Elder Alex Bennett's Mission Blog

Mon, Sep 9, 2013 Hello, Yes, McFarlane is headed back home on the 15th, but he'd be able to come back fairly quickly if all goes well. I'll probably be home before he comes back. The knee hasn't bothered me, I think It is a miracle that my meniscus isn't messed up right now. President Curtis was over on this side of the mission for interviews and we had ours in the morning before District Meeting, I love that guy, he's sooo great and inspires ya to just go out and get 'em. Elder Stoddard's District Meeting Training focused on the differences of qualities between Helaman's Sons and it reminded me of the time when President Cannon was like, "Ohhh, I hope we can just all be a bunch of good Shiblons" :) We had dinner at the Stake Patriarch's home. We had some pretty awesome breadsticks,and stew. We had a lesson at R's our tentative appointment, they had Frankenweenie on when we came in and I saw a few seconds of it, that is a weird show, Tim Burton's thoughts will not exist in the Celestial Kingdom :). As always, Ris awesome, he's getting closer to being baptized. Woke up bright and early at like 5 to pick up 3 other Elders and flip-flop companionships for the day so that we and the 3 District Leaders could go to Leadership Training Meeting in Twin by 8:30. We got a voicemail, way funny by the way, at 3 in the morning from Elder Mayfield, we could barely understand him, and he was explaining that he was puking all night long and had nothing left in his stomach and that he'd appreciate it if we could pick them up in the morning to take them to the "white house" so they didn't have to ride their bikes over like we had originally planned. We soon found out that Elders Kennedy, Loeber, Steimle, and myself we're feeling about the same and were all just sick together the whole day. We mainly went over policies and the reiteration of all of them and training on how we can be great stewards over our various wakes of leadership. Some of the policies though, some just did not get them, so we were beating a dead-horse for hundred hours of just pointless questions, it was tough to get through it, especially towards the very end when Elder Steimle wasn't feelin great, and then me. So Elder Steimle puked before all was said and done at the Mission Office and looked about as white as a ghost. I was on exchanges in Twin for the day and over night with Elder Hancock, ohhhh man, he is such a cool missionary, I was the one that took him out street contacting in Boise his first day here, so it was great to see him again and he's hilarious too, everybody likes him. I was on bike for a change. We had a good lesson with a claimed Atheist young man, M. he was waaaay funny though, reminded me of Elder Epperson in La Grande. His favorite thing in the world is Dragonball Z so we were able to connect on that level for a min :) The lesson actually seemed to make some head-way in his opinion and he knelt in prayer with us at the end. At dinner I was like, I know this is awkward, but can I just lay down on your floor, and they knew the situation and were just so hospitable, so I just layed like a clump and commented in the conversation occasionally. We had a good dinner lesson though, I missed the Bow-tie pasta, but I added my ten-cents in the thought and it turned out way good. My moment happened later, not as bad as his though, and it was just being postponed for the longest time so I followed the advice of a doctor that we had dinner with and stuck my finger down and just got it over with. Puked about 6 times or so at night and felt great, had some saltine crackers, took a shower, went to bed, new man in the morning. Maybe Tim would be jealous, I don't know, but the Hansen's have been canning like crazy and had this home-made cream corn that they gave us when we came home, it was good. I met a missionary while in Twin who is going to Bulgaria, the alphabet looks similar but still different, he says that the word on the street is that by speaking Russian I'd probably be able to understand 50% of Bulgarian. He very much reminded me of a slightly taller version of Elder Reed that I served with, voice and all. I got to do the Bishop's Store-house in the morning, fun, miss doing that every two weeks, when ever I've done it I've seen someone that I knew before. Elder Cardon is coming to our mission next month for a conference and we had to fill out this PMG questionare online. We watched this video on the temple during comp. study and it was way informative and explained why when Christ was crucified that the veil of the temple was rent (we get that a lot when people bash about temples). We picked up a new investigator named K. We met her while we were dropping some forms off at the Spanish Elders and saw her carrying out a dresser, so we helped and ended up getting involved in the remodeling project tearing down her bedroom walls. She has had a lot of negativity in her recent years and wants to increase her spirituality and says that baptism is a possible goal and is planning on church this week. I ate this mega-hot pepper that the Spanish Sisters got from this lady, it wasn't a good experience and lasted probably a half hour or so. F. who we are really trying to help give up his reckless lifestyle has not been trying as hard as he wants to, it's been frustrating but whenever we go over there we see some hope in him. The Hansen's had the video of the Twin Temple Cultural Celebration we watched a little bit of it. We got a package from Mom Steims, it was summer sausage, crackers, cheese, carmel pop-corn, it was good stuff. We had dinner at P's house it was fun, very missionary minded family. She made an awesome caramel cake, you've made it before, I forgot how much I like that. We are getting a fire goin with the 3rd ward and starting to have splits so things are pickin' up. We were able to teach K. in her home for the first time, went great, she definitely felt the Spirit strongly. Two soon to be missionaries getting ready to leave, one of which is Bob's son, we stopped by the house after church and had a little lunch outside with family and friends, it was fun. High Priest guy who we had dinner with is hilarious. Well, I'm gonna get goin, but hope that's enough info for ya, Love Elder Bennett