Receive Hope

Alma 22:16 - "If thou desirest this thing, if thou wilt bow down before God, yea, if thou wilt repent of all thy sins, and will bow down before God, and call on his name in faith, believing that ye shall receive, then shalt thou receive the hope which thou desirest."

At zone conference

Hey everyone this week has been a pretty good week! Nothing really exciting has happened this week so this will probably be fairly short. This week has been a lot of finding still. It feels like we are out all day long! 

Quasimoto

We have talked to well over 200 people this week and have found a couple of potential investigators that are working towards baptism. We have found a lot of people accept baptism but 90%of the people we have found don't live in our area so it's a bummer but it still exciting to help other areas out with people they can teach.

low clouds and first snow

I am super excited for General Conference this upcoming weekend! We get to go down to General Conference on Saturday Morning with two of our recent converts Sunshine and Breana. And then we will go to the Priesthood session later that night. 

Awesome view of the sun hitting the mountains after a long grey gloomy day, made it look like the mountains and trees were on fire!

We are super lucky we get the chance to go down to the Conference center and hear from our modern day Prophet and Apostles. Elder Jeffery R. Holland is my favorite Apostle by far and I love the way he testifies and teaches of Christ so I always look forward to hearing from him and am super excited because he will be coming to speak to our mission in February!

President Jaggi

Today was our mission 5k and it went super well!!! It was pretty chilly this morning but then became warm as the day went on! 

I ran pretty good, I don't know it's exact time but I feel like I ran 10x better than last time we did it. 

No sit up or pushup contest this year so that made things go quicker. 

We played a lot of basketball and football after lunch and then we got a giant mission picture in a form of a heart thanking the family that the movie Love Kennedy was about for letting us see it for free with our investigators and as a mission.


Another than that I hope you all have a great week! 

Find His Lost Sheep (& Puppies?)

Alma 36:3 "And now, O my son Helaman, behold, thou art in thy youth, and therefore, I beseech of thee that thou wilt hear my words and learn of me; for I do know that whosoever shall put their trust in God shall be supported in their trials, and their troubles, and their afflictions, and shall be lifted up at the last day."

Puppies that they pass by daily

Hey everyone this week was a fairly good week, there was a lot of ups and a lot of downs. Well first I will talk about the ups this week. Well, we had transfers and my son Elder Tlustek and I are staying together for another transfer here in the Jefferson 1st ward in Downtown Ogden. We also have a lot of new faces in the Weber West Zone which is awesome. One of the common things among us missionaries is that if you come into the Weber West Zone you never leave, lol. There has been a handful missionaries that have been there, their entire mission so far. I have been in this zone since December so I have been here for a while as well, I have a feeling this is my last transfer here so I am going to make the most of it here!


We are teaching our recent coverts Sunshine and Bre still and helping them get to the temple. We have talked to them about family history and the mom is super excited to go and do family names in the temple!.


The weather has been amazing! Fall is my favorite time of the year. I love the cooler weather, wearing sweaters and the good food! This week the weather hovered in the 50-60s and let me tell you, weather has a huge impact on missionary work, we both felt like we had a ton of energy and it wasn't brutal walking all day in 80-100 degree weather so that has been nice!


Well, a good week always has it's downs, a few of the downs this week were we had 6 or 7 people who told us they would be at church, including two of our investigators who are scheduled to be baptized next week who had to come to church today not show up so that's super frustrating as a missionary because you know how much it can bless their life!


One way I saw the Lord's hand in my life this week was the beautiful weather that allowed us to be outside all day and talk to a lot of people, we are currently in a finding mode right now for new people to teach and the Lord has provided ways for us to be out in His vineyard and finding His lost sheep. I hope you all have great week!

 

Beautiful sunrise

Come and Fear Not

Alma 7:15- Yea, I say unto you come and fear not, and lay aside every sin, which easily doth beset you, which doth bind you down to destruction, yea, come and go forth, and show unto your God that ye are willing to repent of your sins and enter into a covenant with him to keep his commandments, and witness it unto him this day by going into the waters of baptism.

Hey everyone, this past couple of weeks have been great! It's been busy with teaching, doing service, a baseball game, and baptisms.

