February 18, 2013
Dear Family!
You all have had a TON
going on! First off, congrats to Brandice and Solon! I see that they named
their baby something as close as they could to my name without it being
awkward. Nice work nan! I knew you loved me! Haley...Eily. Sounds alike! Just
saying! Ok, maybe not. Hey, also congrats to Jordan and Amanda! I'm excited to
have another sister, but saddened that she is another blackhead. That's ok,
Amanda, not everyone can have beautiful red hair like us....right redheads?
Right. Happy Birthday to Solon! I had no idea when your birthday was, so I'm
sorry I didn't send a card! I feel terrible! I'm the worst sister-in-law ever.
Forgive me...I'm a missionary. Wow! I'm just so happy to hear about all of the
great things going on in your lives! Really....I'm feeling really full of joy
right now, my chest is all tight! Weird! Haha.
Well, my first
transfer as a traveling sister has come to an end. It went by so quickly, but
it seems like it should have been 12 weeks rather than 6 because so much
happened in that short span of time. I'm excited to start a new transfer. It's
always nice to have a "fresh start," in a way, that comes with
transfers. I'm mostly excited to get going again on having exchanges. I've
missed seeing the sisters. They help me learn so much and I'm excited to
see/hear about the improvements that they've been making since the last time we
had exchanges with them. I'm happy to have Sister Lillywhite as my companion
for another transfer. She is a great missionary and I know that I still have so
much to learn from her before she heads back to New Mexico at the end of the
transfer.
President Castro sent
out a message that this week will just be a five week transfer whereas
transfers are usually six weeks. A lot of missions are doing this so they can
get the new missionaries into the field quicker. That's exciting! That also
means that I will come home a week earlier than I would have since that will
affect the rest of the year. Crazy, right! I'm excited for all of the new
sisters to come next transfer. This week we're getting just one English sister
and two Spanish. I'm still excited though! Haha.
Well, this week was
great! It was a very successful week in our area. It was nice to spend the
entire week just working here in Ventura, in our part of the vineyard. We had a
goal to invite more people to be baptized because we felt we really could be
doing better on that and that if we were focusing on doing that, our
declarations would be more focused on our purpose. Well, we invited a lot of
people to be baptized this week and we now have 4 investigators with baptismal
dates! We will, sadly, need to pass two of them off to the YSA elders, but
we're so excited to see the Lord help us as we had righteous desires.
This week we taught
Rita, Eve, Lizette, Jose, the Evangelistas (recent convert), Kelley, Jimmy,
Kristyn, Lisa, Brother Juker (less-active), Karina, Bob, Arianna, Jessica,
Sister Rous (less-active), Brother Allen (less-active), the Biglers
(less-active), Cryshauna, Sister Ellis (less-active), David, and the Rabagos
(less-active).
This week was my first
time meeting Lizette. She was a potential that the Sisters had met tracting a
while ago, but she was sick and didn't really have time to talk. Lizette has
lupus, so she gets sick very often. She is in her early 30s, is married, and
has an eleven year old son. She actually used to live in the same apartment
complex as the assistants and she would do laundry at the same time as them a
lot. They, of course, talked to her a lot about the church and then she moved.
She is familiar with the missionaries, but she wasn't too familiar with what we
believe. She let us come inside, and we taught her about the Restoration. She's
Catholic, she was actually wearing a rosary, but she doesn't always attend.
She talked about how she likes different pieces from a lot of religions, so
when we taught her about the great apostasy she thought it made a lot of sense.
At times I wasn't sure if she was really listening because she seemed like the
type of person that wants to seem like she already knows things, but when we
asked her questions she seemed to have grasped a lot of what we taught. She
really felt that Joseph Smith's experience was amazing and she understood the
importance of reading and praying about what we shared. She was so happy when
we gave her a copy of the Book of Mormon and she said that she really was going
to read it and pray about it. We invited her to be baptized and she said,
"Oh yes! Of course I will when I know!" She is set for March 23rd!
We're meeting with her again this week, so we're really excited. I've just been
praying that she'll feel well that day so she can still meet with us.
We also had a great
lesson with Lisa. Lisa is in her 40s. We met her tracting a few weeks ago and she
seemed pretty interested. When we went back this last week, she has actually
read a bit in the Book of Mormon, so she was more serious about this than we
originally thought. We taught her about the Restoration and she had a lot of
good questions. I really enjoy it when people ask us questions, because it
shows that they actually care and are paying attention. I don't like it when
they just take our word for it on everything. People should be skeptical and
should take this to the Lord in prayer. That's such a crucial step for every
single member of the church, whether they were born in the church or not. We
won’t have our own testimony of it until we ask. In PMG it says that "no
one can know of spiritual truths without prayer." I know that that is
true, no matter what, we need to help investigators understand the importance
of prayer. Lisa, at one point in the lesson, kind of broke down and cried about
her divorce. She doesn't seem to have a lot of self-worth. She kept saying that
she wants to make changes but she doesn't think she can do it. I'm excited to continue
teaching her and help her understand who she really is. The plan of salvation
lesson will be so great for her. She also accepted a baptismal date. She'll be
working toward the 30th of March!
We just saw so many
miracles this week! I almost couldn't believe how many miracles we saw. I'm
just grateful that as we work hard, the Lord will reward us with these great
miracles. He always pulls through, always! It's up to us whether or not we get
to enjoy them by the decisions we make.
Thanks for the package mom! Sister Lillywhite is grateful that you also sent her a valentine and I really like my new purse! It's the perfect size! Give baby Eily a huge kiss from her favorite aunt and make sure you show her my picture once a day. Thanks.
I love you all so
much! Have a great week!
Love,
Sister Bennett
P.S. - Sorry this one
is short. I'm short....on time!
P.P.S. - What's the
status on the shoes, mom? I'm in need! :)
Back in Moorpark with Sister Stoker.
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