WEEK 33 - April 3, 2017 (Aparri, Philippines)

Hello everyone,

Happy General Conference weekend. I don’t get to watch until next weekend, so I’m sooo stoked for that. Especially because I heard there will be a new temple here in the Philippines!! People are going to love that announcement. Also, Happy Bday to LITTLE KENNY!! Even when you aren’t little anymore, we will still call you little kenny. 

First of all, yesterday was freezing. I loved it. Everybody had their thick winter coats on, shivering and huddling around fires haha. We are in the middle of a storm right now. Haven't seen the sun in a few days. I love this weather. I don’t sweat very much and it just feels nice. (editor: I looked up yesterday’s weather – it was a low of 72 degress with 85% humidity. Haha is right.)

As I’m writing this right now there is a little filipino boy leaning up against me asking for pesos to play on the computers haha. I’ll send a pic.  His name is Pacquiao. That’s kinda how it is around here… a bunch of kids running around in the computer shops, skipping class so they can play World of Warcraft. 

So a few quick stories for you. This morning I went to get a haircut here in Aparri, and the guy was excited to cut my hair. Said it was his first time to cut an American’s hair and that he was going to put my picture on the wall after the cut. So that’ll be fun to go back and see my pic on his wall, hanging for everyone to see. 

The other night, we had just got back from working, and I had to go to the bathroom soooooo bad. Problem was, we had no water. None at all. And our neighbor (we usually can get water from her) was asleep. She goes to bed at like 7. So I was in quite a difficult situation. So we decided that Jollibee (fast food restaurant) was our only option. We raced over there right as they were closing. Luckily, they let us in. But man, life is tough when you have no water. None of the dishes get done, sometimes you have to go to bed smelly and sweaty. Hopefully the water will get fixed soon. 

(editor: Gary mentioned that this kitchen looks pretty nasty. Ryan's response, "It smells worse!")

So this week was really good, we are having success here in Aparri. Right now we have 4 investigators that will be baptized on April 15. They all want to do it in the ocean, but we have a nice font that our Branch Pres wants us to use. We are all sooo stoked for that. One of the little towns in our area is about 15 minutes away from the city. It’s a big flat land right next to the ocean. I’ll send some pics. We have some solid investigators over there and a good family that picks them all up for church on Sunday. Their transportation is a small triC, but they fit like 10 people on it. I’ll send a picture of that too, it’s pretty hilarious. They are all related somehow and they seem to just keep building the branch over there, little by little. 

But yeah, our whole area has tons of potential. I’m excited to work here the next few months or however long I’m here. I especially love becoming good friends with the members and especially with the youth that will come out and work with us.

Branch Youth Activity

Well my testimony has grown more this week, as it seems to every week. And as I study personally every day, I seem to always learn something new or have something inspire or motivate me to work hard that day. And when I study PMG (Preach My Gospel), I always seem to find something that I need to work on to become better. A better missionary, a better teacher, and a better all around person. And lately I’ve been studying the Christ-like attributes. How amazing would our lives be if we all just mastered those attributes, haha. If we all had perfect Charity and Patience. Perfect Humility and Diligence. But then we think to Either 12:27 

And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them....

If we pray and earnestly try to obtain these attributes and work towards becoming better, weak things will become strong. 

Also as I study PMG (Preach My Gospel) I always think to some of my friends that are preparing for missions… Matthew, Dallan. I’ll give a quick bit of advice to you guys. Study the PMG. Especially the discussions you will be teaching. I was blessed to be able to serve in Utah for a cycle and become familiar with teaching these lessons before I had to teach them in different languages. 

Love you guys, have a great week:)

-Elder Jenkins 

A few questions answered on the side...

* Do the sister missionaries have hot water in their apartments?

No, the sisters don't have hot water... there is no hot water here haha. I got to stay in a decent hotel in Laoag in December for the Christmas conference, and there was no hot water there either.

*What kinds of service opportunities do you have?

We haven't done any service yet. Nobody will accept it haha. They won't even let me put away my chair after a lesson. They are so kind it's amazing.

