Week 14 Rocky Mountain Lovin

    For P-Day this week we went to the Rocky Mountains and it was an amazing experience! It was snowing while we were hiking so just fresh snow the entire time it was great! We hiked about 7 miles total and were dead afterwards! Worth it tho!

   This week was fantastic!! If you remember Vinta and Reoko, the mother and daughter we did service for a couple weeks ago, well they came to church on Sunday!! So we went by on Saturday and did some more service for them helping out cleaning the yard and they said they wanted to come to church! They stayed for 2 hours and loved it! Vinta was getting really emotional during the sacrament meeting and then participating in class 2nd hour! I'm sure they'll continue coming and I think we'll start teaching Vinta the lessons this week.

   We started doing the recent convert lessons with Rebecca Cook and the Bertagnole girls. Those are all going really well. We have a good system set up with the Bertagnole family where we come over for FHE, do the lesson, then play games. It's such a nice routine and something to look forward to on Monday's that's so much fun!

   Well this is most likely Elder Litster and I's last week together. Transfers are next week and it would be a miracle if we stayed together! All the members in the ward love us and really want us to stay and say they're gonna pray that we stay haha. But it's sad neither of us wanna leave cause we love it here but it's most likely to happen. Elder Litster thinks he'll get kicked out and I'll stay but we'll see. This next week will be an exciting one!

"Everybody Love Everybody!"

Elder Bennett aka yoboigator 
1215 Walnut Street
Windsor, CO 80550

                                                1-Elder Litster swooped this during studies

                 

                                                                              2-Lil pup growin up

                                        3-Birthday dinner for the man himself James Richey

                                                               4/5-Taming wolves out here in the Rockies

xtra pictures from his hike that he sent home

WEEK 13-----3 MONTHS ON THE MISSION AND MORE BAPTISMS

3 months out leggooooo!

     This week was very busy but also an amazing week! We had the Bertagnole's baptism on Saturday which was definitely the highlight of the week. They were all so excited and there was such a sweet spirit there. We had such a good turn out with the family that came and people from the ward, we filled up nearly the whole chapel! All the girls were smiling and so happy after being baptized. Elder Litster and I got to stand in the circle when they were confirmed and received the Holy Ghost and that was special. They did all 4 after the baptisms. It was so sweet the youngest one who's 10, Cheyenne, was crying after her confirmation blessing and it melted my heart. She had been talking about how excited she was to be baptized since the first day we started teaching them and so I knew how much that it had meant to her and I'll definitely never forget that day and the spirit that was there.

    We volunteered at another church that does free dinners on Wednesday's and that was such a fun experience! It's mostly senior citizens that go to the dinner cause there living quarters are across from the church. But we showed up to help out and one of the ladies running it was an older lady herself named Verna and she was so fun! When we asked her if she wanted us to go out and serve them or get them drinks she said "No if we do that,  just about all these ladies will die from heart failure,  cause we don't usually have such handsome young men here helping out." Oh my goodness I just bout lost it! Verna is awesome tho so funny! While there tho we met a family that we could tell was struggling and we talked with them and are going to start teaching them now.

    Definitely saw some miracles this week which was a blessing! We have 2 weeks left in this transfer but there's so much work to be done here! Makes me sad that there's only 2 weeks left cause we're starting to have a lot of success.

Last night for FHE with the Bertagnole's we played Pirate's Dice and I can't tell you how happy I was! We started out with 9 and I made it to the end only to lose to a 6 year old haha! It was so much fun, love their family!

    We went through the temple this morning,  which was a blessing. The temple here is absolutely beautiful and I loved it!

Much love everybody!!!

Elder Bennett aka yoboigator 
1215 Walnut Street
Windsor, CO 80550

                                                            1-3-Pics from the temple at Zone Conference

                      

                                                               4/5-Bertagnole's Baptism 

      

                                                                 6-Temple this mornin 

Week 12 White EVERYWHERE!!!

