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!

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!

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!

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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

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!