It's a Small World!

I met my second cousin! Nick Ballam! What a small world!

 

 

I spent 30 minutes looking through this book with Nick! I had the biggest smile on my face the whole time!

This is what I found out about my Grandma Welch in the book!

Our awesome investigator, Igor!

 

 

Dear Everyone!

This Christmas week has been so amazing! It has been full of the spirit of  Christmas. As you know I Skyped home, but I'll still include things I said just so everyone can hear. Monday we took the metro down to DC to have a brunch with a member of the DC 3rd ward named Cesear! He is such a great guy and has devoted his life to the missionaries. But he isn't one of those creepy one, he is just so sincere and kind! That night we went carolling to some less actives homes with the Andersons! It was such a blast and the spirit was greatly felt. 

Tuesday morning we had an early lesson with an investigator named David. He likes to feed us breakfast as we talk with him, we tried to extend a B-date but he said that he wasn't ready for it and basically denied us. We will work with him to get his life settled out so he can do that! We had our typical meetings and got our Christmas Packages. We found out that one of our ZL's didn't get anything from his family so we put money together and got him stuff for Christmas! It was so amazing being able to do that. His excitement Christmas morning when he woke up to presents was priceless. That night we went to the VC for Festival of Lights with the Frenchies which was great! It was Polynesian night so that was amazing, and the spirit was very strong there as well.

Wednesday we had appointments with Harold ( the crazy for missionaries one). He threw us a little Christmas party which was very nice of him to do. That night we had a lesson with two investigators who don't speak English. They speak Portuguese so we had someone translation for us, it went well but was hard to bear testimony. He denied a b-date because he had already been Baptized so we will work with him on that as well.

Thursday was Christmas Eve. We had another breakfast with David and finished teaching him the Plan of Salvation. We then helped someone move into a close by ward for the remainder of the proselyting day. We had an appointment with our golden investigator Igor, and let me tell you how ready for this gospel he is.

Christmas morning we woke up early to unwrap presents. And I am very grateful for everything that was given to me( thanks mom, and Brian & Shanna, yes this basically is a shout out.) We then went to the visitor center where the Cookes bore testimony. Following that we got to watch a little Christmas thing the APs put together and then Inside Out. Yes they totally let us watch a movie! We had a lunch at the stake center and a little talent show. The Cookes gave each one of us a Christmas card, Book of Mormon with their testimonies and a mission bookmark. We then got to Skype home and that was tons of fun! We spent the remainder of the night at the Landeriths home and had a blast!

Saturday and Sunday we got to go to the Festival of Lights. Sunday was with Igor and he is an all around great guy! There were bands that performed which was nice to hear their music. We had a lunch with the Ballams who I found out is my second cousin! We were sitting in their dining room and their little girl asked about great grandma Israelsen. I asked how old she was and from there found out that Brother Ballam's grandpa is Lyle (Eva's son) so they pulled out the heritage book that was put together and sure enough we are related! Nick Ballam is his name, we talked about uncle Lyle's cabin and such! It was such a great lunch! 

I hope everyone has had a Merry Christmas!

 

Love, Elder Bentley

Merry Christmas!

Dear Family!

This week has been a slower week for us. We don't know why but we want to just say it is because of the Holidays. But we still have been able to have a great week!

Monday morning we got to go to a member in the Potomac Ward who is a very successful guy. There we talked about the church and had cheese. He doesn't really let missionaries over to his home, but he likes our roommates and has them over every so often! He has a Blüthner piano which he let me play on. It was such a great experience and I was so happy as I was playing it! His piano room is made to project the music throughout the entire mansion! That night we had dinner with a member who is just moved back to Utah. 

Wednesday we had our transfer meeting and I am staying here for another transfer. I am super excited to stay here because we have done so much in this ward and now we get to see some of the fruits of our labor. It was a very long meeting however because they had a presentation on racial topics for a good portion of it. We had dinner with Brother Chaney who is such a great guy, he feeds us every week and is fun to talk to.

