Round 3!

Elder Grant and I are staying in Greenwood again this transfer!!! 3rd transfer here! (Taylor has loved Greenwood, SC, and has told me many times he would love to spend 6 months or more there). 

Tuesday we picked up some paint the bishop had so that on Saturday we can hopefully paint the inside of Charlene's house. 

Wednesday we had a lesson with Charlene and we talked again with her about being baptized. She said she would pray about it! 

We were supposed to teach Ken's family but we ended up just talking with him. He is struggling with how to help his family get on the right path.

Thursday we had a bible study with a lady named Belinda who we have been trying to contact for the past two months and we finally taught her. We were supposed to go by on Tuesday but it didn't go through. We did find a member who wanted to do a member video which was awesome! 

We had a lesson with Katelyn and she was interested in being baptized! Pray for her because she has some concerns about the book of Mormon, we haven't talked about it yet.

 
Friday/Saturday was supposed to be exchanges but due to me getting sick AGAIN  the other elders each went to different lessons. Jeff is a guy we got from a member and he was told he has 3 weeks to live. Elder Grant and Elder Hoyt went and he wants to get baptized and they said they gave a strong promise he would never want to smoke again! We are meeting with him tomorrow.

Sunday we had a lesson with Charlene and she was struggling with remembering the loss of her son. She said she is thinking about joining our church though! Later, we had a lesson with Tamaka again and her fellowshiper invited her to think about baptism! 
Tuesday we showed the member video we made with her and her family loved it!

Last week for p-day we hiked to some waterfalls.

Making some pizza

Newest skill-- balancing a wheel chair!

A dog (Taylor loves dogs)

Sick Week

 October 19, 2020

Tuesday we had zone conference and that was good. President Monson gave a great training on the Atonement. The spirit was really strong. 

I now understand why they put fog in Halloween movies because we were driving to zone conference in some of the thickest fog I have seen on the roads ever. It is definitely "spooky season"!

Wednesday morning my companion woke up sick with the flu or cold so we had to cancel all of our great plans and relax. It was kinda a bummer cause we were going to have a ton of lessons! 

Thursday he was feeling a lot better so we went on exchanges. I was with Elder Hoyt which was a lot of fun. This is his first transfer. We went and taught Wesley, a guy we found last week. He is really spiritual and has gone through a lot! We are hopefully going to teach him again Wednesday or Thursday. 

Funny thing is because I was still in my area I had the sim card in my phone and one of the sisters calls and tells us that they were potentially exposed to covid at church and then didn't find out until then, so they exposed all of us . Fortunately it sounds like none of us we actually exposed but we all lost it because Elder Grant was sick.

Friday I started feeling crummy so we took it a little easier. We still went and did some service for this lady the other elders are teaching. For some reason they didn't really contact much of the ward to try and get some members to help and tools etc. So we hit up one of our favorite member boys who is a senior in high school. He said he would come and pulled up with tools and a truck and two friends! He's awesome.  One of his friends gave him some Klondike bars but they decided they wanted to go to Brusters, an ice cream place here. And we were driving and he threw the bars through the windows.  Fortunately we caught them and they didn't splatter all over the car 

Saturday we did some service for some members demolishing a building so that was fun. We were pretty exhausted after that. 

Sunday we had the opportunity to speak on missionary work in church we both were only supposed to speak for 10 minutes each. But somehow we both spoke for 15+. Guess that will be the only time I talk too long! LOL! We had a lesson with Charlene. We had not one, but two member meals this week. One with the Whites and one with our Relief Society president's family. 

Love,

Elder Jenkins

Pray for the Investigators

October 12, 2020

 This week we have been able to find 10 people. Unfortunately, no one was able to make it to sacrament. Be praying for Nathan Craft,  he wants to come to church but has had to watch his grandmother because she is sick. He is 17 and could really use the gospel in his life. 

We had a great experience with a member family on Saturday where my companion was able to help a youth out with Spanish because she was behind due to being in the hospital for some stuff. They were a sweet family.

Sadly, Tamaka's grandma passed away and so she is gone to Michigan for her funeral and will be gone for 2 weeks. 

Charlene is up to chapter 10 in the Book of Mormon and we taught her about the commandments and the Word of Wisdom.  She really liked it! 

