Ammon Is A Man Now!?!?!! WHAT THE!?

December 31, 2012

 

Dear family! 

Ammon is a man. That's probably the biggest thing I learned from speaking to you all on the phone. That was creepy man. I loved talking, though. Isn't that so cool how great our family is? I felt like it hadn't been 6 months at all since I had spoken to everyone. I just love how close our family is. That's probably what kept me out of trouble growing up - I prefer hanging out with my family over anything else. I don't need friends when I have my family. haha. But seriously. Family is so much better. I'm glad that I was able to hear from all of you. It's funny how not much has changed at home as I've been serving. I've changed a lot, but it sounds like everything is just moving along there as usual. I'm not missing out on much there, but boy are you missing out on what I get to experience! Last night I was writing in my journal and thinking about how mentally challenging a mission is, but that's why it's so great. I am learning how to submit the natural man to the spiritual part of myself. That's why there is so much more joy in my life as a missionary, because I am living in a way that is always conducive to the Spirit. I was also thinking how by serving a mission I am preparing myself for the rest of my life because of the important things that I'm learning. It's definitely hard to always keep this kind of perspective, but I know that this is where I am supposed to be - serving the Lord.  That's pretty comforting. Sorry that my voice was so creepy. haha. I haven't become a man on my mission, I promise. My voice got really bad after calling you, so I was grateful that it held through so that I could speak with everyone on the phone. Well, another 4 months or so and we'll be chatting again. Put it on your calendar. :) 

Guess who gets to go to the temple on Wednesday!?!? This Sister! I'm so excited!! Today we have to do a half p-day so we can go on Wed., but that's ok. I'd rather work anyway. Plus we have to come in at 7 tonight because of New Year's Eve. Hopefully, we can get everything done that we need to. Sorry, since we don't have a lot of time I can't write much. 

Christmas was pretty good overall. I wish we could have spent more time serving. I really wanted to go caroling with my companion because we actually sound alright when we single together, but I lost my voice so that wasn't going to happen. We did get to have our Christmas meal with a part-member family, which was great. Bill, the investigator, has been coming to church for a long time and we are trying to get him to start taking the lessons from the missionaries. I think he definitely felt the Spirit while we were in his home for Christmas. He even offered the prayer before we ate dinner, which was really cool to see. I just hope that he can have an experience that causes him to open up and have a desire to understand why his wife goes to church every week and why it makes everyone so happy. He recognizes that members are a lot happier and seem to be more fulfilled, but he is just lazy about wanting to know why for himself. It's just so weird to me. He is the most active non-member ever. I don't get it. 

This week we taught Bill, Jolie (less-active), Jan (less-active), Nanci and Kelsey, Nancy V, Yolanda, Kathy and Madison and Kyle, the Cookmeyers (part-member/less active family), the Pflaumers, Heidi, Russell (less-active), Heena, Holly, the Bergs (less-active), Denise and Karston, Jon, the Matweyews, and Anthony!

We had a good lesson with Heena this week. She had told us that she never plans on getting baptized because she is Hindu, but she keeps all of her commitments and has recognized the Spirit in her life since she has been praying and reading the Book of Mormon. I'm not sure what to do with her. We taught her on Saturday about real intent. We shared the story of King Lamoni's father from Alma 22 and talked about how he was willing to give up anything to know God for himself. I think that Heena wants an answer to her prayers about baptism, but she doesn't have real intent. She has already made up her mind that it can't work for her to be baptized because it's going against who she is. She asked how we can have real intent when we haven't had it before - how we can make that change. We talked about having faith that God knows what's best for us and will always guide us on the right path. Heena even came to Nancy's baptism on Saturday and I know that she felt the Spirit there. I just don't know what's best for her right now. She said she would like to continue learning, but that it's up to us if we think we should keep teaching her. What do you do with someone that is keeping their commitments but is against being baptized? Before we went and met with her I felt sure that we needed to drop her, but now I'm not sure at all. I spend a lot of my time thinking about her and what needs to happen for her to progress toward baptism....I'm just still unsure. 

