Monday, December 26, 2016

A Great Christmas


Matching ties with Elder Conrad


Hey everyone sorry I missed last week blog not much happened last week so I will combine most of it!
Dinner out at a Japanese Steakhouse
Tried sushi for the first time & liked it
12 days of Christmas gifts

Well, I hope everyone had a great Christmas! For being the first Christmas away from home it was not bad at all! It feels a little different of course but it was a enjoyable day! Elder Conrad got up bright and early and Skyped his family over in Switzerland and then we went to church which was a very spiritual and great Sacrament meeting. We came home and opened presents- it was great! I got a lot of useful things that I can use during my mission and my awesome parents got me a Ukulele! I have been wanting to get one and learn how to play so I was super excited about!
Ukelele


I am so glad to be serving my mission in the day and age that we can use the wonderful tool of technology
Genna playing a song for us
!

We were able to do a 3 way skype with my family and my brother who is Mexico! It was super cool and strange to be talking to my family and brother as a missionary, because I remember like it was yesterday that we were skyping my brother last Christmas and now to be doing the same thing was like Deja Vu haha. I am so glad and blessed to have a wonderful family who is so loving and caring! I also wanted to thank everyone for the gifts I received: My family, the Neddenrieps, The Lincoln Stake Youth, The Petersons in Utah, The Peterson family in Olathe Kansas, The Dunster family, Grandma and Grandpa Koski, and everyone else who gave me some gifts, thank you so much I am extremely grateful and blessed!
Christmas dinner appointment

The rest of the week before Christmas was pretty good,we had an awesome great mission devotional, and then we did a mission picture and had some cinnamon rolls, and hot cocoa bar. On a spiritual note I am so grateful for the birth of the Savior. This year I finally have gotten a perspective of the true meaning of Christmas! I am so grateful for our Savior and the plan of happiness that He has in store for us! I am very blessed to be serving here in the Utah Ogden Mission and I am excited to see what the 2017 year will bring!
The Mountains!



I hope everyone had a great holiday and hope you have a great New Years!


Love Elder Bennett!

Thursday, December 15, 2016

Standing as a Witness of Christ

Hey everyone sorry for the late blog post! I hope everyone had great week! This week was a pretty rough week! But this week should be a lot better!
On Tuesday we had the opportunity to do some service at an event center. The event was a large Christmas display of Nativities, other religions, nutcrackers, and a live nativity. The service was really easy because all we were asked to do was to make sure no one touched anything there haha!

Christmas Socks

The rest of the week was a pretty slow week! Darrin the 9 year old was supposed to be baptized this Saturday but again he couldn't, then three people we had on date: Carlos, Megan, and Evelyn are no longer in our area! A big fight within the family led them to move out of our area! So we can no longer teach them which was super sad! We have two more investigators that have been moving along slow. Even though this week was trial filled I am grateful for it because without trials we wouldn't know the difference between sadness/happiness.


My Companion Elder Conrad went and took the ACT test on Saturday, he was pretty nervous but I know he did well! While Elder Conrad was on exchanges with a member I went and spent the morning with my former Trainer, Elder Ballard, and his companion, which was a fun time catching up with him. It was cool too because one of my parents friends came up to me and said they knew me!

Ran into my Mom's friend
On Sunday we had the opportunity to give a talk in the Freeport Branch. We spoke on Standing as a Witness of Christ. Giving talks before the mission was something I dreaded but it is something that I look forward to now!


We also on Sunday got to go up and sit in on the last lesson for one of Elder Conrad's recent converts, the Petersons. They are really awesome family that I had the opportunity to go to their three sons baptisms! We taught them now that they are members how they can serve in the church. Afterwards they gave us Christmas Gifts! They were so kind and got each of us a super soft blanket, a stocking full of goodies, an ornament, a book called The Tattooed Mormon and they got it signed for us!, a mini mailbox full of letters, and there sweet little 7 year old daughter made each of us a build a bear missionary with a recording that says " I will love you forever Elder Bennett". I truly didn't deserve any of this but I was truly grateful for the kindness and love of this family!
Such Kindness!

