PMG Chapter 6

Aug 24, 2015

Dear Family,

Well... Here are some highlights.

On Monday I ran out of MSF (Missionary Support Fund)! Yay! That means I have to use personal funds for the rest of the month! I ran out of MSF because I had to buy a few repair items for my bike. 

On Tuesday we met with our most progressing investigator Ms G. I don't think I've told you a whole lot about her. We've been teaching her for quite some time now. Her daughter Ms K was a new member who was baptized about 2 years ago. Elder Lynch and I only got to meet Ms K 2 or 3 times before her medical issues added up and became too much for her to bear. We had a nice funeral service for Ms K at the church. Her mother Ms G and Ms K's 9 year old son were there. After the service we talked to Ms G about the gospel and she said she would like to start lessons. Since then we've been regularly meeting with her and she's progressing fantastically. She's keeping all the commitments we leave her and she enjoys reading the Book of Mormon. We have a baptismal date for her and she is excited about it. 

On Wednesday I started studying the chapter 6: How Do I Develop Christlike Attributes? in PMG. It's becoming a personal favorite of mine. While the other 12 chapters in PMG deal with what you do and what you teach, chapter 6 deals with who you are and who you should become. As I've been going through it, I've been seeing where I'm strong and where I can improve. I've been paying special attention to the Hope, Charity and Love, Patience, and Humility sections. They've helped me become a much better person. So much so that I was tested by an angry preacher :). All he was doing was throwing contention at us but we held our ground. He was mad at us but I wasn't mad at him. I could feel the contention but I could still think. I'm at a point now where I'm sad if someone says "no" to the gospel. 

On Thursday I had a cool experience with a less active I've never met before. Our branch mission leader took us to see a few LA's and Elder Shelley completely left me alone to come up with a spiritual though right on the fly with one of them. This lady left the church because she was also offended. I felt impressed to pull out Alma 7:11-13 and talk about why we go to church. I read that scripture, talked about the sacrament and stated that the reason we go to church is to remember the Savior. I could tell that got her thinking when the lesson ended. 

Friday, Saturday, and Sunday were all more or less finding. 

I know mom has been going through PMG. I would like everyone at home to go through it. In Elder Holland's talk "Feed My Sheep" he said PMG was created so the gospel would more easily become a part of the missionaries life. And with all the quotes by several apostles and prophets about how members are missionaries, the word missionary becomes synonymous with the word member. That was one of the things Elder Zwick talked about at the mission conference. There were actually 2 Elder Zwick conferences. One was for people in leadership positions and the other was the missionary conference. He talked about the same things in both, more or less. He stressed the importance of members. In an ideal world the members would do all the finding for missionaries by giving them their friends and family members and offering their homes as a place to teach them. Since then we've been making a large push with the members and we've been seeing success. One member gave us a referral for a super solid family who were asking a lot of questions and another member asked us to teach them how to teach like a missionary. If this keeps up then we'll be teaching a lot more member-present lessons in the future. 

Again I would like everyone at home to begin studying PMG. It's more than a guide to missionary services. It's a way allowing the gospel to become a part of you. I know that because I've lived it for almost 5 months now. 

Thank you for being awesome!

-Elder Ben

This is a tiny military sized Book of Mormon. The elderly missionaries in our district work
with the military and they can get stuff like this really easily. I'm going to get a full scripture set.

I've decided to hold Peach Nehi as my 3rd favorite soda flavor ever. 

A lot of people here have "Beware of [whatever]" signs. I thought this one was great.

This is Georgia Peach ice cream with Mango Italian sauce and a little whipped cream on it.
It was amazing!

A sunset on the streets of Corydon.

Emergency Emery's... :)

Aug 17, 2015

Dear Family,

Transfers are on Tuesday. A lot happened this week. It was an adventure!

You know how I said your emails seem to help out during the week? Well, the ones I just got today are going to help out with a less active we just met who is bitter towards the church due to some negative Branch President experiences he had many years ago. He's since claimed Atheist. I'm going to study what you wrote me because they would be great for that less-active to hear. 

Now onto the week! 

