Red Hair, Don't Care. Gingers Can Do Anything.

July 16, 2012

Family!

That quote, "Red hair, don't care. Gingers can do anything," came in a letter from Colin. He said that is what Cortz says, and I have adopted that as my mission motto. When people are mean to me, I just think "red hair, don't care." Isn't that great!? Mom, can you post my emails onto my blog please? My friends want to hear about what's going on with me. Also, when you post them you should post a link on my facebook. I showed you how to do that the night before the MTC. Remember? You wrote it down in a notebook. Britt should be able to help you if you need any. I just keep hearing from my friends that there are only like two letters on my blog. Hah.

This past week I have really been thinking about how I want to be a hard working missionary. Brandice said something in a letter to me about how we can't work ourselves to death, and talked about how important planning is. I was thinking about that a lot this week, because I just want to work harder. It's not that I don't work hard, but I just feel like I can do a lot more. There are definitely some times when I don't want to get out of the car and go talk to people, but I'm working hard to change that attitude because I have about 14 more months of doing that. haha. Anyway, I was really thinking a lot about how important nightly planning is, because to be honest it really drives me nuts sometimes, but since I got that letter from Nan I realized that as we take the time to plan that is how we are going to get the most work possible in a day. I have a greater desire to talk to everyone on the street, because I want to feel exhausted when we come home at night because I've talked to so many people. The problem is that sometimes I don't say as much when we are declaring to people on the street. For some reason when I'm with Sister Tippetts declaring, I just let her do all the talking because I'm trying so hard to focus on what the spirit is telling me to say. I talked to Sister Tippetts about that and she was saying how a lot of times we just have to open our mouths and have faith that right in the second we will be filled with words, but first we have to show that faith. I thought that was really good, so that's something I'm going to be working on a lot this week - really trying to teach in unity when we meet people instead of just letting Sister Tippetts do all of the talking.

Now, on to investigators. This past week we had a lot of great teaching experiences. We were able to teach Christina and Eric on Monday. They are a married couple who have very interesting beliefs about everything. Christina used to be a Jehova's Witness, but no longer believes in God. She now believes in energy. Eric has all sorts of different beliefs on things, but he does believe there is a higher power of some kind. We have taught them a few times now, and Christina read the Plan of Salvation pamphlet, which was good. Eric, however, did not read it. When we went to their home on Monday it was a bit crazy because Christina was in the middle of making dinner. We helped her chop up some food and when Eric got home, we sat down with him and taught him the Plan of Salvation. He said that it all made sense, but that there is no way to really KNOW if it's true. We talked to him about prayer and about how just experimenting with prayer, showing that tiny bit of faith (as in Alma 32), that we knew he would be able to get an answer and know, like we know, that the plan of salvation comes from God. We invited him to pray alone to know if the things we taught are true, so I really hope that he was able to take time and pray. I think that if we are able to get Eric to take steps forward and feel the spirit, that he will be a great help with Christina in helping her have a desire to know for herself. We are teaching them again tonight, so we will see if he was able to pray.

Last Monday we were also able to teach Kayley K. She is the young woman, 14 years old, that we taught with the Bennett family. She is really good friends with Laurel Bennett. We taught Kayley about the restoration. It was a really great lesson. Whenever she had questions she asked them, and as we taught her I know that she was able to feel the spirit, especially as we shared the first vision with her. We talked to her about seeing if her parents would want to learn as well, and that is definitely something that Kayley wants, but she said that she wanted to know for herself before she tries to get her parents to also learn. She is so elect. She has such a great desire to learn and know the truth. She reads the scriptures and prays daily. I know that the gospel is going to have such a great impact on her life. I am so excited to get to teach her again!

On Thursday we got to teach a lady named Sue. We met Sue when we were knocking a few houses after we had passed by for a potential investigator. At first when we met Sue, she was trying to sluff us off and kept saying she wasn't interested, but as we kept talking to her we found out that she really likes doing family history and has been thinking about how she wanted to get back into doing that. She had heard about the great family history programs we have in the church and we set up a time when we could come back and teach her about why family history is so important to us. Well, on Thursday we got to teach her the plan of salvation. She really loves family history. She had gotten out all of her family history that she had done in the past, and she was so proud as she showed a lot of it to us. As we taught her about the plan of salvation, relating it back to family history, I felt the spirit so strongly as I talked to her about my knowledge of the plan of salvation and how that knowledge has affected me in my life. As I shared my testimony, I felt so grateful for the knowledge that I have about the plan of salvation and the knowledge  I have that my family will be together forever. What a comfort that is. Sue is so great. We are planning on taking her to the family history center for our next appointment, and teaching her about the restoration. I'm really looking forward to it.

