August 25th

Family!

Transfer new came in this last week!

And..(drumroll please…..)

I’m staying!!!

But sister Seeley is leaving. VERY bittersweet. I know that she will love being in the city (she will be going to the City Chinese Branch) but she will definitely be missed. We had a lot of success down here in Tassie and tons of fun. I have never had as good of workouts on my mission until being companions with her haha. But it is very comforting to know that we will be able to hang out again, even if we don’t get to see each other my last 2 transfers of my mission (she lives 20 mins away from SLC..pretty easy drive J ).

Other than that, we have had a fantastic week! We were able to meet up with some former investigators again! And we have seen huge progress with some of our investigators. This last Sunday, one of them (Christina J) started asking members of the ward to give talks at her baptism in a month haha. Oh, funny Christina story for the week! We were asked to join the stake choir after church 2 Sundays ago and we dragged Christina into it with us. At first, she seemed really hesitant, but as we practiced she got more into it. The night after choir practice, she texted us asking for the names of the hymns. When we went into a ward activity with her later that week, she showed us the copy of the hymns she had printed out and spent the whole night going up to members and reading the songs to them to “practice her pronunciation.” Haha.

Spiritual thought: we had stake conference last Sunday. It was such a great session! One of the stories that stuck in my head the most was one told by Pres. Maxwell (he was one of the guest speakers) about a woman who had been investigating the church. After she had learned about the Plan of Salvation, she turned to the missionaries who were teaching her and asked “What does God expect of me?” Isn’t that a great question? I think too often my prayers consist of me telling God what I want, in other words, what I expect of Him. But as I thought about this woman’s question more, I was reminded of the Bible dictionary definition for prayer. It states, “Prayer is the act by which the will of the Father and the will of the child are brought into correspondence with each other. The object of prayer is not to change the will of God, but to secure for ourselves and others blessings God is already willing to grant but that are made conditional on our asking for them.” Prayer’s purpose is to find out what God expects of us and change our own desires and actions so that our will is in correspondence with His. I am going to try to say more meaningful prayers as one of my goals for the week as well as keeping in mind the question “What does God expect of me?”

Love you ! Have a fantastic week!

(Us at Christina’s house)

Love, Sister Bennion