Monday... and Tuesday... were the two hardest days I've had so far! They were awful. Here's why they were so hard... We didn't have our car for those two days. We had to... well... here's the story... Some of the previous Elder's who drove the car cracked the bumper a long time ago. It wasn't a huge crack but it was still a crack. The Vehicle Coordinator of the GKLM got onto US for that about a week ago. He had us go to a body shop, get an estimate (over $628!), and set up an appointment to have it fixed next Monday. Monday rolled around and we dropped it off early in the morning. We didn't get it back until Wednesday morning. Pres. Sodders drove us from the body shop back to our apartment where we got our bikes ready for the rest of the day. We then rode all down hill to the church to lock them up for emailing. When we got there however, I found that the tube in the back tire of the bike Elder Lynch left me had a hole in it. It barely survived the ride down which only took about 5 minutes before it was completely flat. We locked the bikes up and then emailed. When we finished, we came back to the bikes to try to fix mine. We spent an hour trying to fix it. It didn't work. I was thinking I would have to walk the flat bike all the way back uphill to the apartment. The Hermana's happened to see us suffering with the bike and they offered one of theirs to help us. We accepted. They took the broken bike and allowed me to use one of theirs for Monday and Tuesday.

We rode up hill to the apartments and that about killed me. It was so hard. The hills here in Corydon are steep and many, so when I got up that first hill to the apartments, I knew what I was going to be in for, for next 2 days. By the time we got to the apartment, we only had about an hour of P-Day left before we would have to ride to Mr T's for that dinner appointment he practically begged us for. The whole thing with the car and the flat bike tire took almost our whole P-Day away! We weren't happy about that.

The time came to ride to Mr T's. We rode down the same hill to the church, that was a lot of fun, and then we had to bike up that same distance to get to Mr T's. He only lives about 4ish miles away from us but when you consider all the hills, it feels more like 20 miles! We got there alive. Mr T, himself, took us to Pizza Hut. There we got some stuffed crust pepperoni and talked about Jesus. He is, what I would call, a "sign seeker". He relies on physical proof. He's done a ton of research into our doctrine. He's working on becoming a PhD in religion. He knew everything about what we teach. He's had missionaries over countless times. The reason he doesn't believe is because he doesn't think the Apostasy happened. He also doesn't believe in the BoM due to the lack of physical proof. Mr T is the 3rd person of this type I've met and he had the same problem the other 2 had. He hadn't prayed. My favorite question to ask people like that is "How have you involved God in your studies?" Every time I've asked that they give me an answer along the lines of "I came to know God through my studies." The question isn't "How did you come to know God?" It's "How have you INVOLVED God in your studies?" What I mean by that is "Did you pray before you studied? Did you ask God to give you understanding?" etc. The answer to that is always "no" as it was in Mr T's case. I told him the last thing he needs to do to find the truth is to pray. He didn't want to. It blows my mind that people would put that much effort into knowing the things of God but fail in involving God Himself. Sign seekers or "Evidence men" (as he put himself) all have the same problem. They refuse to pray. PRAYER IS VITAL IN THE CONVERSION PROCESS. If you're not willing to talk to God through prayer about his word than you will be in big trouble. You'll be left to the interpretations of men and forget that God is a real being just as tangible as us. 

We actually had a really good time with Mr T. Unlike the other 2 sign seekers I've talked to, he was extremely nice. I had fun talking with him. We won't be meeting with him anymore and he understands that. He understands that if he's not going to progress in the gospel then he'll be a waste of time for us. A lot of missionaries have made that quite clear to him. 

Anyway, moving on with the rest of Monday and Tuesday. After Mr T, we biked back to the apartments which was VERY hard. But I knew that Tuesday was going to be a lot worse because we would be on the bikes a lot more. I was right! Tuesday was far worse! We had to bike EVERYWHERE! Like I said before, Corydon's hills are large and many and the fact that we didn't have access to the rest of our area due to a lack of car meant that we couldn't even check on half of our investigators. Elder Shelley and I cover ALL of Harrison County. Not just Corydon. We have a big area and we could only be in Corydon on the bikes because everything else was too far away for the bikes. In the middle of the day we stopped at a gas station to pick up some Powerade. I put the Powerade in my messenger bag (which was amazing while I was on the bike! It was so helpful in carrying my stuff!), locked the bike up at the church, and walked up to our next appointment. We were supposed to have a nice lesson with Ms L but her Atheistic Brony husband decided to jump in and be a distraction. We had a good talk but we weren't able to teach anything. 