Wendy is getting baptized this Saturday, the 21st! I am so happy about that, especially after the few days when Hermana Tippetts and I hadn't been in contact with her. We were worried that she hadn't been able to stop smoking and drinking coffee so she was avoiding us. Luckily, she was just really busy with work! I am so excited to be able to have my first baptism. Wendy is such an amazing woman. She has such a strong testimony of Joseph Smith and of the restored gospel. When Sister Tippetts and I went over the baptismal interview questions with her, she said that she got the chills when we asked her if she believed that the gospel of Jesus Christ was restored through the prophet Joseph Smith. That was so sweet. One thing that I really love about Wendy is her love for the scriptures. She was talking to us about how her fiance is coming to baptize her, and this will be the first time that she meets him because they met online playing a game called Battle Star Galactica. Wendy first started reading the Book of Mormon because Craig had told her about it and said that he would read it with her. So every night they get onto Skype and read the scriptures together. Right now they are reading in the Doctrine and Covenants. It's pretty crazy because when they Skype they only do voice, they don't see each other. Wendy said that one of the dates that she hopes she and Craig will have is just reading the scriptures together. I thought that was so sweet. She is going to be such a great member of the church and will be such a good member missionary!

My favorite part of the week was teaching Tonya and Caitlin. Tonya is in her forties and Caitlin is her 15 year old daughter. They were introduced to the church by Cody, a young man in the second ward who has introduced a lot of people to the church. They are both such great people and they just take in everything that we teach them and want more! Sister Tippetts and I were talking about them and talking about how easy it is to teach them, and Sister Tippetts was saying that that is how the truly elect are. You are always teaching to their needs because their need is just to learn and know more! We taught Tonya and Caitlin about the plan of salvation. Caitlin had mentioned before that when she was at youth conference she had really liked it when people had talked about how families can be together forever. As we talked about the plan they both just took it all in and said that it made so much sense. The best part of the lesson was when we talked about ordinances that we do while on earth, one of which is being sealed in the temple to our families. As we talked about it, I looked up at Caitlin and she had the biggest grin on her face and she made such a cute face at her mom. It was so sweet to see the spirit touching their hearts and telling them that it is possible to be with our families forever. I can't wait for them to get baptized. I think they were nervous about how soon their baptismal date is, but we talked to them about how baptism is just the first step and that we don't need to have a perfect knowledge of the gospel to be baptized because it is just the beginning!

Oh, here's one miracle of this past week. One night we were passing by for a former investigator named Heena. We went to her house, this was after dark, and all of the lights were off and it was super dark. No one answered the door so we started back toward the car, but we still had like 10 minutes left before we needed to head back home. As we walked toward the car we saw a woman down the street at the mailboxes, so we booked it over to go and talk to her. Well, as we talked to her we found out that her name was Heena! How awesome is that. As we spoke with her she told us about how her husband had gotten baptized into the church but was leaving her and hadn't been living with her and her son for like 3 years. She was really sad and talked about how she gets very lonely sometimes. We gave her a Book of Mormon and told her that it will comfort her. We have an appointment with her this week! What miracle to have caught her at those mailboxes!

Funny story. This happened a few weeks ago, but I realized that I hadn't told you about it. One day we had gone over to an investigators home to set up another appointment with him, sadly he wasn't home. As we were about to leave we saw a guy sitting in his garage, so we walked over to talk to him. He wasn't wearing a shirt and we were a little afraid that he wasn't wearing anything at all. As we approached him we saw that he was wearing pants, so we were relieved about that. We said hi and introduced ourselves as Sister Bennett and Sister Tippetts and the first thing he said was, really loudly, "I'M HUNG OVER." We were like, ok....great. We talked to him for a bit and gave him a Book of Mormon and right before we left he was like "Ok, I'm not hung over anymore, weird." Hahaha. It was so weird and hilarious.

