Extending for Life!

HELLOOOO.

  I love this week. The Lord is just pouring out blessings on this area right now, and all I can pray for is that my weaknesses won't get in the way of the work. Everybody we're finding is prepared, and it's just a miracle. Alice brought her daughter to church yesterday, and we're meeting with her this week. That family will soon be completed! President Becerra came to our ward yesterday and dominated Alice and her daughter with the spirit, so she pretty much has no choice now. :) We're also working with another incredible couple, Jonah and Autumn (we named them). They're from Beijing and came here to have their first baby, they're going back in July. They found us through english class. They came to church yesterday, and the gospel principles teacher (GENIUS) got them to come up in front of the class and share their feelings on prayer. Autumn sounded like a prophet! She was so profound. The crazy thing is, she has grown up a qiancheng (you'll have to look up the translation, I can't remember) buddhist her whole life, and over the course of a week and a half, her and her husband can't go a day without reading the scriptures and praying together. I LOVE THE SPIRIT. Also, Lily is doing great as well. She has been SO involved in every church activity so far, and we are hardly even doing anything. She came to our stake's Mormon Helping Hands service project. She has made so many friends and the ward loves her. She has a goal to be baptized with her husband and son on June 17th (they don't come to America until May 23rd). Alice referred one of her friends from work to us, Kyle, and he has a goal to be baptized on may 20th. He gave up smoking last Tuesday, and gave up drinking yesterday! The spirit has just been working on him like crazy. ANOTHER miracle is, we were filling up gas the other day, and Elder Fish felt prompted to talk to the guy next to us, his name's Jack. Turns out he had met with missionaries 4 years ago, before he joined the navy. We met with him 2 days later, and he told us about his struggle to have the spirit with him at all times. The last time he was baptized, he wasn't required to make any changes in his life and he felt like he was still living an unclean worldly life, and he wants to change that. He has a goal to be baptized on May 27th. We met with him and our Stake President last night (his english is pretty good), and set up a plan to reach his baptismal date with him.  We have a goal to baptize every week of next transfer... and I really believe we can accomplish that goal.

  My favorite thing about being a zone leader is doing baptismal interviews. I interviewed a young lady named Sarah the other day, and it was a sweet experience. She told me of the changes she's had to make in accepting the gospel, and the experience she had when she knew the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. The spirit prompted me to have her write her testimony in a new Book of Mormon, and she committed to give it out within a week of her baptism. It's just amazing. There really is no way this gospel cannot be true, the spirit works on people in ways that are unimaginable and indescribable. It changes people for the better, and only for the better. I know the gospel is true.

 Well I love you guys. CONGRATULATIONS to Noah on getting his eagle. I told you I didn't think you'd get it before I came home, and you proved me wrong. Like usual. Can't wait to see baby Asa. It's sooner than I can even comprehend. I don't wanna go home... I'm extending for life.

 

Ben.

Happy Easter!

 

Hey Family,

  Is it just me or have you guys been getting sick more than usual since I've been gone? I feel like I read that all the time, haha. I really hope everyone is getting better. Easter season is a good time to remember that when we'll resurrect we'll have perfect bodies! What a great blessing. Noah made Encore eh? Man that guy has just too much talent. Congratz, bro. P.S. when is the baby coming? this month right? goodness.

  Our P-day is switched to today this week, because we just had the opportunity to go do a session at the temple. It was incredible. I went into the temple with a question, and came out of the temple with much more. I'm excited to have more things to study. :) I love the temple.

  This week has been quite full of miracles. I had the most spiritual day of my life this last Thursday. I was on exchanges with Elder Lindsay, and I don't know why but the Lord decided to teach us a lot of things that day. It was such a happy day, the spirit was almost tangible. I really don't even know how to explain it in words, it was just super great. Then on Friday we had a mission conference, which was also incredible. At the end, after President had talked for a while and the spirit was really strong, President said, "A man holding the Melchizedek Priesthood has the power to bless..." Then, from the pulpit, he pronounced a blessing on every missionary . Angels were in that building that day, nobody could deny that. It was just amazing.

  Alice will be getting baptized this week, and possibly brother and sister H---. I don't know if I ever talked to you guys about them. They are cousins of a member that came to America to have their 2nd baby. They came to church and loved it, and Brother H--- has been reading conference ensigns and just trying to take in as much knowledge as he can. We haven't been able to meet with them for the past month because she just had her baby, but we finally met on Sunday. We will find out if they want to be baptized later tonight... we're praying for them. They go back to Shanghai next week, so they'd have to be baptized and confirmed this Sunday! Exciting.

