Hello Everybody!
Welp, this it… 4th quarter, 9th inning, 18th hole, 12th round, 24th month. However you wanna put it, it’s all about to come to an end. I have been thinking my whole mission, how does it feel to be close to coming home. Sad? Happy? Excited? Scared? All I can say is that you really don’t know how it feels until you actually get there haha. These last few weeks I have been trying to do a really good job at recognizing my feelings and writing them down. I’ll try to do my best in sharing what I have experienced this last week.
Cake from my District
Santa Ana District
First of all, I am excited! Who wouldn’t be excited to go home and see your family and friends after 2 years of not seeing them? Or going home and doing all those things that you loved to do before the mission but weren’t able to do in the past 2 years. It’s an incredible butterfly-ish feeling thinking of that stuff. But then, of course, there is that sad feeling. After 2 years of falling in love with a country that you knew nothing about before getting here and just loving the people, language, food, culture, atmosphere, smell, all of it! haha. And then having to get on a plane and head back to the homeland, leaving it all behind. It is tough! It will become the past and I will no longer be “living the dream in the Philippines” anymore. But then again, it is that happy feeling. Happy that I have completed my mission here in the North on the Isles of the Sea. Happy that I will be returning with honor after learning so much that will help guide me for the rest of my life. And I am absolutely overwhelmed with joy that I have been able to help so many people draw nearer to The Lord and become happier because of the changes that they have made in their lives. I have never experienced such joy in my whole life! The last feeling that sometimes comes across me is scared. I’ve got to admit that it is a little scary thinking about coming back to the real world, especially in the wicked world we live in. Packing my bags and having to adjust back to regular life instead of just adjusting to a new area and companion is waaayyy scary. But honestly, whenever ever I have that kind of “scared feeling”, or that feeling like “I wish I could just stay here for another 6 weeks and do missionary work”, I feel comforted at the thought that I know The Lord has big and important things for me to do back home, not on my mission in the Philippines. Out of all these feelings that I have, the best way to explain it all in one is… “Bitter Sweet“.
Alright, enough with the feelings. Let me tell you how the week went. The highlight of the week was yesterday, when the new Branch President here in Santa Ana was sustained and set apart. Way back, my first day in Santa Ana, the goal was: “When I go home, a member here will take my place as BP.” I’m so happy that it all worked out and that the Santa Ana Branch has a good leader to help them grow. Also, the father of the family that we helped re-activate was interviewed and called as 1st counselor in the Branch Presidency. Such a big turn around in his life the last 3 months. We have been planning a lot for this upcoming Saturday. We will be having a baptism in the early afternoon, and then a big branch party at night. Tons of food, performances, games, and hopefully a lot of people. Gonna be a lot of fun 🙂
This week we had another great experience. So last month, one of the members here was 9 months pregnant with her soon to be first born. She went into labor one night, and sadly her baby did not survive. We had been trying to meet with her, comfort and help her as much as we could, but it seemed like every time we went to their house, she wasn’t home. This last week, we felt impressed to go and try to meet with her again. She was there! She let us in and we just sparked up conversation with her and tried to cheer her up. She was smiling and laughing, and probably hasn’t felt that happy or smiled so much ever since her baby died. We were able to share a good message with her and our visit seemed very succesful. Then all of the sudden, right before we were about to close, she started bawling. She cried and cried and struggled to stop. Once she stopped crying a little, she started telling us, “Elders, the past month has been sooo hard. The first 2 weeks after it happened, I was angry with God and prayed over and over asking why this has happened to me. I was so sad and angry and couldn’t let it go. Then one night after crying myself to sleep, I had a dream. The dream was of you 3 coming to my house and helping me. And after that, feeling better, and not sad or angry anymore. I know The Lord loves me and I feel His love every time I pray. Thank you Elders for coming here today.” One of many tender mercies I’ve experienced.
As my mission comes to a close, I know with certainty that our Heavenly Father loves us. He is our real Father and wants us all to be happy and return to His presence. I have seen over and over as we trust in Him and “lean not unto our own understanding”, things always turn out better. I love Him and will never leave Him.
Love you all so much. I’ll try to get one more short letter off before I head home. See you next week!
-Elder Jenkins
Mixing Pineapple Jam
