The Fourth Missionary, Smelling Roses

This past week has been pretty eventful. We had a false alarm with bed

bugs, transfers just happened, and among the many other things, the

power has gone out in our apartment. With the exception of the three

most important things in the house: the washer and dryer, oven and

stove, and last and not least the refrigerator. *phew

This next Saturday we are having a baptism! (Well 4 people) they are

awesome kids and their grandma that takes care of them won't be to far

behind along with their sister who turns 8 in December. Yea!! The

Spanish is coming slowly but I have such a strong testimony of the

gift of tongues. The Lord truly blesses those that are in the service

of Him.

So it's been quite a ride being here on the mission. I have come to be

extremely grateful for the experiences I've had and the things I have

learned in this short time. Being a missionary is NOT easy. If I

didn't put enough emphasis on what I just said... BEING A MISSIONARY

IS NOT EASY!! So how on earth can so many returned missionaries look

back to their mission as such a great and valuable experience? Well

let me tell you what I have been able to learn so far.

Just recently I read the Fourth Missionary by Elder Corbridge. He

wrote it while he was a missionary president. It explains four

different kinds of missionaries. The first two were disobedient

missionaries that result in them accomplishing nothing on their

missions and they eventually fall away into inactivity or are very

uncomfortable when anything about missionary work comes up. To add, no

one benefited. The third missionary is obedient, only because they

have to, and possibly brings many people unto Christ. Yet they don't

actually change themselves and don't have many spiritual experiences,

even if they are in spiritual lessons. Basically they don't change a

whole lot personally, even if they do good things and follow the

rules. How can that be? They are doing everything they should right?

Well, on paper yes. They follow the rules. They bring others unto

Christ. To add they served a full mission. But they are missing one

quality. They haven't given themselves to Him.

One scripture that we all know talks about this.

"25. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; and whosoever

will lose his life for my sake shall find it.

26. For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and

lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?

(Matt 16:25,26; emphasis added.) "

The main difference is here in this scripture. The difference is that

the Fourth Missionary GIVES himself. He gives up his own dreams,

wishes and desires. He allows them to be turned to the side and to be

overcome by the dreams, wishes and desires of our Father. This also is

what defines a disciple of Christ. So when you can truly become the

Fourth Missionary you also become a disciple of Christ. One that is

full of "Faith, Hope, Charity and Love with an eye single to the glory

of God." D&C 4:5

This should be the focus of our lives. To become a disciple of Christ.

"For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; and whosoever will

lose his life" in the service of our God "shall find it"

I know that when we truly can turn outward and lose ourselves in the

service of others, we can truly become more like Christ. And whether

we may know it or not, that is what everyone wants to be like in the

end. It's our divine nature to have this desire. I know this church is

true with all of my heart. And through my mission the Lord has been

able to stretch me and mold me into the kind of person he wants me to

become.  In more meaningful and effective ways that will last

throughout this life and through the eternities. I say these things as

a humble missionary and servant of the Lord. In the name of Jesus

Christ. Amen.

Elder Nathan Benson

P.S. Don't forget to stop and smell the roses :)

Blitzing for Baptisms

I really want to be

better at emailing you guys.  I think I am starting to figure it all

out. And Elder Taylor absolutely

loves the letter Brooke wrote him. He is "going to keep it forever"

yes he loved it.

One thing that has been going on for me, to keep you guys in the loop,

is the growth first of all.

My testimony has been stretched, pulled, and formed into something

much more powerful than is comprehend able right now. It has been

quite a ride. I have been going through times of great blessings and

miracles, and at the same time I have had to push on through feelings

of insufficiency and inability. I have felt a roller coaster of

feelings, most have been the ones I have just mentioned.

We have been getting a lot of work lately. Which has been a huge

blessing. There are days that we have so many lessons we have to

reschedule some for future days because other lessons go over time

because they are so good, or because there simply isn't time.

One family is on date for next week. So we are blitzing to get them

ready for their baptismal interview this Saturday. This family is

amazing. They do almost all the homework we give them and this

includes going to church for the past 3-4 weeks! Their grandma is the

only one not on date because she needs to quit smoking, but she is

showing a lot of promise. The 4 grandkids under her care are the ones

on date.

