Last week of October

Dinner with the senior sisters

 

Beautiful Autumn Woods

 

 

Dearest Family!

This has been a very great week. Since we cannot get much work done because of Elder Archibald I try to get the schedule as packed as we can so we can go out and teach members and investigators. This week I have definitely come closer to some of the members just through service and through teaching them and such. 

On Tuesday we had the schedule for the day as interviews with President Cooke. We had to be there 20 minutes before our scheduled time with him. We got there around 2 and we found out that everything was 2 hours behind schedule because of the interviews that went long earlier that day. We ended getting home from them at 7. This is where Sister Chinchilla really showed her love for the missionaries as she wanted to take us out for dinner at 5:30 but waited for us to get out of the interviews so we were still able to go and eat at Chick-fil-a with her! That was a be nice thing of her to do. She is an amazing member!

The next day I went out on exchanges with Elder Hill. We got to go into Chevy Chase because he had some skin appointments. (Chevy Chase is right by the Temple in Kensington) We got home in time for lunch and went out back into teaching some of his investigators. That night we had an appointment with a less active who is starting to return to church. His name is Konah and he is a very sweet man. He had a brain injury a few years ago but still is very humble. He has had a rough past but he isn't letting that stop him from coming to church now. We went with a a member to this appointment and as we were reviewing the restoration with him the member jumped to the end so we had to back track which was a great experience. 

Thursday I received the package which you sent me! I loved getting all that candy, music, a tie, socks, and my iPod! That you so very much for all of the things in the package! When I opened it at the zone meeting people were baffled at how full it was with candy! Thank you so very much! Thursday after our meetings we went out with the Senior sisters who are in our district to Outback! They paid for us and it was a great experience that we had getting to know them right before one of them leaves since she is done with her mission! 

The last thing that I will talk about today will be what we did on Friday. We had lunch with Sister Mays and I ate another Scotch Bonnett pepper so that was such a blast! When she asked if I would like another some other day and I said I would love one she looked at me like I was crazy so that was a great lunch! It is really nice because she has 8 missionaries over every time so we get to bond with each other and with her!

We went and did service for one of the members in our ward. We leveled her yard and put in some garden boxes so that will be cool to see how they turn out. She is a great member! Her husband is not a member but is such a hilarious guy! He is a Druid so that is interesting to see all of the things he has from that!

This week has been a rough one with Archibald but they will get better I know it. It dawned on me this week that the best way for me to still keep my sanity with him is to serve others so I do! I've noticed that as I do I am happier that day and that it is easier for him. Mosiah 2:17 When ye are in service of your fellow being, ye are also in the Service of your God. That scripture is so very true, so I want to invite all who read this letter this week to pray for opportunities to serve others more. As we serve others we will notice that our life is being blessed. 

Love, 

~Elder Bentley

Why I Believe

 

Bridger playing at the "Why I Believe" night.

 

 

 

Dear Family!

It definitely is getting a lot colder here in Maryland! It's been in the 50's most of the week but Saturday and Sunday night it was getting down to 33 degrees. It definitely makes me excited for the winter because it's a cold I've never really experienced before. The members have been feeding us a lot this week, we think it is mostly because Archibald leaves in a few weeks so they want to pamper him, but it is really enjoyable! We were fed 8 times this last week. 

On Tuesday I was able to go on exchanges with one of the Zone Leaders. Elder Collins and I had a couple of great experiences while we were out tracting that night. We pulled up in the car and parked in a cold-a-sack, when we climbed out of the car a little boy runs up to me and starts talking with me. He asked how I was and what we were doing. He was talking with us for a couple of minutes then asked if we wanted to see his dog. He walked over to his driveway and picked up his little puppy, we started talking to his mother and shared our message of the Book of Mormon with her. It was a great contact because it was because of the little boy that we were able to share the gospel with her. 

The next house we knocked on was this really nice lady who talked with us for a few minutes. She told us that her mother was very nice to the missionaries down south when she was a little kid. Because of her mother she wanted to do the same for us as well. She works right by the temple to we were able to invite her to go to the events that happen there every month. She told us to come back sometime so we will stop by and see how she is doing. 

