Craziest Week of My Life

 Hello everyone! Sorry this email is going to be a long one. If you do not feel like reading it all please just read the spiritual/funny story! It was such an awesome experience and I tried to make it entertaining while still keeping the focus on the spirit! 

Weekly Summary:

Well this week was EPIC! Packed with so much stuff and so many surprises! I had back to back Latino splits(when you go with a different Elder for a day), a huge Mexican fiesta(one of the biggest parties I have been to), 2 baptisms, went to a Mexican Hospital, had the Mission President, Stake President, and CCM President, show up to our sacrament unexpected(For all of my mission friends and family, You guys know how crazy this is. Also how scary it is haha), and a bunch of other crazy things. I honestly do not think I will ever top the craziness of this week. The Latino splits story will be my funny/spiritual story of the week. If you read any part of this letter I hope it is that! But I will not go into details about that in my week summary. This week we did have two baptisms which was SUPER EXCITING. One of them was Mario. Mario is 16 and has been going to Church for a whole year! But his dad would not let him get baptized which has been really sad. But last Sunday he brought a note from his dad that gave him permission to get baptized. We were SOOO EXCITED. And our ward was just as excited for him as we were. He is such an amazing kid. He loves basketball and he was mind blown when I played basketball with him. The day I played with him I gained all of his respect. Basketball has been a surprisingly super useful missionary tool here haha. His baptism was so cool. 60 people showed up to it (which shows how many members care about him). Afterwards we had a whole fiesta and it was crazy! You could see how much it meant to him. I also ate 14 tacos at the fiesta. Has to be close to the gringo record haha. The other baptism technically was not ours. But Elder Gamez was the one who found him 2 months ago in his older area. So the guy asked him to come back and baptize him. It was awesome. For the Hospital update I am going to spare you the details. But I had my first experience in a Mexican Hospital haha. The doctor had no idea what was wrong with me and was blown away by what was happening. So I resorted to calling a family friend Doctor from back home who figured it all out in a matter of minutes. So I should be good to go. On the plus side I got panda Express while at the Hospital. Then the Massive ward party happened on Friday 1,200 people showed up to this Church gathering. They go all out for parties here. SO MUCH FOOD, roller coasters like a fair, and a Huge talent show! It was amazing. Everyone was invited, so us missionaries were on the street inviting people to come in. It was a HUGE success for finding people who were interested in the church. Elder Gamez and I got 8 new investigators while there! Some other small updates we had a zone conference combined with another zone, ate some crazy good new food, and my spanish is definitely improving!

Spiritual/funny story(for this week I am combining spiritual thought and funny story):

On Tuesday I was told that I would be going on splits with Elder Bautista (a zone leader and companion to Elder Humphreys).  This alone scared me because he speaks absolutely no English! Not even a lick of English. To make matters more scary my companion informed me that Elder Bautista and I would be staying in our area Tapelcates! Which meant that I was in charge of everything! Then to make things even more terrifying this day was probably the most important day of my mission so far! We had planned 5 lessons, asking two people to be baptized, and tons of irregular activities. I begged Elder Gamez(my companion) to not bring this nightmare to life! But he ignored my cries and sent me into the refiners fire. We picked up Elder Bautista and dropped off Elder Gamez. The splits had begun! We started talking in Spanish because it was either that or nothing! And honestly I was shocked,  words were just flowing out of my mouth. I started telling stories and we were just laughing. We both were blown away by how well we were getting along even despite the language barrier. But we still had the daunting task of the lessons. We went to the first lesson and KILLED IT! At the end the mom felt the Spirit so strong and I felt a need that she needed a blessing. When I asked if she wanted one, she asked me "how did you know i needed a blessing(except in spanish)". My response was "I did not but the Holy Ghost did. Thank you for inviting the spirit into this home so us missionaries can receive promptings(except in broken spanish)". Elder Bautista then gave an amazing blessing of health! After we asked them to baptize and they said yes! We left the lesson on top of the world! We had 2 more lessons after that went SUPER WELL! But I will spare you the details. But then came the best of them all! We went to Nancy's lesson which we do in her candy store Nancy (who already has a date for baptism) welcomed us into her store and she had a friend with her. The friend was shocked to see missionaries and asked Nancy why she was learning about another church and started kinda laughing at her. Nancy then gave one of the most amazing small testimonies of the Church I have ever heard! She said "the peace and joy that these missionaries bring to my life each time they teach me about this gospel is indescribable. And when I read the Book of Mormon I am filled with hope. I do not know everything about this church but I am eager to learn. You know how crazy this world is! I just love feeling peace! And that is what this church gives me" she then pointed at me and said "even Elder Bennion who doesn't even know Spanish yet has made my life happier". My jaw dropped to the floor! This investigator had blown me away. And I want to bear my testimony of the power of sharing your testimony. Before Nancy shared her testimony her friend was mocking the church, but after she gave her testimony the friend was intently listening to us and asked for a Book of Mormón and to be taught lessons! Testimonies are so strong! Even simple testimonies like Nancy's can change people's lives! A testimony is meant to be shared! Our purpose on Earth is to bring others unto Christ and feel joy! I regret not sharing my testimony more before my mission. Just do it! It is scary and sometimes you feel like you might lose a friend. But if you feel this way I remind you to fear God more than you fear man. I could go on for days about how I am trying to learn to fear God more than man. But I just have to say a person's relationship with God is far greater and more important than any relationship here on Earth! After our lesson we gave Nancy a blessing of strength and health and wow that room was just packed with the spirit! We went home and it was Elder Bautista's birthday so we CELEBRATED with glorious tacos!(pictures below!). I went to bed that night probably the happiest I had ever been in my life. I was not thinking about how hard Spanish was or the things I was missing. I was thinking about the joy I had experienced that day. It was overwhelming. It was when I started focusing on other people that I started to feel overwhelmingly happy! Turn to others! 