We had the wonderful opportunity to baptize two of our investigators that we had been teaching for a few weeks now. Their names are Sunshine and Breana. We found Sunshine and Breana a few Saturday's ago street contacting. We stopped by and we started teaching them. The mom (Sunshine) said that she has met missionaries in the past before but never really took it seriously. Well we went over pretty much every single day teaching them and helping them find the truth. Breana(9 years old) is a very energetic loving girl. Sunshine is Breanas grandmother and has raised her since she was a child. It has been such a privilege to become Breanas Big Brothers and Sunshine sons haha, they told me and elder Tlustek that we are now part of the Lambert family. It was so awesome to get them baptized, it has been a long process. Sunshine has gone through 4 or 5 sets of Elder's/Sisters and we were so happy we were able to help her and Breana enter into the waters of baptism and receive the Holy Ghost! And right now we are working with Sunshine to get to the temple and she is excited to do family history as well!

On Friday we got to go to a Minor League baseball game in Ogden! 3 or 4 weeks ago we had a member of the church pull over and tell us that he works for the Ogden Raptors Baseball team ( Los Angeles Dodgers farm team) and we could go to a game anytime we want and bring as many people as we want. We had the opportunity to bring one of our Investigators (Hayden 12) who is planning on getting baptized on the 23rd of September. It was great because we have really good recent convert boys his age that went with us and helped fellowship him and by him getting comfortable with the boys he is gotten excited to go to church and spend time learning more. The game was awesome. The Raptors were down 7-3 going into the bottom of the 9th inning and they ended up coming back and winning on a walk off hit.

We also had the oppurnity to do some service this week in West Point at a farm. We dug holes for fence post, Rewired fences, and cleaned up around the farm. It reminded me a lot of home back in Nebraska! 

Doing service

Anyways I miss all you guys and hope you have a good week !

Worship center in our area

Super good meal before the baseball game!

Barbie Jeep that we pass by often

Our mission posterity. Elder Beard-Barrett is my mission grandfather, then I'm the grandson and then elder Tlustek my son is the great grandson, all were missing is my dad (my trainer Elder Ballard)

Cool treehouse in one of our senior couple's yard

Drugs found at apartment building in our area :(

A Great Love for Missionary Work

Hey Everyone, I hope you all had a good week! So a lot has happened in the last couple of weeks. 2 weeks ago I became a Trainer aka a "Father"in the mission. I was pretty nervous at first but also super excited. As trainers we have a training meeting all day along side the greenies starting around 9 am and we didn't get to find out who our companion was until around 5, so the wait was killing me haha! I ended up getting my "son", his name is Elder Tlustek, he is from Bedford, Indiana and he is an awesome missionary. 

Father & Son

Elder Tlustek and I get along super well! We like a lot of the same things and he has a great love for missionary work so it has been awesome. 

My pizza- Elder Tlustek had wings

On our first pday together we had the privilege of being able to go the temple together! It was such an awesome day! 

The weather was great. On Wednesday of last week we had our annual zone conference, it was a pretty big zone conference because of two things, first off, our entire mission got smartphones! Our mission is only the second mission in the world to have them and we as a Utah mission are lucky because we get to pilot a lot of the new stuff the church is trying out. The smartphones have data and make getting numbers a lot easier, we can have group text among our mission and overall is a huge upgrade from our old slide phones haha. 

Smartphone

Secondly we found out that Elder Jeffery R Holland is coming to our mission in February to do a conference! Crazy to think that I will be out 19 months by then! I'm also really excited because he is my favorite apostle!

District Pday Activity

On Saturday we had a baptism for a boy named Traxton (9) his family and him moved to our area about 4 weeks ago and we found them and started teaching him and got him baptized. I was super excited for Elder Tlustek that he got to have his first baptism and do the baptizing. Right now we have about 6 people on date for baptism who we are working with so the work is going great here.

Traxton's baptism

On pday we had a big get together at the church building with all the missionaries in our Zone to watch the Solar Eclipse. It was sort of disappointing because Nebraska was one of the best states to watch it from and they got to experience a total eclipse where it got dark and covered the sun, whereas as in Utah it was just a little bit dimmer than usual and was a partial eclipse. Overall it was still awesome and fun to be with a lot of missionaries!




One scripture that I really like and that has helped a lot of the people we are working with right now is Ether 12:27


And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them.


I really like that because if we humble ourselves and turn to God for help, he will always be there to show us what we need to work on and improve. I know at times we don't like to admit we have weaknesses but the last thing Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ want is for you to hold it in and struggle. It's a promise that if we have faith and turn to them for help that they will make weak things become strong!