On Friday we were able to finally go to the temple to go through a session. This was the first time since I came into the area and it was a great experience. The temple workers are so very nice to us and you cannot but feel like you are home and loved. The smiles on their faces when we go to the temple are priceless. Since that was what we had planned for the day we were able to spend time pondering, reading, and praying. The connection to our Heavenly Father is so much more powerful, especially as a missionary. 

Our lessons with investigators have been really scarce, we had only had one appointment this last week. There are many factors that I think play into it. We had an appointment at the end of church with a man who wanted a Book of Mormon. It was very nice because we were able to teach him a lesson with the same drop by on Sunday. Tonight we got fed by a family named the Phillips. Their oldest daughter is 7 and found out that I play the piano and has really taken a liking to me because of it. She drew us all pictures and we thought that was very sincere. Sunday night was also Why I Believe, which Sister Cooke had asked me to play for it in light of the following speaker. As I started to play, my fingers just started to play themselves. It was faster than I anticipated but overall I did well. The best I could have done in a weeks notice. It was lots of fun to play on the Steinway and sons piano. The speaker, Vai Sikahema afterwards thanked me for my music and that he thought it was amazing. That really started to boost my spirit.

This week has been a great week and I am even more excited to go out this next week and find those elect children of the Laurel area. 

 

Love, Elder Bentley

Hot Peppers!

Tears of hotness running down my face after eating the pepper!

Elder Bentley & Elder Yang

 

 

Dear Family!

This week has been quite the eventful one! First I'll just start with the beginning of the week! We were invited to lunch with a Sister in the neighboring ward. Her name is Sister Mays, she likes to feed us lumpia, chicken, rice and scotch bonnet peppers! She has this thing where she has every missionary she feeds eat a scotch bonnet pepper. Those are like the 3rd hottest pepper in the world. They are really so hot! They tell us to start chewing and to not open your mouth. It is so hard to describe the intensity of the pepper. It just keeps on getting hotter and hotter. She gives us ice cream to try to help it. But all it does is numb your mouth for a few seconds. And it lasts for a half an hour. As I started chewing the pepper tears just started streaming down my cheeks. It was a great sensation!

This week has been a rough week for Elder Archibald and I. He has been just super burnt out and such. But he talked with sister Cooke and hopefully this next week he will have some kind of motivation. It has really made me work on patience and to find the best use of time that he takes from the day. We have been trying to cheer him up and so but it is all good!

We had an appointment with an investigator who is about my age. He has some addiction problems and his house is really torn apart. He has a little brother who is neglected. This last lesson his little brother just wanted to play clue with me. He didn't know how to play clue so I made some little way up and played it with him. This was the first time I have seen him smile. It was way awesome! He hopefully will be able to overcome it. If you haven't watched the addiction recovery videos take an hour out of your time and watch all 12 of them. They are so very powerful. 

We were able to go do service for a member and that was also very great. He is a band teacher so he is quite the guy. His wife also makes us all laugh. She was rubbing her sons ear and he asked what she was doing. She looks at him and says "I'm tenderizing the cartilage so it is easier to rip off." We also were able to just chop wood into pieces which I thought was very enjoyable! We sat there with brother Renberg and he told us mission stories as we chopped the wood into many pieces. 

Sister Mays took us to this place called Smoothie King where they sell protein shakes but they are all fruity and amazing! Sister Mays is a legend member. She makes missionaries blankets and does fix ups on clothing and such!

This Sunday we had a Night of Music and Inspiration. It was a great experience because music brings a different kind of spirit. We had a little hiccups during our performance but we still brought it strong. Sister Cooke was proud of us from our performance. She asked me this last week to play at the Why I Believe this coming Sunday so hopefully I will be able to prepare another song. This week was a great week!

 

Hopefully all goes well at home this next week!

Love,

Elder Bentley

Happy Conference!

 

 

Dear Everyone! 

This week has been such a great and marvelous week! I guess that I will just start with the first of the week and move throughout the week. This week was an average temperature of about 57 degrees and almost everyday we had rain. 

Monday we had our first zone activity and it was such a blast! We went to a park and basically just played different games/sports and got to know the people in our zone more and have fun. Following the zone activity we just did normal p-day activities like shop and do laundry. That night we went out tracting and it was a night where everyone was just watching T.V. And they don't really answer their door which is frustrating because you know they are right there. 

