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

Week 10 BAPTISM!!!!!!

Wassup errybody! Another great week over here hope it was the same for y'all!

    We had Rebecca's baptism on Saturday and it was so awesome! She really wanted her dad to baptize her so he worked a lot with the Bishop to get approval and he was able to! After the baptism they just hugged in the font and it brought peace to my heart to watch. We had a really great turnout too (filled up the whole middle section in the chapel!) All her family and a ton of friends that are all non member or less actives came to the baptism so we're really hoping this is a good experience for them getting back to church. The young women even did a special musical number for her it was really awesome!

   We found this lady named Eika who runs a pet grooming business outta her house and so we asked if we could do service and she was all for it! She said that elders in the past have done service for her before so we were hype about that cause service is hard to find out here! She even gave us an apple pie she made she's great! So we plan on continuing doin service for her in hopes she'll let us teach her sometime!

   We were able to reschedule the Bertagnole girls baptism for November 11th so were all really excited for that and their dad will be able to baptize and confirm all 4 of them! They're such an amazing family! We've started doing FHE with them and we share a message and then play games with them like Farkle and Ping Pong it's so much fun! Truly love their family they're awesome!

    Hope y'all have an amazing week! I'm on Facebook now so if anyone got Q's bout the Mormon church hit me up! Love you all and you're all awesome!

Elder Bennett aka yoboigator
1215 Walnut Street
Windsor, CO 80550

                                                       1/2- Rebecca's Baptism

                                                                           3-Service for Eika

                                          4/5-Yorkie puppy that's a family's in our ward

6-Letter that the girl next to me holding the puppy made us in church she's the sweetest thing!

Week 9 1st Transfer, he is staying with Elder Litster

What up everyone!

  

   We got transfer doc on Saturday and Elder Litster and I are staying together here in Windsor for another 6 weeks! I'm so hype cause I know there's still a lot of work for us to do here. We was so hype bout  stayin together that we bought onesiez from Walmart and look like goons but it's great!

   This week was great we were able to do service and teach lessons! We were able to help a family load a U-Haul and take it to Goodwill to donate. I even got a dope tiger picture from the family we helped out that they were gonna donate but I swooped on it and they said it was all good. 

   On Tuesday the Bertagnole's fed us dinner then we taught them a lesson. Afterwards we played Apples to Apples and Farkle with them it was so fun! We're gonna have Family Home Evening with them tonight and then have our final lesson with them tomorrow night so I'm stoked about that! They're such an amazing family and I'm so happy we'll be here for the baptisms. We'll probably talk tonight about a date probably around that first week in November for their baptisms.

   We also got to teach Rebecca Cook who I haven't talked about in a while cause we haven't been able to meet with her but we made contact on Thursday and were able to set up the remainder of the lessons needed before she is baptized. So were teaching her the final lesson tomorrow and her dad got approval from Bishop yesterday to baptize her. So this Saturday, the 21st, will be her baptism and she's so excited it's great! She's only 14 but asks such deep questions during our lessons and she thinks really deeply for only being 14 it's really impressive. We taught her Sunday and it was so awesome watching her really thinking and us being able to have discussions about the gospel and answer her questions was so cool!

   Our mission has Facebook now and it's really weird. Never would've expected to be using social media out on my mission but I know it can be a great tool to help others come unto Christ so I'm excited about it!

  

   Next week I'll be emailing on Tuesdays cause our P-Day is switching just a heads up.

   Have a fantastic week and keep ya head up! Love y'all

Elder Bennett aka yoboigator
1215 Walnut Street
Windsor, CO 80550

                                                      1- Dope Tiger Picture I swooped

    

                                 2/3-E. Litster and I in our jackets we copped a while ago from Ross bless up

                                                                  4- Onesiez

                                          5-King of The Jungle...yeah we had a photo shoot I'm a tool haha

WEEK 8 "WE WOKE UP TO SNOW"

Wassup everyone! This week wasn't the most exciting but still great! We taught the Bertagnole family twice and things are still going great with them! However, their baptism did get moved because they want to be able to have their family there for it so it has been pushed back to November.

