Well, today was a pretty long day I was on exchanges for the day in Sunset with Elder Dimond and it started by getting up at 5:40 am, we got picked up by ZLs and we worked out at Syracuse High school. I did a T25 workout with one of the other elders and I was exhausted!.When we got done we went back and did our morning routine. It is a little different doing my morning routine with someone new but it was a good learning experience. We had a busy day, after our first lesson fell through we tracted for an hour and met some good people. We then hit up subway for lunch. We then went and visited a few other investigators they were teaching. We then visited the young women's presidents house and got some referrals. We then had dinner at a family's house and we had good ole fashion hamburgers and hot dogs which were great. We then went with another member and visited a less active and we were able to teach a lesson and then put one of their sons on date for baptism which was awesome. We then visited another person named Jessica who they have put on date. The only problem holding her back was her smoking problem and we taught her a lesson on the importance of keeping our bodies clean and healthy. We then tracted for a while then we headed back for the night. Walking around all day and not having my bike made me realize how thankful I am to have a bike haha!
Wednesday August 31st
Wednesday started off with a district and zone meeting in the morning. After a short zone meeting we split off into our districts and had a lesson by Elder Dimond our DL. Our lesson was on how we can overcome discouragement as missionaries. It was a really good lesson and I learned a lot. After that we do what we call district tracting. So we all went on exchanges with someone new for an hour. I went with one of ZLs Elder Alman. He is one of the coolest Elders here and he is from Norway. We knocked a few doors then came across this older lady and we had quite the talk with her. Her son is a member but she isn't. She believes only in science so it was interesting to hear what she had to say and had some very odd and interesting ways she tried to prove us wrong. We left her a Book of Mormon and she said she would give it a look and we both bore our testimonies. After that it was lunch time so we rode our bikes to the Pizza factory and had some really good pizza! Pizza seems like the food I can eat and never get tired of it. We talked to a guy named Andrew in the apartment complex we cover and we shared a spiritual message and we put him on date for the 24th of September which is awesome. We then biked over for dinner at the Mauulao Family. They were an awesome family and they cooked some awesome chicken! The dad was really cool and treated us like royalty.. We shared a spiritual message about charity and the pure love of Christ and it was an awesome message. We were supposed to go on splits tonight but it fell through but Brother Furner happened to call us and asked Elder Ballard if he could look at his car. When we got there Elder Ballard was able to find the problem in less than 10 minutes and the next thing I knew we were at O'Reily's getting the part to fix it. Brother Furner got us some Frostys at Wendys and after about an hour Elder Ballard was able to fix the part and get the car running again. The Furners were very grateful because it save them a towing fee and a trip to the shop.
Thursday September 1st
Today was a pretty laid back day. We didn't have anything till around noon. We got on our service clothes and biked over towards the house of the project. We stopped at Taco Time and got our weekly free food which is always great. We finished eating about 30 minutes early so we headed over to a pawn shop near buy and looked around. It had a lot of cool stuff in it and it helped pass the time. We biked over to the members house and there was a lot of other missionaries there too.
We did some yard work we pulled all the weeds all around there house, mowed there front and back lawn, and cleaned up sticks around there place. There was a lot of spiders while we were pulling weeds and I guess they have tarantulas here in Utah and they found one a couple days ago. After we were done they bought us Little Cesar's pizza and we had a good time eating. Then we played some basketball at their place after. After dinner we stopped by this humongous house in Syracuse. It is essentially a mansion and they have an huge pool house and full indoor basketball court and it the winter they convert it to a half sized hockey rink. After a long ride home we took a little powernap then we were off to dinner. The dinner was at the Oakstone apartments about a 15 minute bike ride away from our place and it was down pouring outside and storming. We called Elder Barlow and we were thankful for a ride to our dinner appointment. We had a nice dinner with a small family.
We then got a ride home and then after the storm passed we rode our bikes over to a members house and got him the details to set up the program for Aiden's Baptism. We then got a ride to Walmart and did our grocery shopping.
