Week 17

Ciao Tutti,
Hey everyone how are you all doin!? Thank you all so much for the e-mails you sent me! It is so great to hear how everyone is doing, and its definitely better to get e-mails than waiting once a transfer to hear how everyone is doing all at once. This week i will be writing a lot of individual letters home cus it takes me forever to type and there is so much i want to talk about with everyone. so plan on getting some mail in a week or two, hopefully you get it. But i have had an incredible week, we haven't had time to hardly breath! This last Thursday we woke up early and took a long bus ride out to the middle of the country to visit this awesome investigator family so we could do some service for them. The Woman's house we went to is named Lynett, and her husband is in the Military and is always gone, and they have 2 younger teenage girls one is 12 and the other is 14 or 15. But anyways this family is incredible! They are from England, and have some friends that are members and they love to feed the missionaries, so they invited us out for a huge BBQ, and we accepted on the condition that they gave us some work to do once we got out there, and of course she needed help so Lynett was happy to put us to work. When we got there we ate first, and man did we eat!!!! Ribs, and Chile dogs and hamburgers, and salad, and fruits and veggies, it was so good! Then it was time to work, and we ended up mowing her huge yard with a pushing mower. It was about the size of uncle Richards yard but on a 90 degree slope up a hill, haha it took about 3 hours to finish. It felt great to get out of my shirt and tie and to do some outside work, and i know it helped them out alot, so it was a great experience to help them out. When we finished we had cheesecake, and i played the guitar for everyone and sang for about and hour which was a blast cus everyone sang along and everyone had a great time. Before we left we gave them a spiritual thought, and sang a hymn for them and then it was time to catch our bus back to the city. I love that family so much and want so badly for them to know the things that i know and for them to feel the happiness that i have felt. I'm so excited for them to progress in the gospel. On Friday we made a big batch of brownies along with cards with scriptures and a nice message for bunch of our investigators. It was alot of fun bringing everyone their brownies because people don't know what brownies are here, its a total American thing, but they LOVE them, hahaha! Mom can you send me a good brownie recipe? I don't really like the kind that we made, cus it came out more like a cake. On Saturday we took a train out to Teremo which is a city near Pescara. Well its kinda near, its about an hour and a half trip one way. We went out to visit a few members that live out there and gave them all spiritual thoughts and tried to kinda recharge their spiritual batteries. The members that live out that far have to make huge sacrifices to get to church every week, so we just wanted to take the morning to tell them how much we love them and how much the ward needs them. It went really well, and the next day at church we saw all the members that we visited, even the ones that are semi-inactive. Sunday was such a great day! We had 7 progressing investigators attend sacrament meeting, which was such a blessing. For some reason its always hard to get people to church for the first time, but once they come and see whats its really like they usually come back no problem. After church we were slammed with appointments all day long and didn't get home till almost ten. I have no idea what we have been doing to deserve so much work, but all i can say is i know the Lords hand truly is in all that we do. My love for these people grows every day, and the more i am with them and the more i serve them, the more i realize how grateful i am to be here. I'm giving my everything to these people. Its the first time in my life when its not been all about me. My prayers aren't for myself anymore they are for the people I'm serving. As my knowledge of the gospel grows I'm finding a burning desire in my heart to share our message with everyone! There is so much pain, and darkness and confusion here, SO many people are lost, and It breaks my heart when people and especially families don't want to listen to the most important thing they will every hear in their entire lives. We were in the park the other day and there was a beautiful family; a mom, a dad a little boy and a little girl in a wheel chair who looked about 5 or 6 years old. This little girl had a tache., and looked just like a little Jesse. And that's the first thing i thought about....Jesse. I tore into my backpack and grabbed my family photos with Jesse and headed straight for the family. I greeted them with a huge smile and tried to introduce myself to the father and knew if i could get him to see a picture of Jesse he would open up and let me meet his family. I couldn't even get through my introduction before the man cut me off and said; sono troppo impegnato per Dio-Im to busy for God. My heart sunk! I tried just pushing the picture of Jesse in front of him and just explained i had a message about the family and that death wasn't the end, and that he would find more happiness than he had ever known if he would just listen. the man shook his head and walked away with his family, and i wanted to cry. Not a day has gone by that i haven't thought about that family, and that experience. I pray that someday that family will have another chance to accept the gospel. If not in this life i know they will in the life to come. But anyways we are working with some incredible investigators and have a few baptisms this next month. Ill keep you all posted on that. Dad Can you email me a list of what you think the top 5 best motivational books are (other than the scriptures), like How to win friends and influence people, those kind of books. Anziano Bennets Mom's email address is (bennett_marja_liisa@hotmail.com, and her name is pronounced mar-eee-a) haha sorry i hope that helps. Well i got to get running we are booked again today, I love you all, plan on getting some handwritten letters in a week or 2. Keep the E-mails comin! Love you!!!!
Anziano Koozer