When we left, we walked to Ms S's house to check on her. She's the investigator who gave us the Coke's that one hot day. We had a good lesson with her. She's beginning to realize the importance of the Gospel. The only bad part of the lesson was when I found my iPad sitting in a puddle of Powerade because the messenger bag is water resistant and somehow the Powerade opened itself. It had been sitting in that puddle for about 2 hours before I realized it.... After we finished the lesson I was about done. I needed a break. We made an emergency Emery's stop. I don't know how but my iPad still works perfectly. Nothing's broken. At first, the speakers weren't working for videos but they were working for alarms. After a few hours that fixed itself though. God HAD to have protected my iPad. There's no way that thing would have survived for that long in liquid and still work perfectly otherwise.

By the end of the day I was so worn out in every aspect that I about slept on the floor the second I stepped into the apartment. I was mentally exhausted because I was annoyed that my bike took my P-Day away and stressed because the iPad was soaked. I was physically exhausted because of the hills. And I was spiritually exhausted because I tried my absolute best to keep a positive attitude and look for what God was trying to teach me with those experiences. When we got the car back Wednesday morning I was so happy! And on Thursday I realized why I had those trials. 

Earlier I said when things get hard that means something good is on the way. With that one week I had all those bashes, the reward was the Stormtrooper armor. With this week, it was the Elder Zwick conference. Elder Zwick, a General Authority in the Quorum of the Seventy came and taught us how to teach better. Elder Zwick, his wife Sis Zwick, Pres. Brough and Sis. Brough all used the space of 7 hours to teach us how to be better missionaries. I took 14 pages of notes in my little study journal. During the lunch break, Elder Shelley and I were in the hall talking with some other Elders and Elder Zwick came up to us and started talking with us. I talked to him for a couple minutes about my family. It was cool to get a little one on one time with a General Authority. Over the next few days I reviewed the notes I took, compared them with PMG, and wrote down the teaching method that they taught us. It's a super simple way of teaching gospel principles but man, is it effective! 

There's essentially 3 steps:

State the Principle.

Testify of it, maybe, share a personal story.

Show Scriptures to prove the Principle true and testify again.

Companions switch at every step. I was able to apply this for a lesson we had Pres. Sodders present for. We were teaching Ms M  lesson 3: The Gospel of Jesus Christ. I got this routine down where I would (1) state the principle. (2) Pres Sodders would testify of it. And (3) Elder Shelley would show a scripture and testify again. It worked so well! That was by far the best lesson 3 I've given. It was simple and understandable. Elder Zwick said he wanted us to teach so simply and clearly that there would be nothing left to say about it.

I heard about this teaching method a while ago but I didn't really know much about it. Now that I've had a General Authority explain it, I understand it a lot more. Pres. Brough talked about how we can better use the "How to Begin Teaching" section in chapter 10 of PMG. 

I learned so much at that conference. I'm so thankful for how much I got out of it because I saw a lot of other Elders sleeping or dozing off. I feel sorry for them. What those 4 talked about was so vital to missionary work and I feel sorry for anyone who didn't take notes about it. 

I'm going to have to end the email here. It took a while to write this. Thank you for the support and the pictures. They make me feel like you're still there.

Thank you for being awesome!

-Elder Ben

This is a Strawberry Cheesecake Sunday with Italian Strawberry sauce,
whipped cream and chocolate drizzle on it.

This is what I looked like for 2 days. This was taken Monday night before the events of Tuesday :D

This is what I got during my emergency Emery's trip after my iPad was soaked.
I don't even remember exactly what it was. It had vanilla caramel ice cream
on the bottom, chocolate peanut butter ice cream in the middle,
more vanilla caramel ice cream on the top and topped with peanut butter,
chocolate drizzle, whipped cream and more caramel. 

This is why I go to Emery's every week.

Sis Brough: Guess who just visited our Mission? Elder and Sister Zwick.
What a great week we had with them!

We were taught to SIMPLIFY! Teach by the Spirit!

  Teach Simply and Testify clearly.

  What a GREAT Conference!

For the next two days we were on the road. Traveling to New Albany, IN for a

multi-Zone Conference with the Evansville IN, New Albany IN, and the

 Louisville Zones ALL in attendance.

On Thursday, we headed to Lexington KY.
This multi-Zone Conference consisted of the Lexington Zone,
Lexington North Zone and the Crestwood Zone.

