Service

Nov 9, 2015

Dear Family,

I'm not getting transferred. Elder Jensen hasn't had any headaches lately. He's been drinking more water lately.

Jesus Christ is about to become Kylii and Ian's best friend. The MTC has a tendency to "force" a testimony into you. I think that's because you spend all your time studying the word of God. If you remember my scripture plaque, the scripture on it talks about how powerful the scriptures can be. As you study in the MTC and have the spirit of the MTC magnify their impact, a testimony of Christ almost seems forced into you. At least that's what happened to me. I feel like studying scriptures in the MTC is comparable to studying in any Celestial room. Just think of how much studying the word of God in an area where the Spirit is as strong as a Celestial room for days would impact you.

This week was a bit of everything. Monday was normal P-Day stuff. Shopping, emailing, napping, etc. We have a Family Home Evening group out here that's for single people or empty nesters in the branch. We go to teach lessons occasionally. We taught a quick L1 and talked about missionary work. They all launched into ways they can do missionary work.

Tuesday was interesting. We had service with J & L planned but some emergency came up and they cancelled. Later we went to visit the home of some less active members who have been trying to come back to church. Recently, one of them, Bro G, was diagnosed with some severe form of cancer. We went to the hospital when he was diagnosed to visit him a few weeks ago. Unfortunately Bro G passed some time Monday night. We found that out when we visited them today. It was a bit awkward at first. We walked up to their house not expecting anything different. We knocked and Sis G answered. She looked depressed and exhausted as she walked outside to meet us. Right away I noticed Bro G wasn't in his usual chair. I was about to ask where he was when Sis G told us what happened. Some friends of hers showed up and were there for her for the evening. We stayed as well. Sis G was still able to laugh and smile. But she was still pretty sad. We stayed for most of the rest of the evening giving her uplifting messages. She liked that. The funeral was on Thursday. I unfortunately didn't get to go because I was in Glasgow on exchange.

Wednesday was actually pretty fun. We used a lot of miles to go see people in Green County we normally don't get to see because of the mileage limitations. This is the day we took the car through a river :) We began the exchange with Glasgow at night. They wanted us to meet them in a Baptist church's parking lot half way between Campbellsville and Glasgow. When we got to the church we found it was packed with cars. We found an empty spot and waited for Glasgow. They were an hour late. Exchanging in the lot was awkward because when they got there, whatever was going on in the church ended and everyone was leaving. We were surrounded by hundreds of baptists. We had to exchange quickly and get out of there before any one of them challenged us to a bash. I hate bashes.

Thursday was also fun. I spent the day in Glasgow with Elder Hammond. Elder Hammond's only been out for about 4 months. We drove a lot. Tried a lot of people. We had some really solid lessons. We met with a man who's my age named Mr Gr. We taught him in the local library. We had a fantastic L3 with him. He told us his dog ate his BoM. Mr Gr asked for another one. Later we met with a woman named Ms A who is getting baptized this Sunday. Our lunch and dinner hours were both very interesting. Lunch was fun because Elder Hammond took me to a Japanese Hibachi place called Shogun. Man, Shogun was good! I ordered this steak and shrimp meal and it was absolutely fantastic! Dinner was fun because of what happened. I went to the bathroom in one of their toilets in the Elder's apartment. For some reason it wouldn't flush. When I saw it would overflow, I tried to open the top to stop the mechanism but the lid slipped out of my hands, fell into the back tank, and broke the bottom corner of the tank out. Tap water went everywhere. As the water in the back tank gushed out the water in the bowl flushed. Thankfully the Glasgow elders have 2 bathrooms like we do. (I just think it's funny both of my exchanges to Glasgow had disasters in them.)

On Friday we exchanged back and had zone meeting. Because of travel time and how long the meeting was, we didn't do much else today.

Saturday we had more service for J & L. It was more splitting and stacking wood. They had us organize a large wood pile they had in their barn. Many insect homes were destroyed. There were some massive spiders in that pile too. I'm surprised I didn't get bit by something with how much I handled that wood. They took us out to eat at Campbellsville University afterwards.

Sunday was church. Well, that was this week. It had some ups and downs but it was a fun week. 

I was able to master that tie knot fairly quickly actually. That picture I sent you with the multi colored tie is my 2nd or 3rd attempt at it. The knot is basically a backwards double windsor. It's very simple to tie. You can take it off exactly like a double windsor. Just take the small part out, pull, and it'll unwrap itself.

I like what Pres McFarland said about drifting away. It can be easy to judge where you are based off of where someone else is. In all things we shouldn't judge ourselves with the worlds standards, we should judge ourselves with the Gospel's standards. What's right is what's right and what's wrong is what's wrong. Traditions or culture do not effect that.

It must have been weird looking through stuff that was in your old house. I actually googled that house this week and thought "Well, I won't be going back there anytime soon." It's cool that Mr. Guinn was able to provide a lamp.

I love your "Oh, the joy" thing :). J's job is to fix washers, dryers, stoves, etc. He always has a million different dish washers, stoves, cloth dryers and washing machines around his house. I could probably talk to him and get what the best washing machine in the world is. L is a lawyer who is normally stationed in Los Angeles.

Thank you for all you do. Thank you for supporting me. Well, take care. I love you.

-Elder Ben

Country roads in the fall.

We received a referral for this address some time ago. The house was abandoned.

This is a river we came to.

Another angle on the river.