The highlight of Tuesday was after dinner Elder Archibald and Elder hill went on exchanges because they felt like they needed to have a talk with each other because they both are struggling. It was a down pour that night and since we are not allowed to drive a car until our third transfer Elder Williams and I went out and tracted in the rain and got soaked. We did find this lady, right at 8:30 and she was more than willing to listen to what we had to say. Her mother died a few weeks ago and she had questions about the whole after life. Her name is Japonette and she said she wanted to come to church and even watch conference if she had the time. 

Wednesday was transfer meeting which was very anti climatic because no one in my district is being transferred so we just had to go to the meeting for the free bananas and lupia. Everyone went down to go to lunch at Costco and also to buy bulk items because we were there and had gotten paid so we bought the bulk items. Elder Hill and I also bought a Costco card and split it so we can shop there now. 

On Friday we were supposed to go down and help some elders move out of their apartment and into a different one. There was a leadership training and the zone leaders had to be there but we needed their truck to go and help the move so we got the zone leaders truck. The French elders were with us in the truck because they are in a trio and their companion had to go to the leadership training as well. We spent the day after helping the other elders move with the French Elders taking them to their appointments because they didn't have a car. We sat in the truck waiting for the Frenchies just talking about Halloween. 

This conference weekend was so amazing. This is the first conference weekend where I didn't fall asleep during the sessions. On Saturday we went to the Yarns house and spent the day there helping them put up Halloween decorations and watched conference. I think the line in conference that stuck out the most to me was "there is no darkness so thick that cannot be penetrated by light." -Vern P. Stanfill

That night for priesthood we went to the stake center and had a pizza social before and we went with Brother Yarn to pick up 72 pizzas for that. 

Sunday conference was still just as amazing. It was hard to get a strong enough wifi signal to stream it live in our apartment. But we were finally able to get it and watch it on one iPad. It was hard to watch President Monson's health slowly decrease as his talk went on. After that session of conference we went to the Atkinsons and they had a Super Bowl meal planned for us which was so amazing. It was like lunch dinner and dessert. I liked Devin G Durrant's talk about how we need to set aside money every week. I also loved how he challenged everyone to memorize and ponder one verse a week. I would like to extend that challenge to everyone who reads this. I know that by doing so your life will be blessed and you will find yourself closer to Christ.

I hope that all will go well this coming week and that everyone will be able to apply the conference talks into their lives this week. 

~Elder Bentley

Happy Super Nova Eclipse!

This happened at church today when I was playing the piano. He is only 2 and hopped up and wanted to play with me! His name is Rhys pronounced Reese 

FOOD DRIVE

Typical selfie. We found some other missionaries in our area so we covered their car in pass along cards. We are hoping they are the French or ASL so they aren't poaching. 

Dear family!

That is so very awesome hearing about the Super Nova Eclipse! I would say we would try to go out and see if we could see it in the sky, but the air is so polluted here and it would be past our curfew for going outside. But the weather here has been so amazing! It has been cloudy and in the 70's most of the week! This next week it says it will rain most of the week and will drop down to 60. The General  Conference here is so very great. We get to watch the sessions either at a members house, a chapel or from our iPads at the church. They have streamings of the Spanish translation in the Chapel which is awesome because we can basically invite everyone to come now. We are going to members houses on Saturday, their names are the Yarns and they are a solid family. 

This week has been a harder week because all of our appointments on Wednesday cancelled on us or just weren't there. 4 appointments in a row dodged us which was hard, but we just went back out and started to visit more less-active members. The members here are really great at feeding us, this last week we hardly ate with members though. There is this great member named James, he is single and we are 100% positive he is one of the three nephites. He sold his tv and everything and we just joke with him about how he is always out teaching the gospel. He took Elder Archibald and I to Outback Steak house. Bless him because he payed for us both and he is just so great!

This last p-day we went to the Atlantic Ocean part of the mission and spent some of the day down there which was lots of fun. 