*Tell us about Jollibee's

Jollibee is alright... the burgers aren't very good, but I found an item on the menu that I like... the chili cheese dog. It tastes pretty good. So I get that and some fries most the time. 

WEEK 32 - March 27, 2017 (Aparri, Philippines)

Hello Everybody, 

This week has been a crazy week. I’ll tell you all about it. So after I emailed last Monday, I took a 4 hour bus ride and 30 minute jeepney ride to my new area, Aparri. This place is a little, big city. Lots and lots of people and tons of traffic. Not with cars, but Tricycles…lots of tricycles. It’s kinda nice cuz when we need one, there is always one driving by. It’s a lot different that Bangui where we would have to call our tric to get one. But wow there are tons here. Lots of people.

But anyway, I got dropped off at Jollibee with all my luggage. Jollibee is like the McDonald’s of the Philippines (they have McDonalds too). I waited for my comp there to pick me up. My comp is Elder Montojo. He is from Mindanao (the second largest and southernmost major island in the Philippines), and has just 3 months left on the mission. He has been here in Aparri for 3 months and will probably finish his mission here. 

So our apartment: it’s me and 3 other elders and honestly, the place is junk haha. For example, we went to pump some water this morning, and it decided not to work. So I had like 3 quarts of water for my shower haha. Our kitchen is infested with ants, cockroaches at night, rats sneak in and feast on any food that we leave out. So we are gonna try to fix that problem. I forgot to take a picture of our bathroom, I’ll send one next week. You guys will laugh haha it’s hilarious. It’s literally just a toilet bowl, with a bucket of water next to it. We have to manually pour the water into the bowl to flush it lol. It’s a loooot different here to say the least. It smells really bad. 

One thing that I don’t enjoy here is the water. It is freezing cold. The showers are brutal. I seriously dread taking showers every morning. I just stand there and pour a freezing cold bucket of water over me, shivering while I wash, and then pour bucket after bucket of cold, cold water to rinse off. Some days it’s hard to pour that first bucket on cuz I’m just not feeling up to it. So I do all I can to heat myself up, pushups, jump up and down, anything to help haha.  I will never get used to the showers.  

I am very very excited about this area though. There is sooo much potential here, it’s fully ready to harvest. Yesterday we had 6 investigators at church, 4 of them will probably be baptized within the next 3 or 4 weeks. So the work here is good. And the members are great too. Lots of them get together on Saturday and all go home teaching. We have a nice big beautiful chapel. I love it here. 

So here in Aparri, of course they speak Tagalog, and they speak some Ilocano, but they have another language here too – it’s called Ibanag. So I guess I’ll start learning that one too haha. The language (Tagalog) has gotten a lot better for me though. I’m beginning to be able to speak to everybody without any problem. It’s a lot of fun. The best part about the progression in the language is the ability to teach better. 

Lately, I’ve been studying the New Testament, and also have been reading Jesus the Christ at the same time. As I read and study His teachings and the way He teaches, I become more and more enlightened by the spirit on how I can improve my teaching. It’s incredible to me how the spirit works. It will just pop ideas into your mind, and then confirm those ideas by a feeling. I have also realized that God likes it when we pray specifically. For example, instead of me asking how I can become a better teacher, it’s more effective if I ask how I can help a specific person understand the gospel better. And I am enlightened during my studies of how I can help that specific person. I love how God works, and how this church works. And I absolutely enjoy the spirit every day of my mission. I could NEVER deny the happiness I receive from this gospel. How could I not give it all I have every day. I owe it all to my Savior! 

Love you all,

-Elder Jenkins

WEEK 31 - March 20, 2017 (transfer day)

Well this has been a pretty eventful week. Of course the highly anticipated day was Saturday. On Saturday night we were supposed to receive texts if we are being transferred or not. It was 10pm and I had still not received a text, so I thought I was staying another cycle, but then we got a text saying transfer texts will be on Sunday. So Sunday morning during church I got the text saying I was being transferred. I was expecting it, and I think most the members were too, so it wasn’t too shocking or devastating. But then I look to my right, and I see the two sister missionaries crying and crying. Both of them were getting transferred too, and they were devastated. And so were the members. They hadn’t been here for very long, so they weren’t expecting to be transferred. But oh man, there were lots and lots of tears from them and the members. Then I decided to change the closing hymn to hymn 152 (God Be With You Til We Meet Again), haha and that really got the tears flowing again. 

