Elder Riley Bennett: 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