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

Happy Fall!

Selfie at the outdoor band we found

Dear Family!

Well this week we've had a few exciting things happen. 

Starting after our P-day last week, we went to go visit a new investigator we received. When we went to go visit Nichole she told us she wasn't interested in our message or anything. We were super bummed when she told us that, but after some talk with her grandma, we cleared up some confusion that had arisen. They thought we were still practicing polygamy. But after it had been cleared, we had a pretty awesome lesson with her and her grandma. It was a great first lesson and we're going to try and put her on date for our next appointment. 

We have our investigators Andrew, the one who is not the atheist. We had been trying to schedule an appointment with him through the week, and finally halfway through the week we got in to see him. He wants to keep getting tattoos and that's holding him back. We thought he was in his late 20's just to find out halfway through the lesson he was 18. Our total mentality on how we were to teach him changed at that point. We will be gearing everything towards a mission hoping he will be able to and want to serve one. If he goes through on the tattoo he wants to get, he defiantly wouldn't be able to serve. We will hopefully talk him out of it and into a mission!

We got a cut back on our miles for this month. We thought we would be getting a couple hundred more miles than what we actually got. When we got the number, we calculated the number of miles we would be using and were still a couple over, but it's for the things we have to get to, church, meetings, etc. We will be using the buses and maybe our bikes depending on the area and time of day we are there. It takes a while,to get anywhere on the buses so we have to plan it out. Then the buses just never show up sometimes, it's great. 

We had some service Saturday morning with the whole day to serve. The Annapolis zone got together with an interfaith group that went to a cemetery to clean and find graves. We had tools and worked together with "Apostle Thomas" and his congregation to clean, dig up, and rebury some of the stones. It was a huge group service activity and was great because that's something we wouldn't get to normally do. Half of the turn out were missionaries, but it was great because we got to work and talk with those who were on the stones around us.

Saturday night as we left our last appointment in the projects, the police asked if we were okay. The other Elders asked for a ride home and got in the police car. Then the other police officer asked if we would like a lift to the church so we could grab our car. We got to ride in a police car!!!! When we got back to our car and on our way, we stopped to fill up with gas and heard some live music coming from across the street. We walked over to it and they had a little band outside a crab shop playing oldies music. We talked to a few people and got on our way home to finish the night.

Other than that not much else happened, but it was a good week!

Love,

Elder Bentley

September 12

This is us at a BBQ last P-Day with the Harmon group

 

Dear Family!

Wow well this week has been full of many ups and many downs. The good news however is that we did have transfers so I'll be staying here in Brooklyn Park for another with Elder Mellen.

Tuesday was full of goodbyes, we had the opportunity to spend a little extra time with Elder Brown and Tausaga before they left on Wednesday. It's not that we were slacking on the work to do it, but it was the fact that our car had a bad battery so we dropped it off at the pep boys to have it looked at. We were within walking distance of their apartment, but far out of are area. We talked with them as they packed and Brother Cruz took us to get Sundaes at Costco. He dropped us off at the car shop and we got our car back and we got back to work.

Wednesday we had transfers and got two new Elders in the Branch. Elder Davidson and Elder Criddle. It's really cool,because Elder Davidson was trained by Elder Mellen and elder Davidson is training right now! We had an appointment fall through and as we went to get back into our car, it was dead once again. After placing a few calls we had it into the shop and got Elder Davidson and Elder Criddle to shopping after we got it back. 

Thursday was a frustrating day. The assistants I guess switched up our area boundaries and gave some of our area to the other elders and some of theirs to us. But we were not informed at all about anything and found it all out through elder Davidson. We also found out with the area change we would be giving up 7 of our investigators that we had been working with for the last 6 weeks. It really hit me hard because it started to feel like the work we had been doing with them was all a waste because we wouldn't ever be teaching them. It took some time for me to get through that, but by Friday night I was pretty settled with it.

