Apocolyptic Breakfast 4
September 25, 2011 11:39 PM

Well, thought it was the end of the world this morning when I woke up because all of the windows were super foggy and white, its gettin' colda! One of the pics that I sent is a shopka that Elder Peterson bought right before he left Tomsk, it looks like your wearing a bear on your head :) That's good to hear that you got the packages from Finland, the lady that helped me there was soooo nice and made sure that everything was good to go to America. I got an email from Pat Dagley letting me know about Clint and his report that he gave in good 'ol Newton, it you talk to them, let him know that I say "Priviet" from his "Same Lushe Dryg" (really good friend). To answer your question though, yes, everything went ok with Finland travel, I can really testify that Heavenly Father really watches over his missionaries and makes sure that they get on the right buses, planes, etc. There is a picture that I attached and it looks like I am sad, that's the day that I left Tomsk. Things are a prrrreetttyyy different flavor here in Novo. Its like taking Newton and comparing it to Salt Lake or Provo. The people here in the office are sooooo awesome though. My companion Elder Kelly is so witty and hilarious, always on his toes to come up with a funny comment. The Webbs (The office couple) are so kind and great to work with. They are new too, the McCauleys left last week so its been a big learning experience for all of us. Lately I've been working on trying to bring in everyone for Leadership conference this week, but everything has been working smoothly and I love it that President has combined the two office elders jobs that they have to do, so we are able to work on things together which is great. We also have an area and are participating in a lot of normal missionary work. We were working with an investigator named Nakita who speaks really good English and was pretty close to setting a baptismal date, but he just wont commit to one so we have him on the back burner for now, but we are hoping that he will want to continue meeting with us eventually. The Huffakers are a senior couple in Novosibirsk, they are amazing! The missionaries, members, and investigators go to their place every week for family night, which is always a great time. Every P-day we start off by grocery shopping with the Office Couple, Senior Couple, and President Gushin, he is my favorite Russian that I have ever met in my life! He is the mission driver and also 2nd counselor in the Mission Presidency. To describe him is easy, he looks exactly spot-on Mario in (looks and height) and he has the best laugh in the world, ohhhh he's so cool. I know that I am sort of jumping all over the place in my thoughts right now, sorry :) We went on a bike ride with all the missionaries last P-day, it was fun. Had dinner at the Webbs yesterday after church, roast beef, potatoes, salad, cookies, pudding, and Elder Kelly and I brought over Zucchini bread which was so delcious and was in the shape of a volcano because we didn't have a smaller pan so we re-named it Volkini Bread.... cheezy i know... but it tasted really good. After that we went to a fireside and saw a slideshow from a missionary who just got home and they asked a couple of people to bear their testimonies from the little audience of people and I was one of them. It was cool because I wasn't even nervous when she asked, as a missionary you just have to have faith and just go and do it. It turned out good, I testified that Heavenly Father will always help us and how I have seen His help every day. It can be a little frustrating when you can't speak the language very good, but the people understand you. The spirit is the common language that everybody speaks. Well I better get going, we need to do some apartment cleaning and some other jobs today, so we'll talk to ya next week! - Love Elder Bennett

Finland

Helsinki Finland

Helsinki Finland temple

Helsinki Finland Temple

I did get all of those postcards, thank you very much, they are beautiful. I also sent you some things as well.... Since it was your birthday and all :) I sent two packages for you, one of them (the heavier one) is going to be coming a little later (probably Sept. 28th or so) because it would have been a ton of money to sent that one by priority ( But that will be even more fun that you have something to look forward to the next couple of days :) Hope you had a wonderful day and that your birthday was as magical as Finnish chocolate. Finland was amazing!!! The crazy thing about going there is that everyone speaks English! Well, for the most part, which made it a little easier to find out where we needed to be and where to go. We were so lucky though, after we got our passports taken care of at the temple, which was closed for cleaning this time around, :( We took a bus to "Leppavara" Station and when we got off, there was a guy that stopped us and told us that we looked like we were very confused and let us know that he served his mission in Finland and was living there for work and school, oh and his wife was Finnish too. Oh how grateful we were for that! His name was Brother Marriott and he was sooo helpful and cool. He helped us get to the Stadion Hostel where we were staying and introduced us to Finnish Yogurt which is probably one of the best creations ever made! I don't know what we would have done without him! I'm pretty sure that Dr. Gunnell served there didn't he? In short, Finland was everything I've ever dreamed of, and it was great because on the flights back, i was able to have a long conversation with some Russians and it was great to get to meet them. Things are pretty crazy right now with the new responsibility of Office Elder to say the least. Busy, busy, busy, is all I can say. The most busy I have ever been in my whole life! Everything is very new to me still and I am doing my best to get adjusted, I don't know, crazy is the only word I can come up with right now :) How is the family though?! Sounds like Mike is still Mike changing his bike and all, hope he's loving his high school experience. Well I am very sorry for sending this very short message but that's about all I have time for today. Thank you for your prayers and your support, have a great week!