Friday September 2nd
Today we didn't have anything again until noon. The Barlows picked us up for our weekly meeting at their place. We had really good hoagie sandwhiches. After the meeting we went to a few stores with Elder Barlow to look for some shoes. It is hard around 1-3 because everyone is at work or the kids are at school so it is pretty slow hours. We went over to tract at some apartments that all the previous missionaries call the Stinky Apartments. The story behind the Stinky Apartments is when some elders were tracting there one time they knocked on a door and they could smell something awful. The guy came to the door and looked pretty nervous and was like- what do you want? After talking to him for a little bit and then the elders asked him what that smell was he just said I'm busy. They said it smelled like a rotting body or animal. They never found out what is was but they know the police and fire department showed up there a few hours later. Anways so me and Elder Ballard biked over there. Well, it was a dirty apartment complex inside and out. The previous elders have tracted there and said only two people said they could come back. So we went and tried the two doors one answered and said they weren't interested and the other didn't answer. So we just left. Our dinner appointment said they wouldn't be able to have us so they just bought us pizza for dinner. Elder Palomo and Elder Escobar came over and they had dinner at our place so it was a good time. We then went over and had a lesson with Aiden and the district leader came and gave him his baptismal interview and he passed which was awesome.
Saturday September 3rd
Well, today we had an early morning. We got up at 530 am and we biked about 20 minutes to the Syracuse stake center to play speedball. Speedball is like soccer, basketball, and football combined. It is played on the basketball court. After the teams are split up one team starts with the soccer ball in their hands. The objective is to get close to your hoop and shoot the soccer ball and make it. Once the ball touch the ground the only way to get it back up is to have one of your own teammates kick it back up to you. It was super fun and super tiring as well. After that we biked back to the place. We took a little nap and then got ready for the day. Today was a big day because it was Aiden's Baptism. We originally had Aiden's Baptism set for 11 am but due to the stake baptism day going from 9-1 we had to have it at 2 pm. We biked up to the state center at around noon to get Elder Ballard his suit. After that we went back and had some lunch and then headed back up around 1:30. It was nice because the font and room were already set up for us. We told Aiden and his family to be there at 1:50. We were getting kind of nervous because it was 2 pm and they hadn't shown up yet. They eventually showed about 10 minutes later. It was a good baptism, Elder Ballard baptized him and I helped do the 4 minute restoration with Elder Dimond. After the baptism we went to go take pictures bu only 1 turned out clear.
We then got a ride home and then after the storm passed we rode our bikes over to a members house and got him the details to set up the program for Aiden's Baptism. We then got a ride to Walmart and did our grocery shopping.
Friday September 2nd
Today we didn't have anything again until noon. The Barlows picked us up for our weekly meeting at their place. We had really good hoagie sandwhiches. After the meeting we went to a few stores with Elder Barlow to look for some shoes. It is hard around 1-3 because everyone is at work or the kids are at school so it is pretty slow hours. We went over to tract at some apartments that all the previous missionaries call the Stinky Apartments. The story behind the Stinky Apartments is when some elders were tracting there one time they knocked on a door and they could smell something awful. The guy came to the door and looked pretty nervous and was like- what do you want? After talking to him for a little bit and then the elders asked him what that smell was he just said I'm busy. They said it smelled like a rotting body or animal. They never found out what is was but they know the police and fire department showed up there a few hours later. Anways so me and Elder Ballard biked over there. Well, it was a dirty apartment complex inside and out. The previous elders have tracted there and said only two people said they could come back. So we went and tried the two doors one answered and said they weren't interested and the other didn't answer. So we just left. Our dinner appointment said they wouldn't be able to have us so they just bought us pizza for dinner. Elder Palomo and Elder Escobar came over and they had dinner at our place so it was a good time. We then went over and had a lesson with Aiden and the district leader came and gave him his baptismal interview and he passed which was awesome.
