October 14, 2013 Ha, I chuckled to myself when you started out with "Elder Beneficial" it reminds me of my times over in Kimberly when Elder Larsen, Elder Kellliher, and others would call me that. It was better than the alternative, Elder Bidet(like the toilet thing). Ohhhh Elder Ortner, he was a verrrrrrrry kind Elder and was just all around good. I'm lookin forward to watching this Russian movie, sounds interesting. That's great that you were able to get help, when you were sick from Judy when you needed it, I remember those days with your messed up hair to the side days walkin like a zombie around the house. Straw-bail maze As you saw from that picture, we went through the straw-bail maze, had lunch there afterward Disasterous District Meeting, Life-Flight, Out with Morley I forwarded the message from President to you concerning Elder Silver, we went to their District Meeting and Elder King and Elder Silver weren't there and wouldn't answer their phone and we finally got a hold of them and went to the hospital and it was a major sad fiasco. They life-flighted him and everything. We went out with Morley for the first time, he's a wonderful WML Priming the Shed, Archery practice, "Smashing Pumpkins", Malfoy, CJ the crazy German Taxi Driver We did this service with the other Elders Priming this shed, the neighbors, the Burgesses let us borrow some supplies and they had these little bows and we shot them for a second, it was fun. There is a kid in one of the wards that looks exactly like Malfoy from Harry Potter. CJ is a WM and he went out with him, he is hilarious, went to Germany, is a wayy good driver like the Russian taxi drivers. More shed and rocks, Correlation with Morey, Get-well Cards More service, had a meeting with Morey, prepared Get-well cards for Elder Silver, President took a whole box of them from the Zone over there. Disneyland Dinner with the Meers, Taycie doppleganger We had dinner with an awesome family that reminded me of Shelly and Justin's, we talked about Disneyland the whole time because they recently went not that long ago. I as well as a few other missionaries are Disneyland-trunky occasionally. Their little girl was like the spitting personality of Taycie, she got this tiara and stuff for her birthday and was trying not to smile when we told her how cute she was Mini-MTC, A's Baptism, Lunch with Sanchez, Shaw's Wisdom, Amanda YSA lesson We went to this Mini MTC breakfast and fireside thing, way good, wish we had those in our stake growing up, Sanchez took Elder Silvers place, I love that kid, so funny. Well we gotta get goin, I'm sorry about that, but we'll catch up with everything here pretty soon :) I love you all sooooo much, thank you for everything that you have done to help me on this journey of mine. thank you! Love Elder Benett

Mon, Oct 7, 2013 Pretty crazy that there are only 4 emails left huh? Hmmm, not ready for that, Elder Johnson was just telling me how weird it has been for him to be home, as well as Bloomquist. This has honestly been the busiest, most stressful (not overly though), wild week that I've had in a while. That's cute about the kids making little t-shirts for the arrival, that'll be fun to see. That wrestling picture was waaaaay funny, he was just puttin out smack, like usual and I'm like that's it, and tackled him and we wrestled for a second. He was saying for all these weeks, the last day your here I'm gonna take you down. Well, I could have been safe putting my whole life's fortune on the line with the expectation that I had of you raving about the talk that Holland gave, which by the way, was very needed for our society and for me as well. Russian kidnapping movie sounds interesting. TRANSFERS WERE CRAZY! Eaaaaaarly morning, picked up the Burley 2 Elders, put bike and luggage in the cab, went to Oakley Elders, picked them up, Kelliher and I went in the Malibu, everybody met at Walmart, shufflin around of people cars, drove to Twin, went to the Assistants to shave, had the Transfer meeting, had lunch at Maxies, tried to see A. and J. quick, went to the office, got assignments to get mattresses from this place, took the mattresses to Burley to each apartment that needed it. Picked up the Oakley Elder that was moving took him to Rupert let them finish packing moved their stuff to their new apartment, came back to Burley, moved both sets of the Burley Sisters stuff. Went the White House to get Elder Diaz clothes dropped those off and their bikes. BUSY DAY! Had a District Leaders Counsel with them to prepare them for Zone Meeting, went to Burgers Etc. for a shake afterwards, did more prep for Friday President Curtis came to Zone Meeting, our announcements, planned for 10 minutes, took 40 minutes, President Curtis admits that whenever he comes to a meeting it goes waaay longer than it was supposed to :) Some guy called and needed a huge piano moved . The Bishop in the 1st ward looks like Mitt Romney and is an OBGYN. Our other new area the YSA, we met the Branch President. We have a WML named Morley, that's gonna get confusing... Everyone has been giving us apples and potatoes now, watched conference with R for the Saturday morning session we had awesome cinnamon bun things, we carried buckets of squash down for the Hansens, We watched the Afternoon Session at home downstairs, we couldn't get a hold of any investigators to watch it with for that one. Our investigator almost died because of his illegal drug use and it scared him and he called us and wanted us to help him so we missed a little bit of the Priesthood session. He has a desire but doesn't really do anything about it, it's frustrating. Played a round of pool to help us relax a little bit after all this stress We watched the morning session with Bishop Jeppson, in his scrubs, like delivered a baby a half hour earlier. Watched the afternoon one at Moreys. We went to this member's neighbors house who we are going to be doing service for. He's Russian. Spanish Sisters had a baptism that we went to, k, now, like the coolest story ever. So there was a time, Fair week, that Elder Pyper, Elder Kennedy and I were together and we were trying to contact someone. There was this guy that had headphones on and walked like he was too busy to talk. I had a strong feeling to talk to him. I stopped him and he took his headphones off and listened. I explained that there was a lot of activities held at the church and that he should come and explained a little bit about ourselves. He told me where he lived and I determined that was the Sisters area so I gave him the Sisters number on a mormon.org card. Never thought I would ever see or hear from this guy again. Anyway, so he is at this baptism with the Sisters and comes up to me and is like, "This is the missionary" and I'm like what, and he explained that he was that guy that I stopped and that he is getting baptized this month. WAAAAAAY cool, it like blew my mind. You never know the impact that you can have by just smiling, talking, having conversation with someone. Well there you go, I gotta get going, but have a great week, I love ya, thanks for the letters, packages, love. Talk to, and see you soon! :) Love Elder Bennett

