued.  However, as we were entertaining company, I put it aside or the night.

The next morning, Sunday morning, I decided to read it during the few minutes I had before heading off to church.  What I read was both impressive and inspiring.  Pretty much He described what a "tender mercy" is, and then he went on to explain the many examples of President Monson's life.  This marked the importance of several things for me.  First, we need to pray for specific opportunities to help someone draw closer to God, or to go "on the Lord's errand" as President Monson put it.  Second, we must listen to the promptings of the Spirit and specifically look for opportunities with faith, knowing that God can show us where He needs our help.  Third, we must heed the promptings which are given unto us and trust that we are doing the Lord's will.  Lastly, we must record these precious experiences to strengthen us in times of need.  Also, recording these experiences shows the Lord just how precious they are to us, and it gives us more
opportunities to see them in our lives.

After Church on Sunday, I was able to finish reading the booklet. With the many, many stories of President Monson and the example that he gives to all of us in heeding the promptings of the Spirit to run the Lord's errands, I was greatly inspired.  Before going out to teach Sunday afternoon, I prayed that the Lord would bless me with His errand, that I might be an instrument in his hands for touching the hearts of His children in ways out of the ordinary.  As we left the apartment, my faith was full to the brim.

As we were walking to our first appointment, Elder Bile explained that if the man that we were teaching first didn't progress this week, that we would drop him.  Every single week he tells us that he'll try to meet with us, but because his schedule isn't too sure, it's hard for him to commit to come.  I completely agreed with Elder Bile, even if I didn't exactly want to do it. We started the lesson with him, picking up where we left off the week before.  We answered a few of his questions, and everything was going well.  After bearing our testimonies with his last question, there was a brief pause of silence.  Then, the man we were teaching broke the silence and explained, "You know, I think I'm going to visit you guys this week. I know that I've said that before, but I've got my schedule situated for this week, and I'll have time to come to church on Sunday morning. So yes, I WILL visit you church this Sunday."  I didn't look at Elder Bile, but I know that we both had peace in our hearts, for our worry had been resolved at the heart of the problem.  We finished up the lesson a little bit afterwards, and this was definitely the best lesson that we had with him.

After finishing up our first lesson, we went across the street to a girl named Giselle.  She is a young mom, and she has become more and more interested in our message the more we have shared.  Since she hadn't come to church on Sunday morning, and since our second appointment wasn't very sure, we decided to just go ahead and teach her.  The lesson went very well.  Thank goodness we didn't have too many distractions as are common with her, plus we were able to bring this point up with her, and she completely agreed, so hopefully we will be able to find a better place to talk without distractions.

After praying to finish the lesson, she brought up one question that we hadn't planned on.  Elder Bile and I jut kinda took a few seconds to look at the time and register, as our next appointment was fast approaching, but finally we decided to just go ahead and respond to her worry.  We spent about another 10 minutes with her on that, and she understood, but we didn't respond to all of it, so we'll have to return to finish responding.

As we left Giselle's house, we were a bit pressed, as our next appointment was also a bit far.  However, as we were crossing the  street, someone yelled out, "Hey!  Missionaries!  Elders!"  We stopped and looked to find a guy sitting on his moto.  As we approached him, he giddily shook our hands and exclaimed, "I'm a member of your church!  I was baptized this past year in Ivory Coast, and I have been looking for you guys out here in Baguida since August!  Now I've found you!  Where's the Church here?!"  Elder Bile and I just kinda stood there, mouths gaping, eyes widened by his enthusiasm, as all of that information took its time to process.  Then, all of the sudden, it processed, and we were like, "OH MY GOSH!!!"  Well, long story short, his phone is broken, and he took our number and said that he knows the area of where the Church is and if he needs to he can borrow someone's phone and call us when he gets around there.

Wow! Anyways, so as we left, a little more bounce in our steps, we decided to call our last appointment to see if he was there, as we were decently late at this point.  Turns out, he had left two hours earlier anyways, so we wouldn't have been able to teach him anyways. We decided to spend the few more minutes that we had visiting the few less-actives and investigators that live near our apartment. Reflecting on the experiences with the first appointment and then the man we met on the moto, Elder Bile and I both realized that the Lord had responded directly to our prayers.  In fact, right before going out, Elder Bile had prayed specifically for the man in our first appointment, that he would progress.  I took the man we met on the moto as a direct response to my prayer previously that day.  Needless to say, I recorded these experiences in my journal Sunday night. There are no coincidences in this world, only miracles and tender mercies of the Lord. 

My dear family and friends, I love you all so much.  This work is truly the Lord's work.  God knows each of you and me personally, and He is very aware of our lives. He is there.  All that is needed is faith and action on our part, and He will do the rest.  He will manifest Himself to us through His own ways, notably His own "tender mercies".  It is my prayer that we may all look for the Lord's hand in His tender mercies throughout this next week, and that we may all be blessed with His love.

Have a great week.

Avec amour,
Elder Jenkins

Thought this was kinda cool. 

Three of my favorite little kids here in Baguida!

Restoration or Reformation

Carlos' baptism:  Me, Carlos, Djimdo with the glasses, Elder Bile

Wow!  It’s hard to believe that a week has already gone by again!  This past week absolutely flew!!!  This past Saturday we had Brother LAWSON’s baptism!  He’s the first person that I’ve taught in English that has been baptized!  His friend (whose name is Djimdo) was baptized with his own family in Anfamé in February, and so that’s how we got his contact.  Ever since Djimdo introduced Carlos (Brother LAWSON’s nickname) to the missionaries in Anfamé, he has been wanting to change things around.  Before we even started teaching, he wanted to be baptized, so the only that has held him back is time.