The District

August 10, 2015

Hello Family,

#VacationWithoutMe? #Blasphemous

Something cool that happened. We had 3 investigators at church yesterday! That's never happened. They all had great experiences. I haven't heard from M & R in a while. I have a feeling they're done but I won't make that call until they tell us they're done. We told them we could marry them for free and after a year they can be sealed in a temple for free too. Apparently that didn't sway them. :(

Real intent is a subject we always hit hard on. We literally tell people to not take our word for what we say. We tell them they need to ask God themselves to find the truth. The sad things is a lot of people I've met just aren't looking for truth. 

Mountain tops were used when temples aren't available. They're the closest to heaven than anywhere else on earth. In scripture you read how several prophets went up to a mountain for stuff. Probably one of the best examples of a mountain top is Moses. Where did he receive the 10 commandments? On the top of a mountain. Where was Moses before he was attacked by Satan in the Pearl of Great Price? On the top of a mountain. That puts a new meaning on the phrase "The Mountain of the Lord". 

The District 1 was filmed in Texas in, I believe, 2007. The District 2 was filmed in San Diego California in 2012. Both of them are actually pretty similar to what I'm doing. I'd say the main difference is I have an iPad and they don't. My planner and Area Book are all on the iPad. As far as the investigators go, they're pretty similar to the one's I've met out here. Both the District movies are pretty accurate depictions of what missionary work is like. I watched both of them before I came out here. They do not however, show everything. They don't show what it's like to meet someone who's just absolutely insane. They don't really show what it's like when ALL of your appointments fall through. They sure don't show any sort of argument/Bible bash but that's okay. Both of the Districts show what missionary work is ACTUALLY like 95% of the time. The bad is few and far between. 

P-Day ends at 6. From 6 to 9ish we work. Our appointment with that one guy is later tonight. 

The contention thing is something I learned myself. I was pondering deeply on the subject and it came to me. I didn't hear that from anyone. That's something I realized the week before I got to wear the Storm Trooper armor. That particular week is still the most negative week I've had so far. It wasn't because I was negative. I just kept meeting a lot of people who were far more negative than normal. I found that when someone's being negative, it's hard to help them. When contention's present, the Spirit isn't. As missionaries we rely a lot on the Spirit to help us know what to say but when someone is being contentious it makes it extremely difficult to hear the Spirit. Here's the thought process that led to that.... Because "contention drives the Spirit away" that means they cannot occupy the same space at the same time. Much like how light cannot be where dark is and vice versa, The Spirit of God cannot be where the spirit of contention is. The Spirit of God leads us to light and love whereas the spirit of contention leads us to darkness and hate. According to 2 Nephi 2:11 "there is an opposition in all things." Because there's a God, there's a devil. Because there's light, there's darkness. Because God has the Holy Ghost, then the devil must have something that is the exact opposite. That something is the spirit of contention, or maybe better labeled as the spirit of the devil. 

I didn't get to go to the Indianapolis Temple. That's out of the mission boundaries. I haven't been to the Carrabbas in Louisville. I drove by it once though. :(((((( 

I'm glad Kylii is doing well. She'll be a great missionary.

Something I've realized is how much God prepared me for a mission throughout my life. I can't go into detail on that now because I'd be typing all day but everything that happened to me, good or bad was meant to build me up for a mission. Thank you for everything.

See ya later,

-Elder Ben.

This is my 3rd or 4th time getting soaked in a rain storm.

This is a pet goat that one of our less actives owns.
 This is the 2nd time I've seen it get stuck in the fence like that.

During weekly planning I started spinning my rings and I took a picture.
Weekly planning is hard to get through sometimes but it is important.

These are some baby cats that were born just a few hours before I took this picture.
They are owned by 2 of our investigators.

Hot Week

Aug 3, 2015

Dear Family,

Well Hi! This week was another good week! There's no such thing as a bad week. I might have a day or two that's rough but I can't say I've had a day where I haven't learned or improved in something. Therefore, everyday is a good day because every day I learn and improve regardless of success. 

I had a couple interesting experiences this week. One of them was completely stupid on our part and the other was quite unexpected. I'll start with the stupid one. The day was Wednesday. We decided to park at the church, walk up to a neighborhood (about 15 minutes walking distance), tract for an hour and walk back at to the church. We did just that. The whole process took over 1.5 hours. And during the entire time it was 99 degrees with 80% humidity. It sucked. We almost died. Especially on the walk back. But during the walk back, some guys in a truck stopped and offered some capri-suns. We accepted and were able to get back to the church without dying from heat exhaustion. We're never doing that again.