Sept 30, 2013 Toned down version of the Russian office..... We've had a lot of correlations and meetings, preparing for transfers, figuring out travel/transportation for the Zone (new responsibility of Zone Leaders) so it has been a lot of logistical things happening all up in here. It's crazy though because I'm doing similar things as to what I was doing over in Novosibirsk Russia in the Office, where you are applying all the time because you say that you can do it, but It doesn't even stress me in the slightest really, maybe a little, but that can be expected and viewed as normal. I feel like I'm am to do everything like a million times better because I've been able to adapt and learn how to manage those variables in life. When we received a sheet and it had everyone leaving, what time they needed to, swapping, etc. I looked at it and had it done in about 5 or 10 minutes, it seems like my learning has been turbo-charged or something like that, I feel very blessed. As you have probably heard from Sister Bench, I am not being transferred, I am remaining as Senior Zone Leader and staying in Burley for my last hoorah. Our area is changing a little bit though. We are losing 3rd and 7th wards to Sister Wright and who she will be training, but keeping Star 1 & 2, and gaining Burley 1st and Burley West YSA; so the work will probably have a different flavor here for a while. Today was fun, the Bishop in Star 2nd has that huge pond that you have seen before and there is a zip-line. Two other missionaries went with us to try it out, my camera card is almost full so I'll send that soon. Then we went to play football, just two-hand touch, with the Zone. We had lunch at Papa Kelseys because we get 50% off there. Now we're here, that's the story of today's P-day besides, tonight, there is a BBQ of a lady that we helped move here in 10 minutes and we'll be heading out that way. So our dinner appointment...... they forgot that they had scheduled to have us over for dinner but we had a really good chat with her at the door. It ended in her giving us two copies of this book called, "7 reasons I left Mormonism". She was like "please just don't trash them" and they said in 2 weeks their family who is staying over will be leaving and their schedule will open up more. The book was about 100 pages, not sure if this was the best approach, but I think the result was positive; I went through it and marked it up like crazy with scriptures, commentary, etc. and gave it back to her. She was like "woah, ok, I'm looking forward to re-reading it with your notes". We are teaching someone at a fellowshippers home in 7th ward She has an interesting story. She is progressing though and agreed to watch conference. We had District meeting in Rupert and ate at this Spanish place called Penny's, it was clear in the heck out in Rupert in this lady's house that was turned into a restaurant; interesting location, good food though. I had exchanges with Johnson for the day and we had some pretty good pool games downstairs at night after planning. We had dinner at Bob Browns, it was some awesome Dutch Oven potatoes. Had our weekly Lunch Buffet @ Morey's, I love that guy. I had exchanges with Elder Wright this time and was in a Spanish area for the day. We had dinner at this house and the kids were hilarious. Also, we met this guy that was saying that he is an angel that fell from heaven and that Jesus is his son and that he is more powerful than anyone and that he has powers. (Admits to smoking weed) Eli Hansen out in Star ward is waaaay cool, it was a fun dinner. We did some planning for Mission Leadership Council. Had MLC, loooooooooooooong meeting, interviews 8, meeting 9-4:30, sooo tired :/ She made rice-crispy chocolate things like Nancy Griffin they were so good. Had our weekly meeting with Bro.Rasmussen, he's awesome, I'll have to keep up with him definitely afterwards. Had dinner at Morey's restaurant on him, it was our missionary-meal, he ate with us. We helped Bishop Seibold, over Star 1, teach the youth about missionary-work, it was a way good opportunity to meet them on a personal level and just see the enthusiasm they have to serve. We had another missionary combined youth thing in the 3rd ward later, a few people were talking about their missions and answering questions the youth had. Taught J. again. Hobsons was dinner, we had like huge slabs of ribs, potatoes, rolls, ice-cream cheese-cake, and it was a way nice house. Well I gotta get headed, love ya muchly! Have a fantastic week and enjoy Conference! :) -Love Elder Bennett