But anyway, we were going to check our emails this morning to see where I’m getting transferred to, but the power was out. So I just found out a little bit ago where I’m going. I’m being transferred to Aparri!! It’s in Cagayan and it’s going to be smoking hot these next few months. Gonna be sweating a lot. But I am sooo excited. Don’t know too much about my new comp, haven’t met him yet, but I’ll give details in the next email. It really feels weird to be leaving Bangui after all this time. It definitely was a bit hard saying goodbye to a few of the members that I’ve been close with these past few months, but I just told them I’ll be coming back in 2019 or 2020. (Start planning Mom, Dad :)) 

Anyway, earlier this week, the sisters had two more baptisms. I got to baptize one of the young girls. I always love having the opportunity to baptize someone. Always a good, spiritual experience. 

Well sorry, I don’t have too much time to write, I have to catch a bus at 12:00 to Aparri. I’m sooo excited for this next area for me in the mission. New area, new opportunities! Next email will be a good one. I’ll have lots to tell. 

Love ya!

-Elder Jenkins 

FINAL DAYS IN BANGUI

The Pacman shirt was a gift from a member.. it's awesome

WEEK 30 - March 13, 2017 (Bangui, Philippines)

Hello everybody!!! 

This was a great week. And this next week may be the last one for me here in Bangui. Transfers are on March 21, so we will see what happens next week. But anyway, it has been even hotter this week. For fun I started counting how many showers I take during the week and I think I got up to 19. If we have any down time at all, we get back to the apartment as soon as we can and take a quick shower haha. We are sweating like mad out here. 

sweating :)

This week we had some good success in the branch. We had a large sacrament meeting attendance, and we also had 3 investigators come to church. There is one investigator that we found a week ago. We returned back earlier this week and asked if she had read any of the Book of Mormon. She pulled it out and said she had read 30 pages. She’s a solid investigator, but she didn’t make it to church this week. But it was nice to have someone keep commitments.

So you know how in some movies, there will be a kid that has to run after a bus or somebody is sprinting after a bus to catch up to it? Well I always thought that doing that would be pretty embarrassing. But I’m not kidding, it’s a weekly thing here for us. Sometimes when we are waiting for a bus, we will flag it down, but it won’t see us until late. So it hits its brakes and expects us to start sprinting to get in. And if you don’t show some hustle, they will just leave haha. It’s hilarious. Just pictures me in full proselyting clothes, sprinting a 40 yard dash towards a bus. I hustle too, it’s no joke. 

Speaking of things they do different here than they do in the US, the fellowshipper title is to a whole other level here. We have 2 fellowshipers in the branch. And by fellowshipper they mean someone that goes out to teach with the missionaries, but not just for 1 or 2 lessons. He works the whole day with us haha. It is wild how generous the members are to work with us for that long. I can’t imagine doing that back home. 

Another funny thing here that I have been forgetting to write you about is the phrase "Long time no see". People love to use that phrase, but they do not understand the meaning. In America, it’s a sarcastic phrase, right? Like if you just saw somebody earlier that day and you see them again, you would say that, right? Well here, I had an experience where I met somebody for the first time in my life, and she said "Hello elder, long time no see!" I was soooo confused. I had no idea what she was talking about. So yea that’s a funny phrase to use here. 

Right now there is a ton of construction going on here. They are fixing up the town in time for the Bangui Festival. It’s a bigggg party here that lasts a weekend. Everybody loves it. Unfortunately, I don’t know if I will still be here for that. I think it’s in mid-April. (The town of Bangui featured the Kannawidan Festival which is a five day celebration starting every 26th of April. This is the most awaited event in the said municipality wherein the townsfolk participate to showcase their traditions.)