I also received gifts from my parents! Me and Elder Conrad get to open one present for the  12 days of Christmas which is super fun! 
Elder Conrad's New Christmas Socks

On a spiritual note I just wanted to talk about standing as a witness of Christ. If you get the chance you should read Elder Anderson's talk from this last general conference called standing as a witness of God. It is a great talk that shares a lot of good insights and ways we can be a witness of God. Before my mission I was not always the best example of standing as a witness of God but getting the chance to be a witness 24/7 for two full years has been a very special experience. Although it can be hard sometimes I know that we don't have to stand alone, other members, families, the Spirit, and Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ are going to be with us every step of the way! I encourage you all to stand as a witness of Christ. Remember at baptism we made a covenant to stand as witness of God at all times and in all things and in all places!



Have a great week everyone!!


-Elder Bennett

Tuesday, December 6, 2016

Bearing Testimony

Hey everyone! I hope you all had a great week! this week wasn't to busy but it was still good! We had our fist district meeting this week and it was great to see all the new faces that we had In the Weber East Zone. On Thursday we were able to kick off the 25 day light of the world challenge! We went up to Salvation Army as a District and volunteered up there.We helped fold and separate clothes, move furniture, and then spent most of our time unloading and shelving food in one of there warehouses! it was fun to all work together as missionaries along side the other volunteers!


Our teaching pool is still pretty good. We currently have 6 people on date and some are moving along slower then other but that's okay because we all get baptized when we are ready to be. We are still working with the Ortiz family: Carlos, Megan, and Evelyn. We also started teaching two new people Mellisa and her boyfriend Jeremy, they are both eager and excited to work towards there baptism date. We were supposed to baptize Darrin on Saturday but he was sick and we are going to push it back for a couple weeks so that his dad can be down for the baptism.


Sunday was a great day. Since we cover 8 wards we go to 3 sacraments a Sunday and try to rotate through which ones we go to. Elder Conrad challenged me to bear my testimony at all 3 sacraments and so we both ended up doing it and it was awesome. I have always struggled bearing my testimony in front of a lot of people but it has gotten a lot easier since I've been on my mission.


On a spiritual thought, I have come to realize the importance of bearing our testimonies. When I was at home I didn't have a strong testimony and you would rarely ever see me get up there and bear my testimony. It wasn't till I got on my mission that I started to grow my testimony, I really liked what Elder Conrad told me he said " A testimony is not easy, it takes hard work, and consistency to gain that testimony". Each and everyday my testimony is growing and each time I bear it, it is easier to share with others. I encourage you to look for an opportunities to share that testimony with a friend or family member this week and let them know your beliefs and feelings about the Gospel and our Savior Jesus Christ. Also keep continuing to do the 25 day light of the world tasks!


2 Nephi 27-13: And there is none other which shall view it, save it be a few according to the will of God, to bear testimony of his word unto the children of men; for the Lord God hath said that the words of the faithful should speak as if it were from the dead.



Have a great week everyone!


-Elder Bennett



Tree from Amazon that was much tinier than apperared in the picture online


All decorated

Glowing lights!


Snow for Thanksgiving


Hey Everyone sorry for a late and short blog but hope you all had a good Thanksgiving week! Our Thanksgiving day started with some lifting then, personal and companion study, and then we played football in the snow ! We had a couple elders Collided heads during the game which resulted in stitches! It was a very wet, slippery, cold game but it was super fun!




After working up an appetite we had a great meal at a members house and we got super stuffed! So stuffed that we didn't really eat much the rest of the day haha! And our fridge is full of pies and turkey!

