Stake Conference

Oct 26, 2015

Dear Family,

I'm doing great this week! I loved my box! There were so many cool things in it. The Tiwi is evil. Just imagine having Hal 3000 in your car all the time.

This week was eventful. Monday was a normal P-Day. We got our heater fixed because it had been out for the past few days.

On Tuesday we had to get an oil change and tire rotation. It took the car place 2 hours to do that. After that we stopped by a less active named Bro P. He had like 6 dogs and they were crawling all over me and Elder Jensen. (DON'T GET A DOG!). After that we stopped by J & L where they showed us their Passion fruit trees.

On Wednesday we helped the youth with a fund raiser of theirs. One of our members we talked with as we were working, "T" is the only active member in his family. For some reason his parents hate the church. Specifically Elders. Neither Elder Jensen or I have been able to get the full story out of him. Anyway, "T" is preparing to go on his mission. His papers are submitted and he talked about how much he hates the waiting game. He brought his sister, Miss E to the youth activity. It was her first youth activity. She's about 12 and apparently has wanted to be baptized since she was 8. "T" introduced us to her and said he wanted us to teach her. We just need to get permission from the parents which according to "T", won't be that hard.

Thursday was District Meeting in Sulpher Well. Later in the day we stopped by another less active named Sis B. We happened to stop by when she was helping one of her neighbors through a hard time. When the neighbor left, Sis B talked to us about sharing the gospel with her. She asked for a Book of Mormon she could give to her neighbor. She even said she wanted to take her neighbor to church. We stopped by Miss R and taught Mr R lesson 3. Let me explain Miss R, Mr R, and Ms K. Ms K is a less active, Miss R is her daughter, and Mr R is Ms K's boyfriend who's taking the lessons. After the lesson Mr R talked about an LDS church he helped build in California back in the 90's. He looked up a picture to show us and found the building burned down 3 months ago. It's not often an LDS church burns down. It's less often you have an investigator who built it only to find it burned down 3 months ago.

Friday was another sick day for us. Elder Jensen occasionally gets serious migraines occasionally. He said it was one of the worst ones he's had. It apparently hurt to move his head. I gave him some Excedrine but that didn't help. It was only a one day thing though. He was perfectly fine the next morning.

Saturday was fun. We had a member Sis X who's a really nice lady. She's fun to visit and she's a strong member. Elder Jensen got a call from Pres. Brough who told him that his grandfather passed. He gave Elder Jensen permission to call home like he did for me. His family has taken it surprisingly well. Apparently his grandfather wasn't in the best health. Later we got word that our branch mission leader, Bro Absher was in the hospital. We went and gave him a blessing. I've been to the hospital many times on my mission.

Sunday was fun too. It was Stake Conference. President and Sis Brough both gave talks on missionary work. They threw down because apparently the members in our stake have strong fears about doing missionary work. One of Sis Brough's opening remarks was "As members, it's our duty to share the gospel. Why is this so hard?" Pres Brough threw down even more by teaching everyone how to get rid of their fear. He said there are 3 things that members can do to get rid of their fear of missionary work. 1: Study the doctrine. 2: Fast and pray for missionary opportunities. 3: Trust the Spirit enough to tell you what to say. Campbellsville is kinda interesting for member missionary work. The Campbellsville branch itself is split up into two missionary areas. There's the Campbellsville area and the Columbia area. Most of the active members live in the Columbia area. The Campbellsville area has a lot of less actives. It's hard to get the members involved because we simply don't have that many. Fear is a big issue too. That's one of the first things that Bro Woodrum, the member who picked me up at transfer meeting, said. The Rodenburgs invited us for dinner. We taught them a quick L1 and they said they needed to be more involved with missionary work. They have friends they can work with and we helped them decide what the best thing to do with them would be.

Well that was this week. It was fun. Now that I look back a lot of stuff happened. Time in general is weird here. It feels like an eternity but at the same time, no time at all. 

