Harrisburg Weeks 7, 8 & 9

7/18
The work over here in Harrisburg is chugging along. Verna is doing good, we were unable to meet with her this week because of some work issues coming up, but we look forward to meeting with her this week! She's absolutely amazed on how simple the Book of Mormon is to her, compared to how confusing the Bible seemingly is to her. It's the true spirit of the Book of Mormon, and the wisdom of Nephi that makes it so understandable! The Stevensons are going to be out of town for the next couple weeks at a Vacation Bible School.  Elizabeth is flying through the Book of Mormon; she's in Alma! I hope that she'll feel the Spirit as she reads. She will if she has an open heart! We're hoping to get a couple new investigators this week that we have appointments with. Finding lately has been pretty successful lately. We're finding a lot of nice people and some that are open to the message of the Restoration.

We had a great experience yesterday to go and give some blessings to a family. There is this lady that is visiting from Virginia, and she's staying with her elderly parents and helping to take care of her father that is terminally ill due to a couple strokes within the past couple months. The lady is a member and her parents are not. She requested that we come and give her a blessing of comfort and counsel. When we arrived we saw her father in bed asleep hooked up to a couple machines. There was a truly humble and meek spirit in that room. After we chatted for a little bit we gave the good sister a blessing and offered one to her mother. We blessed her. She then requested that we give her sleeping father a blessing as well. It was a truly humbling experience to minister in a home where one will soon be expected to slip to the other side of the veil. The Spirit was so immensely present there as blessings were pronounced and an experience I won't soon forget. Seeing the comfort, peace, and thankfulness in the tears of the good sister were priceless. I am so grateful to be a missionary at this time and to have the opportunity to serve others, and be there as the Lord would.

7/25
I couldn't believe it when Steve got his call to Wisconsin!! I thought he was kidding when he was reading it, but I guess not(Ben got to be on the phone when his brother Stephen opened his call). You know what's funny? I guessed Wisconsin mostly because I thought it would be funny if he went there because it's kind of a random place, but hey I guess it's the Lords will. I like to think that I had some sort of influence in where he was going when it was decided in the Pre-mortalitly. I imagine my conversation with God went something like this, "You know what would be funny? If Steve served his mission for You in Wisconsin!", "You know, it wouldn't be funny Benjamin, it would be perfect." And thus, Steve got his mission call to Wisconsin, the land flowing with milk and cheese, and Packer Country (the team that beat my Steelers in the SuperBowl!).

My week here was pretty good. Not too much happened, but there were a few exciting things. One: It was SUPER hot this week! The highs were usually 95-100 during the day and it "cooled" down to about 85 at night. Now you may think, that's not bad, but there are a couple factors like, the humidity, a white shirt and tie, and slacks. It was pretty bad but we drank lots of water so we could survive. While we were tracting a couple days ago it was one of those 98 degree days and I think it was about 3 or 4 o'clock. Some people opened the door but really didn't want to talk because it was so hot, so they would say "We already belong to a church, we're not interested. Try and keep cool!" then close their doors on us (see James 2:14-17). Then we came to this one door where there was this really nice man that invited us in out of the heat, and allowed us to tell him a little about the restoration. He wasn't interested, but he saw that my water bottle was empty and asked if he could fill it back up for me. He was one of the only practicing Christians we came across that day.

Verna is doing okay I guess, we haven't been able to get into contact with her for the past week, so I don't really know what's going on. I think the Stevensons are still out at their bible school so I don't know about them either. Right now we're looking for new investigators and some that will be a little more committable.

Well I best be closing the e-mail. Happy Christmas in July!!!! Love you!!

8/1
I am doing very well on this summer day! P-day is always a good day. Nichelle will be a great missionary, I'm very excited for her! And I had no Idea that Audrey had even put in her papers! That's way exciting that she'll be in the neighboring PA mission. You'll have to tell her congrats for me next time you see her.

So this week a couple exciting things happened! One: The round of interviews with President Topham happened this week. My interview with him was pretty cool in which he basically told me what the rest of my mission was going to look like. I won't be finishing my mission as a Zone Leader, but I'll be released and then I'll train another new missionary. Since trainers are now required to spend 2 transfers with their trainees I'll be spending my last 2 training. President Topham said as well that he doesn't want to "white-wash" or "double" me into an area (like what happened in the South Side) so I'll be transferred to a different area after this one and spend my last 3 transfers there. So in simple terms, I will spend one more transfer here, when Elder Killpack leaves, with another companion, then I'll go to my next, and last, area where I'll have 1 transfer with another companion, then I'll train for 2 transfers (my last 2) with a greenie. And that's it.

