There is beauty all around

 There truly is sunshine in my soul today! This past week has been amazing. Caroline's baptism was so great! She was a little apprehensive but afterwards she just could not stop smiling and she told us that she did not expect to feel the way she did! She bore her testimony at the end and it was so sweet! She said, "Now I KNOW that Jesus Christ is real and that this gospel really is true!" It was so simple yet so sincere. I loved every minute of it. She was so grateful to all the missionaries who have ever taught her and became her friends. She was especially appreciative that we introduced her to her "best friend" meaning Christ. She is so great!! One of our other investigators, Richard, was there also and he was just grinning from ear to ear and he said that it was not what he expected and that he could not wait for the day when he felt that way too. (JAN 7th!!!) he is so ready for the fulness of the gospel, now we just need to fix his smoking and drinking problems haha. 

Its hard to believe that next week is transfers again. I feel like it just happened. Transfer Dodge day will be exciting! I hope that both Sister hedemark and I stay. People say that the move right before Christmasis always hard. It would be nice to stay. We could possibly get a greenie too. eek.....Hopefully not. I am still a greenie myself! But the Lord knows all things and knows what's best for our area and for us as well.

I am having such a great time out here it's like EFY on steroids! haha that's probably a huge understatement but it's so great. Sometimes I forget that I had a life before this. that sounds really werid but when I think about stuff I used to do or when members ask me about what I like and things like that it's hard to believe that that was only 3 months ago. It feels like a lifetime ago!! We meet some of the coolest people! It makes me wonder what kind of people I missed out on meeting back home. people are just so different and so interesting! No wonder some people study human behavior. The best way to study human behavior is to be a missionary, honestly. You meet the most random people in the most random places.

Little Miracle Moment of the week: Sister Hedemark got sick on Friday and we had so many things planned for the weekend that the possiblity of having to stay home was sad for both of us. However, the Lord blessed us with a cancelled appointment on Friday night so we tucked in early so Sister Hedemark could get some extra rest and I just stayed up studying the area book :) and on Saturday morning she was not doing so great still and the Lord blessed us again with two cancelled appointments. It was sad but because of that we were able to help out some members where Sister Hedemark didn't have to use her voice and by Saturday afternoon she was doing much better. The lessons that we did have she was able to talk and not feel too sick. AND she felt just fine by the time the baptism rolled around onSaturday night. It sounds weird that three cancelled appointments could be a blessing but it really was because she was able to let her throat rest and now we are both healthy and fine! I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY!!!!

Until next time,

May the Spirit be with you!

Love, Hugs, and Fist bumps

Sister Benson

 

PS- I didn't get called on to say a prayer in church on Sunday for the first time since I have been here! But I did have to give a talk.....hahahahaha That's what happens when you serve in a ward with like 50 people at church :)

Soup, Service, and Insanity!

Greetings peasants (the longer I am here the more royal I feel)

Just Kidding!

Dear family and friends,

This week was sooo great! The Lord is really stretching forth his hand here in Stroud. We are getting all geared up for Caroline's baptism this Saturday! I can't believe this week has finally come! We went over the baptismal interview questions with Caroline last week and we were concerned about her to be honest. She is still struggling with some things and we were worried that we would have to postpone her baptism because she wasn't ready. I don't think I have ever prayed so much for someone else before. The Lord truly heard and answered our prayers, and when we went to see her the next, day her countenance had completely changed and she is most definitly ready. Our District leader, Elder Stoddard, was very impressed by her when he interviewed her on Friday. And she is excited for her baptism too! We also committed 2 more of our investigators to dates this week. We are so blessed, I love knowing that the Lord is preparing the minds and hearts of these people to be able to accept such commitments. Committing to this gospel is no small task. It truly is a life changing experience but it is the BEST life changing experience you could imagine.

There is a bug going around and lots of people have been sick. Elder Stoddard and his comp Elder Reed were both pretty sick so I made them chicken noodle soup....it turned out ok. They liked it anyway. Luckily it didn't make them more sick. :) I thought I was going to be sick yesterday because I ate some pretty bad chicken...you know chicken is bad when it tastes like fish. But luckily I woke up this morningno worse for wear. Yet another tender mercy from the Lord! 