Thursday we had an appointment with a Turkish less active member. He works in Sunday's so he isn't able to make it to church, but he said he was retiring in January so we told him we were expecting him to start coming. That night we got to go to the metro and talk with some more people. I got to talk to a coupe of great guys, on of which wanted to know about the atonement which was awesome to teach him about. 

Saturday we had an early appointment with a member down at the bottom of our area. So we spent most of the day down in that area. He wanted to mostly talk about race for most of the time, but we still brought the spirit for the few minutes of teaching with him. That night a family had us over after the BYU Utah football game so he filled us in with that. He has a great family and we had a blast over at their home. 

Since it was Christmas Sunday the ward put on a  program which was very great! There was a non member friend who showed up to church so we got to go around and try to explain things with him. He doesn't live in the ward boundary so we get to refer him to the right missionaries. A speaker fell on my head in the morning after our conference call with the ward council. It gave me a headache which comes into play later in the paragraph. We had an early breakfast with the Bearman family. They had a great meal and wanted us to play soccer with them afterward so we played with them!  After that we were contacting referrals and I decided I needed to get some ibuprofen. We went to a close by neighbors home who we chatted with and got the medicine. After which we went to the visitor center where they had a little choir of youth in the Potomac area sing. Our investigator on date showed up with his roommates and we got a lesson scheduled with them this week. 

It has been such a great week and I am so very excited for Christmas!

 

Love, Elder Bentley

Wonderful December

 

 

Mom,

We got to spend the morning at Dr. Prince's. He is an amazing man! He let my play his piano, it is a Blüthner (or something like that) there are 8 of them in the world and they are so very expensive. But he let me play it! He has the largest church history library outside of the church.  It was such a great visit with him.

 

 

The room that it is in is built specially for the piano, it projects it's sound though out the entire house!

~Elder Bentley 

 

 

Dear Family!

This week has been such an amazing week! So with no further delay, I will just get into the letter!

Tuesday was our Seneca Zone Conference. There we got to listen to President and Sister Cooke talk with us about not only our mission lives, but also with what is going on in the outside world. President Cooke really impressed on the topic of baptism. He wants us all to invite people to be baptized during our first lesson with them. It emphasizes it in Preach my Gospel, so it was nice to have a great reminder to do so. Sister Cooke talked about the birth of Christ, she shared with us some of her great insight on the Shepard. Following that conference, we went up to the farm and sharpened chainsaws, then we also did the writing. 

Wednesday we had planned to go and visit a bunch of Referrals that we had received  from the Festival of Lights. It happened to be that we had no luck with any of them because they didn't open their doors or answer their phones. We then thought to go and talk to a member who said she had a referral for us. She never called us back but her mom was there and took us up to go and have a lesson with him. His name is Igor and he is on date for January 16. He is such a great guy and now has the opportunity for the gospel. There are also those who live with him that want to learn as well.

Thursday morning we helped move some furniture into the investigators house that members of the ward wanted to donate. It was such a great time carrying a couch up a 4 story apartment. That night was spent with the bishops son going on exchanges to his home teaching appointments. 

Friday we were able to go up to the Festival of Lights again. It was a great choir from Baltimore that sang, except that our member didn't show up. We still had a great time listening to them. We had an appointment at 4 except that he wasn't home. His daughters were locked outside of the home from school. We talked with them and got to know them, asked about their family and school. Then we started to show them little magic tricks and next thing we know is that there are tons of neighbor kids wanting to see more and more. Their dad returned home, but by that time we had to get to our next appointment. 

This weekend was the stake conference and Elder Evans of the Seventy presided. They were great sessions and there was lots to be learned. Finishing off the week we went up to The Festival of Lights again with an investigator named Jason. He has tons of questions that we will answer at our next appointment with him!

