THE SPIRIT OF GOD LIKE A FIRE IS BURNING - Tahaa

So first things first, Juliana and Sofia are totally getting baptized!! They know the church is true, and they decided that they have control of their lives, not their family.  So they're getting baptized Saturday. THEY"RE SO STRONG AND AMAZING

Sometimes the Lord just decides to bless you for no reason.  It's incredible. Cool experience, 

We sat down for a first lesson with this leader in another church, and we were gonna teach him about the book of mormon/ joseph smith etc the restoration of the gospel.  And we get talking and I hear this voice going "plan de salut" (plan of salvation). over and over.  And I realized we needed to change the lesson plan to that.  And right before I could ask my companion what he thought of changing the lesson, the guy we're teaching looks up and says "is it true that there is a life after death?"  HAHAHAHA And I about died cause that's exactly the question that the plan of salvation answers!!  We taught him and he was super touched.  After the lesson apparently my companion had the same thought to do the plan of salvation as well!  The spirit is real, and so aweseome.  

We're also teaching a guy who has been progressing so well, getting over drug addictions, praying etc, when suddenly he just dissapeared.  We couldn't find him and we kept noticing people in his house pretending they weren't there when we stopped by.  So we were super bummed that he was avoiding us, cause he was doing so well!! Then just last saturday we saw him, and turns out he was just super busy with work!  We did a lesson and he had read like over 10 chapters in the book of mormon all by himself, and he was like super buff! Haha apparently ever since he stopped drugs he gained the ability to get ripped.  SO AWESOME!  He's so happy recently and I can totally see a difference in his life. I LOVE THE GOSPEL. 

I sat on a coconut for a chair for 1.5 hrs for a lesson entirely in Tahitian the other day.  Haha sacrifices bring blessings.  

ALSO! Anyone who sent me a Christmas card, YOU ARE ALL SO AWESOME!!!! I absolutely LOVE hearing about and seeing you all!! You all look fantastic.  I loves ya. 

The work continues, adventures everyday.  Have a great week!!

Elder Jenkins

6 MONTHS!!!! - Tahaa

Hey erryone!

the 17th was my official 6 month mark, Crazy!  That's a quarter of my mission!  Going by way too fast. 

We explored the water last p day!! We're allowed to go up to our knees, so we had fun and waded around the knee deep parts.  Which actually go way far out into the water haha.  I almost caught a crab, but it pinched me and it hurt and I dropped it lol.  

Not much really happened this week, but!  If you have the time, please pray for Juliana and Sofia! They're two awesome amis, sisters, about 60 years old who LOVE to sing.  We met them cause my companion plays piano really well, and they just happened to own a piano that they didn't know how to play!  But they are ready for baptism, the only problem is their brother DOES NOT want them to.  So pray super lots to soften his heart, cause these two sisters are SO READY for the Gospel.  

I love you all!!! have a great week,

Elder Jenkins

Elder Jenkins - Tahaa

So my companion's bike is slowly dying, so we did a lot of walking this week lol.  But not even bad!  Sometimes when you're movin too fast you forget to stop and look around.  We saw a stingray!!

We started a ward choir thingy and my companion plays piano and since I know sort of how to sight sing sheet music they elected me as mistro.  So I get to lead this huge group of Tahitians singing hymns hahaha it's the greatest.  

Met some tourists from Jerusalem and they were like hey missionaries!!! and I quote "we don't know much about you guys but we saw the play." hahaha oh no.  

My comp and I have opera battles in French.  Also lots of 2000's pop songs. We're so cool.

We found ourselves a large hermit crab and named him Ernie.  He's actually pretty gross and looks like a spider.  But we love him anyways. <3 <3 <3

Friday we took a boat to another island for zone conference!! It was such a fun day.  We totally got "tom saywered" by some dude making leaf decorations, and we helped him out.  We saw so many other missionaries and it was so fun to talk to them all!! Learned a lot too.  Mission presidents are so wise holy cow.  

I love our amis.  It's so awesome to see them turn their lives around from sitting around doing drugs all day to working, and loving their families and the Lord.  The chruch is so true and the gospel is so real.  

I got to jam with some tahitian homies on the guitar and uke and I miss that.  People are awesome. 

I've learned to ride my bike with no handlebars very well, so now I'm able to take my little french hymnbook with me and sing on my bike as we ride to our lessons.  

This is all.  I love ya'll.  Have a great week.

Elder Jenkins

I LOVE MY LIFE - Tahaa

Hammock

I was laying in our hammock last monday, while eating bananas and nutella, underneath coconut trees in paradise, and I realized that I lucked out with my mission hahaha.  

I love this island.  never wanna leave.  We're teaching so many awesome people and I love bringing them more and more joy everyday.

Mostly my companion and I just sing pop songs from middle school and try to eat a lot of food.  And also do the Lord's work.

Ate 9 eggs for breakfast the other day. My life is so exciting.

