Hello to my lovely family,
I hope you are all basking in the togetherness of being with the entire family minus me. I was thinking about you all yesterday while I was in church and I thought about how grateful I am for each of my siblings and the examples you are each to me. Enjoy being together, because that never happens! I mean seriously, even Britter is there with you! What the?
I have had a week of ups and downs, emotionally. I think my strong desire to be a good missionary makes it hard for me to be happy, if that makes sense. I realized that I am too hard on myself. I know that I am still a brand spankin' new missionary, but I don't want to be. I know that I have so much more to learn to become that missionary that I so desperately hope I will be, but it's hard falling on my face so many times. However, a valuable lesson that I learned yesterday as I bore my testimony to the young men in the Ventura 2nd ward was that the Lord knows me and knows what I need better than I can ever know myself. Yes, I was in Ventura this weekend because my companion and the other traveling sister, Hermana Clark, went to Bakersfield to do exchanges with the sisters there. One of the sisters they did exchanges with was Sister Greer! I miss her. So, this entire past weekend I have been with my other companion, Sister Wilkinson. It's an interesting situation for sure, but I know there is a reason that the Lord has put me in it. I will be with Sister Wilkinson all day today and tomorrow and then I will be reunited with Hermana Tippetts on Tuesday night.
We were able to have a lot of lessons on the few days that we were actually in Moorpark though, so that was good. I love Moorpark, just so everyone knows. I haven't been here that long, but the Lord has blessed me to already have a love for this area and for the people that I am teaching. We met with Christina and Eric this week. They are a husband and wife that we first met last week while we were tracting. We had talked to them about the Plan of Salvation a little bit that first time we met them. This week we planned on teaching them the full Plan. We felt that all of their concerns, especially Christina's, would be resolved through learning the message of the Plan of Happiness. We mostly taught Christina because her husband was downstairs with company. About half way through teaching, Eric came upstairs and joined us. They have a lot of questions and have a lot to say about everything we teach, but Christina has said many times that she feels really good "energy" from us. She believes in energy, not God, is how she would put her beliefs. She actually used to be a Jehovah's Witness, but no longer believes that way. Now we just need to explain to her that the "energy" she is feeling when she is with us is the Spirit. The hard thing with her is that we can never get a word in. She talks about how she just loves us and she loves how I poke fun at her all the time, but she won’t let us barely get a portion of our lesson in. Anyway, I think it is really important for her to read the Book of Mormon, because she has so many questions and I know that if she reads and prays about it that her concerns will be resolved.
I spent Tuesday in Ventura, and Sister Wilkinson and I spent most of the day finding. I know that the Lord has a purpose for everything that we do. I still need to learn about declaring and tracting, but I am happy to say that I am coming to understand it more and am somewhat more willing and happy to do it. I know that the Lord is humbling me in order to prepare me to progress and change toward the missionary I truly desire to be. I really worked on being positive as we declared and thought about how by declaring and tracting I am showing my faith in the Lord that He will place one of his elect in our path. That's also something important that I learned this week from Nan. In her last email to me, she reminded me that not every person is elect. I have really thought about that a lot as we were knocking and declaring. I need to remember that and work hard to knock on as many doors as possible so that I can find those elect. If we aren't knocking how will we find the elect? I also have been studying a lot about finding in Preach My Gospel and have learned so much about it and about how I can become better at finding. Preach My Gospel is absolutely an inspired book and I am so grateful to be able to study it every day! Being in Ventura was good for me. It is nice to be able to learn from Sister Wilkinson and understand how much more I have to learn from Hermana Tippetts.
This week we also taught Crystal. She is the young, single mom, who has great faith in Jesus Christ and has a lot of knowledge of the Bible. We were planning on teaching her about the Plan of Salvation because I had felt very impressed that that was what she needed to be taught. When we got to her home, she told us that she had gone online after we visited with her and remembered now what had held her back in the past about our church. She said that she has problems with Joseph Smith and she doesn't believe that there is a need for the Priesthood anymore. She said that when the Savior was crucified, the tearing of the veil in the temple represented the end of the priesthood on the Earth, and that it meant that we didn't need someone through whom the Lord can communicate. We spent the majority of the lesson trying to address her concerns and answering her questions. Although it didn't seem like it was going that well, I felt the spirit so strongly as I spoke to her about the atonement and what it means to me. I also felt so much love for her and felt such a great desire for her to come to a knowledge of the truthfulness of the gospel. It was interesting because afterward Hermana Tippetts said that she felt the spirit but not in the way that I did. She then told me she thinks that sometimes the Lord allows one of the companions to feel that way so that we learn to trust our companions and the promptings that they receive from the Spirit. That was a really good experience for me, and I have been praying that the Lord will work with Crystal and help her to have a desire to find out for herself, through prayer, if there is a reason that we met her that day.