A flash drive will do great. Thank you so very much. We will have the time to skype on Christmas Day. It will probably be later in the day for me. We spend most of the day up at the Visitor's Center. President told us to Skype after that or when we find time that day. So I'll keep you posted for that. As for Christmas stuff, we have an iPad mini 2. And those thing you said were correct except for ear muffs, I would like a pair of those. I think I said a small backpack as well. But it is Christmas so surprise me! 

Love,
~Elder Bentley

Festival of Lights!

Festival of Lights

View of the Temple from the beltway

 

 

Dear Family!

This has been a pretty great week regarding most things! This week has been most filled with finding activities again so that has been quite the fun filled week. We have had some great lessons at the door  at metro stops so that is very exciting. The weather here has basically been sunny for the entirety of the week. It's about 35-50 depending on the day but the humidity makes it bone chilling. I did indeed receive my package and I thank you very much for it!

On Tuesday we went to our district meeting as usual. And after that we got to go to the farm! It was such a great time. We got to go and do this thing called riding. We walk on the side of the horse while down syndrome kids do their riding lessons which is just tons of fun to do! We get to do that until it's time to be in so it takes the day up. We get to do a lot of farmy things. We get to plant garlic, clean stalls and such! It really is so much fun though because we get to be with other missionaries! 

Wednesday we got to go and do another session at the temple. It is always just such a joy to go and do! There are members of our ward that work on Wednesdays just because they love when all the missionaries come in. Following the great temple trip, Elder Timmerman had a birthday on Monday so we had lunch at Olive Garden because he had gift cards! It was a great lunch and we then got to go and contact before our dinner appointment. It is still very nerve racking for me to contact people but I am slowly getting better at it. 

Thursday night was the first day of Festival of Lights. It was our first opportunity to go to the visitor center and watch the performances they have on there. We are allowed to go every night if we have a member with us or an investigator. Our ward is really great at going to these so we have been able to go a couple of times. They have set up tons of lights at the visitor center so it is a pretty big public attraction! 

Friday night we were supposed to go on exchanges with President Cooke. We had an appointment scheduled with our investigator David. President Cooke got stuck in a meeting and wasn't able to make it out in time for our appointments. Since our last appointment of the night cancelled, we went to the nearest metro station and went caroling with our roommates district.  

 Saturday night was the ward Christmas party and there was a really great turn out. The ward was really great at putting it together and there were different things that happened with it. Santa even came! 

Sunday night we got to go to the Christmas Devotional from the First Presidency. It started at 8 though so we were late getting in. After the devotional had ended I felt like we needed to stay for some bizarre reason. Elder Johnson was trying to get us out of there but I didn't want to leave. As we were finally walking out of the door a member called us who was there. He had already returned home and couldn't find his cell phone. So we were able to go in and locate his phone to take home to him. 

It's been a really great week and the members are really taking care of us. 

Love,

Elder Bentley 

 

Dear Family!

This has been quite a great week in my new area. The Ward Mission leader is such a great member, the Bishop is hilarious, and the members are really great! As far as the investigator pool is going, we are slowly finding more people who are wanting to hear the gospel, but it is still hard to try to get into contact with them again.

This Tuesday we had an appointment with a recent convert who is Russian. His name is Gregory and he reminds me of Mr. Bean. He is probably in his 50-60's. When we went to our appointment he was waiting for us looking out his window until we got to his door. He let us in and asked for some help to try and get his computer hooked up to his TV. When we showed him how easy it is we got onto lds.org and showed him a Mormon message. That night we got to participate in a ward youth activity at the local mall. They played Where's Waldo inside the mall. We used that as a great opportunity to not only be with the members but to talk with others about the church. 

Once a week we get to go and do service at a Farm in which members own. It is a farm for autistic people to go and learn how to take care of animals, plants, and themselves. We were asked to go to a home that the members who own the farm just purchased to help move things around and get the building ready. It is more of an estate. They bought it for like 2 million dollars to house older autistic people to let them feel that they are on their own. It will have helpers who go and assist them, but it is was a great service opportunity. The estate was owned by a Mongolian man who bought it with inheritance money. He never lived much in the estate and sold it to the Princes (the members who purchased it). It had a very old feel to it but it was a very large house!

