Tuesday, February 28, 2017

Blessed for our Efforts

Hey everyone sorry I have been really slacking on my blog lately so I apologize for that, I will do my best to be better about writing one each week! These past couple weeks have been super busy 2 weeks ago we went on exchanges with our Zone Leaders Elder Jones and Hutchison, it was a great time. It's always nice to work in a different area and with a new companion every once in a while. The ZLs cover  a lot of trailer parks areas and so it is always fun to go an tract there! You sure do find some interesting people. We did some service up in Ogden couple weeks ago at the Ogden a bike collective. It's a shop where people donate bikes and they repair them there and sell them for half the price. It was pretty fun because we got to repair a lot of bikes, we put on new tires, wheels, chains, etc. It was nice to switch it up and have something different for service. 

Zone Conference
Stake Conference was this week in the area I covered and it was really good. On Saturday we helped set up the stake center with tons of chairs and tables for a dinner before the Stake Conference, I guess it was something new they decided to try this year, but it was really good. Both the adult and Sunday session were great and had a lot of good insights and I learned a lot. It was pretty surprising to me because the stake center itself was nearly empty. We got there 10 minutes before it started and we had a nice soft seat, a lot of the wards just went to there home building to watch it.

setting up for Stake Conference
This last week we did service up at the Salvation army and this time all we pretty much did was hang up clothes from boxes in the back warehouse. I was pretty lucky because just by working back there I found a brand new pair of black church shoes my exact size with the stuffing still inside the shoe and the tags, and I found a heat pad for my back which I hurt earlier that week playing basketball. So I was pretty blessed to find both of those!
Shoes and heating pad I found at Salvation Army
The weather has been crazy this last week. One day it's 60 degrees and the next it's 20 and snowing. I am so done with the winter time and am ready for spring! Earlier this week we were walking and it was sunny and warm and all of sudden it started snowing super hard and so we bundled all up and got covered in snow and then 10 minutes later we are taking all our stuff off again because if got super warm, the weather needs to make up its mind haha.


These past couple pdays have been pretty busy. We have been playing a lot of basketball lately, getting ready for our mission March Madness tournament, and this last pday we went to Rush FunPlex with a lot of missionaries and had a good time bowling, laser tagging, and go Karting.

 Elder Black did the Megladon Burger challenge ($20 & 30 minutes to eat it to get on Wall of Fame) he did it
Elder Ballard bowling
Also our area is starting to pick up, we put a 11 year old boy on date for March, and a 10 year old girl on date for March as well, and are teaching 3 more people who could be on date soon, so the Lord has definitely been blessing us for our efforts.

We had Zone Conference this week and again we were asked to prepare a 3 minute talk to share for
zone Conference and the topic of this talk was pride, the talk was called beware of Pride by Ezra Taft Benson, I'll post my talk on here, it was a super good eye opening talk and can be found in the 1989 general conference session if you would like to read it. Anyways I hope you all have a good week!!


-Elder Bennett 
More Zone Conference



I am grateful for this opportunity I have to speak today, so the topic is Pride and I was actually pretty excited to read and learn more about this topic because this something we all struggle with, and as missionaries we are always striving to improve ourselves. When reading this talk Ezra Taft Benson shared many various examples of Pride that are found in the Book of Mormon as well as the Old and new testament, and something I've learned throughout my life is that if you hear something more than once it must be something that shouldn't be put to the side , and it is evident here that Pride has been something that we have struggled with for a long time.


President Benson mentions some different ways we struggle with Pride. He said Disobedience is essentially a prideful power struggle against someone in authority over us. It can be a parent, a priesthood leader, a teacher, or ultimately God. A proud person hates the fact that someone is above him. He thinks this lowers his position.


Another one is selfishness, he said Selfishness is one of the more common faces of pride. “How everything affects me” is the center of all that matters—self-conceit, self-pity, worldly self-fulfillment, self-gratification, and self-seeking.


Another face of pride is contention. Arguments, fights, unrighteous dominion are all examples of this, Contention in our families as well as in our companionships drives the Spirit of the Lord away. It also affects our missionary work. Contention ranges from a hostile spoken word to worldwide conflicts. The scriptures tell us that “only by pride cometh contention.”


But With every problem we face there is always an answer or an Antidote in which he calls it. The antidote for pride is humility—meekness, submissiveness. It is the broken heart and contrite spirit. Alma 23:7 is a great scripture that talks about some of the antidote, it says- And now I would that ye should be humble, and be submissive and gentle; easy to be entreated; full of patience and long-suffering; being temperate in all things; being diligent in keeping the commandments of God at all times; asking for whatsoever things ye stand in need, both spiritual and temporal; always returning thanks unto God for whatsoever things ye do receive.


Some other ingredients to the antidote or cure to pride is;


*We can choose to humble ourselves by conquering enmity toward our brothers and sisters, esteeming them as ourselves, and lifting them as high or higher than we are.
*receiving counsel and chastisement.
*forgiving those who have offended us.
*rendering selfless service.
*confessing and forsaking our sins and being born of God.
*loving God, submitting our will to His, and putting Him first in our lives.


And probably my favorite one is We can choose to humble ourselves by going on missions and preaching the word that can humble others. In closing I am grateful for the opportunity that we all have to be on a mission here and to not only help other people but see improvement in our lives, I am grateful for the teachings of the church leaders and the power of the book of Mormon, and I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ Amen.







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