WEEK 93 - May 29, 2018 (Santa Ana, Cagayan Valley, Philippines)

Hello Everybody!

Fun fact for the day... did you guys know that they have yellow and purple watermelons here? The outside is the same color, but you never know what you're gonna get on the inside haha. The other day we found somebody that was selling some and there was a huge one - 17 kilos (37.5 pounds). So we bought it and split it open for a nice snack after the baptism on Friday. Was wondering if it was gonna be yellow or purple... it was red.

Exciting news for the week is about one of the members in our branch who applied for his mission last year. I check every once in a while to see where his papers are, and when I checked the other day, he had an assignment made, and his call is on the way! Also there are 2 or 3 others in the Branch that are getting ready to serve. So the branch is way excited for them. 

On Saturday, we had a District YSA (young single adult) activity here in Santa Ana. The plan was that we would meet at a certain time and they would pick us up with all our YSA, then we would head up to Buacag Falls. So we were there at the meeting place on time. Ended up waiting 2 hours until they picked us up haha. filipino time. But the activity turned out fun. Lots of people came and went swimming in a little hidden river in the crevice of a mountain that also had some waterfalls and some place to cliff jump. 

Sunday was a good day. It started out a little strange however. We got to the meetinghouse early to open everything up and get ready. But when people started arriving, everybody was coughing because it was so smoky. We looked around and somebody was burning their trash right next to the church, which was blowing tons of smoke right into the church. (There is no garbage man here to pick up your trash, so everybody just burns it right outside their house). Before I could go out and talk to the person and ask them to put it out, our other neighbor was already over there chewing her out. She was mad because she had just washed her clothes and hung them up, and now the smoke was making them smell bad. So they were out yelling at each other and making a ruckus right before Sacrament was supposed to start haha. We ended up getting her to put out the fire, and started Sacrament Meeting. We had a good meeting with 94 attendance, including 14 investigators. We had a full gospel principles class. The old Ilokano Tatay (Rodolfo) and his two granddaughters came to church. We are preparing for them to be baptized in a few weeks. 

Even though sometimes I am disappointed with people failing to be obedient and committed, there are many times where I am overwhelmed with joy to see members with tough circumstances continue to be loyal and converted to the Lord. There was a member here who was robbed this last week and had 8000 pesos (about 152 US dollars) stolen from her. She has been working for almost a year now, trying to get enough money so she could go back to school and finish. She was so sad and discouraged. But on Sunday, she came to church and paid her tithing. Other members, even though their life is hard, they stop everything they are doing on Sunday and give time to the Lord. I have learned so many things from the filipinos, but one thing that will always stick with me is that  when we put The Lord first in our lives, He will always provide for us. 

Love you all, have a nice week!

-Elder Jenkins

WEEK 92 - May 21, 2018 (Santa Ana, Cagayan Valley, Philippines)

Hello Everybody,

Well last week was Election day, so the people here have been pretty politically excited here. It's funny how the politics work here. In every city here in the Philippines, there are areas within the cities called Barangays. In every Barangay, there is a leader, the Kapitan, and other leaders of smaller ranks, Kagawads. Every 3 years they have elections for all these positions, and last Monday was the election day. Before election day people print out pictures of the person they want to win, and they place them all around the Barangay, anywhere. On trees, buildings, tricycles, pretty much anywhere you walk you will see one. And then these people running for these position will go house to house in that Barangay and talk to every single person about voting for them. So we saw a lot of that the last week. And then on Tuesday when there was a winner, he held a huge party at his house and everybody could go and eat with him. So we stopped by :)

(from last week, but now we understand what it is)

Besides that, this week consisted of not much but working with Less Actives. Us four elders got together and wrote down every single less active in the Santa Ana Branch, there's about 350, and made a plan to go find and visit them all. Some of these visits are so sad when they tell us they don't have any interest in coming back to church. Most of them say that they are too busy because they are a fisherman. Others say that they are too busy working at the Casino. Some just say that they are straight up lazy and have no desire to go to church. The great, exciting part of working with less actives is when you find the ones that have just been waiting for somebody to invite them to come back. There have been so many people that I have seen active in the church back in the day, then go less active and their life just goes downhill. Makes me more and more understand the importance of the Gospel.

Elders Jenkins & Abarabar with a couple from the Santa Ana Branch

On Saturday, we had a big young men/young women mutual activity at a place called Dumasag. We piled into the van of one of the members (we fit 18) and headed up a bumpy, dirt road up through the mountain. After about a 20 minute drive, we had arrived at a nice, quiet place up next to a river. We had a nice little program and the kids had a fun time swimming and bonding with the other ym/ym. 

