Happy Leap Day!

This is Us in Dr. Prince's library

Me at the farm with Dakota. He is a large pony that we did the riding with.

Dear Family!

Well this week has been a really great week as far as everything goes!

Monday Elder Fitzgereald, Elder Rowley and I drove down to Dr. Prince's home to chat with him. He the man who lives in Potomac. We had a great discussion with him and we spent most of the morning there. We had dinner that night with the Lewis family at Cafe Rio because it is Military Monday. We ate with them and Bishop Lewis and his wife. That's the first time we have had dinner with the Bishop, just because their house is going under these big renovations. 

Tuesday we had our Zone Conference with President Cooke and Sister Cooke. They talked about patience and on furthering the understanding of the Book of Mormon as we teach. We also had a great discussion with President Cooke. We were talking about how we need to follow up on everything we do. Whether that be following up with members or investigators. President Cooke is a pretty Wacky guy, he was having us build a list of ways we can follow up, as we got to 9 we all ran out of ideas. He then says, "Oh I've got it! We can Follow up on following up." Everyone just burst into laughter! We finished the night at the farm helping with riding! It was raining and it was super muddy.

Wednesday night we had the huge rain and thunder storms with the tornado warnings. We were driving home because they told all of us that we had to get to our apartments because there was horrible lightning. It was pretty amazing to see the night sky light up. There was so much rain falling from the sky that all the drains were flooding and you couldn't see outside of the cars. We got home safely and spent the rest of it cleaning our apartment.

Friday we had a few appointments with investigators. It was very nice because we have not really had any lessons since the beginning of the transfer. Betsy referred her cousin to us and we taught her. She is Catholic and very stubborn. As we started the lesson you could tell she didn't really want anything to do with us, but the spirit started to touch her heart and she was very happy and smiling as we were towards the end of the lesson. Betsy shared a great testimony of the Book of Mormon and the gospel. We then had an appointment with a referral from the an old temple president. His name is Brother Colton and he referred his care taker. She just happened to live in our ward and her family was looking for a church where there is a good youth program. Needless to say she is on date for April 9th. Her name is Kareen. Friday night we had international night and the ward really came out and supported it. We had over 100 members in attendance at the party.

Sunday morning we went to ward council and decided we were going to go to  Choir practice because our morning was open so that's what we did! When we got back to church, we found out President and Sister Cooke were going to speak in our ward that day. We were super excited for that and we were looking for a place to park, but couldn't find one. We waited for one to open up and started to talk with the ward. Sacrament meeting started and they still hadn't shown up for church. We called and neither of them picked up their phones. After calling the assistants we didn't know what was happening at church. Needless to say they got double booked and were in another sacrament meeting across the mission. The bishop texted us and asked us to talk with about 5 minutes of notice. That was such a great experience for both Elder Woodis and I to give talks in sacrament meeting with no notice. Betsy did get her temple recommend as well this week so that was very exciting!

The weather has been really nice these last few days. Sunday was in the 60's! It felt so great outside! 

Love, Elder Bentley