Look out Martha Stewart.........I was pretty proud with the meal that I made for us yesterday, I know it might not be the 1st pick in the Martha Stewart or Rachel Ray "Make a Delicious Dish" contest, but it was pretty tasty. It just looked good on a plate, i grilled up some chicken, there were mashed potatoes (instant though) :), grilled carrots, cherry tomatoes, and finished it off with some snickerdoodles. Well enough about yesterdays ужин (dinner), what about all of you. It sounds like this hurricane is rockin' the east coast, that's pretty scary stuff. I love the pictures of the kids, ahhhhh they're all so cute in their school and ballerina clothes. Give them all a big hug from me. Also, that's great to hear that Mike has all A's in school, way to go bro, but the whole Rugby thing is kinda sketch.... :) Mike's a Tank though, I think he'll do great, but my friends who played Rugby in high school always came from the games with their eyebrows split open or broken noses, etc. just sayin'... Tell TIM HAPPY BIRTHDAY! from his брат in Siberia.... Living away from home, very very far away from home, has made me really, really appreciate soooo many more things. I would like to give a shout out to you both,, being the head of a home (apartment in this case) is a ton of responsibility and it really teaches you a lot. Speaking of doing things for other people. Saturday was a HUGE day for service. We all met at the Aftovoksal (Rushlish again, Train/Bus station) early in the morning and took a train to this member's dacha (summer home) and dug some potatoes. There were buckets and buckets and buckets of potatoes, there was so much! And you all know how much I love them. I will send a picture of them next time. After that we took a bus back into the main city and helped a companionship chop wood at an investigators home. We all participated in giving a lesson to her after and it was great, she agreed to read from the Book of Mormon. We headed to our weekly sports night location to play some frisbee with members, something unfortunate happened. We were playing ultimate frisbee like i said, and my companion was running for a catch and really pulled his hamstring really bad. He went limping of the field and layed on the cement and looked like he was in a ton of pain. We all went over and Elder Erickson and I gave him a blessing. It was an experience that strengthened my testimony of the priesthood and how we always need to be prepared to give one at any moment. We went and got some crutches today before email and he says that he thinks it is healing alright so that's good and he finishes his mission in like 3 weeks so he'll get professional help soon if he needs additional help. Yesterday on the way to the branch, the main path is trees on both sides and its somewhat closed off from a ton of people, there was a guy getting held by two others and punched in the face. They were beating him up and he asked us for help, but we just had you turn off a little bit and keep walking. Dang, :( it's way hard to just walk away from stuff like that and not help, but we have to. There were two meetings this past week that were awesome (well there were obviously more that were awesome but i'm just going to talk about these for a sec.) Lyosha had a little short church related movie that he wanted to show us. It was called "Most" or bridge in Russian, and you've probably heard it, but its the one where this father is the conductor person in charge of switching the the train tracks and his son wanted to come help him so he was on the tracks and a train is coming and the father has to choose whether to save his son or the whole train of people. It is representative of Heavenly Father's sacrifice of his son to save all of us. It was just a power-house movie/story that really expresses how painful of a choice is must have been, the spirit was way strong and prosta (simply) just a great lesson. The other was family night at Chamaras. I used that glove thing to teach about the Holy Ghost and how it testifies of all of those stick on things. Misha was my volunteer and everyone thought it was cool, thanks for sending that. Also I played bananagrams for the first time last P-day, its an awesome game! English Club topics this week: Fantasy & Fiction and The Hollister, California beach life. Both went really well and everybody liked 'em. Oh the police came to our door and wanted us to say that we saw something that we didn't, there was an older man on the street that talked to us about the school system and airplanes for about 10-15 mins., and we had exchanges, i was with Elder Sodja for a day. We also had a Skype conference thing with the President and it was really cool. He is so awesome! I just love him, he taught us a ton of great things and really got us pumped up for missionary work.
Well, time is running out so i better finish this pretty soon. I love you all, thanks for all of your support, it has been a tremendous help. Hope everyone has a great week! Talk to strangers, i know they tell you not to :), but do, share the gospel, never be afraid to share your testimonies.
It's starting to get pretty chilly some days! So pray that i'll be able to survive this Siberian climate! Love Elder Bennett :) :) :)