As far as I know southern Indiana has part of 2 stakes in it. The New Albany stake, which is where Corydon is, and the Evansville stake.

Thanks for being an awesome family! Take care. Don't get a dog. :)

-Elder Ben

Our branch president, President Rodenburg invited us over for dinner last night.
His son was making these ghost cake things for his teachers and his home teaching families and us. :)

,

My ever growing tie collection.

Here's me and the new blue tie.

I love "studying" the gospel :)

See those round things in the trees?

The candy you sent me and the goldfish I bought.

I've written on the sides :)

Thanks for the box! Here are the two journals side by side.

A couple of our investigators, J & L are growing these in their back yard. They said normally these
grow in places like Hawaii but they think some birds must have dropped the seeds off in their yard.
Now they grow Passionfruit in their back yard. They're actually really good.
But they have the consistency of snot.

They're Passion Fruit :)

Thanks for the shirt! It looks cool. Perfect for Halloween this week.

Me and the shirt!

Tiwi

Oct 19, 2015

Dear Family,

This week was long. It was probably the longest week of my mission, so here we go. 

Monday was P-Day. Nothing special happened.

Tuesday was a normal day.

Wednesday... Wednesday is where things get interesting. That's when we drove up to Louisville to get the Tiwi's installed. The meeting was long. We had to be there at 9:30am and we didn't leave until about 5pm. The Tiwi representative from Salt Lake was probably the most serious guy I've ever met. He said everything with a straight face. Some of the missionaries were asking really stupid questions about speeding and he just kept rolling his eyes. Pres. Brough and Elders Money & Bennett gave good trainings on member-missionary work. After the meeting we went to Mellow Mushroom. After hearing about that place for the last 6 months I finally got to eat there. Boy was it over-hyped! I have no idea what the other missionaries see in that place. It was okay. It did not agree with my stomach at all. After Mellow I went on exchange to Glasgow with Elder Gough. We rode with the Sulphur Well Elders.

Thursday was the exchange day with Elder Gough in Glasgow. We biked all over the place. This was actually a positive bike experience because Glasgow is much flatter than Corydon. I also found Peach Nehi's there.

Friday was a normal day

Saturday Elder Jensen went up to New Albany for a baptism. Elder Larson from Columbia, KY came up and we were on exchange for most of Saturday. It was a fun day. One of the Campbellsville branch presidency's daughters got baptized. That was fun to watch.

Sunday we ate at the Jensons. They have a really, really nice house. Bro Jenson talked a lot about his mission and how much it meant to him. He said he wouldn't be where he is now without his mission.

Well, that was basically this week. It was long. Wednesday didn't help. Miss R's baptism is going to have to be pushed back. Her mom is still apprehensive about it. We're not sure why.

I'll often call upon my JCW's skills and cook myself a delicious deli sammich. Breakfast is soda. Yesterday was my first meal appointment with the Jenson family. Their "weekend home" is down here. They live up in Lexington KY during the week. 

It's getting pretty cold down here. Remember the humid winters? Well I'm about to experience my first one. I'm going to need a lot of thermals. Service varies. There are some weeks where there's none, weeks where there's a little, and weeks where there's a lot. I've done everything from mowing lawns to shoveling donkey crap out of a barn.

Have a nice week!

-Elder Ben

Treasure from Glasgow

*yay* I'm so happy

This card allows us to log into our new friend, Tiwi.

Here's the close up of the Tiwi.

See that little black and white box? That's the Tiwi.
A lot of missionaries suck at driving. They view the mission cars as toys.
The church buys brand new cars for us. I'm driving around in a 2015 Chevy Cruse right now.
They did this to 25 test missions over a period of two months. In those two months
they had over 375,000 violations and about 370 of them were approaching 100mph.

Crestwood and Louisville Zones

Let me tell you what this is. The church installed these at a conference in Louisville on Wednesday.

They monitor our seat belts though the car's computer. They monitor the car's speed through the GPS.