One of our investigators, Ingrid, has two sons that don't like to be in on the lessons. For some reason spirituality just isn't the cool thing for teenage boys. But we invited one of the YSA who is also in the YM presidency to come teaching with us in hopes that he might be able to get the boys inetersted. and he did!! They really connected with him and stayed in on our lesson with Ingrid. We taught them about prayer and her 16  year old had some really great insights in to prayer and what kinds of things he could pray about. He started to ask us why there were so many religions and how we could know what was really true. Sister Hedemark, Dane (YSA guy), and I all just got the biggest grins on our faces! I love it when people ask that question!! Unfortunately we were already late getting home but we told him that we could pray to know what was true and that we would tell him all about a boy Joseph Smith who had a similar question when we came next time. He was happy about that.

Our service at the horse stable this week went really well. We really connected with the less active lady who runs the place and she said that she loves Thursdays (that's the day that we come) and that she is very grateful to us. We were so pumped to learn more about her and we were able to find out the reason why she stopped coming to church and it just helped light a fire under us even more. We have only been there for a few weeks and she already trusts us so much! We hope that that trust will help rebuild that bridge between her and the gospel of Jesus Christ.

We met this really crazy guy this week on the street. Which is fairly normal for Stroud, this is a fairly hippie town. However, what made it different from anyone else is why I am sharing this story with you. We were standing outside of the church waiting for a lday we had planned to meet there and this man named Nigel walked by. So we started to talk to him about the Book of Mormon and he was really interested and wanted to meet with us again. He was very apologetic for not having money to pay for the book but we told him that it was free and he got even more excited. So we set up a time where we could see him agian. When we met with him again at the church all he wanted to do was debate and swear and talk about drugs and the destruction of the planet! It was crazy! we tried to contain the situation and it just wasn't happening. Finally Sister Hedemark very boldly said that we were representatives of Jesus Christ and as such our puropse is to teach and help people feel the spirit and if that was not something that he was interested in that we were going to leave. I was stunned. He was too I think but he promised to not say a word for 15 minutes and he stayed true to his word. needless to say we didn't feel right about setting up a return appointment so we didn't. I hope one day that he opens up his heart a little more to hearing about the gospel

That's all for this week I have taken too much time already! But I love you all and I am very grateful for all of the letters and emails! :)

Sister Benson

Keep Calm and Carry On

Hello United States people!!! :)

 

This last week was really great! We had a special Zone Conference on Wednesday and boy oh boy was it ever a spiritual feast! Probably because I spoke for like and hour....haha JUST KIDDING! The AP's did call me Monday and ask if I would speak on D&C 4:2 for 3-4 minutes. Elder Pavan said that if I went over 4 minutes Elder Beus would start throwing things at me. haha Thank goodness that wasn't necessary. Speaking at zone conference would be stressful enough without the added pressure of having an area authority seventy there. But it went ok. But I learned so much from it! There was so much about first recognizing just who we were. We aren't just young single adults on a mission but we are truly messengers called by God to preach the word. Elder Donaldson showed us a picture of his missionary. The missionary who baptized him and brought him into the church. It was such a tender moment to hear him relate the story of his conversion. It's weird to think that somewhere down the road I might be someone's missionary, with that thought in mind I committed to myself that I would never be anything less than what the Lord wants me to be. "As good as I amtoday, is as bad as I'll ever be!" That's a good motto. We then spent a few hours talking about how to strengthen our faith and in turn helping to strenthen that of our investigators. It was by far the best meeting I have ever been to yet on my mission. It was so spiritual and uplifitng and fun!

Sister Hedemark and I committed to making sure that all of our investigators (10) have been invited to be baptized. So we accomplished that goal which was awesome! We only had one say no and it was only because he doesn't believe that there is a God still so he didn't want to commit to anything like that and then maybe giong back on his word...fair enough I suppose. Then we have appointments with 6 potential investigators this week so that's 6 more baptismal invitations! Two of them are today....EXCITING! Its kind of scary to invite them to be baptized after the first lesson but if the spirit is there in our lesson thats all we need. Elder Donaldson said that unless the spirit tells us not to invite (which probably will never happen) then we should invite them to follow the example of Jesus Chirst and be baptized.

People are getting sick like crazy a lot of our appointments cancelled or investigators didn't come to church because everyone is sick! It's so sad. I make sure that I drink OJ everyday to keep up with my vitamin C. That should help me not get sick right? I hope so. Because from what I hear being sick as a missionary is no bueno. Think of how many people you wouldn't get to meet just by one day inside!! Not for me. I want to be out everyday. Mind you some days I wish I could just sleep in but then that missionary song pops in my head that says, "if it's ever gonna fill the earth, it's gonna take work!" So work I shall until the day I die (both in the mission field and in real life ;)

Sorry it's short today but I must make sure my companion isn't doing anything "dodgy" haha just kidding. I just need to help her figure out applying to BYU! exciting times.