Instant Potatoes are great

Made some instant potatoes this week in 10 seconds flat, and they weren't too bad either... Sounds like a ton is going on in the good 'ol USA for all of you. President and sister Gibbons arrived a day before the "Meet the President" meeting, so they were able to be at the branch building for English Club. They are both awesome and I'm sooo grateful for the opportunity to get to work with both of them. He is really awesome and has accomplished a ton in his life. And, he's trying to learn and perfect his Russian! I think its so cool how dedicated he is to learning the language. He's a really great example and hearing his testimony and background of his life was great....,There is this older grandma lady that will blow kisses at the missionaries that she sees on the street and will call one of them "Michael Jackson". Everything always happens after email time! Last week right after we were walking to the bus and my companion turns to me and says "Thats the Michael Jackson lady" and i was like ok, what does that mean, and i soon found out. She stopped us and called me Michael Jackson and was so excited and did a little dance. Hahaha is was the funniest thing ever, and get this, we ran into her again on our way to the branch building later that day, twice in one day, and at totally different parts of the city, talk about lucky. :) Going to get blini after email has been a little tradition for all of us, i was eating mine and a huge flock of little tiny super-smart birds came and tried to kill me for the food. I'll never forget the fire that was in their eyes....... no, it wasn't too bad, but it was one of those "ahhhh a ton of birds trying to eat me" moments, i'm sure that everybody has those all the time, right?! We still do not have hot water, we were supposed to have it like a week ago, so we are kinda wondering when we will have a hot shower again, but we'll see. Oh it was so cool. Sister Olga (mom of Sonya and Misha) also in the picture i sent, they all went to Ukraine to see her sister and she went to church there. She asked the missionaries there if they knew me and Elder Graham was in that branch! So that was cool to hear that he still remembers me, we were really good friends in the MTC. Also, Elder Garrett, my best friend from the MTC, i got a letter from him and Tanner. It was great to hear from them! Let Tanner know that his letter was hilarious and that i wish him the best of luck in the MTC and Porgutal, he'll love it.. Interesting story, it was rainy on Saturday so sports night was held in the branch building. When we got there, Sasha( a guy who is homeless) was sitting in a chair by the door. There were a few members in the branch having an activity so he wasn't the only one in there so that was good, but he just wouldn't leave. It's a hard time to make someone in those circumstances leave, but we had to. He was even given milk and a brownie from the members and he was in there for quite a while, but eventually we had to really be foward with him and tell him he needed to go. it was just safer to get him outside. After he left, we were able to go upstairs and have sports night which consisted of me playing chess with Sonya, Ping pong with Dong's (Dong is like the coolest Chinese college aged kid ever, we all love him, he's not a member but he comes to all of the activities and sacrament meetings, he's going to school here) and playing other games with the other missionaries.. Last night during planning, there were huge bangs and flashes of light, we thought someone was getting shot up right outside the building, but it turned out to be huge fireworks, it was pretty cool but you could hear all the bobushkas yelling at the kids after. Well, thanks so much for all of the support and love! Hope you all have a wonderful week, this is all for now! - Love Elder Bennett

SQUIRREL!

FROM:
Alex Bennett
TO: ◦ vicki bennett

Tuesday, August 16, 2011 11:16 PM




If you can all remember the movie "UP" there's that dog that goes crazy whenever he sees a squirrel. I saw like 10000 the other day at this veteran memorial/ park place. We were waiting at the bus stop for михайл's wife to take a group of us to go do some service (filling up the trenches that we dug). We also did some more wood chopping for some service this week as well. Good contacting week, just yesterday, i stopped a man and simply said to him, "Hey we are missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, would you like to hear more about our church." And he said, "Well, yeah, let me give you my number so you can write it down." It was so cool! Another awesome contact that we had was last P-day after Branch Council. There was a college-age looking man on the street and I asked him if he would be interested in coming to our Free English club that we have, and he responded with a very proper English/British accent "Well, hello gentleman, as a matter of fact, the English language happens to be my, well, cup of tea you could say.." and he said more, but we were just shocked at how well he spoke English. I called him a day or two later and he said he would like to meet with us on Sunday. New investigator! So we met and talked about the message of the Restoration, he knew some parts of it and it was an awesome meeting. We gave him a Book of Mormon and a книга мормона so he could read them back and forth if he wanted to in order to help him with learning English. At first he looked like he wasn't going to take them, but he was flipping through the pages and saw that I wrote my testimony on one of the first pages and he was like, "Ohhh, ahh, well thank you, I'll take them, thanks". We had another meeting with an investigator and we had a member present with us. The meeting went great, we emphasized the importance of having Faith in Christ and then acting on that faith. Had family night at Olga's, if you got the pictures, i'm with her and her two kids in the pic. They are awesome! I love em to death. The kids are hilarious and she is one of the best members of the church that i have ever met. We made little sugar-dough things that were really tasty and a potato and vegetable dish. We had a spiritual thought and played some UNO together, really fun night. English club has been going great, for yesterdays lesson plan i had the idea of a plane crash stranded on an abandoned island scenario where Elder Peterson and I only had one spot left on our life-boat and everyone had to randomly choose a sticky note that had the name of an item that they had to try and persuade us was the best to bring such as first aid kit, flashlight, pocket knife, telescope, sunglasses and hat, etc. and that person was saved. There were some pretty good answers and it was fun to see everyone really involved in it. One of the weeks we talked about sports, excercise, etc. and I did the crane into handstand pose, a few people clapped and were really impressed. To sum it up, things are fantastic, the weather is starting to get a little colder and it rains sometimes, but its not too bad. Mike, thanks for the letter that you sent. It sounds like you had a really good time at trek and a good summer. I can't believe you are starting school again! Crazy, this is the big leagues now, high school, it will be a ton of fun. A very important thing that you have to do is make sure that you have good friends though, dont do anything stupid! If you could let Justin H. know thanks for helping me out with the American Express and always being so helpful and for his email. Also let Erika know that i'm thankful for her email too. Hope you got the pics, that's why the letter is a little shorter than usual, but now that i know how to do it faster, it will be better for next week. I love you all so much! Thank you for the support, you don't know how much it helps me, it is really a strength to me and keeps me going. Thank you to all, and to all a good night! Talk to ya next week! - Love Elder Bennett

