May 23, 2016

Elder Bailey,  Coombs, Elder Bentley

Dear Family!

Well this week has been full of bitter sweets, and has been quite the happening week. 

Monday night we had our lesson with Landry and we finished teaching him the commandments. Jacob Ralston came with us to the lesson which was great practice for him! He is getting baptized this coming week and asked me to do it so that's very exciting. Elder Woodis will be coming up for it so he can give his talk on baptism that Landry wants him to give! 

Tuesday we got to go to our district meeting where we had the zone leaders, assistants, and the traveling training leaders at the meeting. I guess it was some big thing that they wanted to see how my district meetings were going. One of the sisters in the Spanish ward is a STL so there was that as well. Elder Coombs(a traveling trainer) came on exchanges with us afterwards and came to the farm. We did our awesome service and he chose the best day to come. There was a huge rainbow outside that night so that was cool.

Thursday we went Tracting and found this man named William, he invited us back but had to leave. He is wanting to still meet this coming week though! We had our lesson with David Bosnic but the funny thing is where his roommate who is obese fell asleep on the couch without a shirt on and was snoring hard core! That night we visited Anna and talked with her about the thirteen articles of faith. The lesson went very well and the spirit was very strong! We invited her to the baptism and it she said she would love to go! Diana came down a little later and we could tell there was tension between the two.

Friday President Cooke interviewed us for one of the last times. He told us what was to come in the near future and let's just say there will be some exciting things happening! We got a call from Diana later on and she said she was moving out immediately so we spent the whole day helping her pack and move her stuff to the Storage unit. It was an adventurous day and she gave us a ton of random little things. I hope she can find somewhere to live here soon that is still close to us so we can teach her. By the time we finished she was going insane because of the shock of everything. She gave us money to buy a lock and just left because her brain was shot.

Sunday was just full of good ole' meetings. One after another! But it ended up to be a really great day. President Cooke called because someone told him that there was a returned missionary living at our apartment. There are some pest control guys who are RM's who live in our complex, but not with us. We had a great hype meeting with the stake presidency to get member work moving along. Something we are having our families do is start a family missionary plan. I encourage everyone to do this because it will help everywhere. As we pray for missionary experiences and set goals, the lord will put people in our way so we can help them into the gospel. Wether it be praying for service opportunities or just little missionary experiences. 

I know that as we do what 1 Timothy 4:12 says, "12 Let no man despise thy youth; but be thou an bexample of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity." We will be able to help others come unto the gospel through our example. We face it everyday as missionaries, there is always someone who is watching us and we wear the name of our church with us. But more importantly, we each have covenanted with our Heavenly Father that we will take upon ourselves the name of Christ. As we act as he would act  and say what he would say, we can be an example to others and help them come unto Christ. 

Love,

Elder Bentley