Monday, September 12, 2011 2:14
Hello family! I absolutely lovedddd the Reeses package that you sent and the inflatable pillow and M&M's, thank you, thank you, It was way cool to be in the office at that moment, you get things a lot sooner than if you were out anywhere else :) Oh wait, me in the office... what!.. I have a lot of news for you today, I will start with the biggest tid bit of info.... I am now an Office Elder! It was a surprise to me too! My Tomsk zone and I were on a bike ride last P-day and our phone rang. Elder Peterson and I thought it was to check how his leg was doing but it was actually to let me know that I was coming in to the office and that I was going to be leaving Tomsk a little earlier than the actual transfer date to receive some training here. It was funny, he asked me if I was on the bike still so I wouldn't fall off when he told me the news that he had. So yeah, that's where I have been since Thursday afternoon. Novosibirsk is huge and it's a totally different scene than Tomsk is. My new companion is Elder Kelly, he's great. He's from Orem and his dad was a Mission president over the Moscow mission about a decade or so ago. He is very funny and we watched a lot of the same t.v. shows and movies that I did. He is hilarious and very witty, i'm really lucky to be with him. We have been in a companionship of 3 because Elder Capps was Elder Kelly's companion before me and E. Capps has been showing me the ropes. They're both so awesome and I'm so grateful for my opportunity to work with them. Also, huge news, I am heading on Visa Trip tomorrow morning and I am the travel leader. It will be fun to go to the land of elvish language and delicious Finnish chocolate. Oh and by the way, I am going to try to send something from Finland through the Pochta there. It is so crazy, in a few minutes we are going to Carl's Jr..... let me repeat... CARL'S JR.!!!! Ahhhhhh, I'm soooo excited! That's the bonus to living in a big city. :) Random thought... That is crazy that Clint is home!!! I remember the day that I went with Colton to say good-bye to him. Let him know I say hello and I'm so proud of him. Let the kids know that I love them and that their pictures that they sent to me are fantastic. I told Olga that you were grateful and I showed her the email that you sent me. She said that it was very cool that you did that and she was thankful for you. Her daughter Sonya called me at the time that I was at the Aftovoksal to head to Novosibirsk to tell me good-bye. She sounded really sad and it really brought a tear to my eye and reminded me of the kids and how hard it was to tell them goodbye when I left. Hope Mike is doing great in school, it sounds like he's having fun with his small business and dropping phones in pools.. This is for him, on our way back from the branch building on Sunday, there was a group of Indian Flute players from Bolivia and they were selling cds. It reminded me of the time that we were in that mall and Mike bought that dang ocarina that he never played :) Just kidding. I guarantee that my email next time will be much better and longer hopefully. I love you all sooooo very much! Have a wonderful week won'tcha! - With tons of love. Elder Bennett

Curse the smell of garlic

In my time here, i have dealt with more cloves of garlic than people! Just kidding, way not true. But anyway, we helped a member the other day (and I'm also talking about other times we have helped other members with food) prepare some food and somehow I am always the one that has my fingers smell like garlic for days! :) I heard that to get rid of this pungent scent you wash your hands with a metal spoon, is this true?! I dunno maybe i'm just gullible and falling for another joke/prank like at the "fireside" yesterday. We all played "do you love your neighbor" after the spiritual thought and eating some wafflely and drinking some apple sok (juice). If any of you are familiar with this game, the person in the middle comes up to you and asks whether you love your neighbors, like the name implies, if no is the answer, then the person in the middle and the two on the sides scramble for a seat. If the answer is yes, you have do say "yeah, except those who....." and whatever you want after that. As you know, i'm still very young on the mission and dont speak or understand Russian perfect, so people can have fun with that. For example, the person in the middle came up to Elder Peterson and asked him the question and he said "i love all my neighbors except for those.. who put on lipstick today" I didn't know what the word for that was yet, so i kinda had rely on if a ton of people were moving or not and just follow the group, but he told me to hurry and find a seat, and when i stood up and changed seats everybody was laughing and then i found out what that meant and was like "Ha, ha, Ok, Ok, ponyatna..... (i understand) i don't know, it was just funny and some of the members tried to do the same thing and trick me, it was fun :) Great news.... WE HAVE HOT WATER AGAIN!!! Oh, it was the happiest day of my life! School started on the first of September, so we saw every girl and boy dressed up in the city. The boys are all in nice suits and the girls wear dresses and cute bonetchkas (things in their hair). There was a picnic/back to school activity for a few of the youth this last week, we all went to that and there was some food and a little scripture scavenger hunt of sorts around the branch building, it was fun. . Way more important and way cooler things happened this week though. There was a baptism for a woman that the sisters have been working with. The sisters asked me to conduct, very scary and my first time conducting something like this in Russian, but I made it through.... The other day we were going to help a member with carrying some things before we went to sports night. By the bus stop, we saw a boy about 13 years old about to smoke a cigarette. Elder P. asked him why he smokes and told him and it really isn't a cool thing to do and we went on our way. Cool part of the story coming up, we ended up in the same spot that day and saw the cigarette that he had (we recognized it because it had like a blueish color to it) not used and it was laying on the ground. How awesome it that?! Also, we were going through the area book and found a woman who we thought was ready to be taught again. We have had three meetings wth her and we set a baptismal date with her yesterday and she seems excited, so we are very happy with that. Today, we had a meeting with a contact that we met on the street. We saw him yesterday on our way to church and asked him if he could meet and he said he would the next day. He told the truth! It was awesome and he received it really well and he says that all that we taught him made sense. And he even agreed to pray at the end of the meeting after we taught him how, he did an amazing job, and he wants to meet with us tomorrow. I am so grateful for these miracles and blessings that we are receiving. Prayer and faith are so powerful. I'm so very thankful for all of your support and email. I send my love and a few pictures, enjoy them :) Love Elder Bennett