And they monitor any "aggressive" driving (turning fast, RPM violations, breaking too hard, etc.)

through the accelerometer. It talks to you. It sounds exactly like Hal 3000.

If you speed, it'll tell you to slow down. If you don't slow down, it'll tell Pres Brough.

If you don't have your seat belt on, it'll tell you to put it on. If you don't comply, it'll tell Pres Brough.

If you're aggressive with the car, it'll automatically email Pres Brough.

The card I showed you has an RFID chip in it. We have to log into these things in order to drive the cars now.
So when you violate anything, there's a name, time, location, and description of the violation
that Pres Brough will get to see.

Photos

October 12, 2015

Dear Family,

Campbellsville is more urban than Corydon which is more rural. The people here are nicer than Corydon. Campbellsville is better at saying no. I haven't gotten to know the members all to well yet. The Campbellsville branch is split up into two missionary areas. There's the Campbellsville part and the Columbia part. Most of the active members live in Columbia's area. We have all the older less actives in our area. 

Elder Jensen is a great guy! We have very similar personalities. That makes everything easier. Elder Jensen has been out for 18 months. I came out when he hit his year mark. He's from Morgan, Utah. He's a huge gamer. He was in the Sulpher Well video. He's the taller one with glasses. I spit like half of the stuff out. I drank the other half. It tasted exactly like rotten eggs. Sister Webb looked like she was about to lose it. 

Chapter 6 in PMG is probably my favorite chapter in the whole book. Something Elder Zwick said when he was here, which is repeated in Chapter 6, was "Who you become is more important that anything you do."

Sorry about your friend. We really do need to stop with all the funerals. 2015 has been hard. 2016 should be a little better though. As I've said before when things get hard, blessings are on the way. I expect 2017 to be amazing though. I come home that year.

This week was better than last week as far a productivity goes. We only have 1 person who's agreed to baptism here and that's Little Miss R. She's a 9 year old little girl who's the daughter of a less active. She's pretty hyper but her retention is excellent. She's got the 5 steps of the gospel down and the 5 things we're not suppose to partake of from the Word of Wisdom. It's cool to see someone that young just suck up the gospel the way she does. We gave her a children's Book of Mormon and she's had her mom read it to her every night.

We had a cool experience on Saturday. We went through half of our "formers" list and got several names that seemed promising. We went to the house of one of the names, Mr J, and when we knocked, he opened and told us he was just praying about what church he should go to the next day. He told us our presence answered his question. Neither Elder Jensen or I know why the former missionaries dropped him. He asked us to start lessons up again. We had a good discussion about the Sacrament. He's unhappy with his current churches. They apparently don't do the sacrament very often. Sadly he didn't make it to church on Sunday. But we're hopeful that we'll be able to teach him.

Elder Jensen and I had to give the training in District Meeting on Thursday. We trained on chapter 2 of PMG. It went really well. We were trying to teach the district the importance of preparing for lessons. We opened up with a demonstration of what a lesson is like when the missionaries aren't prepared. I was trying to teach the Restoration to an investigator but Elder Jensen was trying to teach the Law of Chastity at the same time. Law of Chastity role-plays always get missionaries busting up laughing because of how awkward they are. Apparently Sister Webb recorded it. I could not keep a straight face. I would say my part like a normal missionary would but I would start laughing as soon as Elder Jensen would talk about the Law of Chastity. The actual training part was well received. The district liked it.

The longer I serve the more and more I'm convinced this is Christ's church. It's too perfect. It all works too well for it to be false. I've known the church was true my whole life but the mission has significantly built upon that early testimony. I'm so happy for this time I've had to serve. I'm also happy that I have a lot longer to go.

I forgot to mention that we did a lot of service for a couple of our investigators who've been investigating for a long time. We had to split and move logs around. They had a log splitter but there were some pieces I had to take a maul to. I felt right at home hacking away at logs again.

