Let's get down to work; Marriage "wuv tuwo wav iz what brings us togeva today", After that you can be Baptized

Febrero 11, 2016

Entrevista con presidente Griffin "yo quiero que crea en su mismo"  We were fortunate and were able to have interviews with President Griffin this week.  One of the things that he told me was that I had "carried [my] fair share of the load", saying that I have worked hard and worked well.  The only thing that he wants me to be able to take home, if it was the only other thing, was that I would believe in myself.  To me that is something that I would not be to against that idea.  I would agree with him.  It is like the whole idea that we have to love others as you love yourself.  You have to truly love yourself if you want to truly love others.  Same could be applied to faith.  You cannot have faith in God that he can help you achieve something if you dont' even believe in yourself in the first place.

Febrero 13, 2016

Service moving rocks for 3 hrs. (1hr 15min the whole pile). That is something we have started to try and take more advantage of here.  It is called JustServe.  So we spread this pile out pretty fast.  It reminded me a lot of when we would move mulch for those long periods of time... And even more time... And even more time... Till it was finally manageable.  I definitely miss doing that.  Good memories doing yard work. 

Abril's Birthday party, Rosario's daughter, turned out really well.  The Ward supported and some of the members went and talked with Rosario's husband, who has been infadoso lately.  Turns out, one of the members had actually taught him with the missionaries before a few years back.  The discussion turned out well and they hopefully can keep working with him so that he may one day come around and open up to accepting the gospel in his life as well.  Besides, April was super happy that Elder Salinas and I came and said happy birthday.  Especially when we gave her a fish that our neighbors gave us after we helped them move.

(It was a beta fish)

Febrero 14, 2016

Sunday was Mariana's baptism.  As we prepared, there was a lot of things that happened that made it a great day.  Starting from getting just a few minutes late to PEC and the bishopric joking about us being late to us seeing an extremely big amount of investigators at church today (just Elder Salinas and I had 8!)  Then we were late to their wedding (which we didn't realize that we needed to be there) but it all worked out to be full of the Spirit.  I felt something so special when they made the covenant.  It gave me such a sensation of confirmation that this is what God wanted them to do and that he was content. 

Then we had the baptism.  Another wonderful Spirit was felt, even though some of us had little slip ups.  As Obispo Cid and Mariana got in the water, the cold water because the water heater doesn't work, the most surreal experience filled my heart.  Out of everything that Mariana has had to go through through these almost 2 years, she was finally able to enter the water and begin her new life of the covenant.  From someone who is so serious almost no joke can get her to even grin, she was al smiles tonight.

We also shared the video of when Jesus was baptized.  As we were sharing our testimonies, Hna Navas put a face as to indicate that I needed to smile, which put a big smile on my face.  As we were watching the video I was reminded of what we were learning in the Gospel Principles class on what talked about repentance.  What came to my understanding is that I lacked something.  When John the Baptist was baptizing  both Jesus and other faithful saints that desired to be obedient to the Father.  One thing that stuck out to me was how John showed so much love to those that made this covenant.  I have felt that love from time to time.  A love that one feels for those around him, just as Christ feels love for everyone of us.  There has not been anything so sweet as having experienced that more profoundly for a greater group of people down here in Arizona.

🌅 Elder Nathan Benson 🌅

Barrio Estrella stepping up, English Class, We hit standards of excellence after 9 months in being the West Maricopa Zone!!

This week was full of a great number of things, but I will take the time to focus on the highlights.

Febrero 4, 2016

So the family we have been working with that asked us 2 weeks ago to visit their home are going to be baptized this coming Sunday.  It was quite a blur of events that were difficult to record all of them, but I will share what I have recorded thus far.

 Qué pasó ayer con los Bañuelos y presidente Cid

• So we had our second lesson with the Banuelos where Presidente Florencio Cid and Hermano Jesus Figueroa were present as well.  In the lesson Elder Salinas and I stood back in awe as Presidente Cid took control of the visit and guided them through what they wanted and what needed to be done.  I was very impressed in not only how Presidente Cid was able to manipulate the conversation and control it in how he desired, but also how sincere the desires were to be baptized by la hermana Mariana and her husband, Ernesto.  What I loved about it was when they asked how soon they could be baptized.  This is what caught me by surprise.  They wanted to be baptized the 14th!! Presidente Cid accepted that and we set up the lessons to get started.  I felt that this was a miracle occurring before our eyes in that I still am trying to grasp how quickly this is all happening.

With all of this we have been visiting with them almost every day to get through all of the lessons to prepare them for the baptismal interview questions.  What is great about this whole process is that they have been taught previously by the missionaries, so they know a great deal of the things we go over.  There are many times where Ernesto, the husband, will share things that he learned in the gospel principles classes and her wife, who is typically a very serious faced individual, is smiling a lot more and participating.  