Kathy, Kyle, and Madison are so great! This week we taught them about the Plan of Salvation. The lesson went really well in terms of how Sister Stoker and I taught together. It's probably one of the best lessons we've taught together. The Spirit was really strong and I know that Kathy, Kyle and Madison felt it as well. They were so focused as we taught them. They had a lot of really good questions that they asked and they weren't asking to be contradictory but they really wanted to know more. Kyle kept "freaking out" over what we were teaching them. He said he's never heard anything like this before, but that it was making so much more sense to him than anything he had been taught before. The best part was asking Madison about what she thought. She told us that she felt a lot of comfort about this plan and that she really believed that it is true. I had borne my testimony to them about how I have received my answers about the plan of salvation, and Madison said that she felt a lot of the same things that I described - really full and especially peaceful about what we taught. She also said it made her really want to read the Book of Mormon so she can understand the Plan of Happiness better and get her own answer about it. That was really cool. When we left the lesson I was so happy. I was full of the Spirit and of gratitude that the Spirit had touched their hearts during that lesson. Kathy and Kyle actually came to church yesterday as well. They came late and sat in the way back of the overflow, which isn't the best because all of the little kids are back there. We were up toward the front sitting by Nancy because she was going to be confirmed and didn't know they had shown up until Brother Pierson (the ward mission leader) came and told us that they were in the back. I had a thought that we should go sit by them, but I ignored it because I didn't think we should leave Nancy. That was not very smart of me. Kathy and Kyle left early because they couldn't hear anything and I'm sure they would've stayed if at least one of us had gone and sat by them during the meeting. I learned my lesson there; never ignore promptings from the Spirit - ever. We're teaching them again this week, so I'm really excited about that.

Nancy got baptized on Saturday night! It was so great! I was pretty disappointed with the support of the 1st ward, however. There were more people from the 2nd ward that came to support Nancy than there were from her actual ward. I just think that people don't understand what it's like to be a convert, changing your life and coming into a whole different world. Nancy needs the people in the ward to reach out to her and bring her into their ward family. That's probably the hardest thing for me to be patient with as a missionary - ward members not going outside of themselves to welcome others. I know that there is a lot going on in their lives so I just don't know what we can do to help them understand or recognize the importance of fellowshipping new members or investigators. Anyway, the Spirit was very strong at Nancy's baptism even with the lack of attendance. She was so happy afterward and I am grateful that I was here to witness it. She keeps saying that I'm going to be leaving now because she thinks I had to stay in Moorpark until she got baptized. She might be right. haha. Who knows? I guess we'll see very soon.

I've obviously been thinking about that a lot - transfers. I maybe get too distracted by trying to figure out what's going to happen - will I stay again or leave? I love Moorpark a lot and I've learned so much here, but I am ready whenever the Lord says I should move. I'm ready to experience a new area and learn new things that come when you have to adjust to a new area. It's definitely up to what the Lord sees is best though, and that's what gives me the most comfort. It doesn't matter what I want or think because I don't know what's best for me or what's best for the people here. The Lord knows everyone perfectly and knows where I need to be to help people progress in the gospel. I'm just nervously/excitedly waiting to hear what's happening for this next transfer.

This week was a really good week. I was grateful to celebrate Christ's birth and speak to my family, but I'm excited for the holidays to be over. I just want to be back to normal so I can focus on the work. There were too many distractions with the holidays.

I love you all! 

Sister Bennett

 

P.S. - I got a really nice letter from Ruth Bartholomew. Thanks for that Ruth! I'm glad you've enjoyed reading my letters. Sometimes I wonder what exactly I've written. Haha. I never have time to read it before I hit 'send.' Anyway, thanks again for the letter. I really enjoyed hearing from you and thanks for the nice compliments you gave.