One more family is one that we just taught for the second time just

yesterday. They are so ready. They don't do anything against the word

of wisdom, except very infrequent beers. They share a lot the same

values of our church. At the end we were feeling the spirit so we

invited them to baptism! We didn't set a date but we plan on doing

that soon.

Your updates keep me going, especially when I get to see you guys grow

through the gospel. I promise to write more next time and they will be

better. I love you guys!

P.S. Conference was awesome! I don't have a favorite talk because they

were all so good!

P.S.S. We might have a bed bug problem.... We are taking a lot of

precautions right now. We are praying it was a false alarm.

Elder Nathan Benson

Eyes to See, Isaiah 6:9 Challenge

How can we spiritually discern what are spiritual promptings, and where and when can we find them? Elder Taylor and I got to go to the Mesa temple this past Sunday before we Baptized Yared y Jarell. It was an amazing experience. While we were waiting in the chapel to go into a Spanish session, I decided to a little of gospel searching.  I found a scripture that I really liked and decided to do a little studying on it. Isaiah 6:9 I believe. It's where God commands Isaiah to go preach the gospel. I'll continue to study it in my free time to understand it better and come back with what I learned. I challenge you to do the same. It's a really good scripture that applies to sharing the gospel and the difficulty of it because of the characteristics of the people you teach.

 I'm sorry I don't have  ability to send pictures right now but I will as soon as I can. Te aman.

Elder Nathan Benson

Yared and Jarell get baptized.

We baptized Yared and Jarell, 15 and 10, last Saturday and confirmed them yesterday! I got to baptize and confirm Jarell. (All in Spanish) it was awesome! The spirit was there is a way that was hard to discern but such a peaceful and joy bringing feeling.  One thing that was cool about the baptism is what happened after. Right when we finished, about 5 min later it poured down like a waterfall outside! It rained so hard it started coming through the doors of the church and starting leaking thorough the ceiling in the gym. It was crazy.

The Spanish has been quite an experience as well. There have been times where I can speak well and understand the majority of what people say. Then other times it is quite the contrary. I continue to try to improve everyday and the progress comes. At times the progress is almost impossible to see, but if I allow myself to get discouraged that is when Satan gains control and I lose the Spirit.

We have a great area as well. Since we went out with Elder Corbridge we have put 6 on date for baptism. The people are amazing and so ready to receive the gospel. Hopefully they can continue strong through baptism and through the temple.

I have dropped to 168 lbs yesterday! Booya! And I can touch my toes in the hamstring stretch now! I've been a lot better about my health, thanks to a companion who likes to exercise. I also am cooking a lot. I make pancakes almost every morning and even French toast once! I am going to try to make tuna melts tonight. Thanks for teaching me how to cook mom. I absolutely love cooking now. And it's way cheaper to cook.

Elder Benson

Elder Corbridge (cont.)

He said that some of our weaknesses can be a great strength. How does

that work? He was talking about my Spanish. It is easy to tell that I

am new to Spanish. He said that my new Spanish requires much more

attention. When someone is fluent it is easy to tune out because it

doesn't take much brain power to focus. But since my Spanish isn't

that good they have to pay much more attention. So I have people's

attention and it also opens the door to the spirit because they are

involved in the lesson more, trying to understand what I am saying.

The next visit were Yared y Jarell, the two that got baptized this

past Saturday and confirmed Sunday. We had challenged Yared to write

about her feelings about the lessons we have taught them and the

church and also her baptism. She showed it to Elder Corbridge and he

read it a loud. We forgot one little point.... She likes to write....

A LOT.  It took him about 5 min to read it all. It was amazing at

describing what conversion was like and how we come unto God, but yes

it was long. The family was absolutely awestruck and took in every

second of it. We had a great lesson that was very spiritual. We talked

about the tree of life a little bit with our lesson, and how the fruit

of the tree was like taking a bite, was baptism. After the lesson I

was complemented on another aspect of my teaching. He liked how I

jumped between English and Spanish to make sure that Jarell was

following along, because kids here study English and know it better

than Spanish. I also got the complement from sister Corbridge that I

look like one of their twin grandkids that is two or three years old.

Hmm.... Cool!! I guess that means we got on their good side! Hehe

What was more cool is that we were complemented quite a few times in

the missions tour in front of that half of the mission that was there.