Transfers are this next week so I hope I'll be able to stay around so that I can be here for the baptism. This week wasn't the most exciting because we did have lots of scheduled appointments cancel on us but we did have the chance to do service on Thursday and Saturday. We helped out an older member couple with some landscaping in their front yard. That was a lot of fun!

We went on exchanges on Saturday and it was such a blast! We helped out with the service then Elder Anglin and I went out on foot tracting and had great success! When we left the apartment to go out tracting we talked with a younger guy working on his car who was very nice but shut us down pretty quick. We were walking away and as we got further away I felt prompted to go back and talk with him and after a while I told Elder Anglin we need to turn around. We went back and he wasn't there anymore. So at least I thought I could put those feelings at ease and not wonder what if. We started walking back and as we did there was a woman and her daughter holding hands walking way in front of us on the other side of the street. Well as we continued walking they crossed over to our side we caught up to them and started talking with them. Her name was Josephine and she stopped walking and stood there and listened to us. She seemed really touched by our message as I saw she was tearing up when I talked about how families can be together for forever. We gave her a Book of Mormon and got her number. When we walked away Elder Anglin pointed out to me they were way behind us when we turned around to walk back and had I not said to turn around to go see if that guy was working on his car,  and cause we did this,  they passed us and we were able to catch up to them and talk with them. It was a testimony to me of the importance of listening to the prompting of the Holy Ghost even if we don't know why.

Love you all! Have an amazing week!

Elder Bennett aka yoboigator
1215 Walnut Street
Windsor, CO 80550

                                                                 1. Service squad pic

     

                                                  2. View from a member's house we had dinner with.

 
                                                                         3&4. Got to feed some goats

5. This morning we woke up to snow!! Then by like 2 it was all gone haha

Week 7 Conference High!

    What a great week I had! I feel like I'm still on a high off the spirit from conference!

    This week we taught the Bertagnole girls the Plan of Salvation this week and they are so active and excited for every lesson it's so fun to be able to teach them! 

    I was able to see James Richey this week that was really cool! It was so nice being able to talk to him and talk about Fresno with someone who actually knew Fresno haha. Hope I get the chance to serve in his ward sometime.

    We had zone conference and I was able to see my boi G Money!! Elder Kellogg and I were able to catch up and take some pics together it was awesome, I really hope we get to be comps at some point or work close together, I know we would do amazing together!

    Really cool experience while out trying to contact people. We went to a house for a man named Mike that the last missionaries in the area had left notes on and said we should visit. We went by the house and no one answered so while we were walking in the neighborhood we were passing by a park and there was a young family pushing their daughter on the swing. I told Elder Litster what a happy family they looked like and he said "Yep you should go talk to them." So we went up and started talking to them and they were really nice! They told us that they had their little daughter in the swing Lily who was about 18 months and they were pregnant with their second child. The father expressed to us that he had been looking for a church that would be best for raising his family in and for the their spiritual growth. I wanted to scream to this man that what he was saying was exactly what our church was about! I however calmly told him that's what our church is centered around it families and how they can be eternal and we had a message that would bless him and his family and we wanted to share it with them. He said he's busy with work and it's hard to set a good time but was open to it so we left our number with him. As we left and exchanged names and numbers we realized that it was Mike we had just talked to! Such a cool miracle that we were able to talk to him and his family in the park and introduce ourselves right after we had tried their house. It just so happened to be that day that Mike was sent home from work early cause of weather conditions. The Lord's hand truly is in all of our lives some way everyday preparing us for others or them for us.

    Conference was amazing and I absolutely loved it! I gained such a deeper appreciation for the leaders not only of the church but for the leaders around me in my life personally. It was so uplifting hearing the testimonies of the leaders of the church and such a blessing. Just a reassurance of the truthfulness of this gospel. If anyone questions anything of The Book of Mormon, I suggest they watch Tad R. Callister's talk cause that man throws it down! Loved it.

 Much love everyone have a phenomenal week!

Also our P-Day is changing to Tuesday next transfer which would be Oct. 24th I believe.

Elder Bennett aka yoboigator

1215 Walnut Street

Windsor, CO 80550

   

1- G Money $$$  

 2-Told you I was gonna dye that sucker blue. Gene the homie