One of the members who moved into the ward tested positive for Covid and we helped organize a dropoff of food for him. He's feeling pretty sick but hopefully he is doing better. We have to check.

Elder Taylor Jenkins 

Year Mark!

October 5, 2020 

We went to dinner with a member because it was my companion's birthday. We had some good Mexican food. 

This week was pretty slow but busy at the same time. We had a lot of people cancel on us but it's ok. 

General Conference was really good.  I felt like I got something from almost all of the talks which doesn't happen often. I really like Elder Oak's talk from the first session. 

Hope everyone is doing well!

P.S. I made a keto cheesecake from Sister Hurren's recipe. I had enough to make two because it made so much which was good because I was supposed to bake the crust and didn't realize on the first one. They were pretty good though. Needed more lemon juice for the zing! (he took one to a ward member who has since asked for the recipe)

Happy Birthday, Elder Grant!

Chocolate swirl cheesecake

Wishing I had my mom's piping bags

Some more service

Baptism and Smashing Goals!

 September 28, 2020

This week was super awesome! Ken, our returning member, got baptized yesterday! I got to be the one to baptize him. 

We had a great but super busy day yesterday with Tamaka and Charlene and their fellow shippers! We were so busy we didn't eat most of the day!

We did super awesome as a district with finding this week. We had a goal of 20 and If we met it we would get a pizza party and we hit it plus some at 22 new people found to teach! My companion and I found 7 and we also had 3 people attend at sacrament this week which is the most I've ever had on my mission. We did a few service projects which were great and we got to talk to Tamaka in person for the first time! She is super sweet and funny. Really it had been a busy week. Will send some pictures from it!

We love Tamaka!

Ken's baptism

I need to get me one of those!

September 16, 2020 

This week was great! 

Some Sisters needed someone to baptize a lady. So we drove 2 hours round trip to go to a baptism Saturday and got to drive back in the dark. It was awesome! My companion baptized him

We met a lady named Charlene whose son was sadly murdered a few months ago and is dealing with a lot. We talked about the plan of salvation and eternal families. We mentioned temples and she said "I need to get me one of those!" We are super excited for her.

We also helped a lady with her chicken coop! I cant believe I didn't mention this before! We have been building this big coop and she is such a cool lady. Her name is Kelly.

We have a few people who we will hopefully start teaching more this coming week!

I will be staying with Elder Grant in Greenwood this transfer which is so awesome. We are both super excited.  Things are about to explode here! I can feel it! 

Ken is getting out of quarantine soon so excited for that! 

Tamaka is having a lot of tooth pain so hopefully we will meet with her tomorrow. 

We are getting another companionship in Greenwood who will be on bikes. Most of the district stayed except for 2 sisters. Kind of sad to see them go. The whole district got along really well!

Love,

Elder Jenkins

Don't Blink or You'll Miss This Post

 September 7, 2020

Tamaka is doing good, doing a lesson with Sister Wren on Tuesday with her.

Shone kinda dropped off. Hopefully we can work with him some more.

Holly, a recent convert is struggling a bit. She just got married to a nonmember. 

Ken just got quarantined because his daughter got Covid. 

Sorry it's kinda short!

ElderJenkins

Service!

 August 31, 2020

We have been doing a ton of service this week. It is a way to find people too. The new mission president, President Monson (no relation to the deceased prophet) encouraged us to do it as often as possible.  I really like the new mission president.  He trusts us which is awesome. 

We had some great opportunities to do service. One of ladies, Willow has had a pretty rough life. She grew up in the hood and lost her brother to some terrible circumstances. She seems pretty open to the gospel and wants to come to church so I think she will do great. Hopefully on the weekend we will meet all of Ken's family when they do a family home evening.

Been playing a bit of guitar ( on the guitar he bought at the pawn shop one p-day) and it has gotten a little easier. 

 I've been pondering a lot since zone conference about a heavy thought that came to me I'm glad Heavenly father has a plan because I'm still trying to figure it out. 

During zone conference we recieved an amazing training by President Monson. He talked about how the Spirit speaks to us and was going through a ton if super powerful scriptures.  . 

Love y'all so much, 

Elder Jenkins 

   

Birthday and Car Week!