What was more amazing is that they had a leadership meeting after and

Elder Taylor was in it (being a District Leader) and he remembered

every single name of the people we taught the night before! Even I am

still working on that, and he only heard some of their names once!

That just shows that he was called of God to do His work and that

great gifts and abilities are given to them to progress the work. I am

super grateful for that amazing opportunity and I learned so much from

those two days.

Just to show that we were inspired, we have put 6 more people on date

with his method of teaching. Not only that, but the lessons have been

much more spiritual and we have much more investigators that are

amazing people. Love you guys! Keep focused on what is most important.

Doing the things that will allow us to return to our father in heaven

in the kingdom, the celestial kingdom. Where we can be together

forever.

Elder Benson

We got a haircut today.  What do you think?  Live celestial lives!

Learning to feel the Spirit, Elder Corbridge

So here is my update for the week. I don't have much time ,p (again).

But it's been great! Me and my companions are going on runs every

morning. Which has been great. Stress comes as usual but I am also

learning to handle it and keep it at a level that it keeps me moving

and working effectively.  

One thing that had been bothering me lately,

and that had been adding to my stress, was something that every

missionary wants more than anything.  I felt like I wasn't getting

spiritual promptings from the Holy Ghost.  Well, not that often that

is.  I want to always have the Spirit with me, and I felt that in

order to know that I always have the Spirit to be with me I had to

feel Him always. Always guiding me.  Always showing me the people I

needed to meet, always tell me exactly what to say.  But I learned

something very important from my wonderful companion, Elder Taylor.

At times we may feel like the Spirit is not with us at times, but

we know we are doing the right things.  So why do we not feel the

Spirit?  The answer lies in the main purpose of the Holy Ghost, and

that is to guide us.  He guides us in the direction that we need to go

to eventually return to our Father's presence.  So when there is a

specific person we need to talk to or an important decision we need to

make for our future, or if we need a sense of purpose in our lives to

keep us moving; the Holy Ghost is there to turn us in the right

direction and help get us going.  But what happens when we are going

in the right direction and we are still moving?  Then we don't have to

have Him taking us by the hand anymore. In others words, we don't need

to constantly feel his direct presence every second of every day.  And

The Lord doesn't need to carry us along the path of life, he walks

beside us and praises us taking the correct steps without Him holding

us up.

So here is the story with Elder Corbridge.  Saturday night we finished

our final lesson and we were driving back to our apartment.  That's

when we got a call from Elder Bryson, one of the assistants to the

president.  He asked if we could have Elder Corbridge go out to teach

with us the next day from 6-9pm.  Of course we were shell-shocked and

after the initial shock was gone we said "yes of course!"

    So Sunday rolled around and we were getting really excited for

this opportunity.  However, when we were driving back from church our

car said"Low on gas" uh-oh.....  So we were brainstorming how we could

get gas without having to buy any (because it was Sunday and we didn't

want to break the Sabbath Day.)

    After a short prayer we were inspired to call members to ask for

any extra gas they had.  We found one!  So we put in about 2 gallons

figuring that would be enough for the trip.  Well it was just enough

to get us there, but we went through half of the gas. So we then had

the problem of not having enough gas to drive back after our visits!

But President Griffen came through and lent us his car for the night.

    So the night began, and boy were our expectations different.

Definitely not set too high, maybe even a little too low, but definitely

different from how things went.

    Elder Corbridge wanted to speak completely in Spanish, which we

were told ahead of time.  But he was a little rusty, so I was a little

worried he would have trouble in the lessons.  We talked just to get

to know them a little better on the way.  And they were a little

quiet, probably just getting to know us and warming up to us.  So we

arrived to our first lesson.  Obviously the family was super excited

with the fact they had a general authority in their house, so their

house was super clean.  That was great.  So the family we were

teaching are all members except for an inactive father.  Our focus was

to help him know how he can strengthen his testimony and how it was

important, because he works with some anti-Mormon people that bash on

him sometimes.