There is this great investigator that we have his name is Ian. He is a Bass player and plays for people that need someone to play for them. He is really hard to get an appointment with because his schedule changes every week depending on the gig he is playing that week. But he is very interactive with us, he asks questions, reads, and let's us come back to teach him more. Every time he sends us a text telling us about his schedule he always addresses it to me, which is funny because it's our companionships phone. I've just been to every lesson that we have had with him.

Sunday night we also met this great guy named Joseph. His family is really strong in their religion but he had a lot of questions on where we go after this life. The way he talks it makes it seem like he has a past he wants to repent and be forgiven for. We gave him basically everything that we possibility could with our number and he said to give him some time to read and to ponder. He said he was very inspired just by our devotion to the gospel that he knows it will be something to check out. 

On Saturday we had a food drive that the entire mission did where we each went to different stores and collected food from people going in and out of the stores to donate to the local food bank. At first when we started the service we felt like it was going to really drag along that day, but after an hour people just started giving us can after can of food so we filled up a box and a half of food. It was awesome because we got to interact with people and they didn't slam doors in our faces! They were all super kind and polite about it. We had a great time doing the service and we are looking ahead for more opportunities to do these food drives. We think it is an initiative that the mission is trying to roll out so we will see about it. It was also nice because we got to be in regular clothes and people wanted to talk with us! 

I hope everyone who reads this email will try to serve others more this next week. Have a great week and I cannot wait to hear from everyone!

Love Elder Bentley

Happy Falll!

This is down at the tip of Maryland down at the Ocean. It is across
the entire mission which was so much fun to drive down there and see
the sea and stuff!

Making trifle for Elder Archibald's birthday

A little boy that just moved into our ward. He loves to play with our name tags
 

Elder Archibald's birthday stuff

This is a map of our area. The blue lines are areas we have tracted.

Dear family!

This week has been such an amazing week! First to start off, they finally gave us our iPads. It has been nice because there is the area book app on it and it is so much more convenient to do the work. We also found out this week that the mission is going to start to try to initiate Facebook back into the mission. Elder Hill and Elder Archibald didn't seem to happy about this, I think most of the missionaries just waste lots of time scrolling on it. 

Friday morning we got a call from the Visitor Center sisters asking if I could play the piano for a duet at the night of inspiration. That is October 11th so everyday I am allowed to take some time and practice for that! That was really cool, but at the same time super weird because they said they would look at the roster for my email to send me PDFs of the music. I then was like "wait I didn't sign up on any roster" then Elder Archibald said that Sister Cooke signed me up because she knows I play piano. 

Another cool thing that happened this week was I was able to go on exchanges with Elder Hill my District leader. We had an appointment with an African named William, it was our second lesson with him and Elder Hill looked at me in the middle of the Lesson and said "Right now" so I invited him to be baptized and he was more than excited to say yes! Right now he has a date set for October 10th. He just has to come to church every Sunday between now and then, and he can be baptized! He lives with his Brother and his Sister-in-Law. His brother is in the military and is at a Training. So we thought that his sister in law was his wife because he calls her wife. I guess in their culture if your brother marries someone, everyone refers to her as wife. He has a wife and kids in Liberia, he is working here and sending money back to them. It was a great experience to invite him to be baptized!

Sunday night we had something called "Why I Believe" it is something the VC puts on here to invite others to come hear testimonies about some of the more famous members. The speakers last night were John Smith and his wife Hannah. He worked at the White House as the lead lawyer to President Bush for homeland security matters; at a major law firm in DC. He is also a direct descendant of George Albert Smith. Hannah served two clerk ships at the Supreme Court for Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A Alito Jr.  It was really cool because we have to invite less actives and investigators to it. Every missionary is supposed to invite somebody to it.

It was Elder Archibald's Birthday on Sunday also! We surprised him with balloons and presents. We then had Trifle, except for the fact that we did this all Saturday night because we had Why I Believe Sunday night. He said that it was one of his better birthdays which is really good!

When we got our iPads we had to go to a Specialized training where President Cooke and Sister Cooke have us talk with the APs about the struggles that some of them are having with their companions. Elder Paul and Elder Fisher were there and it was awesome being able to talk with them for a little before the meeting started. I am blessed that Elder Archibald and I get along well because some of the other trainees and their trainers are really struggling so that was a blessing.  I also saw Elder Fisher at the Why I Believe, he is such a great guy! The ZL Elder Parker told me that out of the Trainer pool that was set for the group of missionaries that came out was not the best, but that I got lucky with Elder Archibald. 

