Elder Connor Bennett's Odgen Mission Blog: 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!