Well, church wasn't as successful as it was last week. A lot of the Less Actives we worked with showed up, but the problem was a lot of the people that regularly come to church didn't show up. Sundays are emotional rollercoasters. I see a less active or two walk in to Sacrament Meeting, which just makes me so happy, but then one of the speakers doesn't show up, which disappoints. Sometimes I wanna jump on the roof because of happiness and excitement, and other times I wanna just go sit in my office and shed a few tears. Nothing has ever made me learn or grow more than the things that I face here in Santa Ana. The Lord has always been there every step of the way, guiding me and picking me up when I'm feeling down. I am so thankful for the love that He has for me and the motivation He gives me every single day. I could never turn away from the great plan that He has for me.

Love you all, talk to ya next week!

-Elder Jenkins

WEEK 91 - May 14, 2018 (Santa Ana, Cagayan Valley, Philippines)

Hello Everybody!

Happy Mother's Day Mom!! Love you so much, you are my hero :)

This week was straight success. Full of happy moments and lots of good opportunities here in Santa Ana. 

The not so cool part, first of all, is the fact that the power has gone out here like three times in the past week. Which leaves us without electricity all day. Which means no electric fans, and some of our food going bad. It also results in our American housemate shouting, "Only 6 weeks then I won't have to deal with a power outage longer than 5 mintues again!! haha"

So the other day, we decided to have lunch at a kind of higher end restaurant/hotel here in Santa Ana. Didn't turn out being as expensive as we thought it would, and we very much enjoyed. When we started heading out, a big white van pulled up to us and opened the side door. To our surprise, a  huge American Marine sat there, and asked if he could sit down and interview us about the Mormon religion. We happily accepted and headed back to the nice restaurant with him to have a talk. He said it was a miracle that he found us, because just earlier that day, his boss was giving him an earful for not talking to people about their non-government organizations. So he was stoked to see a couple of American guys on the street that he could talk to. He was trying to gather info because he was putting together a big production that would be shown to hundreds of people, so we were way excited. We had a real good talk with him about what we do to help the people here in the Philippines. Got to talk a lot about Mormon Helping Hands, and he said he was pretty surprised by how much good we do without getting paid. Said when he gets home he's gonna look for the Elders and learn more. Really cool opportunity for us to open our mouths.

A not so cool experience was on Tuesday. Elder Ivie and I went on exchanges in his area, and if you could see our planners, there was nothing but Less Actives planned for the day. I don't get the opportunity to work in their area very much, so I wanted to visit as many members as I could. So we ended up going to an area that is about 15 kilometers away out in the middle of nowhere. We worked there and visited some less actives until about 12pm, then waited for a tricy. Well, a tricy didn't show up, so we decided to start walking, expecting that a tricy would show up. We had been walking for about 1 hour in the blazing heat, and couldn't believe there wasn't a tricy yet. We were pretty thirsty and saw a little store in the middle of nowhere, so we stopped off to get a drink... and of course, right when we turn our backs, a tricy drives by -_-  Turns out that was the last tricy of the day, and we ended up walking the next 12 kilometers back to the main road. We couldn't believe it... what a day.

the long walk home

exchanges with Elder Ivie

Yesterday at church was another big step for the Branch. We got the attendance up to 100!! The members were so happy to see the room pretty full again. Was a great Sacrament Meeting with the speaker's topics about mothers day. There were lots of tears shed, which is always expected here in the Phils. These people love their mothers:)  All the Nanays were also pretty happy when we handed out candy bars to them with a "Happy Mother's Day" note on it. Was a good day. Our strength right now in the Branch is the youth. They just got back from their youth conference, we set up another big activity for them this week, so they are real excited. Things are going good here in Santa Ana.

Zone Conference

One of the best parts of this week was on Friday. We had our zone conference in Aparri so I was able to see a lot of friends. But the best part was after the conference when I walked out the doors of the chapel to see the DEL ROSARIO FAMILY WAITING FOR ME!! (see pics & video below) Oh man, that was a happy reunion. They ran up to me screaming and grabbed my hands, the two little boys, CJ and Jerico gave me a big hug. Was so much fun to see how good the family was doing. Chris had a brand new tricy and said they haven't missed a day of church ever since I transferred. They also talked about how excited they are to be sealed in the temple. They all just looked so good and happy. I think I was the happiest one there though :) Shyrine and her younger sister have changed sooo much. They used to be so shy around people, but now they are so outgoing. Shyrine is working with the missionaries all the time and preparing to serve a mission. That was such a great moment to be able to meet and talk with them again. Oh, how glad I am that Elder Reyes and I worked like horses back in the day. The Lord used us to change a family's lives forever! 