There is a lady from Las Vegas here, visiting for a bit. She invited us over for dinner the other day. Turns out her box of American food just shipped in from the states, and she cooked up some spaghetti for us. It was amazing. They have spaghetti here, but it is waaaaay different. It’s sweet and tastes like candy almost. So that was soooo nice to be able to have a little taste of America again. 

Alright so spiritually-wise, I had a great week. As I begin to learn this language little by little and get better at it, I begin to recognize the spirit more and more in the lessons. I’m able to teach with the spirit better because I can actually speak decently. It’s a goooood feeling to teach and feel the spirit confirm your words are true. And even a better feeling to recognize a prompting and act on it, and then have the spirit confirm to me that it was a prompting and not just a random thought from my brain. I’m excited for the time that I am fluent in speaking and am able to fully focus my attention to the promptings of the spirit.

I also had a good experience with prayer. Occasionally in my extra time, while my comp is doing some branch business at the office, I decided to just pray. I realized as I began to pray more than just the regular times during the day, the spirit has had a bigger effect on my life. I really think if we rely on God more during the day and just talk to Him more than twice a day, we will feel His impact in our lives more often. I know for a fact that He wants to help us and bless us, but we need to act in order to receive that help and those blessing.

So there’s my testimony for the day. Love you all. Have a great week. I’ll let you know next week if I’m getting transferred or not :)

-Elder Jenkins

P-DAY ADVENTURE:

WEEK 29 - March 6, 2017 (Bangui, Philippines)

tracting on the beach

Hello everybody. It is absolutely summer over here. It’s kinda funny how hot it is. Hopefully I’ll start to get used to it because it’s supposed to get even hotter I guess.

This week was pretty good, especially on Saturday because we had another baptism in the branch. So I’ll tell you about that a bit. We got word that the power was supposed to be out all day on Saturday (it has been like that the past 3 weeks on Saturdays), so we were planning on doing the baptism in the ocean. I was sooooo excited - everybody wants an ocean baptism, it’s way exciting. And then we woke up on Saturday morning and we had full power, no problems. So that was a bit disappointing. We ended up doing the baptism in the font, and of course, it was still a great experience. Always is.

Baptism of Ella

One thing I love about the place where we live is that like twice a week our neighbors get together and play some live music. And they are pretty good. They love playing American music too, it’s awesome. They play a lot of “Eagles”, “Journey”, “Rush”, it’s amazing haha. Some nights after we get back I just go sit down outside and relax and listen to their music. The other night, I was doing that and they started playing “Africa”. It was incredible, probably the most relaxed I’ve been in a longgg time. So that is quite a blessing to live next to those people. The music that people know here is pretty funny though. They know the most random American songs. Like the other day, somebody had no idea what “Don’t Stop Believing’” was, but they knew a random Simon and Garfunkel song.  It’s hilarious some of the songs they know by heart here.

The language went all right for me this week. It’s still really difficult, but I am kind of starting to get the hang of it. It’s definitely been something that has humbled me more than anything has in my life. Sometimes I’ll feel like I’m starting to get a bit comfortable with the language, and then the next minute I won’t understand a thing. So humbling. It’s been difficult, because honestly most things in my life that I try for the first time, I’m pretty decent at, and I can get the hang of pretty easily (mostly sports things). But the language has been troubling haha. It’s been so humbling to say the least.

So the other day, I yet again saw God watching out for me. So I got a call from my dad’s friend from work, Mike, who was in Ilocos Norte this week. He has family here and had a package for me from my family. He explained to me this story of how the package was almost lost. I’ll explain real quick. So he had my package, and he was traveling in a van, touring some spots close to where I am serving. Well his driver told him that he knew where the mission office is, and that he could just drop off the package for him later. So they left the package with the van driver, thinking he would drop it off. Well FOUR days later, Mike and his family were in the same van, but with a different driver. Mike's son was playing on his little Nintendo DS in the van and accidentally dropped the stylus on the floor. When he went to pick it up, he saw my package hidden under a mat under the seat. Who knows if the driver was gonna steal it, or just flat out forgot about it, but if they hadn’t see it, who knows if I would have got my package. Which would have resulted in a sad Elder 😢 (and parents). I know without a doubt that God looks out for all his servants out here in the field. So thankful to Mike too, for hauling the package around with him (and for his son, for dropping the stylus!). 

