MTC

Hello Family!! and Friends! :)
This week has been brilliant and I am sad to think that a week from tomorrow I will be leaving the MTC! I am excited to get out of 16 hours of class everyday but I will miss the constancy of the spirit and all of the fun times that we are having here in the MTC. There is this one elder who, by some miracle, eats loads of food every meal and he is still as skinny as a bean. Seriously this kid is going to eat his investigators and the members who feed him out of house and home. EVERY meal he sits down with a mound of food on his plate! Today he had four 8 inch subs and loads of vegetables. So its good that he eats healthy things but still.... Let's see, where to begin. This week we continued to teach James. We were struggling with him because we have been focusing on teaching people not lessons but we couldn't figure out how to cater the lessons to his needs, becuase he apparently has none. haha He was just very hard to figure out. But we feel confident that we got him yesterday. I can't believe we didn't see it but we are pretty sure that his wife is the key to us getting through to him. His wife is an inactive member but we found out that she was happy that he was talking to us because then they could get married in the temple. He doesn't understand why they need to get married there since they are already married but we will get to that point later. :) Andy, another "investigator", these are really all teachers playing investigators but...anyway Andy threw us for a loop the other night because he read the introduction to the Book of Mormon and all of the testimonies and he asked about the Urim and Thummim kind of out of nowhere and our lesson went downhill from there. I am glad that they make these so real but that was just crazy! I am glad that this is a period of learning becuase if that whole situation were real I would have come out of it just feeling awful!
I felt like I have learned a ton about the spirit and how it works in teaching people and in studying and learning! I absolutely love it! I have always enjoyed the scriptures but now I feel like an hour of personal study isn't enough. There is so much that I don't know and I am sad when I have to stop. 
On Sunday we got to go on a church history tour of England....well at least the parts of England that are closest to us. We went to Market Square in Preston where the missionaries would go to preach. Then we walked over to the river ribble where the first baptisms occurred. Sister Wheatley's great grandfather was the second one to be baptized in England. that was a beautiful walk! We also got to go to 15 Wadham road where Pres. Hinckley stayed while he was on his mission and the flat where he got the letter from home saying, "Forget yourself and go to work" That was fun to hear Sister Walker talk about that. We also went to the apts where Heber C. Kimball and all of the other missionaries who were first in England stayed. There is quite the story behind that flat. We were actually able to go inside which has never happened on the church history tour before. So that was an adeventure! We also went up to Downham and found a telephone box that we were all so excited to take pictures with. We got my whole district in one. Well...sort of. It wasn't quite appropriate for the sisters to squish in there too so we just stayed in front. :) I absolutley love my district! We have so much fun!! The church history was beautiful and  it made me love this place even more! I think I could live here. AND!! it was not raining on our tour. Sis. Walker prayed fro nice weather. She was saying that whenever we need good weather that's her job to make sure that we get it. ;) On Friday we had a finding journey in Manchester! Sister Wheatley and I went out and got off the train station and started to talk to as many people as we could about the gospel. It was scary but it was so fun! Those three hours went by so fast! I was amazed at the number of people that don't even believe in God! I was thinking that we would get at least some sort of religious background but for the most part we were starting from scratch. We were talking to this one guy who was greek orthodox and then this other guy came up to us and was like, "Are you talking about the Bible?" It was awesome we talked to both of them for like 45 minutes and left them both with Book of Mormons... Books of Mormon...whatever :) and they said that they would pray about it!! It was a great learning experience and in some ways it made me nrevous for going out in the mission field but in other ways it made me that much more excited! It was fun to talk to just anybody and everybody about the gospel! There was this one guy who was selling wooden ducks with shoes on their feet. They were cute! I asked him why they were wearing shoes and he said it was because they had sore feet. haha
We had beautiful weather for like 3 days in a row so we got to go out to the grass field and play football. real football. not American football. Elder nicholson, our zone leader, is from scotland and is really intense about football. It was fun to play with them. The elders are so nice when playing with sisters , probably because they get in trouble if they run into us but..... :)
anyway, I am drawing a blank....so I guess until next time! I love you all and hope you are all doing well.
PS- DAD!!! I am so sorry I forgot about your birthday!!! HOW WAS IT? I sent off a letter to youtoday so.....
OH! have you guys been looking at the pictures that Sister Williams should have sent to you? She said she sent all of the parents a  link to a website that she has been putting up pictures of all of us at the MTC!
Love, Hugs, and Fist Bumps,
Sister Benson!:)

 yup i live here....be jealous. This is Pres and sister walker on our way to the river ribble

District boys!: Ammon elders I love these guys! 

Telephone box: AMMON DISTRICT!!! 

beautiful!

this is what all of the exit signs look like....they make me chuckle

Pam, one of the cooks, likes to feed the ducks corn flakes

They say this is the prettiest veiw from a church in England 

Pres Hinckley's Flat 

this is Elder Bensige from Sweden who eats a TON!! this was just his first plate. And yes he ate all of that and went back for more! this was actually a light eating day for him lol 

Temple trip