Take care. Thanks for being an example and for all that you do :) Have a nice day.

-Elder (You Better Not Get a Dog) Cox 

This is the inside of Emery's. The guy behind the bar is Jason. He's the Emery's guy.
He served all of the ice cream to me during my time in Corydon.

That's Elder Shelley on the other side of Emery's. It has a lot of candy.

Jason gave me a free Peach Nehi. I bought 2 and he threw the third one in.

This is a drawing of Emery's. It looks exactly like that in person.

Corydon blues... Me and a Nehi on the last day in Corydon.

Look at this lovely purple hoodie I got at Butt Drugs. :)

 I forgot to mention this: I was rear ended last week on my last day in Corydon.
I'm fine. No one's hurt. Everyone was a bit shaken but nothing bad happened.

Our back bumper.

This is how we fixed the bumper.
Elder Shelley and the new guy will have to deal with the body shop again.
I think it's funny that happened on my last day.

The Buttiglieri's had us over that night and the Coke's were perfectly themed for what happened earlier that day.

This is how it was the first 3 days in Campbellsville. Rain.
It never stopped. It rained for 3 days straight. No breaks at all.

These are our desks in the apartment.

It's a little cold here.

This is Elder Jensen.

"Ski" is a local soda.

There's a store called Mitchell's here. It's basically a mini Men's Wearhouse.
The lady who runs it loves missionaries. She sells really nice ties. I love that shade of purple.
I was surprised I was drawn to that pink one as well. That's my first pink tie.

This is what our fridge looks like:
We've got a few Cokes, a couple cans of Ski, and 4 packs of Mtn. Dew Game Fuel.
Game Fuel comes out at this time of year in time for the major gaming releases.
They don't call it "Game Fuel" for nothing. Elder Jensen LOVES Game Fuel.

Sulpher Well, KY

This stuff was nasty.

Campbellsville, KY

Oct 5, 2015

Dear Family,

Yup, transferred to Campbellsville. There are a lot of Elder Jensens in the mission. I actually met my companion for the first time in Corydon a few months ago. He and his companion came up for a P-Day in Corydon because they both served in Corydon last year. It's cool to have a companion who previously served in Corydon. 

Well, my first week here it rained for 4 days straight without any sort of break. We had General Conference, and we had to take a sick day because I got a cold and Elder Jensen got some stomach thing. With all those combined, we didn't get a whole lot done this week.

The transfer meeting was interesting. Elder Jensen said its most likely the stress of moving to a new area that cause me to get sick. Campbellsville itself is a nice area. It's more urbanized than Corydon. There is unfortunately, only 1 Emery's in existence and that's in Corydon. :(((((((((

I watched General Conference at the church. I stayed there all day for both days. Food was provided by a couple members between sessions. Conference was completely awesome! I took 25.5 pages of notes in my little study journal. I'm summarizing the notes and am going to send them to you to have. I'm hand-writing them. I've been working on improving my hand-writing for the last 6 months. I've come a long way. It's still not at the level I want it at, but it's a lot better than when I left. I wanted to improve my hand writing after I saw Elder Lynch's. He has nice hand-writing. My new companion, Elder Jensen, has even nicer hand-writing. I was a little sad to see President Monson struggling like that during his talk. But I was happy to see he pushed through. I don't think he's going to live a whole lot longer. There have been a lot of deaths this year. Deaths in the family, deaths on the mission (a recent convert in Corydon, Ms G's daughter, died about a month in my time there), and deaths in church leadership. But we can all take comfort from the fact that death is only a step in God's plan.

I've learned a lot about the love of God for others in my time here. As was said in conference, God looks at who we can become. When you realize that everyone has the potential to become like Heavenly Father or Jesus Christ, you start to treat everyone like royalty almost. Think of it. Think of who Heavenly Father is and all the love He has for us. Everyone has potential to become just that. A perfect being with infinite love. Isn't that cool?