We also had a lesson with a fifteen year old girl named Kayli. She is best friends with a young woman in the ward, Laurel Bennett (possible cousin? Who knows?), and Laurel had brought her over to meet us one night when we were at the ward mission leader's home for correlation meeting. Kayli is an amazing girl. She is a really good person and has such great desire to do what is right. She went to Youth Conference and felt the spirit there, and after youth conference she had made a goal on her own to pray every night for the rest of the summer. She brought along her Book of Mormon and Bible, and she even brought her calendar so we could schedule another appointment with her. She wants to learn about the church and come to a knowledge of the truth on her own. Once again, as we taught her, the Lord allowed me to feel the love that he has for Kayli. She will be so happy and blessed as she learns about and accepts the message of the gospel. I can see what the Lord sees her future like, and it has helped me to have even more love for her.
One of my favorite things that happened this week was meeting Ryan. Ryan is actually our neighbor. When Hermana Tippetts and I first got to our new apartment, we found a note in the door that was meant for the elders who had lived there before us. The note was thanking the elders for returning the phone to Ryan. Well, on Wednesday we were at the apartment for lunch and Hermana Tippetts said that she really wanted to go and see if he was home and share the gospel with him. Well, Hermana Tippetts was definitely inspired. We caught Ryan at just the right moment. He said that he had just gotten home from one of his jobs and was about to leave for his second job. We stood at his door and talked to him about God and about gifts of the spirit, because Ryan had expressed his desire to help others and he wanted to know how he could do so better. When we finished talking with him, he said that he would really love to meet with us again and asked if we could the next day! Well, we met with him again on Thursday, and he just took everything in. He was eating up everything we taught him and it was like he couldn't get enough. Talk about elect! I am so excited to be teaching him. He has struggled in the past with addiction to pain medications, and he said that this came at the perfect time because he has been sober for 7 days. I know that the Lord knows Ryan’s needs and he sent us to teach him right at that time because He knew that we could help Ryan change his life and come closer to Christ.
In response to Erin's question last week in mom's email asking if I feel normal yet - I don't, but I don't know if that will ever happen. We'll see. I am grateful to have these struggles that I am currently enduring and learning from, because without them how would I progress as a missionary? I never want to feel like "I'm there" when it comes to missionary work, because that would mean that I am no longer progressing. Anyway, I am doing well but this work is seriously hard. I don't think anyone could understand how hard this work is, but I do understand what they mean by saying it is worth it. I know that already and I remind myself of that when I am really struggling. Lately, I have been feeling like I just need to work so much harder. This kind of puzzles me because I don't know how that is possible. I am so exhausted already and I have only been here for a few weeks. I just feel like I can do so much more than I am already doing. Oh, and about being exhausted, having all of these spiritual experiences is super exhausting. After I had that experience with teaching Crystal, I just felt totally drained from feeling the spirit so strongly. That's crazy to me! I don't know how I will make it 18 months with all of these spiritual experiences that are that exhausting. It's a good exhaustion though. I guess that is what will get me through.
I am so grateful to be a missionary. I am so blessed to have the gospel in my life and it has given me a great desire to share it with others. Especially as of late, as I have studied, I have learned what a great blessing it is that I was born in a family where the gospel is present. I know that I am on a mission for a reason and that there are specific people that the Lord had waiting for me to teach. I am continually striving to become better and to be more like my Savior, Jesus Christ. I have been studying a lot about what it means to take the name of Christ upon myself, especially because I wear his name daily on my name tag. It is a great honor to represent him and it is also is a great responsibility that I am working hard to be worthy of.
Love,
Sister Bennett
P.S. - I don't need a cd player. I only listen to music in the car. That reminds me, Solon, I really like that Hawaiian church music, so good job putting it on a cd because I remember telling you I didn't want it. haha. Also, there is a MoTab cd I want called "This is the Christ." It's really good. How do I get fabric balls off of my skirt? Where the bag rubs against me it has created those ball things. My sheets are great. I make myself lunch every day, of course, but we eat at members’ houses most days for dinner. Oh, and if you ever send a package, use the US mail because then they can forward it to me from the mission office. It's hot in Moorpark but it's not that bad. I asked for those skirts because my skirts are really hot fabric. The food is American so it's good. And I don't feel bad declining any food - well I haven't yet. No one forces sisters to eat because we're girls. That's nice, especially since I'm picky. Don't worry mom, I try everything once. Tell Cort to write me again, but tell me more!!! Anyway, have a great week! Enjoy being together!
She already found one.
A lemon grove. She must be in Heaven!
Study time.
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