Sister Benson: 2/28/22

 

Hello!! This week has been a wild one as always :) People in the south say that they are aggravated, or that its aggravating, all. the. time. but they say it like aAggravAtin. so if you want to attempt a southern accent, thats a good word to start with. :) 

Lets start of with the craziest thing!! Remember the star of our week last week, Champange? Welllll... guess who is on bap date!! Champange is so wonderful and so committed and excited, she is preparing to be baptized April 2! So we are doing everything we can to get her there :)) We're so excited!!

Our friend James hasnt been progressing much lately, but this week we had a breakthrough lesson. We talked about the plan of salvation, and about temple work. And the thought of being able to see people again and to be able to go to the Celestial kingdom really blew his mind. We invited him to pray about baptism, explaining that that was the next step towards salvation. And he said he would. So everyone pray really hard that James will get an undeniable witness so that he can come closer to Christ!!!

This week we asked Karley if she'd want to have a bible study with us this week, and she said yes! We had only done service for her up until that point, so this was exciting!! We studied John 10, which is when Jesus is talking about his "other sheep". It was a perfect lead into the Book of Mormon!! So we had a wonderful discussion about that chapter, then talked about other nations, then brought the Book of Mormon up. And she was interesteddddd let me tell you. So i popped it open to 1 Nephi 1:1 and we read it and related it straight back to her family. She has three little girls that shes very concerned will grow up "wordly". And that is the perfect mindset. So we talked about how coming closer to Christ can benefit her family, and eventually invtited her to read, she said yes, and invited her to church, she said yes! We love Karley!! Other updates with her, she/we have finished painting, flooring and moving furniture into the house!! We brought an elders quorum crew and they helped. Yay member led missionary work :)) So Karleys abandon house is now beautiful and not abandon!!! 

In other news i ate a seafood quesadilla this week that was to die for. Crab and shrimp and cheese and magic... you should be jealous. I was jealous of myself. 

This weekend I got to do splits with Sister Anderson, in Fernandina Beach, Florida!! So yeah, i spent the weekend in Florida ;) Unfortunately we didnt go to the beach, but we did something way better which is... TEACH ABOUT JESUS!!! 

While in Ferny we went to a lesson with Buddy. Buddy is just the sweetest old man. Sister Anderson and Sister Petersen had gone to Kingsland and found the gravestones for a lot of his family so he could do family history!! He knew pretty much nothing about his daddy, who died when he was six, and he knew NOTHING about his mamas family, because she never talked about it. But we plugged in his dads name, birth and death year... and it connected it to his mom. And then. Connected us to an entire ENTIRE line that people had done. All of his history was put in. Pictures, documents, everything. He found out that his dad had been married before, that his dad served in WWI, that his ancestors were from England, and so much more. It was amazing. It made him so happy! So I invite you to do your family history work :) I just added a bunch of pictures to both of my parents, including one of my dad eating captain crunch with chocolate milk. So that my children some day know that my dad was just the best :)) 

Also in Ferny we had an AMAZING expirience. Well at least I did. I dont think Sister Anderson knew what was going on but she is just a light so shes perfect and its fine. We had a lesson with the Martinez family. This family speaks little to no english, and tons and tons of spanish. Somehow the fernandina sisters had taught them enough for them to want to know more!! So they had been having the spanish speaking elders in Brunswick come for the past couple weeks to teach. Sister Anderson and I were there early, and the elders came late. So that left us some time with the Martinez family and quite a language barrier. So heres some background, before I got my call Devin promised he would learn whatever language I had to... so he got off easy. But I made the same promise before he got his! And so ive been learning spanish, and any of you who are friends with me on duolingo know I have a 76 day streak so... im pretty cool. No but for real ive just been learning for the sake of having my email titles to Dev in spanish lol. So suddenly here i am with a family who only speaks spanish, and a companion who only speaks english. And wow did the Lord give me courage because i was so scared to sound like an idiot!! But I introduced myself, learned all of there names, told them i only know a little spanish, and went from there. We sang I am a child of God in spanish, I figured out how to tell Berta, the mom, how to download gospel library, and switch it to spanish. By the time the elders got there one of the boys and I were friends, and he sat next to me the whole time trying to teach me the whole spanish language lol. The elders taught a great lesson on the restoration. And somehow i knew what was going on the whole time!! I would catch a few words here and there, then piece it together. If i wanted to make sure i knew what was going on I would google translate to Steven- the one sitting next to me- and he told me i was right everytime. It was insane!! I dont even know spanish!! At the end of the lesson the elders each bore their testimonies, and i knew thats what they were doing. But when they finished they both looked at me. Then everyone looked at me. And I was like uhhhh.... "Me siento ese el libro de mormon es cierto. y.... Dios es amor." (Which means i feel that the Book of Mormon is true. and... God is love. Nice.) Thats all I could think of. But Herrardo- the dad- looks at me and in spanish told me that he was grateful for my testimony, and that he felt the Spirit. And I understood him. Yall God will use what little you have to further his work. Give it all to him!! Because of this expirience I had to courage to give a family in our ward a spanish book of mormon. They dont speak any english but have been coming to church. So i just went and sat by them and asked if they wanted it, then offered to get them a bible. It was an amazing expirience!!!

I love yall! I hope yall are having a good week and a great life. God is there for you always, turn to him with everything <3