I also received an awesome letter from home and missed being at home for Thanksgiving this year! It seemed a little like a normal day but in 2 years it will make Thanksgiving that much more meaningful and better! I also received a package from Eliza Bennett that had some candy and a hand tree that they made at activity days! Thank you so much !


Our work with investigators are going really good, we have 6 people on date and we're excited for there upcoming baptisms! The work is really progressing in this area and our ward mission leaders are doing a pretty good of getting people for us to teach! 


Our mission president promised us, this will be a white Christmas and I believe it! 


We got snow! This week it snowed pretty good and it was actually really not bad at all! The snow/cold are very dry here, and not really chilling to the bone and wet like back in Nebraska, which has been nice! Because we have to walk everywhere.! I am going to have to get some snow boots or something soon, because they are getting soaked from walking in the snow!

On a spiritual note, there is just something awesome about the Holiday season! The church put out the Light the World Video, which I love because it shows people helping each other and doing things that the savior did here while he was on earth! We show it to people we teach as people we have dinner with and every time I watch it I feel the spirit! They have given us a wonderful opportunity to do 25 days of service! If you go to Mormon.org you can read more about it and what you can do on each day! I am super excited to do it as a missionary and to see the joy on people's faces when we help them! I encourage and invite all of you to take on the 25 day service challenge and to pray each day to find opportunities to serve someone!




 Have a great week everyone!

-Elder Bennett

Tuesday, November 22, 2016

Same Area, New Companion

Happy Thanksgiving week everyone ! 

Well, this week has been a pretty good one! On Wednesday we had transfers and I stayed and Elder Ballard ended up leaving and getting transferred to West Point! 
Saying Goodbye to Elder Ballard
My new companion is Elder Conrad. Elder Conrad is a super goofy guy and is an awesome missionary. He is from St. Gallen, Switzerland and has been out for 18 months!
New companion
This week we were pretty busy! We had a Family History Training, at the really cool, recently built Family History Center in Layton. It was really neat to get on there and see how far back you could get! While going way back I didn't realize how many different kings I am related to and it was awesome to Google them and read their history! At the training we learned the purpose of it and how we can help set up the people we taught or are teaching, an account so they too can look up their family history and possibly bring their family names to the temple!
New Family History Center in Layton

Elder Conrad was/still is in the Swiss Army back home so he loves to work out. We go and workout every morning at 5:30 am and it has been really nice getting back into shape! Elder Ballard picks us up, now that he has a car, and we go workout at Syracuse High school.
Elder Conrad from St. Gallen, Switzerland
We had an eventful Saturday, so Elder Conrad had a baptism up in his old area at 11 am and we had a Baptism scheduled for our investigator Jelena at 1.  Well, after we got done with his baptism we realized we had completely forgot to fill the font for Jelena's baptism, and filling the font is a long process. So we ended up pushing the baptism back till 3. Even though it was a small baptism it was spiritual. This was my first baptism I've ever done so I was ready, I told Jelena to make sure she bends her knees and I'll do the rest. That didn't happen. She would not go under. It ended up taking 6 times to baptize her! After the 3rd try she said "I nearly drowned as a kid and I'm terrified of going under water" so that was nice to know haha, but we ended up getting her under and it turned out good. We were able to confirm her on Sunday and we also brought another investigator we have on date to Sacrament and he enjoyed it, so things are looking good here in Clearfield South.

Jelena

On a spiritual thought, with Thanksgiving coming up this Thursday it is hard to not think about how blessed I am. I am super thankful to have been raised a member of the church, even though, a lot of time it is not easy, I know it is the right thing. I have been blessed with a super great family! During the 4 minute restoration, the second point we always emphasize is that Heavenly Father Loved us so much that he gave us families. The reason He gave us families is so that we can grow together as one unit in love, to feel the spirit and learn together. I'm truly grateful for my family, they have done so much for me and if it wasn't for them, I probably wouldn't be on a mission! 