Friday morning we had a lesson with someone who we tracted into. His name is Mike and he is from New York. He didn't really seemed interested in what we had to say until we started talking about Joseph Smith. He really took the Book of Mormon well and asked us when we could return! That was exciting because he seems like he will be a great member! There is this member in the ward named Sister Puckett. She lives in a retirement home and is kind of crazy! She likes to have the missionaries over once a week and wanted help making t-shirts. She bought a heat press and puts pictures of animals on shirts. She made us shirts with pictures of squirrels on them which where very strange. 

We found out that President Cooke wants to come out on exchanges with us in a few weeks. We have been working hard to try and get investigators who are solid enough to have appointments with us at that time. We were able to get one for the latter part, but we are still looking for a new one!

A spiritual thought for the week. I was reading in the December 2015 Ensign, the talk was called "Asking the right questions in the right way," it was talking about how as teachers we need to ask questions in which will get our audiences mind thinking deeply. Not only does this apply to missionary work, it applies to everyone who is a teacher! We need to be able to rely on the spirit to help us teach, Moroni 10:9-10 shows tells us that we can have the spirit of teaching and knowledge. It is when we teach with the spirit we are able to touch those hearts of our audiences. Wether it be investigators, members, or even our own families. As we pray to have the spirit with us as we teach, he will edify our words into the hearts of all who listen. 

I hope all goes well this thanksgiving week! 

Love,

Elder Bentley

Happy December

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dearest Family!

This week has been a very busy week for us! Since it was Thanksgiving, we had to fit in our appointments to the remaining days. The mission is doing a mission wide challenge where we are challenged to talk to 10 people per missionary a day. So that's 20 people per companionship. Every minute that we are not doing something we are contacting people to try and find those contacts! 

Tuesday's we usually get to go do service at the farm, but they cancelled it because of the holiday and the absence of some of the residences. We didn't find this out until the end of our zone district meeting so we had to adjust our schedule on the fly. We went to the storage units for the mission to get elder Johnson a chair to study in. After that we were off into the public to contact people. Our favorite places to contact is right out of the metro station by us, it is in between the bus pads and the metro so there are usually a lot of people there. This was my first time really contacting like this so it made me super nervous. It was all over great and I talked with some man who was interested, but got on the bus before I could get contact information. 

Wednesday night we got to have dinner with the Jupiter family, Brother Jupiter has an amazing conversion story. He is also really great at cooking and makes amazing food. After their house we got to go back to the Station to GQ for the night. That night I met a guy named Derril and ended up giving him a Book of Mormon! He said that he would like to read it and will then call the missionaries in his area. 

Thanksgiving was a very great day. We got to go and play football with the ward which was a great gathering of most of the men. After playing football for a few hours we went home and showered to head off to our first thanksgiving dinner. This was with the Hares, and they had most of their kids their with their grandchildren. It was a great time. They had these like triangle puzzles that were really easy looking...they weren't that easy at all. After the Hares home (which they sent us home with tons of groceries and leftover) we went to a family named Lacsamanas who live in a different ward. They invited us over as well so we dropped in around 6. There they gave us tons more food and a pomegranate which I ate of course!

Friday and Saturday have been mostly just contacting people to try to get those contacts is as a mission! Sunday we had church which was great. A new investigator came to church who said he wanted to become a member so we will start teaching him soon. His family speaks French, but he made it clear that he wanted English church and lessons. We only were able to get 11 contacts before dinner, and Brother Bloem asked if we could go on splits with him. He was talking with one of his families and we decided to try and get some more contacts for Festival of Lights and the challenge. We were able to get more than we needed which was wonderful!

The ward here is such a solid ward! They are feeding us tons and we are loving them. We have been getting fed every day these last few weeks! 

Love,