July 8th, 2013 Well as you know I am now in good ol' Burley, I will probably finish my mission considering that I have 2-3 more rounds left. Apparently I'm supposed to get a call from President Curtis here pretty soon where we discuss departure dates and I receive my "Pre-trunks" in the mail (some forms I need to fill out or something of that nature). David and Lorri are awesome, it'd be so fun If I could jump on that Marketing/Sales team again while I'm goin' to school, we'll tear it up. I thought I did tell you about that last Missionary Leadership Council with President Cannon, oh well, anyway, so they usually end at 2:00 or so and it ended at 4:00 if you get the drift. It was hard to see them go and there were a lot of wet eyes, but the work goes on and I'll see him again one of these days here soon. The reason we don't have backpacks anymore they look unprofessional and the elude the impression that you could be carrying a lot of valuable items, a bomb, or maybe a small animal. Plus, I even like my other bag better now that I've been giving it a shot. I can't remember those definitions for Dagon, but all I know is that they were all pretty dang hilarious and convincing. When is Jake going to be baptized? Also, HAPPY BIRTHDAY JAKIE!!! HOPE YOU HAD A WAY AWESOME DAY! Speaking of baptism,we have a investigator who we have been teaching and is GOLDEN, very close to or as much said that he would like me to baptize him, which is an honor that'll be way cool. I got in touch with the Italiano in me this past week as we went to Maxies with Elders Steimle, Risley, and Narvaez, Bro.Hayes, who owns it let us make our own personal pizzas and garlic bread, it takes sooo much better when you made it. The Rules were so awesome, loved them. It was a very cool privilege that we had as Zone Leaders (& Sister Leader Trainers, new) to actually set the vision, culture statement, and goals for the new mission, pretty unique, not a ton of the 70,000 or so missionaries have had that opportunity, so I feel honored. The Twin Zone did wonderful, I feel like a Papa Smurf to all of them. I had a lot of really nice comments from everyone on how they would REALLY miss me and that it would be hard to see me go. At least I can see them at mission stuff and P-days. I'm also in the same Zone as Elder Johnson, one of my favorite missionaries so that's cool. This morning we worked out in the basement of this member's place where they have their own gym. One of their boys just got back from the Vladivostok mission last month and we were able to chat for a bit in Russian, he says that, "I well speak" which in English grammar means "You speak well" :) For the 4th we had breakfast with the 5th ward, there was this guy that went on a mission, returned home, and sought out Anti stuff and such and is now not active in any way. He was talking to us and I had a "not being confounded before men" moment when he asked a question, I gave a response, and he was like "Good point, good point, I agree with that" and he didn't ask us any more. We had a great Zone meeting, each District Leader presented some training in it and I received a lot of positive feedback, it turned out really good, I can attach the Zone Vision that we made. Had a Last Supper with the Richmans on Sunday, it was fun to be with 'em again. We had potatoes, pork-chops, heavenly rolls, and this way good Smuckers lemonade. Well I guess that's about it from me this week, hope you all had a good one in the Brick Oven, more like Red Rock Oven that is St. Geezy. I do like that there is minimal humidity there. Have a good one! -Love Elder Bennett

July 1st, 3013 Concerning Gus and Maggie, they are these cats at the Offrets, a SUPER awesome family in Hansen. Her kids are here for the summer and they are pretty funny, Lexi, one of them, she's 9, was telling me the religions of the different cats. Hearing that name is a good reminder because I think that is one of the names that I was going to use later in naming one of mine someday . The weather has been really hot lately, like in the 100s and the humidity is higher here so you can feel it. We did get to meet President Curtis, ohhhh, such an amazing man, love him to death. The Zone leaders came to the "Meet the Mission President" meeting a little early so he could have a personal interview with them. It was just a get to know you thing and it was awesome to converse with him just 1 on 1 for a little bit. He has an MBA so in my email to him today I asked him if he could possibly teach me the secret arts of receiving one because that is one of my plans as well :) Some new announcements, world-wide they are getting rid of the whole back-pack thing, and transitioning to the "satchel" so I already have mine, if you remember that little lap-top like bag that I had. So some news, not sure if you'll like it but, so since the Twin Mission is in that 3 week transfer to offset it from the other mission, that puts people 3 weeks earlier or later than they expected. Sooooo that puts me at November something just sayin, President is going to talk to the ones leaving soon about it and discuss situations, etc. and their REAL departure date. So last week there was someone who was playing basketball and tore their ACL so they're home now, I have a hunch possibly I could be filling that slot over in Burley, who knows. Anywhoooooo, Elder MacFarlane is in Jerome right now and I was able to spend most of the P-day with him, it was awesome to see him again, also Elder Johnson (was in my district in Oregon) is over in Rupert, so this mission. The mutual group was doing archery the other day and we, with a member, were dropping someone off there and I shot this awesome bow, what a rush that was. Not sure what the poundage was but like no one except for one guy could pull the string back without help. It had this trigger release thing as well, when you let it go, it was literally like the arrow's shockwave shook ya a little bit, it was cool. There are these "Pointer" dogs at the Rules, where we live, their dog just had puppies and they're teaching them the ropes. I named one of them "Pointress" like "Pinterest".... hahaha, do ya get it? They thought it was funny. For Elder Kelliher's District Meeting, quick note, the Zone is just SOOO great, we had 50 member-present lessons, 2 baptisms, and 245 total lessons, just awesome, any how, for this meeting they did a "skill check", which is like a little game to test your knowledge, and it was like a form of Balderdash but with Bible Dictionary words, one of the words was Dagon, a fish-god of the Philistines, and oh my heck the fake definitions that come from that one and others were hilarious. I'm determined that I've never really liked Sonic's food, probably wont go there ever again unless it's a slushie or shake of sorts. We mowed this investigators lawn because she like collapsed the other day from lack of sodium etc., never a fun thing to go through. It was like 110 and super hot, luckily another investigator who is a neighbor gave us Gatorades. Yesterday we had a great opportunity to get the 5th ward ready for more missionary work. We taught the Youth and the Adults and had some clips, it was great everybody loved it and I left a commitment to the Youth that when we were to come and check the table that I expected all the materials/resources to be taken and they were except for just a few mormon.org cards/family history ones too. That was great Work of Salvation broadcast that we were able to see last week. It sounded like from Papa's letter that you all liked it, which is good. We won't be seeing iPads and technological stuff until like end of this year so I'll probably miss it, dang, I'd actually WANT to update the Area Book if it was on that. Well, looks like my time's about up so I'm gonna head out, but thank you for the prayers, support, packages, etc. Only got really a lil bit tiny left, time really flies. Love you all and try to keep the Circus commotion down to a minimum so you don't upset the neighbors. - Love Elder Bennett :)