Here is a scripture that I liked on the topic of Thanksgiving:

Alma 34:38- That ye contend no more against the Holy Ghost, but that ye receive it, and take upon you the name of Christ; that ye humble yourselves even to the dust, and worship God, in whatsoever place ye may be in, in spirit and in truth; and that ye live in thanksgiving daily, for the many mercies and blessings which he doth bestow upon you.

I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving and be sure to eat a lot of food!

Monday, November 14, 2016

House of the Lord

Hey everyone, so this week was a good week! Sorry this a pretty short blog! 


On Tuesday we had the wonderful opportunity to go to the temple this week! I am super blessed to be serving a mission in Utah where there are temples everywhere! So we have a Mission Temple Day and each zone is designated times to go through the temple! We had the 2:30 pm session. We got there pretty early so we ended up going to Farrs Ice Cream, I have heard a lot about this place and I was excited to go! It was good, but I am more of a soft serve kinda guy! 

The Temple Trip was awesome, it was really cool to be there with all the other missionaries and to see our mission president there.
Ogden Temple
After the Temple trip we ate with the Pierces again! This time they made one of my favorite meals, They made roast, mashed potatoes, carrots, rolls, and salad! It was super good and it is always a good time with the Pierce family! 

We started teaching a mom and her daughter named Jelena and Natasha, they are super excited to learn more every lesson and are planning on being baptized this Saturday! Which is super exciting!

 We did exchanges this week with our zone leaders which was fun! It is always fun to learn from a different companion and it is cool to go to a new area or show them the people we are teaching!

On a spiritual note I am thankful for the opportunity we have to go to the temple! I am super blessed to live so close to a temple that is less than an hour, back in Nebraska and here in Utah. Sometimes I don't always feel like going but when I do I feel so spiritually refreshed and good inside! The temple is the House of the Lord and is a place you can go to forget the trials and temptations of the world! There is an undeniable spirit in the temple and it is a place we can go to feel that!

Monday, November 7, 2016

3 Months in the Mission


After the Fireside
Hey everyone! Wow I can't believe how fast time is flying here! Thursday November 3rd marked 3 months that I have been on my mission! It seems like yesterday I boarded that plane for Utah! This week was a fairly good week! On Wednesday we had our weekly district meeting, which is always great because we learn new spiritual things and ways to improve our teaching each week! This week we did a lot of inviting. On Tuesday night and Wednesday night we went around to all three church buildings and invited all the youth to invite there friends and to come to the musical fireside this Sunday!

We didn't have a really busy week of teaching, we are searching each day to find new people to teach! We have a few investigators we are working with as well as a family we are trying to reactivate. We have been really blessed this week to receive like 7 referrals! We are really hoping that those referrals turn into some solid investigators as well as baptisms! That is the great thing about Utah is that we get a lot of referrals from members and that certainly helps with people to teach!

I was sad to hear that the Huskers got beat, haha! Oh well I still love them. Sunday was an awesome day, we had 3 people we are teaching come to sacrament meeting which is so good. We also were able to help confirm Cole Young, our recent convert baptism, as a member of the church! We also had the Musical Fireside on Sunday! It was awesome, although we didn't sing in it, I could really feel the spirit. The Ogden Tabernacle was completely packed all the way to the back. We went with a really cool family, the Johnsons!
u
Musical Fireside at Ogden Tabernacle
On a spiritual note I just want to talk about the power of music! What a great experience it was to listen to the wonderful spiritual songs that the Ogden Mission sang. Songs can carry a strong message that can really help change your thoughts and mood! I know for a fact that it is not by chance that we have these Musical Firesides, song always for me brings a strong spirit and that is one way I feel the Spirit the most! On our programs that we handed out to everyone there were two sheets, one was the program and the other was a referral sheet, President Jaggi during the fireside got up and invited everyone to take a few moments and write down someone who they would like to meet with the missionaries, today President posted on Facebook that we have received over 100 referrals from this fireside! That is super awesome and I hope each and everyone of those referrals turn into baptisms! Have a great week everyone!