What’s even better is that Saturday we decided to give Carlos a little surprise.  We called Djimdo, his friend, Wednesday evening when we had the Zone Leaders over for Carlos’ baptismal interview.  The Zone Leaders were actually the ones who taught Djimdo and his family, so they gave me his phone number, and I was able to call him and invite him to come and baptize Carlos on Saturday.  He got very excited and said, “Yes, of course I will!”  Saturday came, and Carlos still had no idea that Djimdo was coming, even though Carlos received a phone call from him congratulating him.  Anyways, Carlos was very, very surprised and even happier than he was surprised.  That was a great experience for Carlos because he isn’t the most comfortable in a church where he doesn’t understand anything (I translate for him every Sunday).  Thankfully he speaks éwé so he can communicate fine with the members, but he doesn’t understand anything in the lessons because they’re all in French.

Anyways, we were all very grateful for Carlos and his decision to follow the example of our Savior Jesus Christ and be baptized.  Immediately following his baptism, Carlos said that he was going to visit a friend whose room had recently caught on fire and burned everything.  He had told us about it a couple times, and we had a free hour, so we decided to follow and pay him a visit.  As we went into their parcel, there was a gazebo in the middle with quite a few people just sitting around talking.  Carlos sat us down and we talked with his friend, who is from Sierra Leone and speaks English!  We chatted with him for a little bit, not really paying attention to the other people at this time.  Then, all of the sudden, it clicked in my head that they were all speaking English!  So we fixed an appointment with Carlos’ friend and then were able to chat a bit with the others.  I found out that there were two from Sierra Leone, one from Liberia, one from Ghana, and the rest I’m not sure. They all work with Carlos at the port.  A few of them are actually on the boats, but most of them are stationed here at the Lomé Port.   We ended up have a good, if only slightly animated, discussion with them about religion, and they were all very interested in our message.  I was just very happy to see how much Carlos was already talking to them about our message and how he knows that it is good and true.  He was so excited to share with them that he had been baptized that day.  Recent converts are great.

So this week, I wanted to share a little bit about a family that we are teaching right now, the DOLOU family.  We taught them just yesterday (Sunday, the 30th), and it was a fantastic lesson.  The Spirit was there, testifying of this truth, and it was noticeable that the family was feeling it as well.  We started by teaching the mom, Georgette.  After the first lesson with her, we asked her if we could share our message with the whole family.  She replied that there shouldn’t be a problem.  So, two weeks later, we were able to find a time to get an appointment with her and the two younger kids.  The oldest came a bit late, so we met him, too.  Which left the dad.  The next Sunday we were there again, but Georgette was busy.  However, Dad was there and he seemed interested.  We were able to talk about and explain the Book of Mormon.  The following week, we came back to find that Dad was still at work.  But, we were able to talk with Georgette and the kids.  We also found that Dad had taken great interest in the Book of Mormon, had read quite a bit, and had noted several things on a sheet of paper.

We then decided last week that we should invite the Gbedjagni family to join us for our appointment with the Dolou family.  The Gbedjani’s are Togolese but lived in Benin for about 18 years before returning just recently to Togo.  They have been members for quite some time.  Frère Gbedjagni was even a branch president in Benin, and they have been to General Conference in Utah several times.  Anyways, so this past Sunday we went by with the Gbedjagni family and we asked them to testify of how the Church and the Restored Gospel have helped their family.  The Dolou family really felt how important families are in this church and they were very touched by that.

We then had a bit of time at the end, and Frère Dolou asked, “What is the relationship between the Gospel of Jesus Christ and Joseph Smith?”  I absolutely loved this question and had to restrain myself from jumping up and down shouting “EVERYTHING!!!!”  But, I was able to explain that Joseph Smith was an instrument in God’s hands for restoring the Gospel of Jesus Christ in its fullness here upon the earth again through the Book of Mormon and the Restoration of the Church of Jesus Christ.  I was able to calmly add at the end that Joseph Smith has everything to do with the Gospel of Jesus Christ and that the Gospel of Jesus Christ has everything to do with Joseph Smith.

Frère Dolou then went on to explain to us how he understood the difference between Reformation and Restoration.  He saw how every church on this earth today in some way or form has been reformed from another church which did not have the fullness.  He then explained how it was necessary that the Church of Jesus Christ be RESTORED on the earth, and how he believed that the Book of Mormon would be the answer to the question if Joseph Smith really was the prophet chosen by God to restore all things upon the earth.  He was and still is very intrigued that there are more scriptures inspired of God than just the Bible.  He has also plainly explained to us how he knows that men have tampered with the Bible, and thus it is only true if it has been organized and translated correctly.

Needless to say, we are very excited for the Dolou family.  We haven’t had too many opportunities to teach families here in Baguida, but now the Lord has given us an opportunity, a great opportunity.

Well, I think that’s it for this week.  I love you all so much, and I thank you all for the prayers and support that you give me every day.  It helps so much.  God gives me more and more strength every day to overcome the trials and temptation of my own life to focus on the salvation of others.

Have a joy-filled week.

Avec amour,
Elder Jenkins

PS: Shout out to all my friends and former teammates for some outstanding performances at NCAAs (yes, I got a few chirps from a few little birds).

Pigeon's nest on our balcony.

Elder Faerber, Elder Barton and I found Teddy Grahams today!

Giselle's (one of our investigators) son.  Poor kid.  He had an accident, so mom just put him in a bucket while she swept it up.  But he thought it was hilarious!

Slavery liberation monument in Lomé.