We also found an awesome Peruvian family!! We tracted into them late last Monday night. The Parents want us to teach their 13 year old kid about God and Jesus Christ so that he will have something to believe in. They are Christians but haven't really taught their kids anything. They are such a wonderful family, and are very open kind, and receptive! I think we're going to see good things happen with the Torres Family. They've heard of the church when they lived in Peru, but never learned about it. When we taught them the Restoration and about Joseph Smith's first vision, the Spirit was so strong there! Even when we first walked into their home and during the entire conversation and lesson. God sure is blessing us here! It's wonderful!

Things are going great here in Harrisburg, Tomorrow I'm leaving to go on a week long (from Tuesday to Friday) exchange with the one of the Assistants to the President in Pittsburgh, so I'll be out of my area for a long time, and I'll miss a lesson with the Torres family! Oh well, Elder Lee will have a great opportunity to teach them, that'll be cool since he speaks Spanish.

Well, The church is true and always will be! Have a great week!

Love,
Benjamin

Harrisburg Week 6

I'm so glad that everything went well for Mel's surgery, except for the elongated periods of waiting time. That's no fun. I guess Hospitals are notorious for that. I'm glad her pain is minimal and she's adjusting to the eating styles now! That would be no fun!  She's been in my prayers constantly, and I have such a good companion; he prays for her too! I didn't ask him to do it, he just did one night in our companionship prayer.

So I'm super excited for Steve to get his mission call!! And guess what? President Topham gave me permission to be able to call home when it comes! I'm pretty pumped! I'm pretty excited for it! Two weeks from now!! I'm also glad that you were able to meet President Summerhays! He's such an amazing man isn't he? I'm guessing he'll be some kind of General Authority one of these days. I was expecting the church to be completely full too! I guess I was right if there were that many people there! That's impressive! Elder Killpack and I were thinking about how many people would be: his family, all the missionaries, their parents/families, and the main ward. It's pretty intense!

So this week was a pretty average week I think. Another Transfer has come and gone, and now I'm starting 13 of 17 transfer of my mission! Elder Killpack and I are staying together another transfer! YAY! Our investigators are doing fine. There's not much new with them. Did I tell you about a new investigator named Verna A....? She's a really neat lady that we found a couple weeks ago. She said that she would be baptized as soon as she found out that the church was true! We don't have a date for her yet because she still has to come to church and read some more out of the Book of Mormon. Oh and this week we came across some Anti material about the church, particularly Joseph Smith. It was ridiculous! It made me laugh a few times because of how ridiculous it was, but it did a good job on making the church, and our doctrines look outrageous. If someone knew nothing about the church and came across that stuff, they would become totally opposed to everything that has to do with the church. Anyway, the Church is true, and "no unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing". So I take comfort in that!

Well I guess that's it for now! Have a great week!

love,

Benjamin

Harrisburg Week 5

Happy Independence day (Yesterday)!!!! The New mission president is so awesome!! I had the opportunity to be able to meet him on Friday for our Zone Leader Council over in Pittsburgh! Yes, I had to endure another 4 hour drive back over. It'll be a monthly thing as long as I'm a ZL, and as long as I'm over in HBG. But it's fun because it's a beautiful drive, and it's a time where I can just relax :) You don't get too many of those opportunities on the mission. President Topham will be, and is, a great mission president! I'm so excited to be able to work with him. And guess what? He didn't serve a mission when he was a young man, he just got married right out of HS! But he told us when he spoke to Elder Anderson of the Twelve, and President Eyring (yeah, cool I know) the it wasn't that important that he didn't because the form and style of missionary work the he would have performed, is much different nowadays. During his training in the MTC, Elder Perry said to all the mission presidents, that they needed to take the way of missionary work that they had learned during their missions and to put it in the back of a drawer, close it, lock it with a key, and throw away the key. Pres. Topham is a very spiritual man and has a great vision of the future of this mission. It's been a great transition. And No, there haven't been any rule changes.... yet. :)

The missionary work is going pretty good so far! This past Sunday our investigators Jim and Elizabeth S...... came to church when they said that they weren't able to make it! So that threw us for a loop and caught us off guard. But all went well. They stayed for all 3 meetings and seemed to enjoy it. Elizabeth, I think, bonded well with the sisters of the ward because she has an 11 month old baby girl, and of course, there are lots of mothers with children here. We were able to find a couple new investigators this week which is awesome! We're very excited that the Lord is blessing us with people to teach. And when we go finding, we find.