Subject:
Baby Pigeons.....
From:
Alex Bennett (abennett@myldsmail.net)
To:
vicki84327@yahoo.com;
Cc:

Bcc:

Date:
Tue, 09 Aug 2011 21:51:13

Has anyone ever seen a baby pigeon?! There are soooo many pigeons here and i have no idea of their origin or where they come from?! Do they just fall out of the sky as adults or... i have no idea, but anywho... (sounds like something that would be argued on Seinfeld or something) How is everyone?! Let John know that I'm proud of him for becoming Hussain Bolt, that's cool that he's gonna be in a marathon. He can never beat me in a race on my home-court track aka the Newton Dam Run though... :) He told me that you went in a ride in the GTI and that you probably didn't like it, ahhh i remember those fun times in the VW, the bus drivers here drive a little crazier though.. So it's sorta like de ja vu to riding with him :) Jk. You mentioned Scipio, ughh that was the worst part of the ride to St. G from what I can remember.. Oh, the other day we went and did some service for михайл. We helped him dig a trench behind his house. He's got a cool trench system thing going and it was great to be able to go and help him out. To thank us, he gave us some treats. Also they gave us carrots and squash. I grilled some of it up yesterday and we had an awesome lunch. It reminded me of when you would grill up the squash and how delicious it was, mine wasn't as tasty, but it held it's own. Speaking of vegetables, we were contacting on Sunday, and these babushka (grandmas) were trying to get us to buy some potatoes. We told them that it's the Sabbath and that we aren't able to buy things on Sunday because its a commandment. The one kept on trying to sell them saying they wouldn't be as good the next day, but the one sitting next to her was trying to get to her stop because she really respected our decision. Elder Peterson said its the first time that he's seen a babushka respect him for that, so it was pretty cool. Last P-day we went to a little Cafe place and ate. I had a pork pie thing and some blini, it was delicious!! The cafe was called Klauses. I also bought a ToMb soccer team jersey, it looks way cool and it fits just great! Fun fact: I have had 3 mission presidents in less than 2 transfers, not too many people are able to say that. President Gibbons is now the mission president and we get to meet him in a week or so. Elder Davis came last week, he's an awesome Elder. For the English Club story yesterday, he started out with saying that he came from a really small town where the people would make gifts for each other. He then went on to how he was bigger than everyone else and that his bed was too small for him, and so he decided to leave and go find his real father in New york, etc. etc. He told it much better than I just attempted to, but we were able to tell that it was the plot from "Elf" the Christmas movie with Will Ferrell. It was pretty clever how he told it like it was him though, it was really funny. Really good news, we have 2 new investigators this week and are expecting a 3rd! Finding new people to teach has been a struggle right now for all of us so we've done a lot of street contacting. There was a man on the street that I had a really strong impression to talk to. He said that he would be interested in strengthening his faith in Jesus Christ, and he let us set up a meeting with him! It was so awesome, his name is сергей and we have this meeting with him a little later today. We also had a 1st meeting with влад the other day where we talked about The Plan of Salvation. He seemed to receive it really well and he agreed to come to church and meet with us again. He's a really smart kid and is getting excited about the gospel. Things are really looking up! I really have a testimony of the power of prayer. Our Heavenly Father is always there ready to listen to us and he wants to help us and give us strength. There are a lot of people here that recite and read prayers. But we know that God is our literal father and he wants to hear about our lives and have our prayers be personal. If you went to your dad everyday and told him the same thing over and over, how would he know how to help or how things are? Prayers are meant to be personal and sincere, not citations. Our prayers also lead to action. For example, we have asked for help to find and teach new investigators. This means that we can't keep are heads down on the street and not talk to anyone and expect to receive these blessings. We have to do our part. It's so awesome to see how much the Lord and Heavenly Father are willing to give if we just ask........... I’m looking for a card reader today when we have some free time so hopefully I’ll be able to get some pics on by next email. Don't worry I’ve taken a ton of good ones. Well anywho, have a wonderful week, remind people that they can send me emails and I’ll just take pics of them so i can read them. I love you all! Enjoy the nice summer heat! - Love Elder Bennett :) :) :)