   Woke up to a ton of snow this morning! Every time I wake up to snow I'm just like what in the world is goin on. I'm from Fresno I ain't ever woken up to fresh snow before in my life! It's somethin that shocks me every time and my comp thinks it's hilarious.

   This week was awesome! Elder Litster got sick so a couple days were spent inside just studying and taking care of him which I didn't mind at all. I love diving deep into the Book of Mormon and really dissecting it so it was still very productive for me.

   The Bertagnole girls all have their baptism this Saturday and we're so stocked!! I was playing ping pong with the youngest one getting baptized (Cheyenne) yesterday and asked her about the baptism. She said she was so excited and she has been waiting all her life to be baptized it was really cute. Their dad is going to be able to baptize and confirm all of them. It's going to be such a special day for their family.

   Saturday we were out contacting and went to Reoko's house, who's a 14 year old girl that moved here from Arizona, and is less active. She lives with her mom and her boyfriend who aren't members. So we talked with her and she's really cool but hasn't shown interest whenever we invite her to church. So she talks with us a little then told us she has to go cause she has to do yard work with her mom so we offered to help out and the mom couldn't believe it. She came outside and was like "Are you serious!? Yes please!" So we helped them out with the yard work and it was such a little miracle. Just in the short maybe hour we helped them out front, we were able to talk with Reoko and her mom Venta and they started really opening up to us. Venta told us how she's a recovering addict and how she's had to battle that to be able to get Reoko back living with her. Reoko told us about living in Arizona with her grandma and uncle for the past 4 years. While she was there she watched her dad struggle being in and off the streets being an addict himself and how her uncle committed suicide while she was there. This girl is 14 and has seen so much and has had to grow up so fast it's sad. But by the end of it they were both so grateful and Venta was talking about how she'd love to feed us sometime and we even talked the gospel a little and she didn't sound against it at all so we're hoping to be able to teach her! We're planning to go back Saturday to help them with more yard work. Man, it's crazy looking back at how much their hearts were softened, just from that small amount of service we did for them. Service y'all.

   What an awesome week tho and I'm so excited for this next week and the baptisms! I love you all. Keep ya heads up. Remember the power in service.

Elder Bennett aka yoboigator 
1215 Walnut Street
Windsor, CO 80550

                                1-Pic from last week I forgot to throw in it was really windy at Estes

                                                                    2/3-Snow

WEEK 11 HAPPY HALLOWEEN

   

Happy Halloween! Because of the holiday we basically were given a mandatory full day P-Day. They didn't want us out after 6 so therefore all day P-Day!

We had our ward Halloween party on Thursday and one of the less active families we've been working with came! Now we just gotta get em to come to church! Gene dressed up for the party and cooked his chili for the contest, he won spiciest chili! We were so hype for him you have no idea, he had been talkin bout cookin his chili for weeks before the party so we were stoked for him. 

This week was just lots of contacting and not very much success. There's this family we met last week where the mom, Jessie, and kids were outside playing and they were all super friendly but the mom said she's not interested in church. So on Saturday we stopped by their house and they were hosting a block party for all the neighbors! I'm talkin DJ, bounce house, BBQ it was pretty sweet! So we just stopped by for a little bit and from it we were able to meet the husband Steve who's an atheist and was really nice. And the kids all remembered us and ran up to us and were so excited to see us again. We also got to meet some of the other neighbors and talk with them and some sounded pretty interested in the church! So that was a really positive experience! 

We had FHE with the Bertagnole family on Monday again and it was so much fun! Such an amazing family and they're all so excited for their baptisms coming up!

We went to Estes Park this morning for P-Day and it was a ton of fun! Still trying to get used to this whole snow and cold weather thing tho, bless up for thermals!

Love you all! Have fantastic weeks!

Elder Bennett aka yoboigator
1215 Walnut Street
Windsor, CO 80550

                                                                      1- District Squad Pic

                                           2-Gene's Halloween costume what a homie made it himself

                                                                3-6- Estes Park