Want some more good videos? I don't know if you know about this, but the church recently made 12 videos for the 12 Step addiction recovery program the church has. Each video is about 5 or so minutes long and each one is someone's personal story with an individual step. You can get them on addictionrecovery.lds.org. Watch all 12 of them in one sitting. That should only take an hour. I would also suggest you read through the addiction recovery program itself. That can be found in the Gospel Library app under the Family section.

It's hard to think I've been doing missionary work for 6 months now. This last conference was my 2nd conference on the mission. I'm half way done with conferences. I've learned so much. I celebrated the 6 month mark on Thursday by burning a tie. I recorded it! 

I got a lot of great pictures from my last days in Corydon and my first days in Campbellsville. I thank God for my family. You've all been so good to me. You've taught me a lot. Keep being awesome!

-Elder Ben

Look at this awesome picture of Mt. Timp I found. It's now my iPad background.

For District Meetings we meet in Sulphur Well KY, or "Sulphur Heck" as

Elder Jensen puts it. It's missionary tradition for new members of the

district to be "baptized" into the district by drinking out of the

well. It was nasty. I'm never doing it again.

Transferred

Sept 28, 2015

Dear Family,

Yes I'm getting shipped out of Corydon on Tuesday. I don't know where I'm going. I'll find that out on Tuesday. I've spent 6 months here. I'm a little sad to leave but I guess I'm needed elsewhere right now. The branch is sad to see me go. Half of them wanted to feed me right then and there.

It's crazy to think I've been out here for (almost) 6 months! I already have the tie I'm going to burn picked out. Elder Lynch left me with the ugliest tie I've ever seen. So I'm going to free the world from the pain of looking at it :)

When I saw that Elder Richard G. Scott died I was like "What the? Another one?" He was only 86. He has a quote at the end of my favorite Mormon Message. Speaking of which, I showed that Mormon Message to the members who own Max, the dog, (DON'T GET A DOG!) and they cried. I didn't think they would cry over it. If you ever want to watch it it's titled "Enduring Love". It's about 4 minutes long. I think it's one of the best examples of charity I've ever seen. 

I don't know where I'll be for conference. I can watch it on my iPad though. I watched part of the Woman's Conference on it. And with the new iOS 9 multitasking features I was able to watch it AND do missionary work at the same time :). Speaking of which, we have permission to use Skype now.

I had a good District Meeting on Thursday. Elder Money trained on effective goal setting. In "The District" videos you should have seen missionaries talking about "Key Indicators" (Goals). Up until this District Meeting I didn't think much about them. They were just numbers. Now I view them as a means to further the work. It's kinda silly it took me that long to realize that. I understood I needed to have a name behind every number but that didn't sink in until this meeting. Elder Money helped me realize that the goals you set should be the Lord's goals. You pray to God and ask Him what goals you set and the numbers you get are what the Lord want's for that week/day. The cool thing about knowing your goals are the Lord's will is you know you'll be able to achieve them. He'll be there to help you. 

Goal setting is a principal that is highly universal in everything you do. In order to achieve something, you need goals to get there. You need to work your way to what you're working for. In missionary work, it's baptisms. You need to find people and teach people in order to get that. In life, you need to achieve something one step at a time. And when you set goals that are the Lord's will, He will help you achieve them. 

There was one moment where I felt the Spirit strongly in that meeting. Elder Money asked us to think of our life's greatest accomplishment. He then asked a few members of the district what theirs was and all the answers he got were school related. The answer for me was my Mission. I consider my mission my life's greatest accomplishment. Everything, including the drum performances, and the Eagle Scout, is second. I realized how much this mission has meant to me. When I was thinking about that, I felt the Spirit very strongly. I knew God was pleased. Although I'm not a perfect missionary, I know God is well-pleased with me. 

Sorry if this email seems all over the place. My mind is everywhere at once with the transfer meeting coming up. 

Keep being an awesome family!

-Elder Ben

Soda!

There are a lot of these here...