 August 24, 2020

This week was great! We got a message from a member saying a formerly taught man named Shone (pronounced Sean) Lockhart was working on his car and needed a jack. We weren't sure what he needed help with but we thought it was simple. It turned out he was redoing the clutch in his Mercedes-Benz! We came in proselyting clothes cause we didn't expect it, but we didn't have time to go back and change so I got right under there. Sorry I ruined a shirt 🤣. We had to take the exhaust out and disconnect the driveshaft then pull a ton of bits and pieces out. Day two was removing the transmission and installing the new clutch. Day 3 was reinstalling everything! We were a little discouraged cause it was acting funny but he called and said it's working great! So basically, I'm a Mercedes mechanic now. We also had to change the lights in our car. It's been a big car week!

 A really cool miracle was one of the young men in the ward who is really cool got a text from an acquaintance who wanted a Book of Mormon! We had a short lesson and it was really good! He was a little hesitant to have another lesson but hopefully we can teach him again! We found a few other people this week but no one sticks out yet. 

Elder Jenkins 

I ruined a shirt this week but it was worth it to work on the car!

Shone 

The Mercedes

Longe alleyway

Happy 19th Birthday to Me!

Keepin' On

August 17, 2020 

 This week has been pretty good. My ankle has been feeling really strong and just trying to strengthen it more. 

We had a good lesson with Ken to help him get his family on board to try and start doing family prayers and family study. 

Tamaka is doing really well, we are hoping to have a worship service on Sunday with her and a member. No one else has really been a progressing person.

Elder Jenkins  

Greenwood is Great!

The day before leaving Charleston I sprained my ankle playing basketball. This is the same one I sprained back in June. My ankle still has some pain. It is definitely a bad sprain, the new brace they gave me at the doctor's office helps stabilize the leg bit there is still a lot of twinging if I walk the wrong way and it is still sore. Trying to visit and rest when I can but we have been super busy here...

Greenwood is an amazing area. The members here are very missionary focused and are they are trying to get the ward functioning again despite some leadership craziness with the bishop moving away and such. Literally, the first day here we called the Elders quorum President and he invited us to his daughter's baptism. 

  I don't know what the last Elders were doing but it doesn't look like they were really contacting the teaching pool. We have had a few good lessons with Tamaka a lady who wants to do daily bible studies. We also met Ken. He was a member for 11 years and then left the church. However, he has over the last bit come to understand that pride was the ultimate reason he left and we had an amazing discussion with him about the atonement. He wants to get baptized so we hopefully can do that soon and all of his children are unbaptized so hopefully we can start working with the whole family. 

We were able to have a coordination meeting on Sunday which was amazing. They set it all up and we talked about some stuff we can do and the ward wants to focus on family history to strengthen the members. 

We had an awsome member lesson with the White family that was super awesome. The seventeen-year-old son Hunter had his nonmember friend over and she joined in the lesson. We have another lesson with them on Thursday and hopefully we can start teaching her. 

We had a great call with one of the members whose husband is in the hospital. She was struggling a lot because there wasn't a lot of hope for his surgery so we were able to talk to her in her moment of struggle. Fortunately, she posted on Facebook that he is doing a lot better.

I'm really mad I hurt my ankle because my new companion Elder Grant is super great and loves to work out, the ward missionary plays basketball a lot and probably would play with us, and we have a full weight set in the apartment!

The area has a lot of promise so hopefully I can stay for a while. My ankle is kind of concerning because of the level and frequency of the injuries. Wednesday I have physical therapy and will find out what is needed. I'm concerned that they will recommend a long recovery time and therapy schedule that would require me to return home. Missionary medical only allows two physical therapy visits fo your whole mission. Maybe I'm just paranoid but this physical therapy stuff has me a little nervous. 

Here are some pictures of downtown Charleston before I left.

Leaving Charleston

August 4, 2020

 I am getting transferred to Greenville on the other side of the state and Elder Christiansen is going to a different part of the Charleston zone. 

We got to do some service for a member helping them build a terraced garden. Building the wall in our backyard at home gave me some practice for helping them.

 We also helped another member couple move into the area, that was fun. They bought us Chic Fil A.

For p-day and to celebrate Elder Christiansen's birthday we visited a gator aquarium. It was pretty cool! We were able to watch them get fed. There was also this giant spider.