    We were teaching the first lesson, and it was going well.  Later

Elder Corbridge commented on how well we did a good job at being

invested in the lesson, even while the other one wasn't speaking.  He

actually brought that up in the mission tour with half of the mission

the next day.  And we also asked him to contribute as well.  He made a

lot of good points, but at the end he said something that caught us

off guard that he ended up teaching in the mission tour the following

day.  He told the father that his testimony was important to have, but

the most important thing was something more than that.  He needed to

be sealed I the temple with his family so that he could live with them

forever.  Wow! He skipped all of the fluff and went straight to the

whole reason why we were there as missionaries!  We want them to go

into the temple so that they can be with their families forever and

return to live with God.  Without going through the temple and making

those covenants, we can't live with God. That was something we learned

I the mission tour, show those that your are teaching the ultimate

goal.  That is to return to live with our Father in Heaven and be with

our families forever!

On the way to our next lesson we were talking with them again.

Fortunately he gave us some compliments and advice for teaching.  The

thing that really was great for me was that he praised me for my

confidence as a missionary that had been in the field for 1 month.  He

also pointed out something that also was a big confidence booster.

Obviously I am far from fluent from teaching, but I am also learning

at quite a fast rate. He said . . . 

Elder Nathan Benson

My companion, Elder Taylor, is an awesome missionary!

The mission has been great!  I definitely agree with the

statement that these will be the best two years FOR my life not OF my

life.  This mission has really pushed me into things that I would

never would've imagined. But it has been so rewarding.  I feel like I

have developed so much in these short two months and I am starting to

understand how to become a consecrated missionary. I am grateful for

what The Lord has blessed me with, and I hope that I will continue to

be humble enough to accept whatever thing he gives me.

The lessons have been awesome and quite the contrary. But I only have

time for positive. We have 2 on date! They are developing by

themselves. We have no part in it, which is what it should be! I'll

fill you in about how they do. They are definitely going to be

baptized.

My companion, Elder Taylor, is an awesome missionary! He is everything

that I aspire to be as a missionary.  Exact obedience, humble, hard

working, way fun, and spiritually in tune. ( and fluent in Spanish)

but having a district leader that knows that his position doesn't put

him on a pedestal has been a great example to me.

I have officially dropped down to 168ish and now my thighs have gotten

quite a bit bigger since I got here. My jeans that were baggy fit my

thighs snuggly.

Stay strong in The Lord, he is our strength, our drive, our courage,

our habilities, our growth, our patience and love. But most

importantly, our Father in Heaven.  May we all keep Him in our

thoughts and actions and the way we live. In the name of Jesus Christ

Amen.

Elder Nathan Benson

"Do you love your family?"

I love that point you made and that revelation you received about

having the Light of Christ.  It's no small task to accomplish this in

it's fullness. Yet I testify we that we can accomplish this. And it is

through our faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement. And through his

atoning sacrifice we are not only forgiven from our sins from our

sincere desire to change, but we can also be strengthened beyond what

our physical capacity can comprehend or achieve. You may be down or

disappointed for your one hour of underperformance, but let me tell

you this. You are an exceptional women and even better mother.  You

and dad have taught me so many valuable and important things that I

have been able to apply on my mission. Along with little simple things

that helped me greatly as well (cleaning, cooking, eating healthy, etc.).

I am grateful for all of you love for me and even more than showing it

to me, but showing you love unto our Father in Heaven who has truly

blessed our lives in more ways than we could ever imagine.

I'm short on time but here is a little update of this past week.  The

families we are teaching that were basically thrown into our laps (all

of them) are developing so well, they never cease to impress us if

their desire to learn more about the gospel and feel f his love in

their live more fully. 

One of our investigators went up and bore her

testimony in church! We also have been working on giving the baptismal

invitation in every lesson and it is showing a lot of success!  There

was one man whose wife had been baptized and their family is on

different levels of spirituality. His wife had been receiving the

lessons and received baptism, but he never committed to anything. And

to talk about certain people come to spirit in a certain way to unlock

the hearts of certain people.  We were talking with him and the lesson

was aimed at the daughter who is really close to accepting baptism,

and like I was a mouth piece I almost out of the blue asked him two

very inspired and simple questions "do you love your family?" "So do

you want to live with them forever?"  After he said yes to both, Elder

Taylor invited him to baptism. He said yes! We didn't set a date, but

he said yes to something we never thought he would!

