Welcome to Mt. Gambier

**Elder Jenkins has been assigned to Mt Gambier a town of about 28k people. It is on the Eastern edge of his mission and is a nearly 5 hour drive from Adelaide and about 20 minutes from the Southern Australia Coast.**

It has been quite cold here. In the teens to 20s c*. It is very beautiful, lots of birds too. 

The building is very small, in fact, the ward only typically sees about 15 to 30 on Sunday. It should be a  branch.


I did sleep well on the plane, I got about 7 hrs. I haven't had any problems sleeping, actually. Unfortunately, we didn't stay in Auckland long-- the flight was delayed so we literally ran through security and across the airport to make it to the flight to Adelaide. 

My companion, Elder Hymas is great, he is from Utah on his last transfer here. He has helped me be a bit more patient.

We feed our selves mostly, we have had crepes and lots of nice things. 

They abbreviate a ton, especially when greeting each other. So that is hard, but most of the time I understand what they are saying. People here are just very casual and laid back. It kind of reminds me a bit of Kooskia (the small town Amme and Scott met). 

Strange food of the week is a hard one. Either rice and eggs (because it's an interesting but cheap meal) or KFC. We had KFC for some conference and it is was way better than back home, they have chips!

We visited a Tongan man in the next town over who lost his 9 moth old son. He was hurting but shared his testimony of how he knows he will see him again. We gave him a blessing and when we walked in the room the spirit was palpable.  

I have been working on my patience with the work and I have seen it bless me. On Saturday as we were going back to the flat we talked to a man who had been taught previously and even remembered the missionaries names but had to stop because he was working too much. Hopefully, he will feel he has time for us. Yesterday after some conference we went on splits with the Portland missionaries.  The last door we knocked on we found a man who was covered in tattoos but shared how God has just come into his life and changed it so dramatically. I was able to share my testimony with him, and we will return when he gets a "room sweep" or couch. The other pair of elders also found a new person and we also got an appointment! People often are very casual about time here. So it is hard to get appointments sometimes. 

Peace out Provo and Arrival in Adelaide

Elder Jenkins left the Provo, Utah Missionary Training Center on Monday, October 21 and arrived in Adelaide Australia on Wednesday, October 23. 

 The 2 pictures above are Taylor and his MTC District in front of some murals at the MTC. He says the murals are "printed on cloth and back lit and are beautiful and look real"

Some pictures of the Temple and views of the snowy Utah mountains

When he arrived in Adelaide he spent some time training and meeting the Mission President before leaving for his first area.

Sister and President Marquis and Elder Jenkins

 Some views of the countryside.

Distant Cousins and a Little Bit of Silly

One of the days we've been in here in the morning it was 28 degrees. Yikes! It usually warms up to about 70 degrees but there was snow on Mount Timpanogas for a while.

Our other teaching visits went much better this week. We're learning so much as a companionship and I feel like I'm learning a lot as well. Having the spirit so much with me has been awesome. 

Some of the food has been a little better but I definitely miss eating fresh food and things that aren't so heavy. One of the few desserts I had was a peanut butter cheesecake with chunks of Reese's cups in it. It was actually quite good, though not as good as Dad's.

 Our district gets along really well and we try to sit as a group on Tuesday and  Sunday devotionals. We have our half of our floor to our selves and one other district or two because a bunch of people left but we didn't get any new missionaries. Travel information arrived on Friday(He's scheduled to fly out of LAX at 10:30 pm on Monday Oct 21). However, no word on Visa's but we are worried about my companion's as some information is indicating that he may have to wait (looks like his companion will serve in the Arizona Tempe mission for a time until his Visa is ready). I'm learning so much on how to teach by the spirit, and how to teach simply. I've got some pictures incoming as well. I don't know what else to write about. Let me know if you have any questions. 

***We got to video chat with Taylor this morning.  He told us about another Elder Jenkins he met in the MTC.  They have figured out that they are 5th cousins on Taylor's Maternal Grandmother's side through the Godfrey line---not the Jenkins side like we were thinking! This Elder is from Cache Valley which makes sense too.  The church makes the world so small! This other Elder Jenkins is called to serve in the California Ventura Mission and we wish him all the best!

Elder Jenkins squared

Taylor's MTC District

Back Row: Elder Latu, Elder Thomas, Elder Cope (Taylor's Companion), Elder Jenkins (see above)

Front Row: Sister White, Sister Castaneda, Elder Carsner, Elder Taylor Jenkins, Sister Hatch, Sister Mabey

Taylor's comment about this picture:

We were seeing how many people we could fit in 1 elevator.  So far it's 21, or 22 if you count the Polynesian Elder as 2--he's basically a linebacker.

It appears that this cat lives on MTC campus or maybe just spends a lot of time here. 

First Week at the MTC

Glad to hear that the construction wasn't too bad getting back home. That's really cool though that you ran into Elder Schaap. His dad was the best seminary teacher I've had. 

There has apparently been some delay for some missionaries going to Australia so, hopefully, it won't be for me. If there is only a one week delay then I will just stay here at the MTC. If there was more than a week delay then I'll get sent to another mission where they can easily send me on my mission to Australia when they get my Visa. So far the food has been okay but not great, but I'm doing my best to eat lots of bananas and apples as they don't have many other options for fruit. To answer the kids' question I didn't have any ice cream, the only treats I've had has been a few small cups of soda and one cookie.  So far the weird food item of the week has been bananas because I eat a ton. I've been eating 3 to 5 bananas a day and probably 2 or 3 servings of salad most days.  we just finally started getting exercise time the past couple days and it has been really nice to work out because the day few days before that we're not as easy. My companion is also going to Adelaide as well and he is super great and very mature. He is a bit older than I am so that is nice. In fact, the whole zone is really pretty mature and we get along really well. One of the other elders is also a Jenkins and so that has been kind of interesting. Both his companion and another elder in our district did not show so he got moved to another room with his new companion so we were able to get a room that normally has 4 people to just the two of us!  So far the only hard thing happened yesterday.  There are these practice teaching classes where you teach someone who is an actor, although we felt like we were prepared, we totally got lost and the survey we later received from the "investigator" was very harsh. Hopefully we can learn from this experience and do much better next time. 

General Conference  was really great and I stayed awake most of the time taking notes. I still managed to dose a few times despite sitting in some of THE.MOST. UNCOMFORTABLE.  chairs on this planet! Fortunately  I didn't  do what one of the sisters did. She fell asleep sitting up and fell sideways into a wall before she woke up! Sure made a lot of noise.  

The Adventure Begins

Reporting to the MTC

October 2, 2019

Today Taylor reported to the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah. He will be serving as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints for the next 2 years.  He will be serving in the Australia Adelaide Mission.

The Australia Adelaide Mission covers the center third of the continent--from Adelaide on the South to Darwin on the North.  For perspective, that north to south distance is the same as Los Angeles, California to Nauvoo, Illinois.  Some transfers may be done by airplane, which I don't think Taylor won't have a problem with!

Taylor will stay at the MTC for approximately 3 weeks before he flys to his mission.  For now his Preparation Day is Tuesday. I, Amme, will update this blog as I get information from Elder Jenkins.  Check back weekly or subscribe if you'd like to stay informed on all that he is doing. He is excited to serve and share the restored gospel of Jesus Christ with the people of Australia!