This 4th of July was a pretty good one! In order to ensure the safety of all the missionaries in the mission, we were instructed that we needed to be in our apartments by 6pm. And guess what? P-day is from 10am to 6pm! So we practically got the "day off" haha! It was fun. We met up with the walking elders here in Hbg, and went to Walmart, bought all the things necessary to have a grill out session, and we grilled! Last weekend we were able to obtain a grill for free from someone who was having a garage sale. So all we needed was charcoal, and a new grate for the grill. So we were also given a couple gift cards to Walmart so we were able to obtain needed things at minimal costs! We had grilled burgers, chicken, and pineapple! IT was great! The only thing was that a couple pieces of the chicken was a little undercooked... not raw, but undercooked. Everyone is healthy today so I have no worries about it.

There are some pretty exciting things going on back home! Steve is now an Elder, Mel is going in for surgery, Steve will soon be getting his mission call! I am pretty sure that I'll be able to call home when he get's his mission call. I know that President Summerhays allowed it, I guess I'll have to ask President Topham and see what his take on it will be. I sure hope that I'll be able to. I think what will have to happen if I get to call, you'll have to call me the day it comes in, and then call before he opens it. That would be best. But, we'll see what President Topham says.

It was great to hear from you today! I love you Mom! Have a great week! I look forward to hearing from you next week!

Love,
Benjamin

Harrisburg Weeks 3 & 4

6/20/11
 Life in Harrisburg is pretty awesome! It is so pretty out here, I will send a couple pictures.  The people here are really nice and the areas I cover are nice too! The Ward is great! Not as awesome as the last one I was in, but who's comparing? There are walking Elders that cover downtown HBG and they live real close and often times we have to give them a ride, which is okay but it tends to take up our time some days too. Which I don't like. Anyway, I love it here! There are so many fireflies!!! The other day we were driving through a farmy part of our area and we looked out over the fields and there were thousands of them all lighting up and flashing! It was incredible!! I love it!

We had an investigator come to church for the first time yesterday! Her name is Danesha H..... and she seems really committed! Her husband isn't really interested but he is supportive of her investigating. We'll get him to come one day! He's a really good guy. I think that Danesha will progress nicely, we have another appointment with her this coming weekend.

Love,

Benjamin

6/27/11

So I wrote this big long letter just barely and was working on it for the past 30 minutes then all of the sudden, right before I clicked the save as a draft button the computer ended my session and kicked me out! Therefore I lost a huge long letter. Anyway so I'll try to get all the important parts in it.

So this week was a long and tiresome week. The main thing that made it so tiresome is because I did a lot of driving. There was a missionary that had to go home due to some medical problems (he had a herniated disk in is back. Painful.) so Elder Killpack and I had to drive a long way to pick him up then take him to the airport the next day. This
happend from Thursday to Friday. Anyway, I never realized how tiring driving actually is. It's crazy! So for a lack of better words, I was completely pooped by Saturday and Sunday. I fell asleep in elders quorum, and then had a massive twitch which woke me up and caused a few pairs of eyes to fall on me. It was funny!

We found a great young couple tracting! They are awesome! Their names are Jim and Elizabeth S....... They are currently baptists and we have a few things to overcome with them, but they are open nonetheless, and somewhat hardheaded. But the power of the Book of Mormon, if they read it, will soften their hearts on a few points of the gospel.

President Topham is officially my new mission president today! He flies in and once he and President Summerhays look at eachother in the eyes, the keys of the mission go directly to President Topham. I'm pretty excited to meet him this weekend at Zone leader Council!

Hershey world was pretty good. It smelled wonderful! The tour was a nice, a little kiddish but hey, It's the experience. Then I bought some Extra Long Twizzlers! They measured at 18"! It was awesome!

All in all this week was great! I love you and I hope you have a great week this coming week!

Love,
Benjamin

Harrisburg Week 2

Harrisburg is great! The ward here is pretty cool. There are some characters here, but you get that everywhere. It's not as awesome as my last ward, but I think I'll like it here a lot. Guess how long the Bishop has been a member of the church? How about 4 years!!!! Can you believe it! How about being Bishop that quickly after you've been baptized. But I'll tell you what, you couldn't tell it. He's such an awesome, stellar, spiritual guy! He was one of those guys that went to every single christian denomination looking for the church that was in the New Testament. And when he walked into the church and started investigating, he knew it was the one, and happily joined! We don't get fed as much here but it's still more than we were fed in South Side.

We have a few good investigators. None really "solid"... yet! We found an older interracial couple that's cool! Tommy and Barb. They're nice people and will allow us to come and teach them. I wasn't able to be at the last teaching appointment because I was sick. Yeah, I got sick again... I got signs of it Friday, was sick Saturday and Sunday and woke up feeling a lot better today. I got an irritation in my throat, a headache, and an all around "out-of-it" feeling. But I'm better now, I just have a little bit of a stuffy nose left over. There is another companionship that lives about a mile away from us and they cover the downtown part of Harrisburg. So we help them out a lot with rides, and they went with Elder Killpack to teach our investigators while one of them stayed with me while I slept. I slept for 3 hours on Saturday, from a little before 5 to a little before 8. It was great :) It was terrible being sick but it felt good to rest, and relax. Maybe I need to start taking multi-vitamins in the morning... I think so.