The spirit has been working very strong with the people we have been

teaching, which is just what we want because it means that these

people are becoming converted unto The Lord and not us as

missionaries.

Love you guys!!!!! La iglesia es verdadero y nos ama mucho!!!!!

Elder Nathan Benson

My First P Day

Wow that is way awesome! You guys are doing a ton of amazing things! You all have caught fire in the work and it's stronger than I could've imagined. Through hearing of the experiences you are all having back home I continually find my testimony being strengthend. Much as gracias por sus fe y deseo de servir nuestro padre celestial y desarrollar en nuestro habilidad a Predicad su Evangelio.

My new companion is super awesome! He's from chihuahua Mexico so obviously fluent in Español and he's also fluent in English as well. The funny part is that he's just as white as me! Jana ya he's awesome, and we get along great. He's super loving and patient and teaches me a ton of good stuff.

The mission is going great as well.  The first day I get here we started right off working because my trainer hadn't planned for me because he didn't know he was going to be a trainer until after he had already made plans.  So we went right on teaching, and boy am I shocked. There are at least 2 lessons scheduled per day and like 3 backup visits if the lesson falls through.  So basically there is no down time, which is what I like so my thoughts can be focused here and not home.  There are a ton of cool things that have happened this week but I'm short on time so I'm going to tell the highlights. 

We gave a pass along card and had a short conversation with a deaf guy!  I've started to contributing a little to the lessons. I can follow the direction the lessons are going, but it's hard to jump in because I don't want to say something wrong or totally random. But I've become more confident in my Español. 

We had 2 rock star lessons this week.  One family had received a lesson or two already and were showing promise.  They were invited to be baptized but didn't commit and the dad said he haven't ever felt the Spirit before. So we went in with the goal of teaching what the Spirit was. Then BOOM! The lessons was awesome and super spiritual.  I even contributed to the lesson too.  At the end they knew what we said was true and it was nothing we said, but "something more..." Ya it was awesome.

Te amo ustedes mucho! La Iglesia de Jesucristo es verdadero!

Elder Nathan Benson

Study tip

One thing that has really helped in my PMG study is focusing on one or two topics and reading all the scriptures that are included, the scriptures are awesome!! Also read the one about the love of christ or christlike atttibutes. That is a great one!

Our district with hermano Hurtado:

CCM Week 5

Honestly the days are molding together.  The weeklong days have turned into day long weeks.  Yes they aren´t all the same, but that´s what makes it so exciting.  I have begun to read the spanish scriptures aloud and the english set to the side so I can understand it better.  The reason I have taken so much more interest in doing this is because I was talking to a missionary the other day and he told me this promise.  If you read the entire Libro de Mormon voz alta (out loud) you will be fluent in that language you will be teaching by the time you finish the Libro de Mormon. 

It was an interesting challenge but I got started. I started reading in about chapter 45 in the book of Alma and it's talking about the account of Moroni and all of the events that occur during that time, from when he was a general at 25 to the sons of Helaman (I am almost done with Alma). I have noticed a subtle change in my life.  My spanish flows just a little easier out of my mouth, I am recognizing and understanding more español, and I have had the Espiritú Santo more fully in my life. Not saying anything has gotten any easier, but that I have been more in tune with the Spirit and I have been more humble. 

I truly love you guys and I am extremely overjoyed to hear about that great things you are doing back home. It builds my testimony that my family is striving to do the things that I wish I could've been better at.  Continue to serve, love others, and most importantly... love God.  When you do this the Lord will pour out innumerable blessings upon everyone you are in contact with.  Just like Adia.  I know that lives will continue to be blessed and will see the goodness of God and his love for them in our lives. 

yo amo todos ustedes mucho. 

Elder Benson

P.S. I love to hear the piano playing everyday and I hope that I can have the opportunity to play again soon. Love ya Mom and thanks for keeping me on the piano!!

I live off of these things. 

My comp in a wheel chair from an infection in his ankle. We ride around a lot.

Favorite poem, "Soneto a Jesus Crucificado"

 This is a poem we had from one of our Tuesday night devotional. I love it so much and I recommend you read it.  It's a poem you can't find on the internet but it should be shared with everyone in the world.