Love you all. Happy Mother's Day!

-Elder Jenkins

WEEK 90 - May 7, 2018 (Santa Ana, Cagayan Valley, Philippines)

Hello Everybody,

I'll start this letter off by just telling you about the heat here. I'll try to give a good explanation about how hot it has been this week.

On Saturday we had a big work load to do. So we were out by 9am, in our furthest area working. Not 10 minutes later, the shirt was damp from sweat and didn't dry out until 8pm that night. It was a hot, long, stinky day. Makes it a little worse that here in the Phils, when it's a really hot, humid day, people love to just put a pillow on the ground and just lay down and snooze while the TV plays some old western filipino movie in the background. So, most of the appointments fell through. 

The best part about the week was on Friday Lea Costales got baptized! It was a real hot sunny day on the oceanside, and to our suprise, the waves were big. That made the baptism a bit difficult, but it all worked out great. Was a little jealous of Abarabar as he was dodging and jumping over the big waves, taking water up to the neck haha. And then on Sunday, to our suprise, Lea got up and bore her testimony. Was such a sweet testimony about her conversion. 

Speaking of Sacrament meeting, it was a successful day. It was the first Sunday of switching Sacrament Meeting to the first hour instead of the last hour. So honestly I was expecting there to be a little amount of people. To my surprise, we had the room pretty full. Our attendance was at 95! We also had a lot of progressing investigators show up, including the old Ilokano tatay that I was telling you about last week. It was a very happy Sabbath. 

This week was filled with more spiritual promptings that led to helping people. We were walking to an appointment and when we are walking we always wave and say hi to everybody we see. There was one guy who we waved to, and after passing him by and walking another 15 yards or so, I felt like we should go back. So we did, and it turns out this guy is an old investigator who was hoping to be baptized about 3 years ago, but got sick and had to leave town. We were able to teach him, and he was so happy to meet with the missionaries again. 

Another experience has to do with the Nanay who had a stroke last week at church. Actually, last Saturday night (the night before she had a stroke at church) it was pretty late and we were heading to our last appointment. We were walking by the road that leads to nanay's house, and a thought popped into my head to go and give nanay some money so she could come to church on Sunday. So we went and gave her enough coins to be able to get a tricy for church the next day. The next day, she had a stroke at the church and we were able to get her to the hospital real quick. Well the update from the doctor in Tuguegerao is that Nanay suffered an extreme stroke, and if she had not come to the hospital and been treated to quickly, she would have died. Nanay was talking to her daughter the other day, and said "It's a good thing that the Elders came and gave me some money, because I if I didn't come to church this morning, nobody would have been home to help me and take me to the hospital. I would've died."

I have learned a lot on my mission, but one thing that will surely stick with me is to never ignore a prompting from the Spirit. He leads and guides us to the straight path, and will use us as tools to help others, as long as we are willing to listen.

Love you all,

Elder Jenkins

eating shark

WEEK 89 - April 30, 2018 (Santa Ana, Cagayan Valley, Philippines)

Family Home Evening... I lost.

Hello Everybody! 

Well, lots happened this week here in Santa Ana. Like usual, a huge rain storm came through, but it didn't cool down the weather at all. Just made it humid as ever. The work is hard when you are soaked in sweat, and just can't dry off. 

I'll start with what happened on Sunday. We were hoping to have a large Sacrament Meeting attendance today, but because of 2 things, that didn't end up happening. The first thing was: It rained sooo hard in the morning. Most people travel on motorcycles to church and don't want to get wet, so they just didn't come. (Terrible excuse, I know.) The second reason was a little different. So on Saturday here in Santa Ana, the hospital had what was called "Operation Tuli". It is a day where all kids can go to the hospital and get circumcised for free! Yes, people usually don't get circumcised here when they are a few days old. They wait until they are about 10 years old, and then do it. So, a lot of people didn't come to church because they were watching over their kids at home who had gotten tulied. haha. It was funny on Saturday evening seeing a lot of 10-12 year old boys walking around in skirts. 

It was an eventful Sunday, however. One of the speakers didn't show up again, so I was able to give yet another talk haha. The shocking thing that happened was before Sacrament Meeting, one of the older ladies started to feel weak, and suddenly had a stroke. We rushed her to the hospital though, and now she is doing better. The good news about our Sacrament Meeting is that we had 10 investigators come to church. Five of them were the Gonzales family. They are progressing really well, and one of their kids is really active in Young Women already. Also, Lea came to church. She will be baptized on Friday!