Here's the unexpected experience. One Saturday morning Elder Shelley and I decided to tract out a road that was near where a less active lives. About half way down the road we knocked on a house and a lady answers. She said she wanted us to come back later because her husband wasn't home. I thought that was a bit of a strange but I didn't think a whole lot about it. I just noted in the iPad to check back on that house later that day. When we got to the end of the street I realized that the street we were tracting was the same street Elder Lynch and I tracted partially on my first day in the field. I didn't recognize it immediately because Elder Shelley and I started on the opposite end of where Elder Lynch and I started on and it was at a different time of day. So later, towards the end of the day, we head back to that house with the lady to see if her husband was home. What happened next was completely unexpected. We knocked on the door and a guy answers. He looks at us and says "I wish you guys came by earlier. Can we set up an appointment?" Right off I said, "Sure! What time works the best for you?" In my head I'm thinking "Who is this asking US for an appointment?" He starts talking about when we can see him and we set a time for about a week away. We asked him if he's met with missionaries before and he said "Oh yeah. I love having you guys over. I've never met a Mormon missionary who wasn't nice. I always love talking with you guys. I don't agree with everything you teach but I still like talking with you." I was thinking "Well, This is interesting. He loves Mormons but doesn't agree with everything we teach." And then out of the blue, he says "If we made dinner for our appointment would that be okay?" At this point I'm thinking "You want to feed us too? Who are you?" We said "Sure! That would be very kind of you." He then starts asking about what we like to eat and don't like to eat. He even started asking about the Word of Wisdom so he could help us keep that standard. After we set up that appointment we parted ways. I still can't believe that happened. I've never had anyone ask for an appointment. I always have to ask for the appointment. And the way he was acting towards us, he was practically begging to have us over. He really wants to talk with us. He even said he would put the appointment on his calendar so he doesn't forget. Who does that besides us? I'm still kinda blown away by the whole interaction. We meet with him next Monday on the 10th so it'll be a couple weeks before you hear about it. 

According to the New Oxford American Dictionary the proper term for people who live in Indiana is "Hoosier". No one knows what a "Hoosier" is. It's just something "a native or inhabitant of Indiana" is called. :) I've always liked thunderstorms. A few weeks ago we were getting them every day. They kinda suck for missionary work though. No one's outside to be contacted in a thunderstorm. 

I've said some pretty stupid things out here in the field. Most of the stupid things I've said are to people who want to Bible bash. It's unfortunate when you find someone who just wants to contend with you. Contention is of the devil and it really screws things up. When people want to bash I try to stand my ground but I can't help feeling the contention coming off that person. When someone throws contention at you, all you can do is testify of the truths you know. The spirit of contention is basically the devil's version of the Holy Ghost. You always hear "contention drives the Spirit away" and that's because they're exact opposites. Darkness cannot dwell where light is and vice versa. When someone is causing you to feel contention you lose sight of how God feels about them. 

I hope you have fun in Yellowstone. Please send pictures. Don't die. Thank you for your wisdom. Keep being awesome!.

-Elder Ben

PS - This cat has an interesting story behind it. One morning, Elder Shelley and I went to try a potential to see if they were home. They weren't. This cat was sitting on their porch. When no one answered the door we turned around and started walking home. After about 5 minutes of walking this cat comes running between our legs. We thought it was the potential's cat but I guess it wasn't because it wouldn't stop following us. We didn't know what to do with it so we kept walking. We hoped that it would turn around and leave us alone at some point. But it wouldn't stop. It got to a point where Elder Shelley picked it up and tried to walk it back to the potential's house but it started scratching and biting him. He put it down and left it alone. After roughly a half mile of walking it finally stopped following us. We haven't seen it since.

The best fruit soda EVER! It's better than Orange Crush which is saying something.

At Emery's... everything here is amazing!

Weekly Planning-
When you're sitting down for 2-3 hours talking about the people you're seeing,
it's fun just to take a little break and take random selfies.

#Missionary #Busy

Elder Shelley laying down near the back door of the church... a long day.

I was shocked when I saw this thing. The owners said they didn't really like them a whole lot.
I think it's hilarious they went and made ring toys out of them. 

#DeskToy #NoWorkGettingDoneNow #Play #Toy #MissionaryLife #StarWars #StormTrooper #BestThingIEverDid

I think they're trying to tell me something...
 I keep all of the letters and notes that get sent to me and on all 3 of the notes
 I've gotten so far there are these stick figures on them.

