Elder Zach Benard

Sept - Oct. 2013

Hello Everyone!!

     (We asked about his area) It covers Ashland, Medford, Central Point, Yreka, Happy Camp, Etna, Phoenix, Talent, and some other areas. We are also a car-share area with 1500 miles.

     (How is working in the YSA (Young Single Adult) ward?) -Fun and hard, we have only 1 investigator and a lot of potentials we are trying to contact. Some of them have told us they don't want to have contact with us and the church, so it's been rough. Fun cause of FHE (Family Home Evening), we've had a lot of great activities and some more to come. It's fun to be in a YSA ward though.

     We have a temple trip every 3 months now and we actually go next week on the 17th so I'll have pictures to send don't worry. :)

     We've had p-day on Tuesday the past 2 weeks and we had a zone conference yesterday which was great. So that was like a chill day cause it took 6 hrs of our day and then we had a 20 min drive back to town to drop off some Elders and another 20 min to drive back to that same building to have FHE....our day was totally spent sitting and looking up at someone talking. I think my butt and legs are still recovering from sitting that long! 

     Well, in Zone Conference we talked about how we should doubt not, fear not. Have faith and don't doubt cause if you doubt then you have fear and when you have fear then Satan has a hold of you and you will make it easier for him to bring you into his grasp. 

     Well this week was pretty great! We had nothing better to do in "Ashland" so we decided to go knock on some apt. housing that we hadn't knocked on before. We saw this guy talking on his phone and we didn't want to bother him so we started walking away, and then we heard, "Hey, what are you guys doing!!?? Come here!!" I looked at Elder Hague and thought, this guy was just going to be trouble cause he sounded kind of mad. He asked us who we were working for and we told him no one, but that we were Mormons and asked if he knew who the Mormons were. He said sort of but not really. He told us to sit down and said he'd give us a drink of juice. He started to bombard us with questions and wanted to read the Book of Mormon. We were talking for about 20 min when his friend showed up and then his other friend. We started to teach all 3 of them and it turns out they're in a band and have produced 35 soundtracks! It's pretty cool cause we both got free CD's.  Milan (the guy we are teaching) told us to come back every day and that he is so excited to read and hear what we have to say. When we came the 2nd time he was on the phone and said to some guy he was talking to, "Hey man I think I might become Mormon, I got to go though my Mormon friends are here." He's pretty great.

     That day we also had a lady stop us in her car that wanted a Book of Mormon and said she had a dream she would receive a Book of Mormon by missionaries and that they would teach her....well she found us but we can't teach her cause she's over 32, so we gave her to the other missionaries. I'm so happy that I know that Christ lives and that I know of His Restored Gospel. I'm grateful that I have the opportunity to share that knowledge with those that I come in contact with. I'm thankful that I make mistakes, learn from them, become a better person, then use the Atonement of Christ to repent of my mistakes and be healed from the guilt and sorrow of doing wrong. I'm so thankful for the closeness I feel with my Savior through praying and reading the scriptures each day. I'm thankful that He cares enough for each one of us to forgive us and love us after all the things we do to disappoint or hurt Him. No matter what He will always love, care, and be by our side. He will never leave us.

     We met a new investigator that the previous missionaries had been working with and after 7 weeks we finally taught her one lesson. She's coming to an activity tonight and wants to watch General Conference too!!! She doesn't know much about Christ or about His church, but she want's to and she has a lot of questions about the Plan of Salvation.

     We haven't been able to meet with our new investigators cause they've been sick but we keep on stopping by and seeing how they've been and they're getting better so that's good, hopefully this week we'll be able to meet with them. Hopefully this weekend we can have some people watch General Conference because like most of you know that's the best way to get info on the church, heck it builds the testimonies of those who are in the church.

     Saturday's we chop wood at this place to help out poor people who are getting their power shut off. We cut the wood or load it and then people deliver it to their homes and they don't need to pay for heat cause the wood is free. It's so fun cause we help people and get a good workout too. :) It was fun this last time cause we had this guy from the Navy supervise us and he taught me how to chop wood in just one swing...I haven't got it down all the way yet but I'm getting there. ;)

     This past week was ok, we started a new challenge where we are going to hand out 20 Book of Mormon's. It was also pretty fun cause we walked around 15-20 miles one day and the next day 10-15!

     One funny thing was our fire alarm broke and we threw it in the dumpster and we asked our housing manager if we could just go and get another one...apparently we can't. Once we found that out we went back to the dumpster to get it and this guy saw us and said, "You guys look way too good to be dumpster diving." We told him we don't usually do it cause we get free food by other people and it's fresh from the oven so it's even better! It was funny.

     Sunday we had to give a talk at the last minute. (They called us sat. evening and we had things to do all that day so we couldn't prepare until 8 that night.) I decided since it was only going to be a 5 min talk that I wouldn't use any paper, since that would be pointless, cause it's pretty much like telling a story but in front of 30 people. We also were also asked to bless the sacrament and teach Gospel Principles because the people were late and the teacher in GP wasn't going to be there. (also a last min. thing) If that doesn't get us blessings I don't know what else could. ;)

     We handed out 10 Book of Mormons this week. We also got 11 referrals so that makes me happy.

Love You All!!

Elder Benard