The sad news about this week is that Franklin, the man who we went and visited in the hospital, passed away. He was suffering from kidney failure and cancer, and said he couldn't take it any longer. We held a nice funeral service for him on Saturday afternoon. The other 3 elders and I brought a guitar with us and put together a nice little musical presentation for them. I was the concluding speaker, and actually hadn't fully planned what was to be said when I got up there. But when I started speaking, I felt the strong guidance of the Spirit. The Spirit was strong as I taught about the Resurrection and about how the words "Kamatayan" (death) and "Kaligayahan"  (happiness) go together. It ended up being a really great service. Then after the service, everybody went back to playing cards and eating food under their tents. (Filipino tradition)

I wanna share a quick experience. So when I was back in Laoag, and was still companions with Elder Basa (last fall), I felt the strong prompting to begin learning Ilokano. Not just learn the little basic stuff, but actually learn how to speak it smoothly. I wasn't sure why, and hesitated at first because you can get by fine here just by speaking Tagalog. But I decided to try my best at it. And I am sure glad I did. We were out finding the other day and saw an old tatay, kind of hiding from us. We approached him, and at first approach I started speaking Ilokano to him. He was shocked, and wasn't afraid of us anymore. He started laughing and said he thought he would have to speak Tagalog with us, so he hesitated to talk to us. We were able to get to know him and his family and turns out he is really interested in the message of the Gospel. We have been able to teach him a few times now, and he is great. Every time we teach him, he just laughs and says "I can't believe you can speak Ilokano." I'm so glad I followed that prompting about 6 months ago to learn the mother tongue of these people. 

Love you all, have a nice week!

-Elder Jenkins

WEEK 88 - April 23, 2018 (Santa Ana, Cagayan Valley, Philippines)

Family Home Evening :)

Hello Everybody!

Well, this week was just another one of those hot, humid, sweaty weeks.

Turned into a bit of a stressful week really quick when I went to open the computer at the church and found out that the MLS (Church record system) wasn't working. It turned into me sitting in an office, sweating, wanting to punch the computer as I call the GSC (Church Office) over and over and try to get assistance. After 3 days, we finally got it figured out and everything is good to go. 

Sunday was a good but really busy day. When I woke up in the morning, I had a sore throat and a bit of a cough. Was struggling to talk regular and it seemed like every time I tried to talk, my voice would squeak over and over. Haha this made things a bit difficult as I had a lot of interviews to do (Branch President work). And then when it was time for Sacrament Meeting, all 3 of the people that were assigned to give talks didn't show up. So I looked over at the 2 elders and gave them the nod and I was able to give a long concluding talk. However, it was still a good meeting. The Gonzales family showed up to church along with Lea, who will be baptized next week. I made the announcement that starting in May, Sacrament Meeting will be first instead of last. People were a little surprised, but all are on board.  

We were able to do a lot of finding this week in our area. We decided to get a little more creative in our finding approaches and decided to only speak English to people. When we do this, the people we talk to really struggle to speak, but they try their best. Then all the sudden I will start speaking Ilokano to them, and they just start cracking up. They feel so relieved. The people are so nice here though, so easy to get along with them and love them. Lately Elder Abarabar and I have been praying for a new family to teach. Had a little miracle the other day when one of the members took us over to the house of a family that said they want to be taught about the gospel. 

Had yet another great spiritual experience this week. We were working at one of our further away areas and were in a lesson when all the sudden I started sneezing uncontrollably. My nose was plugged up and I was struggling to speak without coughing. This happened for about an hour, then I decided we needed to go home. So we hopped into a center car (bigger version of a tricy) and started heading home. All the sudden I got the impression that we shouldn't go home quite yet. So I said a quick prayer and decided we would get off at the next barangay (neighborhood) and go finding. When we got off, I started to feel a little better and my sinuses cleared up a bit. At this point, we knew something great was going to happen. Of course, like we were expecting, we were guided to a great family, hidden back behind a field and in between some trees. We were able to teach them and give them a Book of Mormon. They told us to come back and continue to teach them. The greatest thing about this experience for me wasn't just the fact that we were lead to a great family. I have seen this over and over in my mission. It was the fact that when the Spirit prompted me to stay out longer, I knew that this was a true prompting and would result in good. A great thing that I have gotten out of my time here is the trust that I now have in the Spirit. When He prompts me, there is no doubt I will follow this prompting. It is a great two way trust that always results in happiness. 