After this amazing experience of a day the next day splits ended and Elder Gomez returned. But my time with him was short lived as he informed me we would be going straight into another splits. I was starting to begin to think Elder Gamez was trying to escape being with me. What made going straight into a second splits harder was I was going to be with another fully Latino and no English Elder. I had already gone a full day without using English and now I would have to do it all again! At this point I started to feel like President Monson when he said "the Navy wasn't trying to train me; it was trying to kill me" except replace the Navy with Elder Gamez. I thought that O would be fine on this splits though. I mean I was going to his area so there was no pressure of forming a schedule and leading all lessons. Boy was I wrong! I walked into this splits and got blind sided with zero schedule and no. But I am happy to say I survived the back to back no English splits! And came out of them stronger than ever! 

2nd Story if you are bored and have time haha. After the hospital we drove straight to prepare the baptism (clean the font, fill the font, make the program, etc.). We got to the chapel and when we went to clean the font we realized we had forgotten to empty it from last week. This typically would not be a huge problem, but today it was because when we went to turn on the drain it was not working! We had no idea what to do. There was no way we were going to baptize Mario in this nasty water(I wished I took a picture, it was disgusting!). The problem was there was only two hours before the baptism and it takes 1 1/2 hours to fill up the font. We had no other option then to grab some buckets and start manually emptying it into the toilet. We frantically were rushing to barrel out the water. But there was no way we were going to finish in time. So we said a prayer. EVERYTHING IS POSSIBLE THROUGH GOD RIGHT? Then we got back to work. After the most intense hour of emptying the font, it was finally empty! Our suits were definitely not dry and we most definitely did not smell great from the nasty water. And to make it all crazier our work might go in vain because the baptism was in 30 minutes. Then the two miracles came. Miracle one: This should not be a miracle but it was at this moment. The people of Mexico City are NEVER on time. 6:30 hit and not a single person had shown up! Not the bishop, not Mario, not the guy baptizing Mario, not anyone! Because of this the baptism started at 7:15. Miracle number two: The reason why everyone was extra late is because we had the BIGGEST rain storm of my life. The streets were super flooded so no one could drive their cars or motorcycles. Both of these miracles to the average eye probably would seem more like curses then blessings. No one likes rain storms or people being 45 minutes late. But these two events gave us the exact amount of time to have the baptismal font filled. Literally at 7:30 after all the intro music and talks the font just finished filling. It was perfect timing. There were times when we were emptying the fount and we wanted to stop. It was tiring and we thought we would not finish in time. But we kept on going because we knew it was the right thing to do. It was such a minor miracle in my life. But it helped my testimony that when we are working for God and trying to fulfill his plan he makes all things possible. Yah it would have been amazing if God made the water just disappear(which I did pray for a few times haha) instead of us working for it, but at the end it feels even better when God uses you to fulfill the miracle of emptying the font. That day I was a tool of God. And there is no better feeling in the world then being a tool of God!