We do a lot of tracking. When we don't have anything to do we tract. We find a lot of people that way because they see the devotion. We have area book apps on our iPads, we also have gospel library where we have all the Mormon messages that we can share with the investigators. We also have the lds tools app. We are also allowed to email from our iPads as long as it is the P-day. Most missionaries like to just email Sunday night because they are out and about on Mondays and don't have wifi. The church has a lot of restrictions on the iPads, there is a chip in them where it restricts most of the apps. Basically just the things that are gospel friends are not restricted. 

I am glad to hear that everyone is doing great in Utah!

Love,
Elder Bentley

Sept 14, 2015

Love the pouring rain!

Dear Family,

Yes I have been able to find names to take to the temple, we still have another month before we are able to even go to the temple to do the baptisms. This area that we are in is a car area, but I do have my bike and it is all set up. We still ride our bikes though because we only have 850 miles a month to do the work that we need. And since we have to go to all these meetings around Maryland, we have to be careful with the miles that we do use. We also are saving miles so we can go down to the tip of Maryland to Look Out Point, so we have been saving alot of miles for that as well. 

This last week was supposed to start to cool down, most of the week was still pretty hot, it was high 80's and low 90's most of the week, but then on Saturday we just had a down pour of rain and it cooled down to the 70's. When it rains down here, it pours, we had planned to go out tracting and since it was raining we got to go out into the rain and tract for a little, the rain stopped pretty quickly and we realized we had already tracted those houses. We left that area and went to go check up on some of the potential investigators that we had. The lady Elsa is now an official Investigator and we have another appointment with her this week.

That same night we went and contacted a referral that we had received and he just wanted a bible. We ended up teaching him the restoration and gave him a Book of Mormon as well. He was searching for the truth and had been going to different churches trying to find the true one. He was more than willing to come to church the following day, but he ended up not coming. We have an appointment with him this Saturday so hopefully we can find out why he wasn't there.

I went on Exchanges with one of the zone leaders this week and we were out tracting an area where a bunch of Muslims lived. He was very great at starting little conversations with them and one of them invited us into his house. It ended up being that he was telling us about Islam and his religion, but his wife made us smoothies and we were more than willing to listen. Hopefully since we listened to him, he will want to listen to us. He said that he really respected Mormons and that he liked them as well. After about an hour in his house, he gave us both awkwardly long hugs and sent us on our way. 

We also contacted a less active member who we though was a member, but he ended up having a record because his mom was LDS and so when he was born he was given a record, but he never got baptized. He had so many questions when we met with him that we were able to answer. His dog had flees, and we were pretty sure that they had bed bugs so we had the whole bed bug experience stripping down after the lesson and had to take scalding hot showers. We talked with him for about an hour and it put us past our curfew, and Elder Archibald's blood sugar was getting super low so he was feeling dizzy and that made it so I had to drive. We are not supposed to drive until after 12 weeks in the mission, except for an emergency which this was.  

We had this thing called the Global Gala Saturday night. The ward threw this big dinner where they had dishes from all over the world and the gym was decorated with each continent's things. It was lots of fun because we got to mingle with the members and got to know some of them better. We also got a lot of food from it so that was always a bonus.

We get our iPads this week finally, it will be nice to have access to our own area book and to be able to use it as a teaching tool. We have to watch every Mormon Message and learn them so we can apply them into our teachings. Elder Archibald said that that was one of the hardest things to do just because there are so many of them that it is hard to remember which ones is what off the top of your head. 

This week overall has been a great one. We got fed most of the nights so that was nice to get to know the members really well. We ate Sunday dinner last night with the Atkinsons and that was a blast because they are a great couple just to sit down and talk with. We ended up being there for 2 hours last night and when we were done we did not have that much time to go out and proselyte so we did a call wall.

This last week I got a letter from Brian, Shanna, and the boys which was really great. Writing them was just so much fun and after I sent it the letter last night it reminded me how much fun hand writing letters was!

Love,

Elder Bentley