The investigator who owns the Storm Trooper armor came up to Corydon for some role play exercises.
The Corydon Hermana's are teaching the Storm Trooper about the gospel.

We made the stupid decision to tract on Tuesday from 3-4. It was 99 degrees with a ton of humidity.
We were dying. One of our investigators took pity on us and gave us some cokes.
There were also some random guys in a truck who stopped and offered us some capri-suns.

Planting Seeds

July 27, 2015

Dear Family,

Thank you for the package! I loved everything in it! I couldn't believe the JCW's toy. I also really like the stormtrooper car you sent. I thought it was quite fitting considering recent events :)

This week I had a member dinner appointment every night. That's 7 meal appointments straight. I like it when members feed us. 

I had a really cool experience this week. My friend had his farewell talk and entered the MTC (spirit prison) on Wednesday. He sent me his talk and I found time to listen to it. He gave a fantastic talk on faith. He talked about how important it is to trust in the Lord. That's something I realized when I was in the MTC and when I got out in the field. It's a subject I need to look more in to. 

This week wasn't as eventful as most have been. The work has taken a bit of a hit but I'm still trying to do my best. Planting seeds is something I realized early on in the mission. Even though it's far better to teach people, sometimes all you can do is plant seeds. I can usually tell when I've planted a successful seed or not. We've had to drop a lot of investigators and we aren't having the best of luck at finding new ones. I wouldn't say I'm discouraged, more... disappointed. Although, one of our investigators came out and said she knows she needs to be baptized! She said she wants to be baptized! I've come to notice that when things get rough in the field, that means something big is going to happen. This particular investigator has been apprehensive about baptism for a few weeks and to have her come out and say she needs and wants to be baptized when she did, made the rest of the week feel a lot better. I feel like this one will go through. Out of all the dates I've set, no one's been baptized yet. This one is different. She seems a lot more dedicated than the others have been.  

As far as M & R, we talked with them for a few minutes this week and they said they would still like us to come over. I'm not going to drop them unless they literally kick us out of their house.

Something I've told a lot of investigators and members who are struggling is something you told me a long time ago. I can't remember the context of the situation when you said this, but it has stuck with me for years. A long time ago you told me "the more unworthy you feel for the gospel, the more you need it." I'm really thankful for all that you've taught me and for everything you teach me in the emails. I do use what you write in teaching situations. It's kinda funny, really. A lot of the time, something you write will apply to someone I'll see later that week. I want to thank you for all the help you give me through the emails. The little lessons and experiences you share really help me and more often than not, I'll find someone who needs the same message. By the way, I realized you've used several of Jesus' parables without telling me they're Jesus's parables to teach me something in my earlier childhood. 

I think I'm going to keep this weeks email short. Sorry for the lack of photos. You will be getting a huge amount of photos next week. There are some photo-booth photos I have that I'll send in the mean time.

Take care.. Thank you

Elder Ben

Well, that tie knot looks kinda insane. That'll be fun. 

God's love

July 20, 2015

Dear Family,

It sounds like another fun week at home. I'm happy you're going through Preach My Gospel. It's practically considered scripture out here. Technically it is. I didn't know how good it was until I came out here. It simplifies the gospel and helps the missionary understand what their role is. 

The Ecco's are holding up great! I shine them every week. Every time I shine them they look good as new. I switch shoes every day. Weather doesn't really make a difference since they're both waterproof. I like the look of the laced ones better but the laceless ones are easier to deal with.

I'd say the highlight this week was the exchange I went on with Elder Gunnel. He just barely came out when Elder Lynch left. He's our district leader's companion. I got to lead out for a day here in Corydon. I've taken the lead before but I've never done it with someone who just came out. As young as Elder Gunnel is, he taught me a lot. He was, by far, the best missionary at contacting I've ever seen. He was the best at being bold, yet loving. He was fearless but he also understood when the answer was "no". I was impressed. He taught me a lot with contacting being one of my weaknesses. We balanced each other out though. He was strong at contacting, I was strong at teaching. Since then my own contacting has improved. My mind has been clearer and I've been taking "no" better. Not that "no" ever seriously bothered me, I'm just more comforted by the fact that I did my part. 

