Where Does The Time Go?

Merry Christmas yall!!! 


      I feel like I just wrote yall yesterday. The time is going by so fast I don't even know what the days are anymore. It's crazy to think I passed my 4 month mark, college didn't even go this fast. Everyone says the first 6 months are super slow and it gets super fast after that, and if that's the case I'll be home next week hahaha. But anyways I hope all of you have a merry Christmas and you're able to feel the love of our savior and his spirit during this wonderful time of year! I was going to write Christmas cards to everyone but realized I have no cards and no money for cards and I also don't know how to address the cards so they go to the right place,  but good thing they never taught that in school. This week has been a hard but productive week. I'm grateful that I have this opportunity to push myself and grow, it's been nice to feel the changes in myself. 


      Just yesterday after church we knocked about 14 doors. We usually don't knock a lot of doors because there is more effective ways to do missionary work, and we aren't really allowed to just knock on every single door. But we had some people that we knew in the area so we went knocking trying to meet with them. We spent about 3 hours biking around and knocking on the doors we were allowed to knock. We met with this guy named Ruben. We've been trying to meet with him many times before but had little to no success. We knocked at his door and he didn't answer for a while so we kept trying. After a while he answered and tried to shoo us away, but I felt the spirit push me and I told him that we knew he was in need at that moment. He broke down and just started crying super hard and let us inside. After comforting him for a little bit we began talking and he mentioned that his father recently was killed by a train and he was really struggling because he lives right by the train tracks and has to hear it everynight. He said he was super lost and found himself addicted to drinking and finding ways to hide and numb the pain. After a long talk about the plan of salvation and how his dad is looking down on him and giving him strength he looked full of life. We said a super good long prayer with him, and asked that he will be able to feel his dad's presence and be comforted. It was a really spiritual moment and he wanted us back. 


     While biking around we also found and talked to a lot of other people. It was nice to get out and have some fresh faces to talk to. Almost every door we knocked on, people answered. A big part of it is that it's cold and also the holidays, but that never happens, It's a huge miracle. In fact we biked so much this week that my tire popped and I'm pretty sure they don't have my type of tube at Walmart so thats gonna be fun to deal with. I'm getting way more comfortable on the bike which I thought I'd never say, but it's sad that I'm starting to get my bearings down and now it's getting really really cold and windy. But it's amazing how sometimes while biking I feel like I just want to die and I'm really struggling with my health and I'm really wanting to give up on it and go lay in my bed, but God gives me that strength to push through and continue going. Our area is pretty big for a bike area and it's super sketchy rough roads where people get real close or speed right next to us, and it gets overwhelming at times, but the work must go on. If it's not me than it might not be anyone. 


     I always think about that saying: "God doesn't call the qualified, he qualifies the called." And it's so true. I'm not perfect, in fact I struggled a lot on my first few weeks. I felt like I could teach solidly, but I just wasn't used to studying the scriptures and I never before my mission read the book of Mormon from cover to cover. I barely read it at all. I didn't know how to really study. When I started the MTC I restarted the book of Mormon with a goal to finish it from cover to cover for the first time, by the end of the year. Yesterday I just finished heleman after finishing Alma only the day before that. Its a little slower than I wanted because there's a lot of other things that I study and do, but growing my knowledge in the Book of Mormon has blessed my life tremendously. I've grown so much stronger in my testimony and in my ability to use my gifts of teaching that I've been blessed with. I read at least 5 chapters a day and I'm really pushing myself to accomplish this goal because I want it so bad, and in doing so I've shown myself that if I set a goal I got to work for it and that has translated to other things on my mission. I refuse to let myself give up and fail and I love that. 


     I want yall to think about a trait or characteristic that you want to strengthen in yourself and work for it! We all have something we want to be better at, so why wait? There's never going to be a perfect opportunity to start working on something. I know you will be blessed abundantly if you work hard at developing these. Anyways yall I could go on for days but I don't want this to get too long. I love and miss you all and hope you are doing good! 


- elder Jenkins 


4300 Esmond Dr. Odessa TX. 79762. Appt #20 


Pics: (might be out of order) 
1: my Dawgs 
2: me and my kid 
3: album cover with prison pizza guy 
4: Christmas party 
5: this dude be sleeping 




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