Happy Summer!

Gerelle's Baptism

Dear Family!

Well, one could say that this last weekend was the best of my mission, but that would imply I was already home. So since there are still many days that can be greater I'll say best weekend so far! I truly have enjoyed being companions with Elder Chamberlain, it feels like people are just falling into our laps to teach.

Monday night we had a nice visit with Ume and Ugo. Their family has been a little less active for the last couple of years so their two youngest haven't been baptized yet. We invited their home teachers over as well to start to build a large group of fellow shippers for them. Up until this week we weren't sure how well they were grasping what we taught, but this lesson proved successful. We talked about repentance, faith, really the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And at the end when they prayed you could tell they were understanding what was taught. A few funny confessions came out from their mouths. "It's bad when someone hits you and you want to keep hitting them back and never stop." "Or when you get online and order a bunch of things from Amazon without asking your parents." It was a great visit. We also were delighted to see them at church.

Tuesday we met with a less active member who has been hidden in our area Book. Come to find out she has like 7 kids and the youngest one also wants to join the church. We will be working closely with them to make sure that is able to happen here shortly. As we got out of the lesson with the Hardys we got a call from the Zone leaders saying they had someone call them who wanted to be taught by missionaries. And they are in our area! His name is Ibrahim and his family are all members. But they are less active. This didn't stop him from reaching out to have help changing his life. He accepted a baptismal date of July 15th. Since we saw him at church yesterday he is also now officially on date!

Thursday I was on exchange with Elder Rowley. It was a day that flipped our weekend around. We had this fantastic day planned and all our plans went out the window. Cancellations, moves, and lots of finding. But we were able to hold a lesson with Gerelle. As we met with Gerelle he asked if he would still be able to be baptized this weekend. We expressed our thoughts of moving it back but decided to let the spirit decide. As we taught the last few commandments it was prevalent to everyone there he should get baptized this coming Sunday. We scurried to find people to help out with the baptism and to fill the program.

Saturday was the start to the phenomenal week. We started the morning off early at the church with Gerelle. We filled out paperwork and President Johnson met us there for his interview. After what seemed like forever they walked out smiles on their faces and we knew everything was set for Sunday. We bid our farewells and went to go visit a family we tracked into a few weeks ago. Kesha was her name and learning was the game. We talked with her about the church and it seems like every concern she has is found in the gospel. We hope she can make that realization. We knew things were doing well when she and her 4 kids walked into Sacrament meeting 20 Minutes early.

Following that we embarked on our journey to the temple. Why the temple you may ask? Allow me to tell you. Wednesday morning we were talking and I felt the urgent need to text a convert from the Derwood area. After I texted Landry later that day he called letting us know he and his wife were getting sealed, which also meant he was taking out his endowments. We were able to receive permission from president Johnson to attend that. It was such a blessing to see him and his wife sealed for time and all eternity. When we first walked into the temple, he was standing there at the front desk. What a blessing the temple is and how thankful I am to be serving in a mission where we have one. I also am thankful for the Spirit prompting me to text him. If I would've waited any longer we would have missed the opportunity to be there. 

Sunday was also a tremendous day. We got to church and started to prepare things for the baptism. As we were walking out to the car to grab the program there was Kesha getting out of her car with her kids. Wahoo! We then got everything set and got through church. Fortunat was ordained a priest during Elders Quorum and he seemed pretty excited about that, he told us we will need to come and explain to him what this means. After church we scurried to get everything set for Gerelle's baptism. The ward was pretty supportive of it. But I'm not a fan of having a baptism after church because it is too crazy for us. We were trying to get all our investigators to classes, have members meet them all and fill the font all at the same time. But it was a fantastic baptism. The spirit was strong!

Anyway I hope everyone had a great week!

Love,

Elder Bentley