"Check It Out"

 

September 24, 2012

 

Bonjour Family,

How is everyone doing this week? It seems that you are all very busy with your lives, just like I am very busy with the work here in Moorpark. Mom, it sounds like you're going a bit bonkers. I didn't get to read your whole email, but it sounds like Ammon needs to let you play that game on his Nintendo DS that is supposed  to help your memory. He probably knows what I am talking about. I remember Sister Rich saying that she played it or something. Maybe I'm making this all up though.

I'm doing pretty well over here on the west coast. We're in the middle of the "Indian summer" right now, so we had some really hot days this past week. Phew, sometimes it just makes you feel so weighed down when it's that hot. Don't worry mom, I still haven't gotten sunburned so we're good! I got a letter in the mail this week from my sweet nephew, Dashle! It was very cute, and he has a good dad who is a scribe for him. Thanks Dad for sending me some pictures! Throw some good ones in whenever mom sends me that proactive body wash, ok? I'd really like some more pictures, especially of Eilish and Ammon. Ammon looks like a man. haha. Well, at least from what I could tell from the small pictures I got in the emails that
Dad sent. I'm not sure why they wouldn't get larger, but I still definitely appreciate the pictures!

Oh, yesterday at church was the Primary program! It was, sorry Marshall Branch, the best Primary program I have ever seen. That's most definitely because they have so many kids, but all of these little Primary kids sang little solos in the musical numbers and they were all good singers! It was great!

Also, I mentioned this before in an email, but can I get an absentee ballet to vote in November? I think I should, because it's my right. haha. People are starting to bring up Mitt Romney more with us when we're out tracting. They always like to reject us, but end by saying, "But hey, I'm voting for Mitt!" That's great Sir, but you're missing out on your salvation. How about that?

We had a good amount of lessons this week and we had some really spiritual experiences in many of the lessons that we taught. The Lord is always there to assist us and to guide us in our teaching as we strive to follow the promptings of the Spirit. That's something that I recognized a lot this week, not only was I given words in the very moment that I needed them, but I know that during personal study in the morning I am being prepared for different situations I will be in during the day. For example, we were declaring to one man and he brought up the fact that we do baptisms for the dead in our church and said that he thought that was ridiculous and was not something they did in the Bible. That morning for personal study I had been reading about baptisms for the dead in the Bible and the Doctrine and Covenants, so I was able to teach him about that and easily bring it back to sharing the message of the restoration. It was a really cool experience.

We taught the Stephanie and Gavin Matweyew family this week as well as Nanci Buchalter (less active) and her daughter Kelsey (investigator), Eric and Crisitna (we actually dropped them), Nancy, Marta, Chad, Annette, Tyler, Sergio, Mathew, Gary G, Jim and Heather, Anthony, and our lovely recent converts Kayli, Caitly, and Wendy.

I got the phrase "Check it out!" from Wendy. She says that to us all the time when she's talking about the gospel. It's hilarious. She is always telling us about these crazy things she reads and then tells us about what she learned from her scripture study that week. She is so great. She took us to dinner at the "Natural Cafe." Definitely a tree hugger food place, but it was still pretty good. Luckily I haven't had to shove food down my throat that I really don't like. I'm in America! People don't care if I don't eat the onions or whatever! I'm allowed to say "no thanks" when I don't want to eat something. Isn't that great?

I love the Matweyew family. Sister Matweyew has really been warming up to us and opening up about what she thinks/what her concerns are. That is definitely a good thing. She really wants to learn more for her family. She recognizes the changes that have occurred since her husband has gone back to church and she knows that it will really make a difference to her family if she learns about the gospel. She told us that she really wants Courtney to come to church with them and learn, but she doesn't want to force anything on her, especially right now. Sister Matweyew said that she just wants to be an example for Courtney, because she thinks that as Courtney sees the good changes that are happening in their family because of the church that Courtney will come around on her own. Their family is going through a hard time with the oldest son, Zach. He has been using drugs and doing other things, and the police actually came and took him away on Friday. Sister Matweyew called us and was crying about it all and just asked us to pray for her. The sad thing was that yesterday they didn't show up to church because they said they just needed to rest and get back on their feet after everything. Well, we're meeting with them tonight and we're really going to focus on helping them see that going to church is what's going to give them strength and comfort that they need right now. They usually come every week, but whenever something happens with Zach they don't show up. It's very confusing, so we just need to help them understand. Sister Matweyew loves church. She always talks about how she doesn't get how every week she feels like the speakers are just talking only to her! She definitely feels the Spirit when she comes, so it's just a matter of helping her understand and recognize the Spirit. We'll still be working on Courtney as well, because she is actually an investigator.

Nanci Buchalter is a less-active that we found when we went to visit less-actives who the Relief Society president in the 2nd ward gave us a list to visit. Nanci is a convert to the church but hasn't gone to church since she moved to Moorpark 6 years ago! She said she just never got around to going and it didn't help that she didn't know anyone. We invited her to come to church and she came. She just needed someone to ask her to come, I guess! Her two sons are members who are also less active, but her daughter Kelsey, who is 18 and a senior in high school, hasn't been baptized. We met Kelsey and we taught her the restoration. Kelsey is skeptical about the Book of Mormon and just about religion in general because she doesn't seem to really know what she believes. She doesn't really have any friends because she does online schooling and is really shy, so we invited her to go to mutual on Wednesday. She went with her mom. It was good that her mom went to support her, but I think it was probably hard for her to get to know anyone because it's comfortable to just stick by your mom, of course. That's probably what I would've done, my mom's the best! We're working on getting some of the young women to come with us to appointments when we teach them, and we're hoping that Kelsey will be able to make some friends so she'll feel good about coming to church and participating in Young Womens. When Nanci came to church she was upset about the amount of noise during sacrament meeting. There are a lot of young families in our ward and it really is loud sometimes during sacrament meeting, but it's just a part of church. I love that there are so many families, but Nanci was telling us that if that noise level keeps up that she won’t be coming back to 2nd ward. She said maybe she'll try 1st ward if it is always that loud in 2nd ward. Oh, Nanci. We're working with her about that and trying to understand what the real problem is for her. Maybe she didn't feel the Spirit as much as she thought she would? We'll see what happens. Both Nanci and Kelsey are really great, so I'm glad that I'm able to be here to teach them.

