Elder Alex Bennett's Mission Blog

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