Yeah... With the voltages and all the candy you send me
I'll be sure to come home with diabetes.

Oh, just me trying to "study" the gospel of Jesus Christ. Thanks for the cars, Bro!

Rollercoaster

Sept 21, 2015

Dear Family,

It's cooled off a bit. The leaves are starting to fall. We might get one or two more 90 degree days. Mr R and Ms A have been on a bit of radio silence lately. I called him a couple days ago and he's still super interested. Ms A has been having trouble balancing her home and work life so she's hard to meet with. Ms G started progressing again. We were concerned for her because we almost dropped her but she's pulled around and started progressing again. 

Pumpkin ice cream is AMAZING! I first tried it at JCW's with caramel mixed in with it and I thought it was so good but it wasn't until Emery's pumpkin pie ice cream where I completely fell in love with it. The pumpkin, chocolate, and caramel combination is so good! With October coming up you should drop by and get some. You NEED the caramel. It will greatly enhance the flavor. Chocolate is another thing that greatly improves its flavor. 

Have you seen the Mormon Message "Lift"? It's about serving others. There's a quote by Elder Christofferson at the end that says something to the effect of "When we serve others our own spiritual substance increases. It's easier to find ourselves when we serve others because there's so much more of us to find." Ever since I heard that I've been finding a lot of scriptures that back that up. Serving others heals us.  

In answer to your teaching skill question, Chapter 10 in PMG is all about that. Teaching, like everything, improves with practice. The amount of knowledge you have is important but being able to display that knowledge in a way that people can understand is a skill on its own. From what I've learned there are 3 main components to successful teaching:
1- your own knowledge. You have to know the stuff you're talking about. 
2- you need to be able to have the skills to display the knowledge you have in a simple, easy to understand way. 
3- the Spirit. It's not you who teaches people, it's the Holy Ghost. If you have the Holy Ghost with you then what you say will be carried to the hearts. I hope that helps. 

This week was an adventure and a rollercoaster! On Monday I got another Emery's pumpkin pie thing. That's still the best thing I've ever got there. For the last 3 hours of the day we walked and saw everyone we set out to see. We walked so much we had to walk back to the apartment in the dark. It can get pretty dark out here. There was one point where I couldn't see anything. We won't be doing that again. :)

On Tuesday we happened to tract into Mr Ry and his wife. Mr Ry was a man we met contacting in D-Town Corydon. He wasn't really sure who God was because he's had a lot of trials in his life. We talked and testified and talked about the BoM. We lifted him and his wife's outlook on life. Unfortunately we didn't get his contact info so when we parted ways we had no way to find him and teach him again. We actually tracted into his house today. We had a solid first lesson and he was super happy to see us. The Zone Leaders called later and told us they wanted to do an exchange on Wednesday and that they wanted me to go to Jeffersonville with Elder Davidson. They told us they wanted to begin the exchange in the middle of the day. 

On Wednesday Elder Shelley and I started of with being farm hands for a local farmer. We helped him feed some of his animals and clean up his yard a bit. Dad would have been proud of me. We're set to go back soon. I'll try to get some pictures. In the middle of the day we started the exchange. I went with Elder Davidson to Jeffersonville. We had a great time! Elder Davidson and I just clicked together. We were able to bounce off of each other like we had been companions for 2 months already. We taught a really solid lesson to one of their best investigators who's been struggling to accept a baptismal date. Her name was Ms Ra. We actually didn't do a whole lot of talking in the lesson, the member who was present did 90% of the talking. She and Ms Ra just clicked together and were able to get along. We still weren't able to get her to accept a date but she did accept an invitation to pray about one. I had a cool contacting experience at the end of the day. We were walking through some apartments and we saw these two groups. As we were walking towards them Elder Davidson said "I'll get the group on the right, you can take the one on the left." You know me and contacting, so when he said that I had a small heart attack. I went anyway. I did it. I got them to accept a return appointment. I was quite happy with myself that I was able to pull that off. 