Yesterday Sister Tippetts and I taught the gospel principals class and we taught the elders and priest quorums! We taught the priesthood about missionary work and how to normally and naturally share the gospel with their friends. That was actually kind of fun teaching them. I wasn't nervous at all to teach either class, even though President Castro was in the Gospel Principles class. He had come so that he could interview Wendy for baptism. Anyway, it was really fun to teach and I felt the spirit a lot so I learned a lot while we taught. After church I started to feel kind of sick. My throat was hurting and I kind of had a headache, but I wasn't going to let that stop me from working the rest of the day. I took a few ibuprofins and we went out to find new people to teach. I did pretty well for the rest of the day until we got to Brother Levine's home. He is a less active member that we had decided to stop by and see. As we sat there with him I all of a sudden felt terrible. I got the shivers like crazy and couldn't stop my legs from twitching. I felt bad because Sister Tippetts was just doing all of the talking and I wanted to help but I couldn't talk. Then at the end of the lesson she turned to me and was like "Sister Bennett did you want to say anything." Then I had to admit that I was feeling super sick and kind of teared up for a second. We got out of his home at about 8:15pm and Sister Tippetts took me straight home. When we got home I took my temperature and I had a really bad fever, 102 degrees. I went to bed immediately. I felt so sick. I wanted to cry and I kept thinking about how I just wanted to pack my bag and come home so I could have a hug from mom. I'm such a baby! But it was really hard! I could barely even sleep, I was so hot and cold all night. Sister Tippetts told me this morning that I kept talking in my sleep and I would say things like "I'm dying," "It hurts," "I can't breathe," "I just want to work," and my favorite "I just love her....SO MUCH." We both decided that I must have been talking about mom when I said I just love her so much. Hahaha. How embarrassing. I asked Sister Tippetts if she was laughing way hard at me. She said she probably would have if it hadn't been so sad. She said it was the saddest little voice, and that she kept wondering if she should wake me up. haha.

Oh, on Friday Sister Tippetts and I went down to Ventura to do interviews with President Castro because we had missed them when he came to our zone due to exchanges that Sister Tippetts needed to go on. It was so good to have an interview with President. He addressed all of my concerns. When I came in and sat down with him he just spoke for about ten minutes without me saying anything and everything that he talked about were things that I was struggling with. He really made me feel so good. Maybe he just knows how to boost my confidence, but he kept telling me how grateful he is that the Lord put me in his mission. He said that one of the many reasons I am in the California Ventura mission is because President Castro needs me there. He talked about what a great asset I will become as a missionary and how he has already seen so much change in me since that first day that he interviewed me. He also talked about patience again. He said that I need to be less critical of myself, because I am doing great. He talked about not focusing on all of my weaknesses, but just to pick out a few things to work on each week and to have patience as I work to make those weak things strong.

Oh, also I'm super worried about the status and welfare of my hair. It's turning blonde! Ahhhhh! I don't know why this is happening to me, but I'm totally becoming a California girl. Seriously, my hair is getting a lot lighter, so pray for it to stay red. I have gotten a lot of compliments about the color of my hair, so that has made me feel really good. Now I know what it's like to be Cortney....except no one gets as many compliments as Cortz. Let's be honest. Oh, and another thing. I hate dogs. I got bit by one at Tonya and Caitlin’s house. This huge dog kept jumping on me and I was trying to push it off and he dug his tooth into my bicep! Ugh. Dogs are the worst and everyone has them. I can't stand them.

Well, I am doing well -kind of. My throat is really swollen. It's kind of gross actually.  Sister Tippetts looked at it and was like "Gross. It's super swollen", and I said "Yeah right." But when I went into the bathroom and looked, my left tonsil is super swollen and like pitted. I'm not sure what that means, but I think it will get better in time. I just want to play sports today, but I don't know if I feel well enough. That makes me mad. Oh, Mom did you pay rent for July and August at the Enclave? Sorry that you have to do that. I just wanted to check though. Also, can Cortney get Anne Jepson's address for me? Oh and can someone find out where Blythe Beecroft is? She is my worst friend because she has yet to write me. Cortney can talk to her for me, too.

Anyway, I'm continuing to grow and improve as a missionary. It's not easy but it's worth it and as the days continue to go by my love for this work just grows more and more. I am so excited for Wendy's baptism! I'll have to send you pictures of the baptism! I hope you all have a great week. Attach pics of Cortz in Aquatennial to the next email, and send some so I have hard copies. I love you all so much. I am so grateful for your prayers and for how great everyone has been about writing to me. I feel so lucky to have such a wonderful family and such good friends (Adrianne!).

 Love,

Sister Bennett