Love you all, have a great week!

-Elder Jenkins

WEEK 87 - April 16, 2018 (Santa Ana, Cagayan Valley, Philippines)

Hey everybody!

Wow, time is flying fast, my time's running short. I've got less than 4 months left here in the Philippines. I'm for sure enjoying my time here right now. Some days however, are harder to enjoy than others because of the brutal heat. This week was the hottest I have experienced here in Santa Ana. It's officially summer here. 

Despite the heat, we have been having full, hard working days out on the dusty dirt roads and the hot pavement. Usually what a full day of work consists of is, taking a van out to our furthest area, about 25 minutes away, and working with all the Less Actives out there. We go hour after hour of teaching these members and trying to help them get back to church. After this we head back to the main road and wait for a tricy or a van so we can head to the next area. Sometimes while waiting, we will go to a tindahan (family owned market) and buy a nice cool Coke, or find somebody selling some halo-halo and try to cool off a bit. If there is no vehicle for a bit, we end up just putting our heads down and hitting the road, walking for a few kilometers until we get to the next area. We will get to the next appointment and by that time we are pretty tired, covered in sweat. The member or investigator will let us into their house, and we feel relieved to take a seat, just to find out that their electric fan isn't working haha. We will do this, walking from area to area teaching until we get back to centro at about 6, and go teach all our progressing investigators until the end of the day. The heat makes the day a bit longer, but the sleep at night seems twice as nice. Full days of work are the best.

So on Saturday we had the Baptism of Jay Ar and Rachel. Was a really good service and they had good support from the members. We got to do it in the ocean again, and my desire to come back after my mission and go swimming here keeps going up haha. The testimony of these two is real strong. Jay Ar has been an investigator for a while now and was so happy to finally be baptized. 

So right now we have a really good family progressing. They came to church for the first time on Sunday. When they got there, we sat them down in our combined 2nd hour class. I was running in and out at the time because of other things I had to do, but I was hoping it would be a good lesson for them. Well apparently the discussion some how turned into a big lesson about money, and how we should be making more money than we are. Wasn't too happy about that, especially with this being the first time our investigator came to church. So we went to their house later that night to teach them, and followed up how church went. We asked them if they learned anything. The mom said, in kind of a chuckling voice, "Well I learned how I should budget my money."....  "nooooooooo", we were thinking... "Great, now she thinks the church is all about money and getting rich." But then we asked her how the Sacrament Meeting went, and she said that she enjoyed it, and felt The Spirit. That relieved us a little bit, the family is progressing real well. 

Had a really great moment in Sacrament Meeting yesterday. I was conducting, so I got up to start the meeting, and right when I look up, I see a less active family walk in. It is a family that we have been working so hard with. They have been sealed in the temple and were so active about 10 years ago, then they fell away. But part of the family, not all of them, made it to church yesterday and made a big step in getting back on the right path. After the meeting, I called the dad of the family in and had a 1 on 1 talk with him for 15 minutes. He expressed to me how bad he wants him and his family to return to church. My heart broke for him as he described how he feels it's his fault that his family doesn't want to come back to church and doesn't care. But he has a strong desire to change and come back. 

Had another great, spiritual moment while teaching one of our investigators. Her name is Lea, 31 years old. She works at a police station and is busy from Monday to Friday, so we are only able to teach her on Saturdays. We haven't been able to teach her for a while, so when we went to go and teach her on Saturday we were expecting to just teach her and invite her to come to church. We asked how she was, and to our surprise, she started sharing about how she has been reading the Book of Mormon. And how even though she hasn't read much of the Book, every time she reads it she feels peace and joy, and she feels like great truths are being brought to her remembrance. It was perfect! We shared a couple scriptures in the Bible that described exactly what she was feeling, and she, not us, recognized it as the Holy Ghost. She said she wants to feel this more often and then asked us, "Do I need to read this whole book before I get baptized?" We told her "Of course not" and she decided she wants to be baptized on the first week of May. This really goes to show the effect that The Spirit can have on somebody. And also how powerful the Book of Mormon is our conversion. That it really does have a "more powerful effect upon the minds of the people than the sword, or anything else, which had happened unto them" (see Alma 31:5). Even though we hadn't been able to teach her multiple times a week or meet with her very often, she had kept the book with her and experimented on it (see Alma 32:27). And she will be blessed for it.

Love you all, have a great week!

-Elder Jenkins

Getting to Baptism Beach