So many miracles.  I wish I could tell them all.  Even just today, it was raining hardcore and we knew we were gonna get soaked while riding our bikes to go shopping for our weekly food supply. And then a scripture popped into my head "demandez, et vous recevrez" or "ask and you shall be given".  And so I said a humble prayer asking God to stop the rain just for while we were riding our bikes.  And He did!  Crazy dumping rain went totally calm and we went to the store.  Then we got back to our house and it started again haha! So I prayed again that we'd arrive to the chapel without getting soaked.  And as soon as we got on our bikes the rain stopped again.  GOD LOVES US AND ANSWERS OUR PRAYERS!!!!

I love you all, keep being good.

atl,

Elder Jenkins

peeps from papeete

Momma Cathy

Mami Yvonne

Jean

animal pics

Mr Pig

tupa

lizards and spiders errywhere

taaha pics

First day with Elder Barlow!

Paradise

life pics

House

so.  much.  food.  

Day 172 - Tahaa

Hello my fellow brothers and sisters.  How go you this fine day?

We are having a nice emailing/ pianoing session rn, and will then return to the house to clean, because there a millions of lizards (who eat all the spiders(who eat all the mosquitoes(who eat us))) that poop on everything. I have successfully ant prooffed our house tho, using a large can of OFF! spray.  Somehow it works hahaha.

Abandoned fashion this week haha.  It's too hard to try to look fancy when there's always dirt and sweat everywhere.  

I'll never get over how insanely gorgeous this island is.  Sometimes we're biking and I just have to pull over to take in the view.  I'm very blessed.

People are way too generous.  The Lord is just throwing us blessings out of the sky.  Free haircuts, free food all the time, one woman brought us two huge bags of groceries one morning for no reason. I LOVE PEOPLE.

The new goal is to make people cry during lessons.  We're getting pretty good.  (Meaning the spirit is really good) #gottastayhumble

Found an old guy jamming some jazz guitar the other day, so we had a nice chat about music and religion and such.  The mission is the greatest thing ever.

SO turns out you can get fat while biking like 2 hours a day.  Just eat insane amounts of calories! Haha we might die from how much food we eat honestly.  And the fact that people keep giving it to us free doesn't help.  We were hungry for lunch one day, and thought "should we go get lunch or just trust that someone's gonna give us food again?" and I'm like "nah let's just get lunch".  And so we ate.  And then after our next lesson, the investigator's like "Oh ya I made you food", and pulls out: a huge chocolate cake, a banana pie, 2 big bottles of soda, and a bowl of chips.  I almost died.  It was so hard to eat hahaha.  I think I need to stop praying for energy.  

Gave a talk in church yesterday! I think my French is good enough now for everyone to understand completely.  I hope.  T'was about faith.  Maybe I'lll talk about it next week.

Song of the day #172 that I can't listen to is "silhouettes" by colony house. Go give a listen and dance around for me.

Spiritual thought!

I've decided that the spirit is like magic.  Does anyone remember in the 6th harry potter, Harry drinks some fancy "luck" potion, and he immediatly has some crazy idea to visit Hagrid even though that has nothing to do with their quest.  But somehow visiting Hagrid put them in exactly the right place at the right time to keep moving on with the quest.  That's like the spirit and missionary work/life.  So many times we have little thoughts to do things that make no sense, but if it's the spirit we'd better listen.  Cause God's the only one who knows how it's all gonna play out in the end. And everytime we follow it, miracles happen. That's why it's so important to keep the commandments/ take the sacrament etc.  So we will always have the spirit to tell us what we need to do.  It's awesome to know that God's there for us to help us out in this crazy little thing called life.

atl

Elder Jenkins

Wowzers!! - Tahaa

This island is crazy!!  It rains like nobody's buisness!! Quite nuts.  We've gotten completely drenched quite a bit, but it's all good!! :D  Better than the hot sun for me.

We found a local bakery and they make pastery's and baguettes and cocobread which is amazing and my new obsession.  

We are going nuts with our diet cause we've decided we want to get huge.  Hahaha we've started eating as much as possible to try to counter how much biking we do. I ate three steaks yesterday among my other meals.  Oh dear. We'll see how that goes.

We eat everything in our house, and sometimes we experiment.  Tried some nice hot koolaid and hot limeaid the other day.  Not too bad!

We taught this woman a really powerful lesson, and turns out she's a masseus! She offered to give us free massages cause she felt the spirit so much hahaha!  But unfortunately we had to turn her down. After the mission for sure!!

The Gospel is amazing.  And very important.  It's awesome to teach people the answers to life's questions, like what's the purpose of life? Where will we go after we die? Cause IT"S IMPORTANT.  That determines everything we do here on earth!! Luckily we know the answers and we have the comfort of knowing we have a plan to be happy for ever and ever.  I LOVE THE GOSPEL

Have a great week, atl,

Elder Jenkins