New Year's Eve

January 4, 2016

Dear Family,

New Years Eve and New Years Day were interesting. There were no fireworks :(. The time difference between us and Sulphur Well kinda messed things up. We had district meeting at 4:30 (5:30 Campbellsville time) so we could play games from 6-9p. Elder Caldwell gave a training on Christlike attributes but because he wasn't feeling too well he assigned each member of the district an attribute to study for 10 minutes and prepare a 5 minute talk on. He gave me Obedience. After we all gave our talks, we started to play basketball. We played both basketball and volleyball for 3 hours. When we finished, the Sulphur Well branch members came in for an all-night New Year's party which included more volleyball. We got out of there and had to drive an hour to Campbellsville. We finally got back.

New Years Day was just a normal day. We did our 3 hour weekly planning session in the morning.

The rest of the week was a normal week in Campbellsville, Kentucky. We did get a member referral for a good friend of the Rodenbergs. It's someone named "Aunt Banana" as the Rodenbergs call her. We met her on Christmas at the Rodenbergs but we didn't know she was a non-member. Yesterday the Rodenbergs told us we need to go over and start teaching her.

I don't remember the Elder who had the Ogden Made bag. I think it was my 2nd or 3rd day in the MTC when I met him.

The Holy Ghost is interesting. He's helped me a lot. He helps me to know what I need to teach someone and helps me know where to go. Understanding the Holy Ghost is tricky at times. There are some promptings I get that are quite strong and then there are others I get where I don't even realize it's the Spirit. As far as strong promptings go, there are times where I feel like I NEED to do something such as talk with someone, or help them out, or go somewhere. Strong promptings will literally make you feel like you NEED to do something. And if you don't do it, you'll feel like what you'd feel like after fasting for 24 hours. Quiet promptings are the harder to identify and I feel like 90% of all promptings are quiet ones. You might not even realize most of the quiet ones. But a good way to identify them is to ask yourself if they're prompting you to do good. I love that scripture that says if it invites to do good, than it is of God.

I feel like if you "ponderize" that scripture for a week or two, you'll figure out how the Spirit feels.

Well, I love you. You're awesome!!

-Elder Ben

Thank you SO MUCH for sending the pizza!

Here's a basketball hoop we found outside a members home.

That's a storage trailer hanging over the edge.

This is a pic with Talon and me. Talon got his mission call to Lusaka Zambia, Africa a month or so ago and he leaves Tuesday! He is the only active member in his family. He's come to church by himself, he decided to go on a mission by himself, and he went to the temple on Saturday with a couple members. He's a cool guy and a great example to his family. I won't be too surprised if his parents reactivate themselves in the next two years or so. I haven't been by their house to talk to them because (1) they live WAY out there and (2) Talon has told us multiple times that if we go to their house "we'll be shot".

Here's a pic of Lucy, Joe, Talon, me, and Victoria.

        Look where I'm eating!

Here's a few pics of what we did on New Years Eve. We
had district meeting at Sulphur Well and played 3 hours of basketball
and volleyball afterwards.