Love you all and am so thankful for all of your prayers and support. The word is sweaty as can be, but i love it! :)

-Elder Jenkins

WEEK 28 - February 27, 2017 (Bangui, Philippines)

Hello everybody 😊 Another week down. First of all, congrats to Dallan (friend from home) getting called to France!! What an exciting call. Can't wait to hear about that. He’s gonna kill it in the field. 

This week was a weird week because of the weather. It was sooooo hot for most of the week, and then this weekend it cooled down big time. This caused both my comp and I to get sick. It messed me up pretty good. Had the chills and my whole body was aching. I struggled through the 3 hours of church and then got home and slept for a good 4 hours. When I woke up, I was sweating like an animal, and my eyes were almost swollen shut. Then a bunch of the members from the branch came to our house and insisted that I come outside. They brought us dinner because we were both sick. I was suffering from some kind of migraine too. So I put on the eye mask and sat in silence haha. (editor: When Ryan is sick he just wants to be left alone. Well-meaning Branch members would not have known this.)  So about that picture (below), no I don’t have an eye disease (editor: an "eye bug" as the one member wrote me).  It’s just really bad allergies.  My eyes were messed up. It really looked like I had taken a couple punches, it was awful. They are still kinda bad today, looks like I have black eyes, except they aren’t really black. But anyway, yeah, it’s getting really hot.

I’m actually kind of afraid for the summer because people say it just gets so brutally hot here. Right now we are taking at least 3 showers a day because we are sweating so much. It’s craziness. The nights are pretty good though, it gets a little cooler.

A couple of days ago we had splits with the District Leaders again and I was with Elder Lewis. It’s so fun walking around, two Americans. Everybody stares at us and are just amazed. Then they become more amazed when we speak the language haha. We went to an investigator’s house that night, she’s a teenage girl. She had a bunch of her friends over and they were all loud and crazy, there was no way we were going to be able to teach them. But I saw a guitar in her house. So I asked if I could play it, and she gladly handed it to me. I started playing and they loved it - they all gathered around and watched. Luckily I knew a few songs that they knew, and we were able to play and sing together for a bit.  It was a good time. Found like 4 more people to teach through that experience. It’s always good to be creative in your finding techniques haha.

So I’ll tell you about the culture here when eating dinner or any meal. First of all, they always tell you to eat first, and that’s what everyone does. Sometimes nobody will go first because they don’t want to, and we will just stand there telling people to go first for like 5 minutes. But then once you start getting food, they watch and make sure you try everything. And if you don’t take something, they ask “ayawmo? ayawmo?” which means like “you don’t want?” or “you don’t like?” and they want you to take some so bad. It troubles me sometimes when I know that it’s a dish that I don’t really like, and I try to sneak by without taking any, and I always get called out haha. So yeah, I guess I’m still adjusting to the culture a bit here. It’s different, to say the least in a lot of different ways.

I had a great experience last week. I was doing language study and I was starting to get so frustrated and mad at myself because I just could not understand one thing I was trying to learn. And I was just beating myself up so bad for it. And then I felt prompted to open up my notebook that had all of my General Conference notes in it from last October. And when I did, I opened to Mark Bassett’s talk. And I read the words “Don’t worry about the things you don’t understand, search the scriptures.” There are no words that could’ve been more comforting then those words, honestly. So, I stopped what I was doing and went straight to the scriptures. And I felt calm again and peaceful. Little things like that remind me that God is always there. I see God’s hand in my life every single day, it’s amazing.

 Love you all, have a great week,

-Elder Jenkins

WEEK 27 - February 20, 2017 (Bangui, Philippines)

Hello everybody. Well this week was great. Especially this weekend. Elder Bednar came to Laoag this week and spoke to the mission. I’ll talk about that a lot more later on in the letter.

