The Doctrines of the Kingdom are True

First off I got to go on exchanges to the west side (which honestly seems even rougher than the south side) I finally got to go with my boy Elder Bell from the MTC!! It was probably one of the most legendary exchanges of all time. We were on bikes and rode through the west side at superior speeds. Of course walking around everybody sees the white shirt and tie and asks us for change and of course we don't but we share some of "the word" with them haha. 

Also like tons of people are making these tiny little snow cone stands where they buy syrup and some small pieces of ice (like there are pretty pathetic snow cones) but I'm eating these things up because snow cones are my weakness! They are literally on like every corner. 

We were also able to have our first Mission leadership council with President Shumway this week which was pretty cool. It's interesting to see the different teaching style and goal setting than what we used to do with President Bingham. It'll be super cool to have two mission presidents. 

That person named Darlene I mentioned last week is still so solid. We taught her the plan of salvation and it literally took like 3 visits to get the whole thing because we're not supposed to stay longer than 45 min haha. She literally is the most prepared person I've ever taught. She has so many great questions and excellent understanding. It's really cool to see the light bulbs go off in her head over and over and over again. It reminds me of how all missionaries are when they are taught the plan of salvation in the MTC and they're all like super shook like "wow this makes Mega sense but I've never realized it until right now."

We taught her about the fall and when she figured it out for the rest of the lesson she was like "oh wow. OH WOW! You’re right! God doesn't make mistakes! This was all part of his plan! Why don't people know this! Why don't people listen to you guys! OH WOW!" She called us later that night and had read 2 Nephi 2, 2 Nephi 9, and was literally shook. When we taught her the rest of the plan with the three kingdoms we decided to bring her a large print Book of Mormon which has the Doctrine and Covenants in the back so decided to introduce the classic Bible scriptures that talk about the three kingdoms in Corinthians but also introduced the Doctrine and Covenants.

Well she came to church on Sunday, and told us she had read all of Doctrine and Covenants section 76, the Articles of Faith, the Official Declarations, the Book of Moses and is in 2nd Nephi in the Book of Mormon. She told us she believes it’s all true and has been praying to Heavenly Father for this for a while. SO AWESOME! She’s probably like one of the most fun people to teach. We set a date for her to be baptized that night. (In the South side you'll find so many flakes that we don't put them on date until they come to church the first time, because literally everyone would accept to be baptized probably before you teach them.) Darlene told us her only concern was she was reading the Book of Mormon more than "the word" and was wondering if that was wrong but then she told us God answered her and said that it is "the word" and it's her first time learning about it so it's definitely OK. 

For the rest of the week we had a lot of teaching opportunities and an awesome one was for a guy we're teaching named Chukwudi. He's getting baptized on Saturday and we went over the interview questions and it has been a remarkable repentance process. The man gave up a lot of things cold turkey and hasn't even looked back. It's been absolutely amazing and we're excited to see him enter the waters of baptism. Weeks leading up to baptisms are like the most stressful things on the planet, so this week's going to be insane but I'm pumped! 

Oh and last thing, on Sundays we schedule quite a few of lessons because generally all the Nigerians are off work that day. Every Sunday so far we've been fed some Nigerian food, but yesterday we got fed twice in a row. These Nigerians don't just give you a little. They give you a portion size "for a man," however I am not a man with a fufu gut haha. Yesterday we had fufu and agusi twice and I was more than full after the first! That stuff is super heavy!

Fufu is just like this play dough looking stuff that you dip in soup and then just eat it. It's pretty interesting. Agusi is this interesting soup that has a variety of meats and vegetables (and it had some Jamaican peppers and I was sweating, this stuff was almost as spicy as the Indian food!) but I got to try some cow leg, cow intestine, goat meat, you know the basics. I can't say it tastes like chicken. All the meat is like super rubbery. Even the chicken, so maybe it does taste like chicken. But if you don't eat it all they can be offended so thank goodness Elder Vantassell can pound it because I was super stuffed haha. It was pretty awesome! 

Hope everyone has an absolutely amazing week! 

Elder Jensen