LA DERNIER SEMAINE!!!! - Provo MTC

I hope I spelled that right.  I can speak French but usually forget the spellings lol.

AH!! I leave for Tahiti on MONDAY!!! at like 6AM and I AM SO EXCITEDDDDDDDDDD

We moved residences earlier this week, which was annoying cause we only had like 6 days left! But the new building has nice desks.  And I like nice desks. Because we are missionaries.  Which means we study.  ALL. THE. TIME! it's great.

Some of the French missionaries on our floor play lots of pranks, and I won't really go into it, but there have been multiple instances involving a real, dead, tarantula.  And the drinking fountain now permanently smells like fish.

SO GET THIS. Some of the other islander missionaries and Sister Weyland (our new addition to our Tahitian district) didn't get their Visas on time, so they are going to the Irvine-Cali, and SLC East missions!! So if anyone sees an Elder Walton or an Elder Burbank out in SLC tell them hi for me! And feed them.  They're good Elders.  But don't worry, after a few weeks they will get to go to their originally assigned missions.

Ok so Brother Markham is one of our leaders.  And he makes crazy good grape juice from like 40 different varieties of grapes from all around the world.  And on Sunday he gave us a presentation explaining Jacob 5.  (A really long confusing chapter in the Book of Mormon) And he brought a ton of his grape juice (called Chateau Markham) and candied pears and fruit leather and I thought I was gonna die it was so good.  We are way too spoiled here.  We are so blessed THE LORD IS GOOD.  And I've really learned to appreciate the scriptures.  Like you can learn anything you'd ever need to know from the scriptures.  And there is ALWAYS more to learn.

ELDER BEDNAR CAME TO SPEAK!  He's I think my fav Apostle.  His talks always go way in depth.  So there's always so much to learn.  Go check out some of his talks. 

We had our last lesson with one of our teachers and that was sad.  Frere Vanderholm, what a guy.  He served in Tahiti and has given so much good advice to us young grasshoppers.  ALSO he was in a Mormon Message when he was like 17! Haha here's the link-       https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2012-04-004-fulfilling-your-duty-to-god?lang=eng     He's the one with braces in the really cool snowy lake area.  He looks much different now but it was funny to see this!

Also I met the Czech Slovak missionaries here! There's only like 3 of them at the MTC right now.  For those of you who don't know why that's important, I WAS a Czech missionary! (for a day haha) visiting the amazing McConkie family when they were mission presidents there.  I walked around the beautiful city of Prague with a real missionary and we talked to people about the Gospel in a language I couldn't understand.  And now that's what I'm going to do every day! Haha it's awesome.  

The Spirit is REAL!  It's actually nuts to see the difference when the spirit is in a lesson or not.  When it is, the investigator is super interested and feels peace and we can speak the language really well.  When it's not, the investigator is super bored, learns nothing, and we can't speak the language half as well as normal.  

Ok so I was sittin one day, and felt the need to write a list of things/ ways to be happy.  And more importantly to have joy.  It's kinda an advice list I wrote to myself. So here is the list (so far hehehe)

-Read the Book of Mormon

-Make sure you are progressing as a person.  Be productive. Learn lots of new things that interest you./ exercise/ practice and develop new skills.

-Serve others

-Follow the commandments and live the Gospel.

-Be humble

-Get enough sleep

-Pray/ be grateful for everything/ count your blessings

-Keep priorities straight

-Trust God/ Realize we don't know the big picture, but He does.  It'll all be good in the end.

-Love unconditionally

-Make friends and meet people. Smile and make someone else's day.

-Don't be so serious.

-Don't be lazy/ idle/ waste time

-Create your own self confidence/ don't rely on others.

-Smile

-Forgive and forget

-Don't complain

-Be the bigger man/ swallow your pride

-Realize trials are blessings in disguise.

I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH! Can't even describe it.  CAN'T EVEN!! I hope life is treatin you all GREAT!!! 

All the loves,

ELDERRRRRR JENKINSSSSSS

Week Hitu (7) - Provo MTC

Iorana!!!!

Eha to'oe huru?  

Tahitian is nuts.  It might very well be the death of me.  The grammar principals are fairly simple compared to French or English, but the memorization and pronunciation is utterly ridiculous.  But, I feel so blessed and grateful to have the opportunity to learn TWO languages!!! There are some islands called the Marquises in my mission, and if I get sent to those I'll actually have to learn ANOTHER LANGUAGE.  I can't tell whether I'd like to or not lol.  But yes thank you for prayers because they help very much!

I'm having a good time here.  I mean it's like the toughest thing in the world, and sometimes I wanna scream, but I wouldn't rather be doing anything else.  The other Elders are becoming pretty good friends and we get along! And guess what!? We got a new addition to our 4 person classroom!   We got a solo sister named Tuahine(sister) Weyland.  She's pretty cool and already knows more French than we do, so she's jumping right on the Tahitian train, and will leave the same time as us to TAHITI!!! Also it was Elder Kerr's BIRTHDAY yesterday and so that was fun to be able to see him.  

I've decided the Gospel is very similar to a good band.  Like your favorite band.  That makes you so so happy and the lyrics are very deep and can help you through rough times.  Then, you try to show your friends and they're like "nah".  So naturally you're upset, because they can't see how amazing it is.  LIKE THIS IS THE BEST THING EVER HOW CAN YOU NOT UNDERSTAND! I have a lot of those feelings while trying to teach here.  Because it's hard to understand/believe in the Gospel when you don't have a lot of understanding/experience.  Just like how someone might brush off a good band because they've only heard one or two songs they didn't like that much.  You just have to realize that underneath the surface is something incredible. 

I just hope so so so so so (infinity) much I can spread the amazingness of these blessings to as many people as possible.  Because once you REALLY understand what it's all about, there's nothing better.  It's taken me a while to get to that point, but it's been so worth it.  I miss everyone so much, but I can already tell I'm never gonna wanna leave Tahiti and the chance to be a missionary.  

Also everyone go check out the band "twenty one pilots" because that's what I got that idea from haha.   |-/

JE VOUS AIME!!!!

Elder Jenkins