February 24th

Family!

How's it going? I was so excited to hear how well Luke did in Battle of the Books!! Luke, you are so awesome! So proud! Also, VERY grateful to hear that the doctors were able to figure out what infection was in Mimi's leg. A huge answer to prayers. Mimi, I will keep praying for your health and I love you so much!

Things are doing well here in Melbourne. The Lord has really blessed us with some great people and we are starting to see some real progress. Bad news: Alex moved away for a half year. But, he finally has a witness that the Book of Mormon is the word of God and is willing to continue to meet with missionaries in his new area.

Miracle of the week: Last Sunday was pretty rough. We had 3 investigators who said they could come to church who all flaked out at the last minute. To make matters even more depressing, the person that we had scheduled a lesson with later in the afternoon fell though as well. Our back up plan was street contacting, so we went out to talk to people. We said a prayer before leaving that, according to our faith, we would be able to find someone who needed to hear our message. However, when we got on the street that we had planned to contact on, no one was willing to talk to us. We decided that we should try contacting near the state library instead and both set off. I got a feeling that we should try taking a way that we did not usually take to get there, because it takes a little longer. As we were walking, I noticed a middle-aged lady on the side of the street. Sister Chen and I stopped to talk to her and, when she looked at our tags, she said, "Oh, Jesus Christ church. Can I go there?" She had just arrived from China to visit her son for two months. She said that she attended a Christian church in China and wanted to find one in Melbourne as well! She agreed to meet with us this week and come to church next Sunday.

Love you all! I can't believe that I will hit my 9 months this week...time seriously flies.

-Sister Bennion

                                                                   Melbourne State Library

February 17th

FAMILY.

Hey. 

GREATGREATGREAT week last week! I really feel like the Lord is blessing Sister C and I so much! One of the blessings goes by the name of Yang Yi. She was one of our investigators a couple months ago, but, because she was going to go to India for an exchange program for a month, she could not meet with us for a while. She never answered any phone calls after, so I thought she had lost interest while she was away. But, last week, I sent her a text asking her if she was back from India and she sent one back saying she had returned a little bit ago and was willing to meet! When we met, we were reviewing a little bit what we had taught her before and she told us that the week that she had met with us before, she had said prayers and she felt like someone definitely heard her. She said she is willing to read the Book of Mormon and be baptized if she feels the message it contains is true! She is not sure about a date yet (she leaves next month to go back to China for a while and does not want to be rushed into it), but she is willing to keep meeting.

Another blessing. I already wrote last week about Sister C having a hard time. Last Monday, after going home, she broke down again and cried for an hour straight. That night, I prayed more fervently then I have in a long time to know what I needed to do to help her. Then, just as I finished my prayer, an idea came to my mind so clearly it was like it was spoken to me. Every day, we (as language missionaries) have an hour of language study. Since being on my mission, my companions and I have always spent that hour studying our respective languages separately. But, the idea that came to my mind immediately after I prayed was to spend that hour of language study working with her on English instead of working on Chinese by myself. I asked my zone leaders for permission to wake up a little earlier so that I could do my language study at a time that would not interfere with the work and began to work with her in the day. As I have done this the past week, I have seen the blessings of making that change immediately. Sister C and my relationship has improved a lot and she has not cried since that night last week. She even told me a few days ago about how glad she is that she chose to go on a mission. And, even more miraculously, I feel like my Chinese is actually improving more now then it did before when I studied during the day. 

I have a great testimony that the Lord knows His children personally. He knows what they need and He cares about each one. He hears fervent prayers and He will provide a way that we are able to bear any trial and overcome any obstacle if we have faith and are willing to act on that faith. 

Love you all so much! Have a great, miracle-filled week! 

-Sister Bennion

February 10th

Family!

Hope everything is going well! I loved all the videos hahaha. The best=Monkey smashing banana. I was dying. 

This week we were really able to see a lot of miracles. One was when we were GQing. We stopped someone on the street and he looked at our badge for a second and then immediately said "123 Lonsdale St Level 1," which is the address of our church building in the city. We asked him if he had ever been to church before and he said he had met with missionaries a while ago, but he could not give up coffee and so he stopped meeting. We asked him if he would be willing to meet again and he agreed! 

A little bit of a rough week for Sister C. She really misses her mom and feels she is struggling to learn English (even though we teach in Chinese, we have to use English a LOT when finding people, buying things, etc). Keep her in your prayers! I will definitely keep Mimi in mine (I love you so much!)

LOVE,

Sister Bennion

Sister C is her new companion from China (who is in the middle & speaks no english) and Sister H was transfered last Wednesday with their FAVORITE Australian treat!

S

February 3rd

New companion! Her name is Sister C. She is from Sichuan China and she was a convert to the church. Her friend actually brought up about the church when she was in China and, after a little while, gave her a Book of Mormon. Sister C read it and wanted to be baptized. BUT. Her father opposed. He did not want her to be baptized Christian. Sister C prayed about it and felt like it was still something she needed to do. So she went to Hong Kong with her friend and, with her mother's permission, received all the lesson in the period of one day and was baptized that evening. Wow. She's pretty amazing.

Sister H is being transferred this next week, so it will just be Sister C and I in the area. She speaks just about no English, so I will have a GREAT opportunity to speak only Chinese these next few weeks :)

It was crazy to hear about G-pa's heart attack! It really reminds me of the urgency of following spiritual prompting. I have been studying the chapter "How do I recognize and understand the spirit?" and I really liked the thought written in the Learn to recognize the spirit section. It states: “Occasionally it will press justfirmly enough for us to pay heed. But most of the time, if we do not heed thegentle feeling, the Spirit will withdraw and wait until we come seeking andlistening and say in our manner and expression, like Samuel of ancient times,‘Speak [Lord], for thy servant heareth.’ A big part of understanding the spirit is living in a way that you can hear the spirit and responding to prompting that you receive. That is why the Lord's great promise is ASK and you shall find. There has to be some action, some desire, some faith in order to feel and understand the Spirit.

I love you all so much! Have a great week!