On Thursday we had an interesting morning. We got kicked out of two apartment complexes within 20 minutes of each other. The Zone Leaders have had problems with the manager of the first complex. She's tried to kick them out multiple times but the ZLs have investigators there so they've kept returning. She caught us this morning and re-expressed her desires to have us leave in a not so nice way. We actually went back later in the day to try and make peace but she wouldn't have it. The second complex was more of a joke. Right when we got out of the car we started walking towards this lady who was walking her dog. We had a great conversation with her. We found out she wanted to talk to us a while ago but didn't get the chance. In the middle of the conversation a manager came up and very kindly told us we weren't welcome on the property. Apparently someone complained. Oh well. We tried a few more people but the time came to end the exchange. Not much else happened the rest of the day.

On Friday we had interviews with President and Sister Brough. I got to know the Broughs more. President Brough thanked me for being the kind of person to allow the Lord to change my heart. 

On Saturday we taught a lot of lessons and did a lot of walking. One of the lessons I remember the most was with someone named Mr Ty. He reminds me of my 2nd drum teacher. He's had a lot of trials in the past but he's always known God has been there for him. He loves God and he knows we're on His errand. We taught him a quick L1 and he loved it. He asked us why people where so mean to us and I told him it's because we exist. 

On Sunday we had church. Church was great! We had a great sacrament meeting. We had a lot of less actives I've never seen in church at church. The Stake President happened to be there and he talked for a few minutes. Later we ate at the Parkers. They're the ones who own Max, the dog. They really love having us over. At the end of the day we got kicked out of another apartment complex here in Corydon. Only this time it was by the same angry lady who kicked Elder Davidson and me out of the one in Jeffersonville. She recognized me. I think it's funny I've met her as much as I have. 

That was this week. It was crazy. A lot of good and a lot of adventure happened. I know the Lord had our back all the way. He's blessed us so much. I'm happy to have a Savior and a God as great as the one's we have. They truly are watching over the church. I know this is the true church of Jesus Christ. I've had too many experiences to even come close to denying that. 

Thank you for all your support.

-Elder Ben

Elder Shelley

The Hand of God

Sept 14, 2015

Dear Family,

With 90% of everyone down here being baptized into some other church we get asked about baptism a lot. When we get to baptism in the first lesson, most people say something like "Well, I've already been baptized." That's when I have to remind them about Priesthood authority. Surprisingly most people will accept a baptismal invitation. Even when you say their former baptism wasn't valid in a nice way. 

Speaking of pizza, there are two pizza places here that I've heard so much about but haven't been able to go to. I've only heard of them being in Lexington KY and Louisville KY. They are Mellow Mushroom and Mad Mushroom. Apparently they make pizzas that have different ingredient combinations that actually taste good. 

I'm going to tell you Ms A's story. Our branch second counselor, Sal (the amazing cook who made those pastrami burgers), is a manager at the local O'Charlies. One of his coworkers was having a rough time so he pulled her aside and with branch president's permission, gave her a blessing. Some time goes by and she starts to get interested in the gospel. The first time we went to her house she opened the door with excitement and asked "are you guys from Sal's church?" We've had a couple lessons with her since and she's retained everything. She remembers what we teach her and loves learning about the gospel. She said she's been struggling with her faith lately because life's been weighing down on her. She also expressed the frustrations she's had with her former church not being willing to answer her questions. She would always be in trouble because she asked "why?" a lot. We've answered a lot of her questions and she's diving right into the BoM. Her mom tried to "anti" her by saying "they have other books" so when she asked us we told her exactly what those "other books" are and why they're important. When we said that, Amanda asked "do I need to read those to know if this stuff is true?" We said it would be good to read them too but to finish the BoM first because that's the main one. The thing that impressed me the most about her was how intelligent she is. We asked her what she thought the meaning of life was and she said she didn't know. We showed her 2 Nephi 2:25, "Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy" and asked her what she got out of it and she went to town picking that one sentence scripture apart. She gave the kind of explanation someone who's studied the Plan of Salvation would give without even knowing what the Plan of Salvation was. 