Thus we see the work of the Lord moving forward in the land of rain and surprisingly agnostic christians!!

 

Love, hugs, and fist bumps

Sister Benson

 

PS- Elder Pinkerton said that he is going to start calling me Prayer Benson because I get called to say a prayer at LEAST once every Sunday at church, its usually twice. hahaha I think they just like to make fun of my accent. ;)

"They are Polish..." :)

 Hello Family and Friends!

This week was a little rough. Not too sure why but our appointments all fell through again...well not all of them but quite a few. Sister Hedemark and I have decided on some very specific goals that we have for each day this week so It should be lots better!

But I will share a few of my favorite moments this week. They really made this whole week so precious.

We are teaching a South African family and one of the boys, Daniel, who is 11 is one of the most clever boys I have ever met! Some of the things he says astound me. We went to see them after a whole week of not seeing them (they had cancelled on us last week) and when we asked what they learned about their reading in the Book of Mormon, Daniel said that we had read the whole Book of Mormon! We were shocked! Come to find out that he meant the actual book in the Book of Mormon..hahaha but he also read the whole book of Jacob! Sister Hedemark and I exchanged looks of bewilderment and excitment. I wonder why he chose those two particular books...one book being about the complete and utter destruction of the Nephites and the other have a pretty deep analogy about the state of the House of Israel. But he said that he really enjoyed it and he is excited to read Nephi now! What a golden child! We read 2 Nephi 31 together and he told us that he wants to "feast on the words of Jesus"! We asked him if he would pray and he humbly said that he didn't know any prayers and so we taught him how to pray and he said the most beautiful prayer! he thanked Heavenly Father for "Sister Benson and Sister Hedemark that they are able to answer all of my questions and I hope that I will have a lot more questions that Sister Benson and Sister Hedemark will be able to answer and when they are all answered may we all be delivered in celestial glory." ........wow. I pretty much love him! We thanked him for his prayer and told him that we might not be able to answer all of his questions but that God could. If you want to talk to God, pray. If you want Him to talk to you, read your scriptures. They are such a beautiful family!

Also this week we found another service opportunity at a horse boarding facility which was exciting but we were even more excited when we met the owner of the facility. Her name is Claire Fox and she is actually a less active member. Like she hasn't been to church in like 30 years! She doesn't want anything to do with the church or missionaries but she was happy to have us help out for free. She was very surprised when we told her that we wanted to muck stalls for free! haha We are hoping that by us helping out she will at least ask questions and feel the spirit around us.

We met with Lianne and Greg again and they are such a cute couple I invited them to be baptized and Lianned said yes but Greg said no. He doesn't see the point in committing to a church when he isn't even sure if he believes in God yet. fair enough. So we committed him to pray every night and ask if there is a God. he siad he would do that. Lianne told us that she would make sure and remind him every night :) When we saw them again Greg's countenance had changed. he was a lot more attentive and thoughtful as we began to teach about faith and repentance. he very much liked the idea of a clean slate and that the Lord would forgive and forget. I can't wait until he knows for himself that this is true! It will be such a blessing to their marriage and their family!  I can't wait to see them at church on Sunday!!!! AND they get so excited to us every week!

We met with Tim yesterday and he gave Sister Hedemark and I gifts. It was so cute. We met him in the park and he asked me if I wanted yellow or white and I had no idea what he was talking about so I said yellow and Sister Hedemark said white and he pulled out two litle wrapped packages, one with a yellow rubber band and the other with a white one. but the funny thing was was that they were exactly the same on the inside! A dairymilk caramel bar and a Lindor truffle and a freddy frog chocolate bar! Sister Hedemark doesn't eat sweets so I got hers too! :)

being on a mission is so great and I am so grateful for all the people that we meet and teach. They are all so special and the more I spend time with them the more I get a glimpse of how God loves and cares for all of His children. On the outside we may see people and judge them for what they appear to be but as you dig a little deeper you see them for who they really are and you can see their divine nature. I have been called by God to serve His children. What an immense responsibility and privilege!! I love you all so much and hope that you are all doing well! and until next week....May the spirit be with you! :)

Love Hugs and Fist bumps,

Sister Benson