One thing to note is that since day one, Mariana knew the church was true.  She remained faithful trying to attend church when she could, but her husband wasn't so sure and held back.  Now that we have begun visiting with them, the husband is the one taking the helm in asking the questions and participating where he can.  It has been quite the treat working with them.

One thing we also started was English class.  The sister that was teaching had been teaching for a year.  She was getting worn out and there was a couple weeks that no one came, so with that she had us meet with her.  When we got there at the church, around 8:30pm after a lesson we had with an investigator, Luz Mejia, she basically gave everything to us and then just took off.  Like what you see in cartoons when a character has a bomb about to explode and gives it to an innocent bystander who watches helplessly as it is about to explode in their hands.

So we got together with the hermanas that serve in the Ward with us and we collaborated about what we could do to make this class a success.  If we can get this going and make it popular, we could potentially find some new investigators to teach.  With that in mind we took the resources that we had and began making flyers and pass along cards.  We even made a fun Facebook post on the webpage that had been previously established. (Surprisingly there were about 140 people on the page!)

So we waited out for a month until February to start the classes again.  We invited members and had the leaders announce them in the classes so that those that were interested could go.  We put forth a good amount of effort and I was praying pretty well that there would be good attendance.  There was a recent convert family, Magda Lopez (she was the one baptized before Rosario), that showed a great deal of interest in the classes.  So I was hopeful that at least they would show.  

Then Thursday came.

I regret not taking a picture, but I will next week.  We had a turn out of about 10-13 people!  I had only seen 4 in the previous class I had seen.  As the class got underway, we were able to take the format we set out for the class and things went fairly smoothly.  I was extremely happy for how things turned out.  (Funny note: I ended up teaching the majority of the class because the other hermana, hna Navas, that typically would have helped was on splits teaching a lesson and I was with two fairly new companions that weren't really sure what to do.  They started getting the hang of it though near the end.). At the end of the class everyone was laughing and having a fun time and all were walking away saying a phrase or two that they had learned in the class.  I was still experiencing some butterflies from the stress I had before the class, but it was really fun.  :)  I can defiantly say that the Spirit was there helping because as soon as I began teaching, it flowed very naturally and I felt very calm and confident.  I even was making a lot of fun jokes that helped lighten the mood and put the new people in the class at ease.

Febrero 5, 2016

We had fish tacos for a members birthday. (This was amazing, fish taco, carne asada, and a bunch of chile, pasta salad, and many more things)

Febrero 6, 2016

These are from a member that is from El Salvador.  It is a torta with chicken, lettuce, tomato, and some other really good stuff.  Imagine the size of two hands, and a little bigger, and eat that twice.  Yep, Latino food is THAT GOOD.

So we passed by some former investigators to see if we could start working with them... It was their daughters birthday, who turned 8, and they love the missionaries.  So they opened the door and first thing they said was "want some food?"  We knew this was the only way to get into the door, and I was stuffed from what you see above, so we accepted and ate some really good food.  We were able to set some things up for us visiting them again soon and we even gave a blessing to one of the members there, who is a less active member, who was sick.  

(Elder Salinas)

A Ward initiative that we are trying to get going of showing our love to Christ this time of season.

Rosario's daughter, Abril, is a lot like Haley in that she is on top of things and even though her birthday is next week, she has started decorating her home for her birthday!

🌅 Elder Nathan Benson 🌅

Letter to young men

To start out, I want to say how much I owe to those that were my

leaders in the scouting program.  My life would not be the same

without them.

Throughout the whole process, the fun mutual/scouting activities in

the church and people's backyards, the many memories of the crazy

scouting camp outs, and the many other meetings which don't need to be

listed, I have learned so many valuable lessons.  Lessons of hard work

(long hikes beyond what I knew I could accomplish and those tents that

were not going to set up and put away themselves) , creativeness (some

of those scout cheers we had to put together were quite the pieces of

work), and friendship (some of my greatest lifelong friends and

greatest memories were with those I did all of these adventures with)

all added a great sense of value to my life.

Along with that, probably one of the greatest things that I was able

to experience on these trips, was growing my testimony of the Savior

with my friends and fellow leaders.  What I have come to realize on my

mission is that one of the greatest things that we can have in this

life are the relationships we have.  Those countless merit badge

classes, and those countless hours that were necessary to complete

them (except for the service hours, those were counted), was where I

was able to develop those relationships.  This is where I became what

I consider to be the best person I could be.

If I would say one thing about scouting, it would be that it is an

amazing way to  provide a way on how to learn new things and find what

we are good at.  As we go through this process, we learn who we truly

are.  Which in turn will help us be better prepared for what the Lord

will require of us..  I understand now that scouting was not only just

to have a good time, but it was to prepare me to be the best person I

can be.

🌅 Elder Nathan Benson 🌅