-Love Elder Bennett

Wednesday, November 2, 2016

Halloween and a Haircut

Happy Halloween everyone! I hope everyone had a fun safe night! So this was a fairly good week. We were supposed to go to rehearsal on Tuesday for our Ogden Utah Mission Fireside coming up but our zone leaders forgot us and so since we missed that we are way behind which is a bummer and won't be singing in it. We had a great district meeting this week and we set up a zone action plan of how we can become a better zone in finding and baptizing. We set a goal of 22 baptisms for our zone in the month of November!.
New Haircut
The bugs are bad here in Utah right now! on our way to a dinner appointment me and Elder Ballard rode our bikes right into a swarm of little flies and we had hundreds on us, it is quite disgusting because whenever we ride bikes they are on us. At least the cold weather will probably kill them off which will be great!




Sent from some members at the Ward Trunk or Treat


On Friday we had the great opportunity of being able to meet a few general authorities. We got to meet Elder Christensen (President of the 70) and Elder Natress of the 70, both of them spoke at the latest General Conference. They were here in Ogden doing a mission tour. We got to shake their hands and meet them. We were also able to have a question and answer with them as well as hear them speak on a few things they wanted to. I learned a lot of good insights and got some of my own questions answered. We then had a awesome lasagna lunch with everyone and it was fun to talk with the other missionaries.
Meeting Elder Christensen and Natress (taken from the mission Facebook page)
We went to a lot of trunk r treat activities this week. We went to one that the Spanish elders invited us too as well as many of the ones in our area. There was a lot of good food, candy, and interesting costumes, still none of them beat the ones from back in my home ward! This week me and Elder Ballard gave talks in the West Park Ward. I spoke on loving thy neighbor and he spoke on member missionary work. I thought it was going to be nerve racking, being that there is twice as many people as I am used to speaking to but it was really easy and I enjoyed preparing one.

For Halloween we got our cards renewed so we had a good time getting some much needed groceries. The weather was awesome for Halloween so everyone was out that day, the Walmart was packed and the lines were crazy long. We tried getting haircuts but they were closed so they told us to come back on Tuesday so we did during our lunch time. For Halloween we went over to a members house and we had pizza and handed out candy to all the kids until we had to be home which was fun!

So on a spiritual note, again we had the opportunity to give a lot of blessings to people in need this week! Each and everyday we must do what we have to do to remain a worthy priesthood holder. You never know when your time is going to come along that you need to give a blessing. So many times we hear many awesome experiences from General Conferences, and from youth videos about times that a blessing has helped tremendously. I loved getting a blessing from my dad each year before school. It was a awesome feeling when you were able to have that sense of comfort and peace and I love being able to give that to other people!
Another angle on that new haircut
Have a great week everyone!

-Love Elder Bennett

sorry I didn't take many pictures this week!

Thursday, October 27, 2016

The Real Reason We are Here on Earth

Halloween Package from his Mummy!
I am doing a really bad job of getting these up on time! Well, this week was a pretty good week. On Tuesday we had dinner at a members house and they helped us get a presentation cardboard cut-out for our companionship unity poster that we had to prepare and present at Zone Conference the next day. We actually spent some time on the board and made it look nice. Wednesday we had Zone Conference. Wednesday was a full spiritual day, we learned many things from the other missionaries in the zone as well as the APs, and President and Sister Jaggi. President Jaggi gave a really awesome lesson about Joseph Smith and I learned some things I didn't know before, which is always awesome. We also had a really good lunch while we were there, we had chili, baked potatoes, rolls, and brownies it was good, the mission always keeps us well fed.
With Elder Ballard
Zone Conference poster

Thursday morning, we had the opportunity to help our landlord fix his sons car, well, really it was all Elder Ballard. He was able to help weld a part on our landlord's car, I took welding in high school but I don't think I could have done as good as he did haha. We also had a awesome night at a members house. We ate with the Hale Family. They made French dip and it was really good, as well as refreshing because we have been having pizza, tacos, and spaghetti for the last week. We had a good time with them and the dad showed us some of his cars which was cool.