September 23, 2013 My fingers are flying, I can't even describe how crazy schedule-wise this day has been. With a trip to the City of Rocks or the Wind-Caves, it takes a chunk away with travel and the actual activity, so we have just been rushin' so much and I feel like a chicken with it's head cut off; so if the message sounds crazy then you'll know the reasoning behind it. That's great that you enjoyed the Penguin and the Cat card. Enjoy the trip to Cali, I'll be doing one of those in the future to see all of these hooligans that I've served with and around, so that should be fun. Actually, I am fine, really never freak out about anything. Well, like I said, things have been crazy so I'll try to give you a quick low down on some occurances of the week before we have to bounce to our lesson.... Firstly, I'd like to say that one of our investigators, R has been smoking for 30 years and said he'd never be able to quit, well he's been 100% clean for like a week now and is progressing so quickly. That truly is a miracle to go from 20+ cigarettes a day for that long and just stop, I'm so proud of him. I got to be on exchanges twice this week, with Elder Mayfield in my area and Elder Kennedy in his, which means I was on a bike, it was fun, but I prefer the truck :) Elder Kelliher took a spill on his bike coming home, that was the picture that I sent. LUCKILY, for whatever reason they had their helmets on. So I went and helped clean his gash, scrapes, and we got him medicine for his massive headache. We ate at some waaaaaaaay awesome member homes this week, the Benches, Knobbes (kids call the boy Cody one Knobbe): where we ate some of the best steak strips in my life. There were 4 baptisms in the Zone this past Saturday so we were rushin' to Rupert, Paul and around Burley, ahhh man Zone-Leader life is wild, but it's fun, I like it. Guess we'll find out soon what/where I am for the LAST transfer. Well, we are going to go have dinner with a Pastor of a different church and his wife. Sorry I wasn't able to give you fun titles or anything, it's just been a busy week, I'll make it up to ya though when we get some more time on our plates. Have a lovely week! -LOVE Elder Bennett

Sept 16, 2013 С Днем Рождения! Я надеюсь, у вас есть замечательная неделя! (Basically, Happy Birthday and have a great week) That's good that you were able to help the guy in that motorcycle crash, daaaaaaang, not good for someone that age to be gettin hurt like that. Good to hear he is doin alright. I did get the peachies, I ate the peachies in like 3 sittings, it's been soooo long :) I'm sending your little birthday package today, nothing special but I think you'll like it. There is this waaaay good place that is on a bus, tasty Mexican-food. We like did a way good clean of the house we live in, it wasn't dirty before, but it became spotless. We played Dart-Wars and ofcourse, it's guranteed that you'll get shot in the eye and it reminded me of the part in Rango where someone gets a stick stuck in their eye. We went to the Raquetball club. I drew another portrait of Elder Johnson, it turned out pretty well, I'll have to get a picture to you some day. At District Meeting there was this huge box of Little Debbie stuff from the outlet and we were getting so fat from eating all of them. We helped out with K's drywall again. One of the kids there taught me a few of his moves, I think he does like Kempo or something. We had some delicious Snickerdoodles, ahhh so good. Had a slower start to our day, kind of a little bit of a cold or something, quickly got over it though. We went on splits with Sergio Revenderio. Hmmmm, I gotta get back to you we are going to the City of Rocks today as a group and we gotta head out, have a lovely week Love -Elder Bennett

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