Saturday September 3rd
Well, today we had an early morning. We got up at 530 am and we biked about 20 minutes to the Syracuse stake center to play speedball. Speedball is like soccer, basketball, and football combined. It is played on the basketball court. After the teams are split up one team starts with the soccer ball in their hands. The objective is to get close to your hoop and shoot the soccer ball and make it. Once the ball touch the ground the only way to get it back up is to have one of your own teammates kick it back up to you. It was super fun and super tiring as well. After that we biked back to the place. We took a little nap and then got ready for the day. Today was a big day because it was Aiden's Baptism. We originally had Aiden's Baptism set for 11 am but due to the stake baptism day going from 9-1 we had to have it at 2 pm. We biked up to the state center at around noon to get Elder Ballard his suit. After that we went back and had some lunch and then headed back up around 1:30. It was nice because the font and room were already set up for us. We told Aiden and his family to be there at 1:50. We were getting kind of nervous because it was 2 pm and they hadn't shown up yet. They eventually showed about 10 minutes later. It was a good baptism, Elder Ballard baptized him and I helped do the 4 minute restoration with Elder Dimond. After the baptism we went to go take pictures bu only 1 turned out clear.
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| Aiden's baptism |
After that we went home and then we biked down to our dinner appointment. We ate at a young couples house, they are both return missionaries and the husband served in Peru. So we had a Peruvian dinner. We had a green spaghetti it covered in basil and spinach. We got served a lot of it and since I'm not picky I ate all of it but Elder Ballard didn't care for it haha. We then had a mystery meat which happened to be cow heart, I thought it tasted good. Then we had a sweet tasting slushy drink. It is made from the purple corn grown in Peru. He told us that is ferments super fast so if he would have made it earlier this morning by the time we would have drank it, it would be alcoholic. After that we went to the stake center for our weekly Saturday night basketball games with investigators. Well no one showed up so me and Elder Ballard just played horse. I was super homesick today because it was the first Husker game. It reminded me of watching college football and Husker games with the family every week. I am glad Nebraska got the win though!
Sunday September 4th
Well today started off pretty early, we had a stake presidency meeting with all the missionaries at 7 at the church. Today was the day that Aiden was being confirmed. It was awesome to be able to help confirm Aiden a member of the church and to receive the gift of the holy ghost. It was pretty awesome because the dad, Kenny, was singing all the hymns and paying close attention to the meeting. I think that having his son set the example for him to want to come closer to Jesus Christ and be baptized is certainly going to help. It was cool to have Aiden sit by me and ask me a lot of good questions you wouldn't expect a 10 year old to ask. It just so happen to be fast and testimony meeting today and Aiden pokes me and asks "can I go up there?" and I said sure, so I taught him how to open and close and he did an awesome job. It was pretty funny because while he was up there waiting his turn he was bouncing up and down in his chair and waving at us haha. After church we stopped by Aiden's house and had a good spirtual lesson with the dad. Our goal is to have Kenny and Aiden'slittle brother Darrin (9) baptized in October. We had dinner again down in the Oakstone apartments with a young family. It was pretty interesting because they had a ton of Harry Potter stuff including there dining table was all painted Harry Potter. After dinner we went home and the ZLs picked us up. They took us back down to Oakstone to knock on a door that some referred to us. Well, it just so happened that they gave us the wrong door number because we have already taught these people before. Well so me and Elder Ballard decided to knock the door next to it. A guy opened up and said hey elders. They were a few returned missionaries. One of them had just gotten back from his mission 5 days ago. We talked with them a bit and they were really cool. They were about to go pick up some home made salsa and asked if we wanted to come. They dropped us off at the soccer fields and they wanted us to meet there other return missionary friends too. They were all super cool and nice and they took us to our next appointment. They offered to give us a ride anywhere and we asked if we could get a ride to go hiking at Adams Canyon in the morning and they said mind if we come? It was awesome they were super cool.
Monday September 5th
Today was a great day. We got up at 5:30 and got ready to go hiking. Jenyr, one of the returned missionaries came and picked up with his little brother Devin. We stopped by Krispy Kreme to kill some time while we waited for the other RM, Colton, to go pick up Elder Fu and Welch and his friend. Anyways after that we headed to Adams Canyon.
