Hey family! If this email is a little scatter brained I apologize. I am going to try and type quickly so I can write a response for Peggy's seminary lesson tomorrow. :) Forgive the spelling errors in advance. So first off thanks mama for all the Spanish books this week. It is funny, I was going to ask you this week if you would order me a medical terminology book and then there was already one in our mail box. I've already memorized 70 new words. Most of them are body parts or ailments so it is applicable to missionary work as well. I has felt weird not speaking Spanish on a daily basis but I'm coping. Thanks for sending me the voter registration form as well, I sent that off right away. This week was a little slow. I feel like I got out here and there wasn't a lot of potential but I went to work, we found a lot of new potential investigators and we taught a good amount of lessons. We had some really good things happen and I'
m loving the work but I just want to do more. I guess that is why missionary work is like a Taylor Swift album. There are always a few good songs that remind you of good times but there are always a few angry/ frustrated songs about broken relationships that just didn't work out. Now maybe that is a bad analogy but that was the best I cold do. After all I haven't listened to T-swizzle in forever! :P haha
Last Monday was pretty good. We played basketball finally. It has been 5 months or so since I've played. My knee help up and I did pretty well. I won all three games of 21 and I couldn't miss from 3-point land. I always makes my day when I can drill it from outside and then drive in and reverse it. Now if my basketball game would only transfer over to missionary work. :)
Thursday we started teaching a part member family. We mainly taught Blayden who is 10 and his brother Beau who is 8. Their oldest daughter Braxy goes to church all by herself. She just amazes me at what a good example she is for her family. I've never really taught kids much during my mission like the classic Utah St. George missionary so this is a new experience but things are going well. I've always loved kids. We also taught a different part member family this week that made me pretty sad. It makes me sad/ frustrated when we go over to this particular house because the parents do not make the wisest decisions. We went over one night and the house was hazier than downtown Las Angeles at rush hour from all the cigarette smoke. The mother is pregnant and she still smokes. :S This week we visited several people and their houses were filled with smoke. I felt disgusting and smelled bad for the rest of the evening. It just makes me want to be like Alma and speak with the trump of God (Alma 29:1-2). Sometimes I feel like my words just are not powerful enough and I get frustrated with myself. I just want to be an instrument in the hands of God in bringing many to the knowledge of truth, even to the knowledge of their Redeemer who is Christ (Mosiah 27:36). I feel like in Spanish work I never had to deal with members doing such things blatantly in front of me. My Christ like love is definitely being tested.
We are going to begin teaching a girl named Jamie at the stake president's house this next week. It has been a process to get all this set up but it is all worth it. She texted us and told us how she has taken the lessons before and feels like she is ready to be baptized. The only problem is that her parents told her she is too young to make the decision to be baptized. We are planning on fasting and praying their hearts will be softened and she will be allowed to be baptized. She reminds me a lot of Kellyn Christiansen. She is in seminary and everything but I think we will have our work cut out with her. It is hard when someone has received a witness of the truth of the gospel but is prohibited to act on such promptings by external forces. Again, I feel weak because I cannot do anything more.
Saturday we helped a family named the Baldwins unload a trailer. We met them last week and they are moving down from Orem. They were just in Vancouver visiting family at one of the Lackamas creek wards. We were lifting what felt like a 300 lb. mattress and Elder Earle blew out his pants. I died laughing and luckily the Baldwins are professional sewers so they fixed them up quickly. We had nothing to do in the afternoon. We had ran out of miles for the month and so I prayed we wold be put in the path of someone who needed our help. I never would have guessed that things would have worked out the way they did but they did.We did not have a dinner either that night so they ended up inviting us over for dinner. The best quote I heard this week was one Andrew shared with us. Albert Einstein was once asked by a reporter how it felt to be the smartest man alive. Albert Einstein replied, "I don't know, ask James Talmage". How cool is that!? If you are not familiar with who James E. Talmage is, he is the author of several books including Jesus the Christ and was a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. Einstein knew the church is true and so do I! Vaya con Dios.
Dios es amor,
Elder Bennion
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