Coookie Thief

Elder Rowley and I after our exchange

Dear Family!

Well this week was full of all sorts and kinds of exchanges. On a total, I went on 3 exchanges to see how the district has been doing. There was quite he turn of events that followed during so I will explain.

Tuesday was my exchange with Elder Chugg. When we got back to the apartment after district meeting, we started to bake cookies. There really hasn't been too much connection or trust built between the missionaries and the ward leadership. To counter that and to try to build relationships, I thought we would make cookies for the families and drop them by to share a message and whatnot. We made a good 160ish pumpkin chocolate cookies for this purpose.

That night we had a great appointment with our new investigator Elizabeth, it was a little longer of an appointment, but that was good as we talked about God. She has been looking for a church and her daughter got her to go to the temple visitor center. As we visited, we thought it would be best to talk about prayer and to invite her to pray.

We didn't get the chance to deliver the cookies because the exchanges and appointments made it so we wouldn't be able to until Sunday. We went on my next exchange with Elder Criddle who is training in my district. They cover the other half of the ward and we got to go work in it. We had a pretty good time you could say as we just went around and contacted people for most of the day. There really wasn't too much other than that that happened on that exchange. I exchanged with the Zone leaders that night at volleyball.

Elder Rowley and I went down to Annapolis for that exchange. The morning was service, cleaning out ditches. Something here that everyone does is bag all their yard waste. Let me tell you how much more proficient it is to throw it into a trailer and take it to the dump. We helped this lady they tracted into with her yard work. After that we got to go and check on a less active who was making up excuses at the door. But dinner that night was great! We went to the Tolman's for our dinner, brother Tolman is Dutch and loves to make Indonesian food. We had some kind of fried rice and had a great conversation with him.

When we went back up to Brooklyn Park that night is when I got really frustrated. So we made all these cookies to take to members and I told Elder Mellen to not let anyone eat them because they were for the members. When we got back, there were only about 40 cookies left. I guess while I was gone they thought it would be okay to have 8 Elders over to the apartment to hang around on a Saturday. It was super disappointed with the other Zone Leader and Mellen for letting that happen. In that process they ate tons of the cookies, and made a mess of the kitchen and such. 

Sunday during most of the day I was still super disappointed and Frustrated. Hopefully here soon I will be able to just come to terms with it and move on. 

Meanwhile during those last few days I found out that two of our most solid Investigstors were practically dropping us. One said they were going to Hawaii for a month and the other is up in Baltimore visiting his mom. I think Andrew after his visit will come to terms with the tattoos and want to get baptized. The branch already has a predetermined calling for him, ward Organist.

Hope everything goes well this coming week!

Love,

Elder Bentley