Monday, April 20th, 2015 - Letter from Hermana Bentley

Wow! I literally just got soaked outside! We had to park a little farther from the library and my companion says that this gets worse! Oof! My beautiful Guatemalan bag got wet! Oh. And everything that I said in my last letter is true, except for the fact that my zone leaders joked us, and apparently I get to stay here in Kearny and kill Sister Stevens. :) I was a little mad at first because I had done some packing on Monday morning. Luckily though I was gonna finish packing after a zone BBQ. And there is where I found out about that! Gr.

Our new district this transfer is SO flippin' awesome!! Our district leader, Elder Warnock, is super awesome! I wish I could've had Jake and Steven with me in our first district meeting this transfer. I think they would've laughed haha! This guy has dry humor like no other. Everyone else in our district is super awesome too! I'm excited to work with them all:)

I really don't think that I will be losing any sort of weight on my mission. A sign that hispanics love you, is feeding you. Last Saturday was one of those days. Oof. We started off with the lovely and elderly Alvarados, who went and bought a pizza just for us. Then right after we went and saw a Peruvian member and she fed us good! Afterwards, I had to be careful with my burps cuz I was afraid I'd chuck it all up! We had another visit with a member after her. But don't worry. We had talked to him the night before not to give us ANY food. For we surely would have died. But the rest of the day went well. Actually, we got juked twice. But, we got to go visit sweet Dulce. And something that I've been having a hard time with is contacting people. I see someone, and I think, "okay."... and then nothing happens. We just walk on, and I feel a little guilty. But I've decided something! I'm going to try to be a boss contacter by the end of my mission. So I had to start somewhere. We contacted two people that day! Which doesn't seem like much, but that was awesome to me! One turned into a street lesson and now we have an appointment with her Wednesday. One guy we should've contacted passed by and both of us said, "Hi, how are you?" About 10-20 feet after we passed him I realized something. So without thinking I turned around and called, "I'M GOOD! THANKS!" He jumped, and we all thought that was funny. We should've gone back and shared something cuz that was a good ice breaker, but I was lame and kept walking. Oh well. Shake it off.

You know what's crazy? The first day out of training we were teaching a less active and her husband, who is not a member. We were teaching the restoration, and her husband, Mauricio, was participating really well! Near the end, I felt the Spirit, just felt like I should be bold. It was the most amazing feeling. So I asked him when he knows this is true if he would be baptized. He said yeah. So then I asked him if it was okay if we taught him everything we know and help him to find out if this is true. He said yeah. It also sounds like he wants us to read the Book of Mormon with him. So that's what we're doing tonight. Power of the Spirit. Can't do God's work without that member of the Godhead. I'll update on that in a few weeks.

I can't pretend that this isn't hard. But this is the best thing ever. I love it, and I'm a different person because of it. I remember the lyrics to a song I really love to listen to:)

"He loves me, more than I could tell you, you should see, what He's done with me, Hey hey hey hey He's made me new. All His strength, I can handle anything in Jesus' name, you should see the change hey hey hey hey He's made me new."

I testify that this is the work of the Lord, and as we share it and live it, we are purified by the pure love of Christ. It's good to have a testimony, but it's better to be converted.

Love ya'll:) Hermana Bentley