On the Up side however, we had a great visit with Andrew the Atheist Friday morning. He invited us in and asked what we had prepared to talk with him about. I went over the Candle of the Lord talk with him by President Packer it went pretty good and he committed to read and pray about the Book of Mormon. 

Saturday was a great recovery day for us. We had contacted a bible referral that had come in Thursday. Her name was Nichelle. We called and asked when we could drop it off and she said Saturday at noon. When we got to her home, there she was sitting on her porch waiting for her free bible. After talking with her for a few minutes we introduced the Book of Mormon and she wanted to learn about it. We had a great first discussion there on her porch with her. A random lady walked up during it and listened to half of it and asked for our contact info to learn more as well. We found out she wanted to be baptized so we will work with that.

That night we had a pass off lesson with Cornbread (Sean) at the Harmon home. We talked about the last half of the Plan of Salvation and visited with them about smoking. Elder Davidson had a plan to commit them to stop smoking by having them promise a picture of Christ. It was awesome because they even said "Well that's unfair, I can't lie to Jesus." After much talking, testimony bearing, and Alma 34 33-40 reading, we had Sister Harmon on tears, Cornbread said he'd stop smoking by the 25th of September and accepted a baptismal date of October 30th. It was a great lesson and had us all pumped for the transfer.

Faith really does help us pay off. We learned in Stake conference this last week that we need to " learn by faith." If you want to learn how to swim, you get into the pool, if you want to grow your faith, you act on the promptings of the Holy Ghost. Faith really is a muscle, if we aren't using it, it is deteriorating. Why would we let such a precious thing fall out of our hands because of our laziness? The more we act on our faith, the more it grows. If we want to learn about faith, you learn by exercising your faith.  

Love,

Elder Bentley

Happy Labor Day!

Dear Family!

Well this week has been full of some pretty great miracles! The great thing is that it's both the spiritual and physical miracles.

The first one was on Wednesday, we had a pretty great district meeting where we got to do our trainings on recognizing the spirit. It was great and a coincidence because earlier that week I was talking with an Elder in the district who has been struggle recognizing the spirit. He says he just doesn't feel it, but I think he just doesn't recognize it. 

Following that we had an appointment with our new investigator Andrew. He was a former who never heard back from the missionaries and got ahold of us via his boss at work. We had a great lesson with him and he told us he wants to get baptized. Since we didn't have his teaching record on the iPads we had a mini baptismal in review with him just to see where he was at and what was needed for baptism. We taught him some of the last things needed and we have just a few things to work through with him.

Thursday we had a lesson with Theo, he is quite the crazy guy. We listened to him for a good hour going on about everything. We tried to start with "How has keeping the Word of Wisdom been this last week?"  To follow up with him and to get a good lesson in with him. After that I'm pretty sure the next thing we were able to say was "We need to get going." It's either a hit or miss with those appointments. Sometimes we can have a great lesson and others not so much. He was talking about how when he meets with us he feel this burden pressure lifted off and everything is easier to talk to us about.

That night we got to have a great discussion with Sister Bolan about Agency. She fed us while we talked about it and invited her home teacher Brother Cruz as a third male. She really opened up in the discussion and we got onto further principles of the gospel that we will be discussing later with her. Brother Cruz we can always count on to come in with a great testimony and bring the spirit and take the lesson where we want it to go.

Saturday night we got to go see Cornbread and talk about the earthly ministry of Jesus Christ. Sister Harmon kept referring to the Son of God movie because that was something that he could relate back to. When we were leaving they started to watch it again while they could. There is a boy named Jordan who is a nephew or something that's always there, he loves us and that's a connection we want to keep with him. He came to church on Sunday which was great as well! He told people he was there because he promised Elder Bentley he would go.

We had four of our investigators come to church which was a real blessing. Since it was fast and testimony meeting in the branch, that kept things very interesting. Our investigator Pat went up and bore his testimony about the atonement and then got on a rant and off subject so Brother Cruz kindly told him to close. After the meeting we were talking with him and he wants to get baptized as well so wahoo! It was sad to not see Andrew there, but we will get him there!