  I love it out here... Driving back from the temple today we drove through my first area, Alhambra. It made me think how much I'm going to miss California. The perfect weather, the food, the psychos... haha. For the first time ever I actually feel like I could live here. At least here in Rowland Heights. It's so pretty. Anyways, I hope every one starts feeling better. I love you guys. Have a good week!

 

Love, Ben.

Conference

Helloooo family.

 

  Conference was incredible. I learned so much, and so many prayers were answered! I loved Richard G. Scott's talk about receiving revelation, as well as Elder Holland's. And the last 3 seventies in sunday afternoon. and pretty much everybody's. By the way, I'm calling it right now, Ronald A. Rasband and L. Whitney Clayton are the next apostles. Just letting you guys know. I feel like the resounding theme of the whole conference was love and charity. They talked so much about how we should treat others. I loved it. We watched it at the stake center, and I watched it in english. Watching it in chinese is just not the same, the voices aren't as powerful as the brethren, and the jokes they make don't make sense, haha. English is just the best. Good news! You know how I talked about an investigator named Alice a couple weeks ago? How she was awesome but then moved to San Diego? Yeah, she moved back. Pretty awesome story. Elder Fish and I were on bike, and we had some time just to go talk to people, but we weren't sure if should follow our plan we made the night before or go to someplace new. We decided that if our planning was inspired like it should be, then the Lord would lead us to the people we needed to see that day. We locked our bikes up against a fence, and the moment I looked up I saw Alice on the other side of the street, she had just gotten off the bus. We saw each other at the same time and she was super excited to see us. We ran over to her and set up an appointment. When we met with her the next day she told us that when she saw us the day before, she had gotten off the wrong bus stop. Man, just think if she would have kept going or got off one stop earlier? We wouldn't have found her again. The Lord truly maps out every moment in order to fulfil his commandments. She's getting baptized on the 15th :)

   I'm excited for this next week. I feel like a lot of good will get done. I'm looking forward with an "eye of faith" like it says in Alma 32. I love the Aw (pronounced oh) family that I'm living with. Sister Aw always makes us homemade bread and it's the best. Before I leave them I wanna get them some nice gift. We'll see. Anyways I love you, family. I pray for you guys every day. Especially for EJ and Noah lately. They're growing up in a terrible world! But they're lucky they live in the best family ever.

 

Love, Ben.

New Week!

Good morning everybody.

   I'm glad to hear everyone is feeling better. I think they've passed the sickness over here :) haha, I've been catching a nasty cold these past few days. But I'm all right, the work is moving forward. I'm so excited for the upcoming General Conference. I feel the same way as you, pops, conference seems to come right in time. Some stresses have been piling up, but I think the thing that has been piling up the most lately is my faith. I feel that my faith lately has been almost tangible. I don't really know how to explain it, but explainable and unexplainable things have been happening that are fruits of faith. Faith truly is the essence behind everything we do. This week Elder Fish and I along with President gave a training to all the ward mission leaders in our stake. As I thought contemplating what I would train them on during my part, I read through Preach My Gospel to figure something out that might just click with them, but honestly nothing was clicking with me. After studying more, I decided that we just needed to talk about faith with them. We started the meeting by asking them what makes a golden investigator and a lame investigator (most of them being returned missionaries). They made a long list for both, saying golden investigators "listen, ask questions, keep commitments" and so on. The list for the not-so-golden investigators was just the opposite. They couldn't really catch on where we were going with it for a while until we said "We need you all to be "golden investigators" in this training tonight." We bore testimony of having faith that the spirit would whisper something to them if they were praying for us and for themselves throughout the whole meeting. The spirit was extremely strong, you could see that everyone was so engaged and full of faith, I'd say the meeting was a complete success. Much revelation was received by all of us. I have so much more to say about what I've learned about faith this week, but I just don't know how to put it into words! "To put it simply, faith is power." - Gene R. Cook.

   We've been working a lot with a few less-active members in our ward, and been having good success. Our investigator pool is slowly growing, but growing nonetheless. We're currently teaching 4 pregnant woman, haha. They are all good friends and it's been a good time teaching them. They've asked us to give all their babies english names, but none of them seem to like the name "Benjamin" though, haha. I think it's great. We're praying that the gospel will touch them soon enough that they'll have the desire to be baptized. We haven't baptized all year! It's kinda discouraging, but at the same time I feel like it's just around the corner. We're praying for that miracle family... One of our pregnant investigators, Tracy, has a super awesome 5 year old son named Tiger that loves primary, it's been way cool so be apart of 'cause we hardly ever get to work with children.

  Well. I'm super excited for general conference. We'll be watching it at the chapel, and hopefully we'll get 5-6 investigators there to watch it in chinese. Hope that everything goes well with Noah's singing thingy! And I hope that everyone is happy. Love you guys!

 

Ben.

Wonderful week!