----- Forwarded Message -----
From: Alex Bennett
To: vicki bennett
Sent: Tuesday, August 2, 2011 10:24 PM
Subject: Re: forgot


it went really good. At the beginning I said (but in Russian) "Ok i have a favor i need to ask of all of you... even if you don't understand any of my Russian for the rest of the time that I give this talk, just tell President and Sister Rolfe that i did a good job anyway..." Everybody in the congregation was laughing pretty hard, and it's funny because the APs were there and they translate all of he meetings for President and his wife so they understood it and got a good laugh as well.


On Wed, Aug 3, 2011 at 11:03 AM, vicki bennett wrote:




how did your talk go? HUG

Message flagged
Tuesday, August 2, 2011 11:18 PM
Message body


The sequel to "Snakes on a Plane"... "River in a Bus".... Let me explain.. It was Elder Anderson's Birthday last week, so after emailing we went as a zone to get some ice-cream and go on a hike. Both were great and it was really fun to get the woodsy feel of Russia. The end of the hike brought us to a lake and it was just a good time. But the weather started getting sketchy so were started to head back really fast. Elder Peterson and I had a meeting with a member that we were going to go to, so we caught a bus. We were really lucky to get on it when we did. The minute after we were on the bus there was like a flash flood and the whole street was just a river. Cars were stuck, it was up to peoples waists, and it was so high that it was even coming in the bus a little bit. And I'm so mad because my camera was low on charge so it died and I didn't get a picture or video of it! I'll have to get some from Elder P. But it happens a lot here, so maybe I'll get some good footage some other time. Other crazy news, I can't believe it's already time for transfers! Time is very tricky. What was the MTC! Really, it seems like I never even went, but it also seems like it was just yesterday,I don't know, time just doesn't exist for the two years on your mission. We have a new greenie coming into our area from the MTC and one missionary just coming from a different area of the mission. Saturday was great! I experienced my first round of Training and met the mission president and got to see the APs again. Elder Eborn says that you and his mom talk to each other and we got a picture together that I think he's going to send in his email, so look for that. President Rolfe and his wife are awesome! We all learned a ton from them and just to sum it all up, it was really helpful. It will be interesting though because Gibbons is going to be the President soon. So, we'll all have to go through the meeting our mission president process again and more training. Oh yeah, they brought my packages, pictures, and mail with them... THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!! Oh it was great to be able to get something! Nothing to cheer ya up like some Reeses Pieces (and a ton of other candy) and some letters and pics from the fam. Tell Justin I love 'em, those chapters from that book are great and so are his letters. I wish I could sit and chat with him, it sounds like a lot is happening at his work and with the kids, oh i miss 'em! Let Justin Hutchinson know that I really appreciate the letters that he sent me and his support it's really helped me out and let him know.. HAPPY BIRTHDAY FROM RUSSIA! Also, we might go out and each of us get a jersey today so if he sees a withdrawl that is why. And tell John Mayhew I wanna hear how he's doing too. I've started taking pictures of the emails i get so i can just read them from the camera when we have a second. What other things are happening in the world? That stuff is always really interesting, so don't forget to throw in a couple current events or things like that in your emails :) Ok, so back to the week. We had our last hot shower this morning. The hot water will be turned off for 2 weeks :( The soccer match was really cool, the best part was close to the end of the game. There was an ambulance truck that was driving at a pretty slow speed on the outside of the field and the driver totally wasn't paying attention and drove into a gap thing about 3 feet or so deep. The passenger got out of the truck, looked at the situation, grabbed his clipboard, and put his head down and just walked away. The driver wouldn't even get out of the truck he was so embarrased. I don't know you just would have had to been there i guess, but it was pretty funny because everybody sort of saw it coming except for the driver. :) When we got back to the apartment, there was a fire truck and a ton of smoke in the air, I was really nervous i thought the place burnt down, but no, it was just the potato cellar on the other side of our little driveway thing. We had apartment checks, the office couple was really impressed at how clean it was. After English club yesterday, I was talking to a college age kid that said he needed a good book to read. I gave him a Knega Mormona and explained that it would be really good practice. He wants to learn more English so I'll see if i can get a hold on one in English so he could translate back and forth. He just couldn't wrap his mind around why we come on missions for two years and dont get paid for it. So he's interested and maybe there's some potential we'll have to see.
Well thanks for everything, the care package i got was such a booster for me, thanks! I love you all soooooooooo much!!!!!!!! I'm running out of time, so i guess this is good bye until next time! - Love Elder Bennett