We had quite the interesting experience after the dinner. We were heading to the church to use the computer, when we got to the church the silent visual alarms were going off in the church building. We walked around the whole building to see if anyone had broken in or if there was a fire and there was nothing we could see. We tried calling the Bishop but he didn't answer. A member pulled up and asked us what was going on and we told him the situation and we told him we were going to call the police and he said sounds good. Well, I told elder Ballard I wanted to call the police because it has always been in my list of things I've wanted to do haha. So, we called the police and told them what happened and 2 firetrucks and 2 ambulances came and the building manager showed up as well and he shut the alarms off. I guess the reason they were going off was due to faulty alarm being triggered. The firefighters still swept the building to make sure everything was clear and good, it ended up being nothing but hey, it made for one interesting night! Sorry for the low quality pictures all I had was my tablet and the camera isn't very good!
Checked off his bucket list, lol!


Friday was a great day! We had Cole's baptism today. We got the church all set up for it a couple hours before and got the font filled. All the family was able to make it and the baptism went really smoothly!
Cole's Baptsim Day

After the baptism, Brother Hale stopped by and brought us a huge surprise. He gave us a huge laundry basket full of food, snacks, etc. And we found a note in there with some money. I can't believe how spoiled we get here in Utah and I love it, I am also very grateful for the love that is shown to us here.
Brother Hale
Totally Spoiled!
All our favorites!
So generous!
On Sunday we had a special Stake Multi Conference Broadcast for the northern part of Utah and some of Idaho. We went to it at the Stake Center close to our house and it was packed. There was a lot of good messages, and it was cool to have President and Sister Jaggi on that stand representing the Utah Ogden Mission at the Conference. We also were able to hear Elder Craig C. Christensen, the President of the Seventy speak, he is doing a mission tour of the Ogden Utah mission and we get to meet and talk to him on Friday. Monday was a another day we just stayed at the apartment. It was raining all day and we didn't have anything planned.

This week's spiritual message would be on priesthood blessings. On Monday, we got a phone call around noon asking us if we could come give a blessing down at some rundown apartments a little ways from our house. He said he hated to call us but he tried multiple people and he couldn't get anyone. I don't know about Elder Ballard but I personally was kinda mad and upset because, this was our day we had to just relax. Well, we got changed and we biked over in the pouring rain. We got there and we were able to give the blessing. I was truly grateful for the opportunity to give this man a blessing. His living conditions were slim to none, he was almost completely blind and he was sick. I was really humbled by the opportunity we had and was thankful for how blessed I have been in my life. I made it a point to give the guy who was sick our number and told him to text or call us if he ever needed anything and I let him know we were here for him. That event made my day 10x better. I really like the topic of charity and it is something I try to work on each day. I really like the verses and the meaning of Moroni 7:45-47

45 And charity suffereth long, and is kind, and envieth not, and is not puffed up, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil, and rejoiceth not in iniquity but rejoiceth in the truth, beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.
46 Wherefore, my beloved brethren, if ye have not charity, ye are nothing, for charity never faileth. Wherefore, cleave unto charity, which is the greatest of all, for all things must fail
47 But charity is the pure love of Christ, and it endureth forever; and whoso is found possessed of it at the last day, it shall be well with him.

I just wanted to bear my testimony about the love of Christ, I was so thankful for the opportunity I had to humble myself and to see that the real reason we are here in this earth is to have charity for our brothers and sisters. I invite you all to look for and pray for an opportunity to show the pure love of Christ to someone you know or maybe someone you don't, I know if you do that you will feel 10x better and will want to make it a habit, in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
Halloween Package from home