I like what Elder M. Russell Ballard said with the tree. That principle is described in Alma 32. It's so true that if you don't nurture your faith it'll die completely. I've seen that with multiple people out here. It's sad really. But I have seen people out here with tons of faith. Let me tell you about Mr R. I don't think I've talked about him before. Here's his story, it starts with the Hermana's. The Hermana's were tracting out an apartment complex one day a few weeks ago. In one of the apartments a lady answered. The Hermana's asked if she wanted a message but she was apprehensive. A few moments go by and the Hermana's heard a man's voice which said "let them in". The lady let them in and the Hermana's met the man who invited them in. His name was Mr R. The Hermans's talked with Robert for a good while. They gave him a BoM that had Ether 12:27 and Moroni 10:3-5 highlighted in it. 

Moroni 10:3-5, "Behold, I would exhort you that when ye shall read these things, if it be wisdom in God that ye should read them, that ye would remember how merciful the Lord hath been unto the children of men, from the creation of men, from the creation of Adam even down until the time that ye shall receive these things, and ponder it in your hearts. And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost. And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things."

They also prayed with him. Some time passed and Mr R gave us a call. He said he wanted to meet. Neither Elder Shelley or I knew who he was but we agreed to meet anyway. When we met him we found that he had read those two highlighted scriptures every day for personal strength. We found out that he's been wanting to change his life for the better for a long time. He told us he was getting to the limit of what he could bear right before the Hermana's gave him that BoM. We found out he had experienced the power of the Holy Ghost testifying of the truthfulness of our message through those two verses alone. We found that he had hungered for the gospel. We taught him most of everything in 2 weeks. The sad part is he's now moved. He wanted to get away from the place that had been the stage of his problems. We contacted the missionaries of where he's moved to and told them everything they needed to know to continue teaching him. When Mr R moved he found that one of his childhood best friends had joined the church a year prior to him finding it. He's now literally running to the font. The first time we met him he was sad and depressed. The last time I saw him, which was 2 weeks after our first visit, he was near exploding with joy. He testified to us that he knew God had reached out to him through us. He knew that God still cared for him. He said he used to worry about what would happen in life but now he's not worried because he knows God will take care of him. At first Mr R was unhappy. But one miracle after another, and now he's completely happy. It was amazing to watch his story unfold. From the Hermana's finding him, to him demonstrating his faith by calling us, to his diligence in studying the gospel, to his testimony of the truth, and to his childhood best friend becoming a member a year prior, I truly feel like I saw the hand of God. It's hard to describe his story in detail without spending 2 hours on this email alone. But I know that God was there for him. I saw it myself. There's absolutely no way that the gospel isn't true. If it wasn't it wouldn't have changed Mr R like that. I already knew the gospel was true from my own experiences, but now I know even more. 

The simple truths of the gospel will lead you to perfection if you let it. I've seen God's hand in the work this week in so many ways. It's been amazing. 

I had a great week. See ya in 18 months!

-Elder Ben

This is the best thing I've ever gotten at Emery's!
I got it my 2nd time there and I finally got to get it again because Emery's changes their flavors out a lot.
It's Pumpkin Pie flavored ice cream with chocolate, caramel, Italian caramel (there's a difference),
and whipped cream. It is absolutely heavenly!

This is Elder Shelley in a food contest with a local member. Elder Shelley lost.

Afro chickens.... enough said.

This was taken after 3 hours of walking around in the heat.

This bunny is one of those solar ray dancing things. We have it taped to our car :)

This is Max. He's a dog. He's 7 months old. He's a member's dog.
These members have us over a lot. I see Max a lot. He's still growing.

Elder Shelley is only an inch or so taller than me.

These are the military-sized scriptures on top of the scriptures you bought me. Aren't they cute?