We got our transfer call outs last night and they were kind of what we were expecting. Elder Mellen and I are staying another transfer together which I am excited for. We have gotten along great and are working really hard in the branch. The other two Brooklyn elders are leaving though which was a surprise. They are the only change in the district this transfer. It's even possible that Elder Bailey could be coming up here to train someone.

Love,

Elder Bentley

Last Week of August!

Chuck=E-Cheese

Sidewalk Chalk

 

Dear Family!

This week we had a fun finding activity that we did on Saturday, we took some side walk chalk and we decorated the sidewalk outside of the church building with the plan of salvation. We had it as an open Brooklyn Park thing so the other Elders joined us and the Spanish a Elders came along as well to do it. We didn't really think anything came out of it until Sunday one of the Stake Presidency counsellors pulled us aside and said a guy walked into the church having questions about his purpose so our Stake President jumped in and talked with him and got his information! So success!

Tuesday we had our zone conference, it was awesome seeing the whole zone, but it was even better getting trained further into the Restoration. I saw it really help the new missionaries, to help them see more ways to teach the lessons. We got to listen to other missionaries and got to watch them teach as well. It was a really great zone conference.

Tuesday night/ Wednesday I got to go on an exchange with the Zone Leaders. We switched after zone conference and I got to go down into Annapolis for the next day. We got to go down onto the Naval Academy and teach on of their investigators. We had a great discussion about the first Half of the Plan of Salvation. We talked a lot about Agency and how it is important to the entire plan. It was also pretty cool because we got to walk onto the Yard so that was exciting!

Saturday for dinner a member from the White Plains ward came up here to celebrate her kid's birthday with her grandparents. They took us to Chuck E Cheese so we had a nice pizza dinner with some entertainment and some arcade games with her son. We won a couple of the Jackpots so we totaled 1000 tickets very quickly.

We had a couple of great appointments this week, our first one was with Theo. He has been working with the missionaries a lot and we taught him the Word of Wisdom. He has some strange ideas about a lot of things, but he seemed to take the message pretty well and committed to live it. It was also really cool because he showed up to church. He had slept in but still knew the importance of church so even though he was late he still came.

We also taught Cornbread again. He hasn't progressed any since we saw him on Sunday last week, but he was straight forward about it so that was nice. We taught him the first half of the Plan of Salvation as well. We got there at night so when we were finally able to teach him it was late (8:15ish) and the house was silent. We had a good lesson, the only struggle is Sister Harmon will chime in talking about some warped doctrine so we have to pull the reins back and make sure he understands the truth.

Love,

Elder Bentley

August 22

Perez Family
 

 

 

Dear Family!

This week has been a really great one! I have had the opportunity to go on exchanges with more of the Elders in my district and it's been a great time with them. The weather has been warm, more bearable these last few days so that's been great.

Wednesday while we were out tracting after our studies but before lunch, we were knocking doors that were about half a mile away from where we live. The sun was beating down on us and he homes so it was getting pretty uncomfortable to be out in the sun. We crossed the street into the houses that were providing shade on the porches. We knocked a few doors, but there was no one home. We got to this door that was open and the screen was closed, we knocked and this kid just looked at us, so we knocked again. 

Finally he went and got his father to come visit with us. He came out and closed the screen so we knew we were going to be talking with him for a few minutes. He told us he was Atheist and was ready to hear our pitch out of kindness. He listened and it got to the point he was asking questions about everything we would say. You could tell he was asking the questions out of respect not out of hate. We talked and it got to the point he needed to get back to work. He said if we were in the neighborhood we could stop by. I looked at him and set a return appointment so I am excited to go and teach him again.

Thursday I got to go with Elder Carling in the Pasadena ward. We were sitting in subway during lunch after we had just gotten our sandwiches. One of the workers looked at us and asked if we were Mormons. We simply replied, "Yes we are, have you met other Mormons?" Even though she didn't answer our question, she started talking and we were able to teach her about the restored gospel. It was really cool because you never know when or where we will meet people who need the gospel.