First of all, the weather absolutely changed this week. It was pretty hot and really humid again. I liked the cold a lot better. But apparently it’s going to get a lot worse in the next few months haha. I’ll be back to sweating every second of the day, just like it was when I first got here.

So honestly this week made me realize that I have never been this busy in my entire life, which honestly is good. Time definitely flies by when you are busy all day and don’t even have time to think about anything other than the work here or the Branch business.  Every Sunday I realize more and more how different the church is over here than it is in America. Obviously, the Doctrine and teachings are all the same, but it is just a lot different. The culture changes everything.  For example, I never thought I would be preparing the sacrament, blessing the sacrament, giving a talk, and teaching a class all in the same day haha. Sunday for us is definitely the busiest day of the week. Since Cervantes is Branch President, and I am Branch Clerk, we have tons to do on Sunday. But I do enjoy being busy.

Haha so I have a few funny stories to tell from this week. So the people that live next to us sometimes like to drink and do Karaoke at night.  And the other night I was out hanging up my laundry for it to dry, and one of them walks buy. He gives the usual “Brotherrrrr” hello and stumbles by. But then he turns around and walks back to me and says to me in is best drunk English “Does you want to join with us, brother?” Hahaha even the drunk people here are so kind - asking me if I want to share a meal with him.

The other day I was on splits with a single adult from our branch, who’s preparing for a mission. We went to go teach an olddd nanay that we found last week. She is 85 and she only speaks in Ilicano. She absolutely refuses to speak in Tagalog. So Jonathan, my comp at the time, had to translate everything for me.  We asked her how she was and if she was able to pray about our message. I had no idea what she was saying, but because of the way my comp reacted to her response, I begged him to tell me what she was saying. Apparently she said that she had a dream last night that she was walking down the street and there were a lot of different churches on each side of the road. And then she said Joseph Smith walked out of one of them and came and talked to her. She said she knows that the church that Joseph smith was in is the true one. So I mean, she might be going crazy and she could have made that up, but that is a pretty cool experience if it was true. We tried to pick her up for church yesterday though and she said she wasn’t feeling good. SO we will see what happens with her.

(editor: sadly I can't get the video to load correctly. But here she is - use your imagination.) 

All right so now I want to talk about Saturday when elder Bednar came. First of all, I got a text on Thursday, that told me a will be giving the opening prayer at the David A. Bednar Conference. I was sooooo stoked about that. A little nervous, but mostly excited. So on Saturday, we were all packed into a chapel in Laoag. And when he walked in, it was just incredible. The spirit filled the room, chills shot up my spine and watered my eyes a bit. Never felt anything like it. And let me just tell you, this guy is funny haha. Everybody expects these apostles to be so different that us and act like perfect human beings, but he was just awesome. The prayer went good. I think I did a decent job at inviting the spirit. The first thing Elder Bednar said to all of us is to not take notes on anything he says. He said, “Strictly take notes on what you feel from the spirit, and not from me.” And the second thing is that he said he was not going to give a talk, and that we are going to do most of the talking. I was excited about that part, I wanted to speak with an apostle haha. And I guess the Filipinos get sort of nervous speaking English because they don't want to mess up, so I had plenty of opportunities to speak. But honestly my favorite part about him is just how straight up he was with us. He used the phrase “Just stop worrying about it!” like 3 or 4 times, and he was just so bold and real with us. We talked a lot about faith and being doers of the word, not just hearers. But my favorite part, by far, was his testimony. I’ve never heard and felt such a powerful testimony in my life. He testified of the godhead and so specifically about the three separate members. All of us could just feel without a doubt that he knows Christ. At the end we all got to shake hands with him, and when we shook hands I could just feel the spirit in him. He firmly grasped my hand and looked me in the eye and said, “Thank you.”

(post-conference trip to McDonald's??)

So having Elder Bednar come to our mission is an experience I will definitely never forget. It was a highlight of my mission so far. He gave us all motivation to work harder and to come closer to Christ. I know without a doubt that the Apostles are called of God and that they receive revelation from on high.

Love you all, talk to ya next week!!

 -Elder Jenkins 

P-DAY ADVENTURE

(bwah-ha-ha...crocs with socks)