Sunday September 4th
Well today started off pretty early, we had a stake presidency meeting with all the missionaries at 7 at the church. Today was the day that Aiden was being confirmed. It was awesome to be able to help confirm Aiden a member of the church and to receive the gift of the holy ghost. It was pretty awesome because the dad, Kenny, was singing all the hymns and paying close attention to the meeting. I think that having his son set the example for him to want to come closer to Jesus Christ and be baptized is certainly going to help. It was cool to have Aiden sit by me and ask me a lot of good questions you wouldn't expect a 10 year old to ask. It just so happen to be fast and testimony meeting today and Aiden pokes me and asks "can I go up there?" and I said sure, so I taught him how to open and close and he did an awesome job. It was pretty funny because while he was up there waiting his turn he was bouncing up and down in his chair and waving at us haha. After church we stopped by Aiden's house and had a good spirtual lesson with the dad. Our goal is to have Kenny and Aiden'slittle brother Darrin (9) baptized in October. We had dinner again down in the Oakstone apartments with a young family. It was pretty interesting because they had a ton of Harry Potter stuff including there dining table was all painted Harry Potter. After dinner we went home and the ZLs picked us up. They took us back down to Oakstone to knock on a door that some referred to us. Well, it just so happened that they gave us the wrong door number because we have already taught these people before. Well so me and Elder Ballard decided to knock the door next to it. A guy opened up and said hey elders. They were a few returned missionaries. One of them had just gotten back from his mission 5 days ago. We talked with them a bit and they were really cool. They were about to go pick up some home made salsa and asked if we wanted to come. They dropped us off at the soccer fields and they wanted us to meet there other return missionary friends too. They were all super cool and nice and they took us to our next appointment. They offered to give us a ride anywhere and we asked if we could get a ride to go hiking at Adams Canyon in the morning and they said mind if we come? It was awesome they were super cool.
Monday September 5th
Today was a great day. We got up at 5:30 and got ready to go hiking. Jenyr, one of the returned missionaries came and picked up with his little brother Devin. We stopped by Krispy Kreme to kill some time while we waited for the other RM, Colton, to go pick up Elder Fu and Welch and his friend. Anyways after that we headed to Adams Canyon.
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| Adams Canyon |
It was pretty chilly out. It was low 50 degrees with a slight breeze and we were all in shorts and sweatshirts. We started up on a trail that lead up to the beginning of Adams Canyon. For some reason we just took off on a different trail that had barely if rarely ever gets used. I could see why it never got used because it was straight up and super steep. I felt bad for Jenyr because he was carrying a camping stove and a bunch of breakfast food to eat up wherever we stopped. We hiked up for about 45 minutes till we found this perfect spot.
When we got up there Elder Fu found a perfectly white egg. We don't know where it came from and we thought there was a dead bird inside of it, Anyways, he had fun taking pictures with the egg.
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| Elder Fu's egg |
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| Elder Fu & his egg |
It was really an awesome place because you could see out over everything and the sun was just starting to come up it was awesome.
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| Sunrise in Adams Canyon |
We left our camera with the people cooking breakfast and we headed about another 1000 ft up to a huge rock formation and we climbed up there and got some really cool pictures.
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| Elder Bennett is in the middle of this group |
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| Elder Bennett & Elder Ballard |
Elder Fu was making us all really nervous because he was climbing, standing, and sitting on the very edge of rock fixtures that were over hanging a super big drop off.
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| Elder Fu- crazy!!! |
After that we climbed down and went and had breakfast. We had eggs, bacon, and toast, it was awesome.
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| Breakfast |
With the music going and eating breakfast on the top of the mountain with our feet dangling off the edge was awesome.
We ended up cooking the egg, and no there was no dead bird inside, we all partook of the egg and it was good!. We decided to head back down. We ended up going back to Jenyrs house and we all just chilled there and wrote emails. After a while Jenyr took us to the mall and Ballard returned and got himself a different suit. We got back and went to a barbecue that Aiden'sfamily was having with their neighbors. We had some good food there. We went in and talked to Aiden for a bit and then someone came up and said " Your bikes got stolen" we got really nervous because in this part of town we always lock our bikes but forgot to do that tonight. We came out and saw everyone trying to hold back from laughing so immediately we knew they had pranked us haha. Overall it was a really fun P-day.
Elder Bennett
Elder Bennett
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| Cute dog that Connor said made him homesick for Mo |
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| Connor is under strict instructions to send me a photo of himself every week, he told me I need to send him one of Mo everyweek, lol! |
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