Serving in Kentucky: Halloween

November 2, 2015

Dear Family,

My Halloween was a little boring. Holidays in general are hard to work as a missionary. Everyone's gone, with family, having parties, etc. etc. We can't really go knocking on doors because we'd be mistaken for trick or treaters. The Rodenbergs invited us over at night though and we played some board games.

On most holidays we get 6 to 9 off. That means we stop doing missionary work when the trick or treating starts. The only two holidays that are different are Thanksgiving and Christmas. We get the whole day off for those two.

Why is work an important gospel principle? Well, one of our purposes here on earth is to learn to be happy. Learning requires acting/working. It's best to learn something by doing it. When you work with the gospel i.e. keep the commandments, you learn of its blessings and grow as a person. I've seen so many blessings from my service here. It would take too long to list them all.

The many pictures I sent basically depicted all the major stuff that happened this week. One thing I didn't get a picture of was we had a first lesson with this woman named Ms C. She's met with missionaries before but she never seriously investigated. We took one of our members over, had a great first lesson, and committed her to baptism. It was great to have a member there because it's harder to get members out here in Campbellsville.

Instead of recapping my week to you I want to talk a little bit about what I've learned on my mission so far.

One of the first things I learned on my mission, and I still continue to see day to day, is how All-Powerful God, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost are. Back in the MTC and the early days of my mission I prayed that God would turn me into the missionary He needs me to be. I realized every trial I went through was necessary to turn me into the person I needed to be. I guess it's more like God's been turning me into the person I needed to be my whole life. I just didn't realize how involved He was until my mission. When I realized that, that's when I changed. That's when I progressed. I've been able to see that same change in a few people's lives out here. There's nothing like the mission to help you realize how real God is. How real His Son Jesus Christ and His Atonement is. And how real the power of the Holy Ghost is.

Something I've been hearing a lot lately is "There's nothing like the mission to help you appreciate your parents". That is very true.

Well, that was basically this week. It was a good one. Love you :)

-Ben

This is the best store bought chocolate milk I've ever had!

Yay! Look what I found at the local Kroger.

We had District Meeting in a suspended cabin in Sulpher Well this week.

More cabin

"Ski" soda

The area surrounding the cabin.

This is the outside.

These are the cars.

The Cruze

Elder Bennet on the Cruze.

The deck

More deck

Cool chair

This is what driving in Sulpher Well is like - dirt roads and brand new cars.

Elder Jensen on the lawn mower.

These are some of J & L's 42 chickens fighting over an apple.

We had to build our own wood ramp to unload the thing.

We had to use a train jack to get it completely down.

This is a storm shelter J & L have in their back yard. We have the joy of cleaning out on Tuesday morning. :)

Our service project of the week was helping load, transport, and
unload an $8000 hot tub for J & L. All the rednecks
on the street were double-taking the truck.