New Transfer

So, I've learned quite a few valuable lessons this week and some pretty amazing things have happened. 

A while ago, we committed two kids to baptism. We've passed their set date and the baptism hasn't happened yet. This week, we came around to teach them about the Book of Mormon and commit them to read it and the spirit told me to re-teach the Restoration. As we did, the spirit was so strong, and for the first time, as I recited the verses from JSH about the "pillar of light" the spirit came flooding into the room. I had felt that as other, older missionaries had told the story and I was always wondering when I would be able to bring the spirit like that. It happened. I walked away from the lesson, knowing that I'm a successful missionary and actually knowing, for the first time, that Joseph Smith really did see Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ in the Sacred Grove. I can't even begin to say how grateful I am for that experience. 

As I've started training and being a district leader and leading out my area, I have about 12089762893064 things that are stacked against me, more than 1/2 of them come from how small my ward is. As I've gone through this week, with a renewed desire to be exactly obedient, be diligent, and have faith, I've felt the Savior carrying me through this week. I've finally felt and recognized what the Enabling Power of the Atonement feels like. It's absolutely incredible. 

Things are just working out with me and my new companion being exactly obedient. It really does bring miracles. 

I love you all!

Love,

Elder Benjamin

Milestones

So. There's been a few milestones this week. Hence, the subject of the email.

I'm finished with my training!! That's pretty neat. I'm a "real" missionary now, according to everyone. 

I have officially gained ten pounds...... 

Also, on Thursday Morning, President Hudson called us about 5 minutes before Personal Study was about to start. My stomach dropped and my heart started racing because I knew that if he calls on the Thursday before transfers, he tells you that you're going to train. He wanted to talk to me and my companion and this is what happened. He said that my companion would be training a new missionary and whitewashing in a new zone. He then told me that I'm gonna be training a new missionary as well and that I'll be the new district leader.

Obviously, I was pretty overwhelmed by this new call. Seems to be pretty normal. But I've been overwhelmed with the spirit and that the Lord will help me do this. A couple days before the call came, between an inspired letter from a friend and my patriarchal blessing, I was overwhelmed with the spirit and realization that I've been a successful leader in the past and that I've been able to help people and I've felt since the call that Heavenly Father and the Savior are aware of me and they're going to work through me. All I need to do is exercise my faith and let them do the hard work because that's how it always seems to work in the gospel and it's brilliant. 

Other than that, the work has been going pretty slow, but I've been blessed with some really good ideas on how to work with different people and to really start progressing my area. I love you all! Love, Elder Benjamin

This week or something

I'm pretty sure this week was only about 3 days long... I have no idea what happened and we were so busy. It's all good things though. 

 On Tuesday, we had our district meeting with President and Sister Hudson and I love them so much. In my interview with President, he could see that I was being pretty hard on myself and that I didn't really believe that I was a good missionary yet. (Pretty surprising, right? hahaha.) He opened right up to chapter one of PMG and showed me what the Brethren were inspired to write and the guidelines of what makes a successful missionary. It had nothing to do with baptisms, having no fear, or being able to answer every question. The first thing was feeling the spirit testify through you to other people. Which, I have felt before and I had just told President about an experience with that. He went on to show me 4 or 5 other things that I'm already doing to make me a successful missionary. 

I don't share this to be prideful, I'm just so grateful to have a loving, inspired leader. 

We had a lot of meetings and this week was our Stake's 20th anniversary so we went to heaps of activities for that. One of my favorites was a fireside on Saturday night with Sid Going - an All Black legend that's had a conference talk and a mormon message about him. He's now the Hamilton Temple President. He and his wife stood at the pulpit together and answered questions and talked about their experiences in the gospel. It was pretty neat. I made a goal though, as I walked into the chapel, that I was going to get a picture with him before I left. I've missed a lot of opportunities in my life because of fear of talking to people, like David Archuleta in the MTC, and I didn't want to have that as a theme in my life. So, after the fireside was over, the missionaries were all talking and hoping that we could talk to Sid, and I took a couple deep breaths and walked up to him and introduced myself. I asked for a picture and every other missionary followed suit. It was pretty neat. The spirit has given me a confidence that I've never had before and I love it so much. 

We didn't do much teaching this week because a lot of people cancelled so sorry there's nothing about our investigators. 

Love you all! 

Love, 

Elder Benjamin

Weekly Email

Me out in the country side somewhere that I thought was particularly pretty.  It's also proof that I'm not fat. Yet.

This week has been pretty neat. To be honest, I don't have much to say..

Here's a few highlights of the week. 

We visited a potential investigator and he had just lost his job. He said, sort of jokingly, that maybe he should go to church to help things go better in his life. What it did though, was open up a discussion on the gospel and how much it blesses lives. We were able to give him a Book of Mormon and commit him to read it. We're gonna try and follow up this week and help him along the way. 

On Sunday morning, I was really struggling to be happy. I knelt down and asked Heavenly Father to give me strength that day and to show me something I needed to fix, if there was something, so that I could be happier. After I prayed, I stayed kneeling down, listening for the promptings of the spirit. I felt that I needed to sleep more. It wasn't quite the answer I was expecting, but it just showed me that Heavenly Father really is aware of every aspect of our life and nothing is too small for him to care about. 

As I went to fast and testimony meeting, a couple things happened. The first was that as the members of my little Omahu ward bore testimony of the gospel, I was strengthened by them. I received energy and happiness that I hadn't had before all because of others' strength. The second was that, because the All Blacks won the world cup that morning, literally every single person that spoke at all, mentioned them. hahaha. The third was that our gospel doctrine teacher, who is in her 80s I think, bore her testimony and talked about how her belief and knowledge of the gospel is unshakable. She said she's ready to defend her beliefs to anyone and, to prove her point, she all but yelled from the pulpit.

Anyways. Love you all!

Love,

Elder Benjamin

We are allotted 1000 Ks to use this month.  That's the odometer on Saturday night.