Love you all


-Elder Bennett

Still Alive & Doing Fantastic

17 Wherefore, do the things which I have told you I have seen that your Lord and your Redeemer should do; for, for this cause have they been shown unto me, that ye might know the gate by which ye should enter. For the gate by which ye should enter is repentance and baptism by water; and then cometh a remission of your sins by fire and by the Holy Ghost.
18 And then are ye in this strait and narrow path which leads to eternal life; yea, ye have entered in by the gate; ye have done according to the commandments of the Father and the Son; and ye have received the Holy Ghost, which witnesses of the Father and the Son, unto the fulfilling of the promise which he hath made, that if ye entered in by the way ye should receive.
19 And now, my beloved brethren, after ye have gotten into this strait and narrow path, I would ask if all is done? Behold, I say unto you, Nay; for ye have not come thus far save it were by the word of Christ with unshaken faith in him, relying wholly upon the merits of him who is mighty to save.
20 Wherefore, ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men. Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father: Ye shall have eternal life.
21 And now, behold, my beloved brethren, this is the way; and there is none other way nor name given under heaven whereby man can be saved in the kingdom of God. And now, behold, this is the doctrine of Christ, and the only and true doctrine of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, which is one God, without end. Amen.

Hey Everyone. It has been awhile since I have written a blog! Don't worry I haven't died, haha! I am doing fantastic, I am just super lazy about writing my blog!


Well I don't know where to begin It has been so long since I last wrote, well first off I am doing Fantastic, right now I am serving in an area called "J1" My area covers downtown Ogden from 24th-30th st, Jefferson to Wall, so it is not a huge area but it is still pretty big. Me and my companion only cover one ward which is awesome. This ward has so much work to be done and with so many people who move in and out of Ogden there is always someone to teach. 

Bball

My area is what the mission calls "Legendary" my area is awesome because every single day we see so many walks of life, from homeless people to tourists to normal every citizens. There is always something new that happens in downtown Ogden. There hasn't been a single day since I have been here that I haven't not heard the sirens go off at least 2 or 3 times haha. There is always something going on downtown like a marathon or movie night or something. There is also these taco stands downtown in front of the Capital building that are super popular so many people go down there and buy these Authentic Tacos, I have had them a couple times they are pretty good!

Tacos

We are super busy here in this area every single day. Something our mission has been doing lately is keeping track of OYMs, I2Bs, and New. So OYM stands for Open Your Mouth. How we track OYMs is you have to street contact someone you don't know and share a gospel principle or invitation and that counts as one, if there was a large group of people and I was talking to the whole group that would still count as just 1. I2B stands for Invitation to Baptism so that is how many times you invite someone to baptism,we are taught to invite as many people as we can and New means a New Investigator. In order to get a new Investigator you must invite someone to be baptized( they can accept or reject the invitation) and then set up a return appoint for us to come see them again. So we are busy OYMing people all day long finding those people who are ready to receive the gospel and come closer to Jesus Christ. Our area has the highest amount of OYM in the entire mission. The other day me and my companion broke the mission record for OYMs we had OYM:74 I2B:13 and new:5. It was a pretty great day and we had 5 lessons that night so we were non-stop talking to everyone we could.


These last couple of weeks we have found a lot of people and have been working with a lot of people for baptism. On Saturday, we baptized a lady named Hailey. Hailey is awesome she has been getting the lessons for about 3 months now but finally felt like she was ready to be baptized. She is great to teach and has a special desire to come closer to Christ everyday which is amazing! 

Hailey

On Sunday we baptized a kid named Brent. Brent has a unique story, so Brent is 21, he has had rough start in life and he is currently homeless, we found Brent OYMing one day and he said he would like to be baptized. Typically we are pretty skeptical when we teach homeless people because it is hard to communicate everyday with them and typically they are never in the same place. Well Brent had a tablet and so we were able to have a lesson with him everyday and he never missed a lesson. We were originally supposed to baptize Brent on the 15th of July but his aunt bought him a bus ticket so he could move back to Colorado and live with her but he still really wanted to be baptized so we moved the baptism to Sunday and it was super awesome, there a different light in his eyes that I had never seen before after he came up out of the water, it was so cool! 

Brent

We also have another baptism next week for a lady named Veronica she is awesome as well!

I got permission to go to lunch with my cousins & aunt & uncle

Here are bunch of pictures from the last couple months:

Hiking on Pday

the falls

Service