I have some talks for you to listen to. You'll have to look these up. They're all really long but they're worth it. The first one is "His Grace is Sufficient" by Brad Wilcox. The second is "Bill Carpenter's Conversion Story". And the third is "The Belief Window/Self Worth" by Hyrum W. Smith. "The Belief Window" is the longest one (70 minutes) but it blew my mind. When you listen to it have some paper and a pen out and write down what he says. I have a feeling you would really like it because it deals with human needs and how the gospel relates to them. 

I don't know if I've told you about Emery's yet. Emery's is a little ice cream, soda and candy shop here in downtown Corydon. There's only 1 Emery's in existence and it's here. They sell a lot of old candy and old soda. Their ice cream is the highest quality ice cream I've ever had. I haven't had a flavor I haven't liked yet. The sell Nehi's too. Nehi is an ancient soda brand that you don't see too often. I'm sure Dad knows about them. Nehi has a peach flavor. Peach flavored soda is rare. Nehi Peach soda is the best fruit flavored soda I've ever had! For the love of me, find a way to get Peach Nehi in Utah! 

I'm still learning, I'm still growing and I'm still working hard. Elder Shelley and I have had to drop a lot of investigators this week because they weren't keeping their commitments. I've tracted a lot these past few days. We've somewhat lost contact with M & R this week. I'm worried they dropped us. Because they live so far away, we can't just drive up and check on them whenever. We have mileage limits on the car. They were progressing fantastically until I mentioned they had to be married before they were baptized. As far as I know they still want to join. They're just not answering the phone. They have been sick lately so that may be it. I seriously doubt they'd stop investigating the gospel at this point. We'll try calling and we may have to swing by at some point.

I'd say the lesson I learned this week was how to be more confident that I did my part. I have a lot of subjects that I'm constantly pondering in the back of my head. One of the subjects this week was if I'm doing my part or not. I often think to myself, "In that lesson did I say something that helped them? Did I teach clearly? In that contact was I bold? Loving? Did I give them a clear choice?" A lot of the time I feel like I MOSTLY did my part. This week I realized I'm doing more to please Heavenly Father than I thought. I'm not perfect but I'm trying my best and I'm always looking to improve. This week I was on exchanges and even though we didn't teach a whole lot I felt that Heavenly Father was pleased with the effort we put forth in trying to do His work. 

Here's something cool that I realized this week. I had these questions running through my mind this week: "Why does God love the sinner?" Why does God still love those who turn their backs on him? Why does God refuse to give up on ANY of His children?" I had these and other questions similar to them in my mind all throughout this week. One of the biggest things I've learned about the nature of God on my mission is that we call him "Heavenly Father" for a reason. He is literally the Father of our spirits and He is a lot more similar to an earthly father than most people realize. But the answer "because God is our Father and He loves us" wasn't satisfying my questions. Then I remembered what happened in the pre-earth life. There were two plans presented, Jesus's plan and Satan's plan. Satan wanted the glory but Jesus wanted the glory to go to the Father. 1/3 of the hosts of Heaven chose Satan. 2/3 chose Jesus. All those who chose Jesus's plan got to come down here to earth. When I remembered that I realized that everyone on earth chose to love God and follow Him. Imagine if your child came up to you and said "Father, I love you. I want to follow you. I'll do everything you ask of me." You'd probably be a little shocked. Ultimately you'd do everything you could to help you child grow. Heavenly Father didn't "cheap out" on anything. He gave us a very clear path to grow and to return back to Him. He gave us a way to be forgiven when we mess up. He wants everything for us because we chose to love Him before we came to his earth. So... why does God love the sinner? Why does God love everyone on earth? It's because everyone on earth chose to love and follow God before they came here. 

Thank you for you!

-Elder Ben

Sis Brough: The Zone Conferences were centered around "Planning for Investigators."
What do they need to help them progress towards baptism?
The Lexington North Zone had the cleanest apartments and the Louisville Zone had the cleanest cars.

New Albany Zone Missionaries singing "Army of Helaman" and "Called to Serve"

First haircut of the mission and the back of Elder Shelley

New Comp

July 13, 2015

Dear Family,

I'm still in Corydon. My new companion is Elder Shelley. He's been out for 8 months. He started in Louisville, then he went to Frankfurt, and now he's in Corydon. As far as everything else, Corydon's doing great. Elder Shelley is a more laid back guy than Lynch. He's been out for 8 months. He'll get home around Kylii's year mark. We both like soda :)

Transfers were kinda hard to get through. I had to say goodbye to Elder Lynch. That was tough. The day before transfers we took one of Elder Lynch's suits to Pres. Sodders house to blow up. Pres. Sodders bought a few half-pound explosives and put them in the suit. We then stood back as he shot the suit. It exploded. We also blew up another Elder's suit who went home. I have video of both. I need to see if there's a way I can get the video to you. We burned the remaining shreds of clothing with diesel fuel. I'm glad you got to meet Elder Lynch. I'm sure the PB bars will blow his mind away. I didn't think you would have met him already. I guess I lost track of time. That happens out here. I've been out 3.5 months and it feels no where near that long. By the time I'm an RM I'll be asking "Where did the time go?" a lot. 

