Mission Accomplished!!!

Two Years: Two Shirts

Holy smokes, where has my mission gone?! I am not going to lie. I will not miss having to write emails to communicate with all of you. My hands get flipping worn out every pday! Gah! How am I expected to ball at ultimate capacity with tired wrists?! Beats me. Anyways, the last real week of the work was a complete blast! A lot of time spent on the streets and nearly the same amount of time spent eating farewell meals with members! Don't judge me when I am back and I am looking a few pounds heavier. Its Korean Culture! You have to eat all of the dang food okay!?

I will quickly cover EVERY night of the week by telling you that we ate with members, and we did eat most deliciously. Literally everyday. 

The next best thing that happened to us was Tuesday afternoon: we were able to meet two different investigators in the afternoon, one being the family that we found on Sunday. The son has mad interest!! We were so shocked, and realized then that we had a found a really prepared person. We also met them again on Friday and the mom was kind of just a spectator, but the son had some great questions that were squared perfectly with the Plan of Salvation so we focused on that and committed him to pray about what that could mean for him and his family. He texted us the next morning saying "It was a new experience for me, and the feeling was also very new. I liked it, and I will try again!" So great (not something that I have seen much of in these two years).

On Wednesday and Thursday and Friday, we had free afternoons and spent that time looking for less actives. It was a blast! We even found a guy that was baptized in 1993 and had not had contact with a single member or missionary since about 1994. Granted, he is Buddhist now, but still quite the find for Daren and me! Over these two years, I have really come to love working for and working with these less active members. My heart has been changed so much because of these people.

The coolest experience that we had would take way too long to write, but on Friday as we were looking for a few other less actives, I had the random thought to try and visit a man who went inactive when I was serving here last year. We found him, and although he hadn't been out to church or in contact with anyone from the church for over eight months, he mentioned how happy he was to have received a visit from us that day. As we talked for a short hour or so, he said some things that really hit me and that totally changed me forever. But the coolest thing was that we did not yell at him and tell him to come back or try to make him feel guilty about not coming out. Instead, we just sat and listened and bore solemn testimony. At the end of our talk, he let us pray together, and then after getting up off of our knees, he looked Elder Malo and me in the eyes and said, "See you on Sunday Elders"... I was so shocked. To be honest, I thought he might not come back for years more. But on Sunday at 9:53 as we were greeting members at the door, in comes brother Kyeong! We greeted him with a huge hug and a few small tears, and that was hist first time setting foot in the church in about nine months. What a huge huge miracle. What a game changer baby!! Elder Malo and I did celebrate with a chest bump afterwords! (haha)

Last quick thing! We get a random call yesterday from a guy we had met about a month ago, who at that time approached us and requested a copy of the BOM. Honestly, he hadn't responded since, so we had kind of forgotten about him. But yesterday in came the month-long awaited reply, and he told us that he wanted to meet like right NOW! So we raced back to the church and had one of the coolest meetings ever. The most innocent and pure guy ever! He said, "10 years ago, I had the opportunity to get baptized, and I am worried that I missed my chance. Is it allowed for me to get baptized today?" What!?!?!?! What a cool way to go out... (picture attached below) haha I am just kidding. We didn't baptize him yesterday, we told him he had to wait for just a few more weeks. He agreed. What a memorable day.

What a memorable two years. I sure did love my time serving for two years in this great country, and serving under the greatest Boss I will ever have. I loved and will forever be grateful for my mission. 

See you soon everyone!!

Elder Jenkins

Worn these babies out!  Must be time to go home!