WEEK 100 - July 15, 2018 (Santa Ana, Cagayan Valley, Philippines)

Hello Everybody!

As I write this letter, it is pouring rain outside. A big storm came in this last week and dumped rain on us for about 4 days. Cools things down, but is not too great when you have a hole in your shoe. 

Everybody here in the Philippines is pretty happy this morning. Pacquiao won his fight on a knock out, so everyone was stoked about that. Unfortunately, when there is a Pac fight, the whole country shuts down. Everybody hunkers down in their houses and watches the fight. Even if the fight doesn't start util 1pm, they are at their TV by 10am watching and waiting. This affected our Sacrament attendance big time. Sad to say that a lot of people pick Pacquiao over church :(  But we still had a really good meeting. One of the soon to be missionaries here gave his farewell talk. He heads into the MTC this Friday. So it was a very spiritual, happy Sacrament Meeting. 

Actually our mission president, President Peterson, came to Santa Ana on Saturday night to set apart Cleo as a full time missionary. However, he doesn't travel until Thursday, so he is staying with us at our apartment and will be working with us until Thursday. It will be nice having 2 companionships again and giving him a little head start to his training. 

Speaking of President Peterson, all the missionaries in Cagayan gathered together in Aparri on Friday to go and meet President and Sister Peterson. They are such nice people. The Elders and Sisters love them and are so excited to have them here. Was a lot of fun just sitting down and talking with President, he being a big basketball fan and a huge golfer. Could sit down for hours just talking about those things haha. We were also able to get together and have dinner on Saturday night here in Santa Ana. Was a lot of fun meeting them and spending some time with them.

On Friday when we were in Aparri, we experienced a little miracle. The "Meet the Mission President" meeting was over, and we were just about to head home. We were walking to the road and about to get a vehicle heading back to Santa Ana when I decided we should stop by a member's house in Aparri on the way out and say hi. I wasn't very close with this member, but Elder Morehu was and would surely enjoy the visit. So we took a little detour and stopped by to say hi to this member. We were there for only about 15 minutes, and then said goodbye and started walking back to the main road. That's when I got a text from Cleo, the boy who is about to serve a mission, saying "Elders, where are you?" I quickly replied and he said, "Can you visit my mom, she is in the hospital there in Aparri." We were able to go visit her and when we got there she said she was kind of worried and stressed out because it sounds like she would need to get an operation done. We gave her a Book of Mormon to read and stayed there a while with her. Her and her husband were so thankful. Apparently when we got in the tricycle and started heading to the hospital earlier, her husband (not a church member), who was buying something in centro, saw us and said, "When I saw you 3 in that tricycle, i knew you were heading straight to the Hospital to help us."... I'm so thankful that Heavenly Father has used me as a tool many times to help others in their lives. It is such a blessing to know and recognize the promptings of The Spirit in my life. Something that hopefully I can and will recognize forever.

Love you all, talk to you soon!

-Elder Jenkins