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!