Sister Benson: 3/14/22

 

With Elder Dalley from Springville High

You probably thought right... its transfer week. So heres the news that i DONTWANNATALKABOUT. Happy part! I get to stay in Waycross!! im so excited about it because i love the people here. I love the country and Georgia now owns my heart. But... Sister Ashby is leaving me. She is headed to Lake City, Florida to be an STL. (Which if you dont know what that means, it means a. that shes really cool. and b. that shes "in charge" of all the sisters in her zone. Exciting!!) I know she will be a WONDERFUL stl and i just wish she was mine!! But she will be greatly missed here in Waycross, by the people, and moooostly by me. :(( BUT!! My new companion is Sister Swain. If yall can think back to the very beginning of my mission, i stayed my first night or so in the mission is Dunn Avenue. With Sisters Loomis and Swain :) And then Sister Swain ended up training my wonderful MTC companion, Sister Matthews!! So it feels like Sister Swain and I are already friends :) Im hopeful for this transfer!! 

This week- as you may have seen on Facebook- Sister Ashby and I got to go to the Orlando temple!! So we drove down to Dunn Avenue on Wednesday night (before we knew Sister Swain and i would be companions!!) and we got to stay the night with Sisters Swain and Matthews. It rained THE WHOLE way down. But the sisters were more than welcoming, they even made us beds :) So we slept well and got up bright and early (5:30!!!) so that we could get to the mission office on time. There we met up with a bunch of missionaries from throughout the mission. Including Elder Dalley from SHS, Sister Anderson (our lovely STL who completed her mission this last week :(((( ) and Sister Wilde, who was Sister Ashbys MTC companion. We all piled into 12 passenger vans. Sister Ashby and I ended up in an all sisters van driven by President and Sister Wood. It was great. And! the entire way from Jax to Orlando (about 3 hours) IT RAINED!!! Yall if youre from the west you have no idea what a summer rain storm is. Cause.... its a wild one. Im pretty sure we were driving through the ocean. But anyways!! The temple was BEAUTIFUL!!! I had missed it so much. I once again invite you to go to the temple as much as possible!! Its amazing :) It was a beautiful expirence and I cant wait to go again :) 

Yall wanna hear the amazing spiritual thought we came up with this week? This is a shoutout to my aunts, my mom, Tori.... (and porter and dev). Resurrection is when your body and your soul are reunited once again, at the time of the resurrection. Once you are resurrected you are an immortal being. Which obviously means you will never die again. We have been told that ALL people will be resurrected. Whether you were righteous or wicked. The scriptures often speak of Christ giving eternal life to the righteous. So. We are all resurrected. We are all made immortal. But only those who believe in Chirst have everlasting life. Wouldnt that be the same thing? I never thought about, until this week. It is made clear in the scriptures that it is apparently its not the same. And heres what our thoughts were. It is different because everlasting life is a joyful expirience that is only given to those in the Celestial kingdom. But immortality is just eternal existance, not eternal life. Immortality doesnt mean that youll be happy. So heres the example we came up with. In Twilight (yay stick with me) Edward is immortal. And he HATES it. Hes like ughhh my life has no meaning its the worst i wish i could die. He is alone. And immortal. Just like you would be in the Telestial kingdom. Where you are immortal, but you do not have eternal or everlasting life. Youre just there. BUT. When Bella is made immortal and they are then together, he is HHHHAAAAAPPYYYYY. Happy vampire am I right? He wants to frolick in the woods and hunt deer forever and ever with her. AND THEN. When they have a child he is EVEN MORE excited to live forever. With his family. Because they are immortal TOGETHER. I mean obviously theres some complications but ultimently there together forever. Hmmm... where else do you get to be with your families forever?? Ding ding ding you guessed it! The Celestial kingdom!! We have been taught that salvation is an individual thing. Everyone is "saved" in the sense that they will be resurrected. But EXAULTATION is not the same. Exaultion is the highest degree of glory which is reached in families!! Therefor immortality and eternal life are different. As shown through Twilight. And I am so grateful to know that not all blessings are fulfilled in this life. So if it doesnt feel like right now things are going your way or working out like there supposed to, God has promised us all a chance to have those blessings fulfilled after this life as well. And that shows me that our God is a merciful, perfect God. Anywayyyys that was just a funny way to explain a perfect, eternal principle that i thought some of yall would appreciate, and that some of yall would not appreciate at all lol!! Go team jacob!!

Next week youll be introduced to Sister Swain, but for now wish Sister Ashby a tearful farewell with me! (Cause you know im gonna be crying my eyes out) Love yall!! Keep up the good work. God loves you, I love you, im praying for you :))