Friday I got to go with Elder Tasauga who is from Samoa! He learned English while he was here so I enjoyed the entire day listening to him say churchy words! He is a hard worker and is pretty funny. We went to an appointment with one of their investigators, it was a good little read from the Book of Mormon. When we walked out from the appointment I looked at my arm and there was a bed bug.... But I squashed it and haven't seen anything since. We then went and taught a little girl who wants to get baptized and they had me take the lead because I know how to work with kids. That was awesome to do that.

Saturday we had the opportunity to see Aiden get baptized. It was great to see the whole Perez family and to get to participate by confirming him. It was great to hear everyone from Derwood welcoming me back. From the sounds of it they miss me because I would talk with them all! They said Bailey and Edwards were just a little too quiet. We weren't there for long because we had some appointments we had to get to.

Saturday night was my favorite appointment. It would be a perfect photo for like a missionary magazine. We were teaching Sister Harmon's boyfriend Cornbread. As the lesson progressed, more and more people would come into the circle of learning. It was a picture perfect moment. The spirit was strong and they took the message really well. The only hard part is Sister Harmon has some strange doctrine in her head so we had to work around that when she would bring it up.

Sunday we had the opportunity to go to Why I Believe to play the piano. I got to play the opening hymns and closing hymns and that fun stuff. Brother Cruz drove us all the way down and is a real champ because of it. It was really cool because Sister Crites drove down with a few other sisters to support me. It was cool seeing a few people from the branch down there. 

You could say it's been a good week, but it all comes as we put our minds and hearts to the Lord.

Love,

Elder Bentley

District Drama

 

 

This is while we were at the Harmons Wednesday night. The people
you'll see are Estelle in the back ground, Tyler arm wrestling, Sister
Harmon, and Cornbread. 

 

 

Typical roadway in my area

Me and Elder Mellen

Going to Chick-fil-a after basketball

Rainbow lightning!

 

Dear Family!

We have had tons of miracles this last week! Even though we were given a car, Elder Mellen and I decided that we shouldn't be using it to get everywhere. We will drive to the church and walk everywhere from there. My testimony has grown tons more because we have been walking around.

Wednesday we decided that we were going to walk up into Cherry Hill. We didn't have too much time because we had an appointment, but we felt like we should walk up towards the City. When we had gotten into a neighborhood trying to check on some potential investigators who have been lingering in our area book. As we were walking to one of them these guys sitting up on a porch hollered to us asking if we were lost. Well besides the fact it was two white guys walking through Cherry Hill I can see where he was coming from. We walked over and talked with them about what we were out doing. Not only was he interested, the other three guys on the porch with him were interested as well.

 We have been working with the Harmon family trying to help the kids. Sister Harmon isn't really that active and is going through some new struggles it sounds like. They love having the missionaries over and it's always a blast when we so get to visit them.
 

We had interviews with President Johnson and Sister Johnson on Friday. The interviews took a lot longer than anyone anticipated because of the drama happening in this zone. There are some missionaries in the district and zone that are struggling with things and it took them some time to get to us. They both are very grateful for my willingness to change companions at short notice that Sister Johnson said if I needed anything I could have it because I was helping them out so much. And the rest of the interview with her was about piano stuff.

The members of this branch during sacrament meeting sing to an electronic piano that has all they hymns downloaded into it so there is no liveliness in the music. During third hour it was combined and I went up and played prelude music and the hymns and everyone rejoiced which I thought was pretty cool to see. I have a feeling I'll be playing a lot more in the near future.

This week has been hard because some of the members in my district are struggling. The Spanish companionship are having a hard time with one another and I spent a good portion of Sunday night counseling with them on how to fix their problem. It was a real growing experience for me because it showed me how much I can truly help those members in the district. 

Much love,

Elder Bentley