Yo.

Hello all,

Sorry for my absence last week. We had just gotten back from fishing... I was hot, sunburned, and tired, and didn't really feel like writing a long email about the week.

Things are going well out here in New Kent, Virginia, though. The trees are still tall, the air is still wet, and the people are still THE BEST. I love this place.

News... We are still teaching Jeremy. I don't remember if I've talked about him before or not. Last week we met with him in the church building along with our branch mission leader and another member. We did a building tour and then showed a Mormon Message about the Spirit and talked about how he needs to come to church in order to receive an answer from the Spirit about this. He is held back by the fact that he teaches Sunday School at his church, and it's at the same time as ours. Such a struggle.

The highlight of the lesson, though, was our branch mission leader. At one point he said, "What do you teach to those Sunday School kids? To search for their own answers, right? Now, I'm not going to call you a hypocrite, because that would be rude, but how can you rightly teach them to search if you're not doing everything in your power to get an answer about this?"

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?!

It was so bold, but it was perfect, and Jeremy took it really well.

I think that if I were to have met Jeremy a year ago, I would have been super intimidated to teach him, because he has tons of questions and knows the Bible by heart. Now, though, I love the challenge. I have read the whole Bible, I know the Book of Mormon much better than before, and my testimony and understanding have grown. I love feeling the Spirit bring ideas and scriptures to mind as I talk. IT IS AMAZING.

Being a missionary is the best.

We are also trying to work closely with the members here. We set a goal as a companionship to meet every single member in the branch within the next two transfers. It might sound easy, but there are so many less actives here that the members don't even recognize a lot of their names. Addresses are wrong, phone numbers are wrong, and the people are either super busy or just plain good at avoiding church people. We're getting them, though. If I've learned anything on my mission, it's how to track people down! We're going to find them, meet them, bring them back to church, and baptize all their friends and family!

Times keeps going faster and faster, and I have been working hard lately to give myself more to the work than ever before. I have known all along that my mission will come to an end, but it's really hitting me now. Probably because my current companion goes home in two months. Because of that constant reminder, I am pushing myself to give it all to God. Everything. Heart and soul, strength and spirit. It's the best.

I LOVE YOU!!!

Have a great Independence Day.

Love,
Hermana Bennett

Gone fishing!

Guess what we did today? Went fishing!

That's my first ever fish. He's a blue gill from Kent Lake in Quinton, Virginia. He's teeny, but, hey. I caught him.

I LOVE YOU!!!

Hermanister Bennett!

Do you like my new title? I am no longer a full-fledged hermana, but I will never be a sister, so I found a nice compromise. Hermanister.

Things are great here in my neck of the woods.

On Monday we bought Virginia souvenirs and took some fun pictures...

 Hehe.

I had some fun with it.

​<3 Virginia <3

This is Sister Mahler, one of the sisters that went to Poquoson (puh-ko-sn).

We also met the sisters' main investigator, Jeremy. He's awesome. He is a deacon in the Southern Baptist church, but he doesn't believe that his church is true. He goes because he teaches a Sunday school class to first and second graders, and he is committed to teaching them the true doctrine, and not "the watered-down stuff the Baptist church teaches." (in his own words) Haha. I am really excited to work with him.

For the next couple days we went around with the sisters, meeting their investigators and less active members they work with, and then on Thursday we had transfers!

That was a crazy day. Woke up, packed up two cars, drove to Poquoson, unloaded the sisters, drove to Portsmouth, went to transfer meeting, drove home, unpacked Hermana Malmrose's stuff, went to an appointment with Jeremy, went to dinner with Sister Kennedy, came home and unpacked some more, planned, wrote in the journal, and then fell into bed.

Hermana Malmrose is GREAT. I am really excited to work with her. We are ready to set this place on fire together.

Other highlights:

Our church building was struck by lightning.

We committed a friend of one of our members to baptism :)

Life is good!

Sorry that this is a long one.

Have a great week!

Love,
Hermana Bennett

One year and transfers!

I have two major items of business to address this morning.

1. I hit my year mark!

Here I am blowing out the candle on my makeshift "cake" to celebrate my birthday.

Time has both dragged and flown. Crazy how that happens. I am looking forward to these last six months. I know more or less what I'm doing, I trust the Lord, and I'm ready to work hard!

2. Transfer calls!

On Saturday we got called, and the very unexpected happen. My companion, Hermana Harrison, is getting transferred to Nags Head, and Hermana Malmrose from a neighboring area is coming here to be my companion. On top of that, the two English sisters that we have been sharing this area with are being taken out, and Hermana Malmrose and I are going to take over the whole area, both Spanish and English.

I'm going to be an English missionary! Ahh. I'm really excited to actually have work to do, but also nervous because Americans are kind of scary. I much prefer Hispanics. I'm also completely unfamiliar with my English scriptures now because I've barely touched them in a year.

It should be fun!

Love you all. Hope you have a great week.

Hermana Bennett

Last week of May!

It's June! One year ago today I was set apart as a missionary. Can you believe it? I can't.

Let me tell you a story from this week that sums up the joys of Spanish missionary work in New Kent, Virginia.

On Tuesday we went to Charles City to contact a Dish 500 that the sisters gave us.

(Pause: Dish 500 is the kind that has the Spanish channels on it. If a house has one, it is 95% guaranteed that there are Hispanics there, so we love them.)

They weren't home, so we walked down the dirt road to talk to their neighbors. Only the last one of them was home, and he didn't know any Hispanics, but told us to, "go out, turn right at the church, then left at 618, go down a little ways and you'll see Adkins store on the left. The guy in there will know." Some good ol' country directions for you.

We did what he said, and it turns out that the man that runs the store is Pakistani, but speaks Spanish because he is married to a Mexican woman. They live in Richmond, which is out of our mission, but he said that Hispanics come into the store all the time and that he will ask them where they live.

We'll go back in a couple weeks to follow up and hopefully get some referrals from him!

Haha. You definitely won't read about this finding technique in Preach My Gospel, but we do what we gotta do.

We also had some really good, really bold discussions with Ramiro, our only Hispanic member. I think that he is FINALLY beginning to understand the importance of the Book of Mormon and this Church.

I made this for him to show him how the Priesthood comes directly from Jesus Christ to man.

Pretty cool, if I do say so myself. We got a copy of Bro Cummings' Priesthood line, who conferred the Aaronic Priesthood to Ramiro, and then I beautified it. Technically this is Bro. Cummings' Melchizedek Priesthood line, but whatever. It was the visual that I wanted.

While I was at it, I took a picture of my desk...

Life as a missionary. Scriptures galore and multiple notebooks for different kinds of notes. My lack of organization has not improved, unfortunately.

And here's a picture of me and Shawna!

I did her hair and makeup and then dressed her up pretty the other day because she's great and she deserves it.

Anyway, it was a good week. The weather is beautiful right now. Not too hot, not too cold... all you need is a light jacket!

Love ya lots.

Hermana Bennett