 

Hey family,

  This week has been so great. We've seen many miracles happen. The Lord has definitely been blessing us. We've been blessed with a lady named Alice. She came to our english class on Thursday, and we set up an appointment to meet with her the next day. She was really moved by the message, she started to cry. We met with her again on Saturday and found out that she has been missing happiness ever since she got to America (4 years ago) and has no idea where to find it. She's been to churches before, but they all made her feel like she had to suffer in this life in order to get to heaven. She has loved what she has been learning. She came to church with us yesterday, and then came to the LA temple visitors center with us and the ward afterward. The spirit has testified the truth to her so much every since we first met with her, she is prepared! She has a baptismal date for April 1st. We're grateful for her. We've also picked up a few other people that are making their way towards baptism. Our zone has been taking off as well, we've set a goal to have 10 baptisms in the zone this month and we've already had 4 with more than 10 scheduled. We've been blessed with the missionaries in our zone, they all work hard and are obedient, there's only been a few occasions where they have needed correction. President has been cracking down on obedience, he's been sending people home like crazy lately, haha. When he first got here, he gave the image of "do whatever you want because I'm not as strict as President Pike", but he's realized this and is changing his image extremely fast. We were able to spend the whole day with him on Thursday. We had interviews in the zone, then we took him out to dinner with some investigators, and then we had another meeting with the Stake President right after. I love being with that man, he is so inspired. There's no way you could talk to him and not know the gospel is true. He's helped me become the person I am right now and the person I'm becoming, the lord definitely knew I needed him as a mission president. I think this is my favorite time of my mission so far. The spirit has been so prevalent, my understanding of the doctrine has been so clear, and faith has been so much more easy to exercise. I always ask myself a question that Boyd K. Packer said once, "What doctrine or principle regarding ____ would change my attitude and behavior towards ____" It ignites awesome study sessions and much revelation. Those are the times I wish I had a computer connected to my brain typing down all my thoughts for me, there is just too much to record.

  Well family I love you guys, I hope the littles start feeling better. And have a good trip to Vegas this week, send Ally and Steve my love!

 

Ben

Busy Week!

 Hello!

  Yes, the W__ family loves to take us out to eat cantonese food, they are from Hong Kong. They are great. I love chicken feet, I think thats my favorite weird thing I've eaten thus far.

  This week has brought some great miracles. We've been working so hard, and no direct results have come from our efforts, but the Lord is blessing us in other ways. On Sunday, 3 members brought friends to church. We were able to teach a couple from Shanghai, The W__ family, and the wife is going to have her baby this week. It's her 2nd baby, so they have to come to America to have it or else they get a big fine in China. So they won't be here for long. Probably another 2 months or so, but we're hoping they can be baptized before they go back. 

   We also taught another lady that has a possibility of being baptized this week. She really has the desire to learn, but she's going back to Shanghai on Monday. We taught her a couple hours ago.   We told her the only way for her to continue learning in the church in China is to be baptized because you have to be a member to go to church there, so we'll find out what she decides soon. That will be super cool if she decides to be baptized this week.

  This upcoming week will be super busy. We have zone leader council all day tomorrow, and the mission is having obedience problems, so lots of changes will have to be made. Then we have interviews all day on Thursday. After that, we have a meeting with president and the stake president and the high councilman over missionary work to discuss the missionary work in the stake, and also to prepare a training we'll be giving to all the Ward Mission Leaders  the Stake. And we have lots of appointments scheduled, and we have to do a few exchanges with the district leaders in our zone. Oh yeah, speaking of which, I went on an exchange with one of the AP's this week, Elder Ballesteros. I stayed in his area for the day, a spanish area in East LA. It was crazy, it's basically exactly what you'd imagine the "projects" to be like. We were walking down an alley to get to a members house and he said "yeah, someone was shot here last week. luckily we were eating dinner at this members house." Haha. Then we had a way good mexican meal. It was a really good exchange. My spanish is improving, so thats good.

  Thank you for sending me the Triple! and yes, thats all I needed. Marking it all over again has brought lots of new revelation, it's been really good. I love the Book of Mormon so much. Definitely one of my best friends. I'm attaching some pictures of recent happenings, enjoy! I love you guys!

Love, Ben.

 

Crazy Food

We received an email from a gentleman in Ben's mission with this picture and explanation:

We should have taken the picture before the Elders finished all the dim sum dishes (21 to be exact, including the two chicken feet dishes that the Elders insisted to order) instead of just leaving the dish of pan-fried whole crab on the table . . .

My wife and I felt full just by looking at these Elders eat. . .

Enjoy!

Brother W___

It is wonderful to hear from someone who has been with our missionary and even better to get a picture!  Love it!  It looks like they are being fed well... hmm...