Soneto a Jesus Crucificado

No me mueve, mi Dios, para quererte
el cielo que me tienes prometido,
ni me mueve el infierno tan temido
para dejar por eso de ofenderte.

Tú me mueves, Señor, muéveme el verte
clavado en una cruz y escarnecido,
muéveme ver tu cuerpo tan herido,
muévenme tus afrentas y tu muerte.

Muéveme, en fin, tu amor, y en tal manera,
que aunque no hubiera cielo, yo te amara,
y aunque no hubiera infierno, te temiera.

No me tienes que dar porque te quiera,
pues aunque lo que espero no esperara,
lo mismo que te quiero te quisiera.

Sonnet to Jesus Crucified

I am not moved, my God, to love You
by the heaven that to me You have promised
and nor am I moved by the hell so feared
To leave behind all that offends You.

You move me Lord, it moves me to see You
nailed to a cross and despised,
what moves me is to see your body injured,
Suffering, rejected, left to die.

What moves me, so, is your love, and in such way,
that even if there was no heaven, I would love You all the same,
and even if there was no hell, I would fear your beloved name.

To love You, You need not give in any way.
So —even if what I hope for becomes hopeless—
In the same way I love you, I will love you still.

Nosotros podemos todos (We can do anything)!!

Thanks for keeping updated from home. It really helps. I am never homesick during the week, but there are those rare occasions that I wished I could communicate with you more. Your testimonies will grow as you continue to do those things that you have now begun.  But the serpent is going to attack and going to make you weak at times. Doing the right thing, such as family scripture study, attending the temple, magnifying our callings, etc may seem difficult, inconvenient, or insignificant at times.  Let me tell you this. NEVER, EVER think that any calling, service, or scripture study isn´t worth your time.  Why isn´t it?  This is the one way we can truly be happy in this life, and it is the purpose of our lives.  yo sé que el Dios puede y tiene que bendice nosotros cuando nosotros seguir la ejemplo de Jesucristo. I love you guys so much.

BTW don´t send anymore letters until I get to Arizona, it takes 3 weeks for the letters to get here!!

Yesterday me and Elder Anderson did this thing called TRC where we teach someone from the City that only speaks Spanish.  These were real people that we were teaching, they were members or recent converts. It was way fun! The 15 yr old girl we had was a golden member so I was kinda hard to even teach her anything because she loved the Lord!! She did everything!!  We taught her a little about prayer, and mostly just got to know who she was, and here is the cool part... We had a full conversation with her and the words came so easily. It did start rough but the further we got in, it almost felt like I was speaking english with just different words. I didn´t even have to think about it! Yo sé que por medio de el don del Espiritú Santo y El don de languas y fe en Jesucristo. Nosotros podemos todos (we can do anything!!)

WX alumni and District 4B

I have found a fellow Woods Cross alumni here! Elder Tanner Walker one of my greatest friends!! There are honestly like 15 other missionaries that I know from back home. It is insane!!

Hermana drew pictures of our district.  I am point at me.

There's gotta be some duct tape around here.

Thanks so much for this email! I hope the family is doing alright. The first few days were rough trying to figure out what I was even doing!  Things are getting better and the food is awesome!  All except for like one meal so far I have had frijoles, arroz, y tortillas y fruit.  Tambien I've had a lot of nutella y peanut butter with toast for a lot of meals. I am fasting today because I feel like I just haven't been able to feel the spirit as much as I want. I missed out on pizza for lunch. It was a bummer. Estoy triste. Tambien I feel like I haven't been studying enough. But hopefully el Dios (God) will guide me as to what I should do. 

Oh, btw my big bag is starting to tear along one of the seems... I guess I overstuffed it.  haha oh well. Hopefully I can find some glue or duct tape but for the time being I have to carry it like a football. 

I also want to add that Elder Anderson is a great guy.  He's from Alabama. He talks to almost everyone so there isn't a lot of down time with him, and if there is it's because we're either sleeping or really tired.

As you see below we're all going to Phoenix Arizona for our mission! 

The B is from the school that used to be here and that view is from right outside our casa!

Safe and Sound!

Love ya guys!! Just letting you know I got here safe and sound! Already met some friends here and made a few already!!

Keep in touch, k? ;) I miss ya but this is way exciting!! Write you soon!!

Elder Benson