That's about it for this week! It was a good one!

Love,

Benjamin 

Harrisburg Week 1

Things are going great in my new area! It's really cool, and very flat. Over in Pittsburgh there are hills everywhere and not a flat place in sight! But here it's flat and there are farms and what not in the outer parts of the area. I love it. It's really fun being able to serve with Elder Killpack again, we are much better missionaries than we were a year ago! I thought I would have trouble treating Elder Killpack as an experienced missionary but it's not that bad at all. He's a great missionary and we're working hard together. The apartment is pretty
nice. It's bigger than my last one, but doesn't have AC. We do however have an AC unit that is in the wall.

We don't have that many active investigators. We did however pick up a couple new ones this past weeked! It was awesome! The week has been a crazy one for us. We didn't get much time to do proselytizing because of meetings we had to go to. On Thursday we drove back out to Pittsburgh to go to a Zone leader meeting and then we had to drive back the next day. Each trip was about 4 hours. It was pretty intense and I was dog tired after each one. Then we went to a wedding of a recent convert on Saturday. That was pretty fun to see a couple being married and setting a goal to go to the temple in a year.

Not much else has happened this week since Wednesday. We have a tripanionship set of missionaries that are in the same ward as us and live less then a mile from us so we get to see them a lot and hang out with them on P-day. All 3 are spanish speaking missionaries because there are a lot of Puerto Ricans here for some reason! I've never seen so many in my life! One missionary is from Peru, one is from Utah, one is from Idaho. All great missionaries. I have a feeling that I'm going to love it here!

Love,
Benjamin

Harrisburg Week .5

So you may find it a little odd that you're getting an e-mail from me on a Wednesday afternoon but right now I'm at the library with my new companion typing up some information for a meeting with the Stake president here in a couple hours while a guy right next to me is totally rocking out. At anyrate, I'm in my brand new area!!! And guess where I am..... Harrisburg baby!! I'm now officially on the other side of the mission. It's a first for me. I always wanted to come over to the east side, and the request was granted to serve in the Capitol City of Harrisburg. It's way cool! The capitol building looks like it has an Angel Moroni on it, it's great you should look it up.

My new address is:
4209 Catalina Ln.
Harrisburg, PA 17109

And guess what my neighbor's last name is..... Serrano!! I got to meet Mrs. Serrano this morning. She's way nice! Her husband is actually from Mexico so there's no relation there unless some branch of Serrano migrated to the PI, but it was really cool to see our last name on the neighbor's mailbox. I'll be talking to them more for sure.

I bet right now you're wondering who my new companion is. You'll never guess. Elder Killpack! My baby boy is my companion once again, except we're Zone Leaders together! It's pretty awesome! I really look forward to serving with him again.

The trek over to Harrisburg from Pittsburgh was a doozie. First off, I get to drive a truck, and the U-Haul trailer we had was too small to fit all the luggage for the many missionaries that are heading over that direction, so we had to do a switch of trailers with another truck to be able to fit all the stuff in it. Once that was completed I was assigned to drive the truck and trailer (a 6' x 12') all the way out to HBG. Now, the only kind of trailer towing experience was with our little utility trailer that had 2 tandem bikes on it. The drive from Pittsburgh to Harrisburg is about 4.5-5 hours. It was pretty intense! But there were no troubles. Luckily I had some former training on how to back a trailer. All in all it was a first for me to, 1. Tow a huge trailer and 2. Drive that far! I had a good time, Elder Hurley and Elder Willmore were with me, and a couple other relatively new missionaries.

Twas a blast driving through Amish country. Oh! We saw a horse and buggy ridingat night with headlights and taillights with blinkers!! How crazy is that?! I accidentally blinded them with my brights.... oops! Oh, and we had no phones with us so if something went wrong we had no communication. God was with us so everything went smoothly and the GPS directed us.

We finally arrived at Harrisburg at 11:45pm (way late for a missionary) and unloaded the trailer speedily so everyone could disperse to their areas. Since Elder Killpack and I are the ZLs we had to stay until everyone had everything and left, and we ended up getting home at around 1am. Needless to say we took an extra bit of time in the morning to sleep in ;) It has been a pretty intense past 24 hours. I just thought you would like a little update since I had the time today to be able to do it.

Love,
Benjamin