Sister Benson: 9/26/22

 

Week 45: Hurricane Prep!

Scout Benson

In coming! Hurricane Ian is heading directly to us, set to hit on Wednesday. Please be praying for my people, and for the people or Florida who will be affected by this storm. Gainesville is pretty inland, so we wont get the most destructive part, the storm surge. But we are expecting heavy rain and flooding. But! Because we are so inland, we are becoming a shelter home for another set of coastal missionaries..... SISTER SWAINS COMING TO STAY!!! pretty much ive just never been more excited. Wish us all luck with our sanity as we play bible go fish a billion thousand times. :)

This week has been a whirlwind! Its been long but short and full of miracles. So its just been another week in the mission :)) Sister Ballard and I have biked a TOTAL of 35.5 miles THIS WEEK!!! That is so many miles. President Elbert is cracking down on miles, plus we decided the exercise would be good for us! So its been fun and a great way to talk to people!! 

Alright! We had an awesome lesson with Anthony and Julianna this week. (they made us dinner again!) We taught the rest of the Plan of Salvation. They had lots of questions it was just a super solid lesson that was so perfect! We wish we had all day with them because we could talk all day. Anthony and Julianna are so unique in the fact that they keep EVERY commitment we give to them. We sent them a long list of scriptures to read about stuff they had questions about, and they read them all and had things to talk about!! Obviously there are some things we're differing on right now, some bigger than others, but I know from experience that if people are keeping commitments, they're stuck. There is no way to keep commitments- especially to this extent- and not get an answer from God. Moroni's promise in Moroni 10:3-5 gives us the three things we need to be able to get answers from God. 1. Faith in Jesus Christ, 2. a sincere heart. So a genuine desire to know! And 3. real intent, or the determination to ACT on the answer you receive. With those three things, revelation is guaranteed to us by God himself. (Obviously in his timing and such. But he made us a promise!) So i have full faith that Anthony and Julianna with receive a powerful witness and be baptized. There have been too many miracles and theyre too interested to not. Still trying to be realistic and remember they have agency but IM BEING OPTIMISTIC FOR ONCE IN MY LIFE SO LET ME BE!! 

This week we also had a lesson with David. David has always said "well your fruits are good" "i think yall have the Spirit of God" "the Spirit has never said anything bad about this book (the book of mormon)" and so on. And we always talk about the fruits of the Spirit etc. But it always circles back. Well this week we had a lesson with him and read a bit out of the Book of Mormon. Then he said something he hadnt said before. "Well i dont know if this book is true, but the Spirit keeps telling me to read it." And in that moment IT ALL CHANGED. I try very hard to only teach with the Spirit, and this was one of those moments. I looked David dead in the face and told him that if the Spirit was telling him to read the Book of Mormon, then the Spirit was giving him an answer. I told him that The Holy Ghost ONLY testifies of truth and ONLY tells us to do good things. So The Spirit wouldnt tell him to do something that wasnt right. I told him it was time to take a step of faith forward. He got closer and asked me what the step of faith would be. (this was going crazy good - it was so wiiiild!!!) I told him he needed to start going to church every week with us, that he needed to start reading the Book of Mormon every day, and that he needed to be baptized with proper authority. He seemed a little hesitant, but he said okay. There are a lot of things we need to work on between now and baptism, so we didnt set a date, but it was SO GOOD. and spoiler alert, HE CAME TO CHURCH!! and he stayed the whole time!! both hours. it was so exciting. David really really really wants to go to the temple. When we talked about it he told us the Spirit had testified to him that he needed to go there. So that is our big draw, and we're so excited for him. 

We also had a lesson with our new friends Owen and Camisha!! They are a married couple from Jamaca. They are SO COOL. They are like biblical scholars also. But we talked with them a ton and had a great lesson that was Spirit lead, even if it didnt go in the direction i thought it would. It was still good. And we have high hopes for them!

MANSFIELDS: We went over there a couple times this week, but saturday night was a rough night for them so they didnt end up coming to church. But they were really sad they didnt get to come, so thats a good thing! 

MICHAEL: This man COULD BE so elect, IF HE PUT IN THE WORK TO DO IT. We are at a standstill because we cant do things for him. So pray that Michael with get the motivation to put in the effort for his salvation!!

ALEX: is ghosting us again 

RICHARD: is sick and his grandma just died. he could use some prayers. 

NEIL: is just as stubborn as ever and wont just get in the font :)

its been a great week and we're looking forward to the next one, regardless of the storm! Pray for these wonderful people, and we will be ready to offer all our service. Thank yall! I love yall!!