Summer Soup

Prayer has been a incredibly important part of the work here, we pray probably 20 times a day. Before lessons before finding... ect.

I have really learned how prayer and revelation work, as me and Elder Matson have learned to work together and gotten to work, it has been awesome. I was looking back kind of prideful and felt we needed to door knock exclusively with some member work but I needed to relax and try Elder Matson's way and do more member work and follow up with people there were taught prior or found but never taught.

My testimony of the power of the Atonement and how repentance is changing to come closer to God has been strengthened incredibly here on the mission.  

Thursday was good visiting Dez. We were able to offer a prayer after being prompted and he really liked it. For some reason we hadn't thought of it till then. 

We also went to a members home we go to for a meal once a week. He loves the missionaries and is very missionary focused but unfortunately he does not have any tastebuds, LITERALLY! Normally the food is alright but we had his "legendary" summer soup, made with all kinds of citrus and rice blended up and the egg whites and tomatoes all blended up but still chunky. If you haven't thrown up yet you got farther than some other missionaries. I managed to finish the giant bowl he gave me but my companion could only finish about half before he almost threw up. Definitely the weird/worst food item of the mission. (Taylor has told us about eating this several times on his mission already.)

Friday we were able to find our first new friend of the transfer named Mark, he was a referral from the sisters and it turns out he was taught previously by the other missionaries and we had his records! Funny things like that happen all the time.

Saturday was a lot of biking trying to follow up with people. We had stopped at the chapel to get some water and use the toilet  (they don't say restroom here, just toilet) when we got a call from the Elders Quorum President asking if we could come help put a window in his house because it was too big for one person to lift. When we walked up we figured it would just be quick but he was still re-building part of the wall, he had hit a water pipe and had to repair it but wanted the window in before dark, hence us being there. The construction of homes here is mostly large limestone bricks with mortar, it was cool to see the wall get built up and also talk about some new areas we can go visit members. When it came to the window was when it got crazy. This window was probably 12 feet long by 4.5 ft. So man handling it into the hole with just 3 people was pretty tough. They gave us pizza which was awsome because I learned I actually don't mind supreme pizza. I am definitely an adult now. It even had shrimp or prawns as they call them here which was different, but good.

Sunday through Monday was a trade off with the Portland Elders so i got to go down to Portland which was super  awesome. Almost everyone there is so nice and we met tons of people who had never even seen the missionaries before, something that never happens in Mt Gambier. 

Tuesday was awesome because I got do some service for one of the sisters' friends who was found by us last transfer. Her and her daughter are progressing really quickly and it was awesome to hear that from the other missionaries. 

The gospel is true, there will always be rough times but there is a better patch always.

Sincerely,  Elder Jenkins