This week we were planning on passing off Tyler to the young single adult elders. We had it all planned out but about an hour or two before our appointment, Tyler texted us and told us that he didn't think we should meet because he was having doubts and thought that he should just wait and go to church on Sunday. We called him and convinced him to just let us go over and teach him without the YSA elders. When we went over Tyler talked about how he's having doubts because the Book of Mormon hasn't been clicking with him as much as he thought it would. Well, we then talked with him further and realized that he hadn't been praying before reading in the Book of Mormon. We talked with him about a few other small concerns/questions that he has, but then I bore my testimony to him that as he reads the Book of Mormon and prays about it he will come to know that it's true and those concerns that he has will be washed away. I felt the Spirit a lot as we taught him. We also read in the Book of Mormon with him and he said that it helped him a lot to see how he should read so he can apply it to his life. Then, at the end of the lesson we invited him to pray. He doesn't like to pray out loud because he says that it feels insincere because he is just saying what sounds good. He told us that usually he just whispers when he prays and we told him to do that! Finally, he agreed and said the prayer. It was so powerful. I could barely hear him, but at one point I opened my eyes and looked at him and he just looked so sincere, like he was really pleading with Heavenly Father to give him help and comfort and to help him know if this is true. It was so amazing that I couldn't even hear him, but the Spirit was just filling me up! That was such a cool lesson. Tyler is so awesome and I'm still sad that we need to pass him off to the YSA elders, but I know that it's for the best. He actually went to church at the YSA ward yesterday and he texted us afterward and said he had a really good experience and that he was excited to go again next week! Plus he said that he was planning on going to a barbecue that they are having tonight for Family Home Evening! Sister Wilkinson and I were almost screaming- we were so happy that he had such a good experience at church. He's so great and we were so blessed to find him while we were tracting! Knocking really does work!

Jim and Heather are a couple who we just taught for the first time this week. We met Jim last week when we were trying to find his neighbor. He had invited us back for a time when his wife would be home. Well, we showed up and he had forgotten and his wife was definitely surprised. We started to just teach them on the doorstep, but then I just asked if we could come in and sit down with them to share our message. I was surprised that I even did that, but it worked and they let us in! We taught them about the restoration and as we talked about prophets, Heather asked why there isn't one today, because she said it didn't make sense to her that we would only have prophets back then - especially when times are so different now. That definitely made us excited. As we taught them the entire restoration, they had a lot of good questions and they said that everything we taught them really made sense. Sadly, we won’t be able to teach them until next week because Jim is out of town, but hopefully they will be reading the Book of Mormon during this time and praying about it. I'm really excited about teaching them because I really want to teach families so they can have what I have - the opportunity to be sealed to their families for eternity.

Anthony is another new investigator that we got from a referral from the Spanish elders. He's 16 years old, and his cousin is actually Cody - Cody is the kid that introduced Tonya and Caitlyn to the church and baptized Tonya, Caitlyn and Kayli. When we met Anthony, we just asked him if we could sit down with him outside for a bit to share our message and he agreed. Anthony is really cool. He is hispanic, but doesn't have any accent, and he has really long black hair that is kind of curly. He was really quiet at first, but that didn't last with me trying to get him to either laugh or open up a bit. By the end of the lesson he was asking questions and he asked, when we invited him to read just the introduction and testimonies after it in the Book of Mormon, "Why can't I read the whole thing?" He then asked how many pages there are in the Book of Mormon and I instantly said "531." He and Sister Wilkinson laughed really hard about that and then he said he was just going to start reading it all. We also invited him to be baptized on Nov 3rd and he agreed. However, when we asked if his mom would be ok with us teaching him he told us he could ask but that she would probably say no. He seemed sad when we told him that he would need permission to meet with us. When we saw Cody later that day, he told us that Anthony's mom and her sister are pretty vulgar about the church or something like that, but we're praying that their hearts will be softened and that we will be able to teach him. I really want to, so we'll see if that is what the Lord thinks is best for Anthony.

It really was a good week this week! We had many more teaching opportunities that are definitely worth mentioning, but due to lack of time the few that I wrote about will have to suffice. I love sharing the gospel with others. This week in personal study, I did an activity at the end of the "Use time wisely" chapter in PMG about the last day on my mission. It just has you take a moment and think about what you want to say that you've done as a missionary, what you've become, and what differences you want people to notice in you. Then it has you write down how you will achieve those goals. It was good for me to think about what I want to become on my mission, because this really is the time when the Lord can shape and mold me into the person that I want to be for the rest of my life. Looking back through my study journal at goals I had just last transfer and my first transfer, I can see that some of those changes that I wanted then have already taken place or have come along a great deal in the process of reaching those goals. It's so amazing to see how the Spirit can change us and how repenting and applying the atonement in our lives helps us to reach our potential. I have a long way to go, but I do know that I can reach that potential through the atonement of Jesus Christ. How great is that knowledge?!

I love you all! I am happy and I am healthy!

 

Love,

Sister Bennett