Here's the full story of the couple (M & R) we taught. Elder Lynch really liked them. Here's their story from the beginning to now... We met M the day we had the first session of Stake Conference. We coordinated with another family in the branch to meet us at a local Walgreens and drive us up to the stake center. They were a little late so we decided to get out and talk to a few people in the Walgreens parking lot. After a few no's, we saw M step out of the Walgreens the second the family we were to meet with got there. We decided to talk to her and she said she and her husband/boyfriend R, would be interested in hearing our message. She happens to live near the border of our area, kinda in the middle of nowhere. We probably would have never tracted out her house because of that.

A couple days went by and we met with them for the first time. Elder Lynch was almost emotional during their first lesson. When he got to the part about the priesthood M said, "Well, I guess that means we need to be baptized then." The second time we met with them we followed up on their BoM reading and they were 8 chapters in. Since that point we have had powerful after powerful lessons with them. The first time they came to church we weren't really expecting them to be there because they said they had been sick. They happened to come on fast and testimony day and at the end M got up and bore her testimony. She said she knew the church was true because of how she felt the moment she walked in and how nice everyone was. She also said she's looking forward to becoming a member. I was about blown away when that happened. Later that day we went over to their house to talk about church and they described their experiences in detail. They said the second they walked in they felt like they were home. They felt the spirit more strongly there than at any other church they've ever been to. R said he has a friend who's a preacher (different preacher than the one later mentioned in the story) and he never feels that good or comfortable in his church. So a few weeks go by, we teach them some more lessons, and one morning a Baptist preacher comes and knocks on their door. There isn't a whole lot to that part of the story. Simply what happened is he started bashing on the LDS church. To this day I don't know exactly what he said. I thought I would have to go in with my "Anti Defenses" so I reviewed every piece of "anti" that I've come across in preparation of explaining things to them. Later in the day when we asked about the preacher, she said she didn't care about what the preacher said. She pointed out how God wouldn't send someone to bash on anyone. Even if they're wrong. To her, the preacher was a testimony builder. 

So that's M & R's story. It's pretty cool isn't it? They're still investigating but I haven't seen them in a week or so because they've been sick again. M has 5 college degrees and she's working on her 6th.

It's hard to prepare someone for a mission. There isn't really an effective method. There isn't really a special trick to it. Sure, things like seminary/institute/mission prep classes etc. help. But the only way to really know what a mission is going to be like is to experience it. Throw yourself into it. Just do it. Even if you have no idea what you're doing, just get up and walk. It's a lot easier for the Lord to guide moving feet than still feet. If Kylii has the opportunity to go on splits with the missionaries I'd suggest she go. To me, that was the best mission prep I received. Because it was legitimate missionary work before my own mission. I got to meet real people who are investigating the gospel before my mission. I got to experience what it was like to have appointments fall through before my mission. I got to be a missionary before my mission. That was the best way to prepare. I'm not talking about material preparedness. Clothes, scriptures, shoes, suit cases, etc. I'm talking about mental preparedness. In the field you learn to forget yourself and work. Your investigators needs become your own. You spend all of your effort trying to help others. I know Kylii will do great. I could tell how much this means to her from the video you sent. If she ever needs help I'd be happy to give, I'm sure Spencer wouldn't mind either. There are a lot of people in our family who could help. Good luck Kylii! Just put everything, both physically and spiritually, in the the hands of the Lord and you'll make it. 

It was a fun/sad week. But I guess that's life for the next little while. Thank you for all the support. It means a lot :) It won't be long before I'm home.

-Elder Ben

I figured out the Viper knot. It starts out exactly like the Eldridge knot.

All my sharpie pens

Glow-sticks and black lights

Bro Cox, Elder Lynch, Sis Cox
"It's nice to see that you all (I'll never use "y'all") still look happy"