Transferred like Strong Bad

Hey whanau! And friends :D

So basically I can't answer any of your questions from your emails because I no longer have an answer for them! I have been transferred to Panmure, a suburb of Eastern Auckland. Not gonna lie, I was pretty upset at first because the work was starting to boom and then they decided to transfer me. But I'm all good now so don't you worry!

My new companion's name is Elder Voyles. He is from Florida and has about two months left on his mission! He leaves December 28. I guess he is already being sent home a couple weeks early so he can catch school so that's why he won't be home for Christmas. He's a pretty alright guy. There are a lot of things about him that I will learn from. Hint hint. My patience will certainly be tested. And I'll learn to be extensively more humble as well. And I'll definitely be learning charity. I'm going to come home the most freaking charitable person you have ever met! Sucka please.

We challenged President to a game of basketball last night. It's on for next P-day so you won't hear about the result for a couple more weeks. Although, you can have faith that, if it comes down to it, I'll make sure we win.

About my district...Elder Cope, my district leader, is actually from Bountiful! He went to WX, but I actually knew his younger brother, Seth, who is on a mission in Baja, California right now! Crazy. His companion is Elder Cunniffe, who was actually in my intake. We also have a companionship of Tongan elders, Elder Tonga and Elder Raass (pronounced oss you dirty minded people). They're pretty cool, but, like most elders from the islands, they are growing dodgier. I'll smack them around a bit, don't you worry. I'll just have to worry about the smack they send back my way.

Basically I don't know many of the investigators that we have. Partially because previous to this Elder Voyles companero, Elder Fa'asau, was apostate and wouldn't do anything. So we have to start basically from square one. Which I'm ok with. Basically we just have the opportunity to exercise our faith and make things happen.

Matai was supposed to be baptized soon but about 3 days before I got here, the elders went to his house and found him drunk. So we have to start over with him and relight the fire he had. A massive Cook Islander who is deceivingly good at chess...I know, weird.

Stephanie is a 9-year-old in basically the same situation as Isaac from my last area. She wants to be baptized but because her mom doesn't give a squat, it's really hard to get her to church. She plays basketball so I told her that for every time she comes to church we will play basketball with her. It didn't work yesterday, but I have faith.

Latai is an interesting situation. The first lesson we had with her we were just trying to figure out what she was all about. It turns out that she was actually baptized in '97 but in a really dodgy way. Basically her cousin convinced her to be baptized without telling her the implications and without teaching the lessons. AND he didn't have permission from the mission president or the bishop at the time so we are pretty sure that we need to baptize her again. Either way she has joined the Tongan Methodist faith since then but she is happy to have us come back. Can you REbaptized? If you can't, go back to school.

Basically I just love you guys! I got heaps of emails this week! And I usually get heaps but today was like holy overflowing! Thanks for all the support you have given me and for all the confidence you have in me as a missionary. Basically the next email you get from me will be a super happy one. Happy because we're gonna baptize all of Panmure. It's basically just not even a question, Napoleon.

This church is true. A testimony of that is the Lord sends out hormonal 19-21-year-old punks who don't know anything to be missionaries and the church is growing like crazy. Why? Because it's true. It's not because of us. It's the Spirit testifying to the people we teach. Awesome.

Love,

Elder Jenkins