So our house flooded....

 ¡Hola amigos! I'm going to format my emails the same every week: weekly general review, funny story, spiritual thought, invitation for you wonderful people, and then pictures i've taken throughout the week with a small review on each picture. If there is any section you want to skip, feel more than welcome! Even if that means just looking at the pictures.

Overview:

 Wow I'm exactly a month into my mission! I would like to say I'm a pro at spanish at this point, but...I'm not! But my Spanish is improving drastically! I can talk and listen to people in Spanish easily as long as they speak at a 2nd grade level. I've really started to enjoy speaking in Spanish! It's just such a fun and beautiful language. My district always laughs because when we first arrived at the CCM the districts a month in would tell us "you'll get it! It's really easy" and now that my district is a month into the mission we realize just how little those districts actually knew. As a joke we like to tell people whenever they are struggling with Spanish "you'll get it! It's really easy". But nevertheless I have loved my time at the CCM! It's such a beautiful place and the people are so nice! They prompt us to speak in spanish throughout the day and I know my spanish is not perfect, but the Latino workers at the CCM act like they know everything I say, it definitely gives me a false sense of belief in my spanish. Some highlights throughout this week were my companion and I taught an investigator (not a real investigator but someone acting as an investigator) and we were able to have little preparation and with no spanish script and knocked it out of the ball park! I didn't have to use a dictionary at all and the investigator was emotional at the end of the lesson. I've been playing a lot of basketball and volleyball which has been really fun! My companion Elder Christofferson and I trimmed the sides of our hair and we are looking fresh haha. Otherwise this week has been pretty basic.

Funny Story:

So basically every night 45 minutes before lights out we do story time in one of our rooms as a district. So many funny stories are told in these sessions, and although I would love to share some... they sadly aren't my stories to tell and I couldn't do any of them justice! But as we were doing story time, one of the Elders in our district wanted to clean a little bit of the house. His name is Elder Colby and he's seriously the most chill guy I know! But we were telling stories when Elder Colby calmly walks up to our room and says "Hey guys a pipe burst"! We all had no idea how to react to the calmness. Was it bad? How serious was the problem? From the calm tone we all had no idea besides being initially stunned. After the initial shock we all jumped up and ran to the laundry room to see in fact that a pipe is spraying out hot water and leaking into the hallway approximately an inch of flooded water. We all busted into laughter and chaos. Rapidly trying to fix the problem and get rid of the water before it flooded our room. We figured out it wasn't a busted pipe but a pipe that had fallen out. So after 10 minutes of chaos we plugged the pipe back in with the best of our ability. But we still had a problem with the flooded water. So we continued to push the water out of the house with the mops. Our district may have been still pumped up on the adrenaline of the situation which caused security guards to pull up to our house to tell us we needed to quiet down. But as soon as the noise complaint came fumbling out of their mouths their once frustration at noise disappeared as they saw the inch of flooded water. Our problem turned into their problem. Which we happily gave to them. Sorry CCM security guards haha.

Spiritual Thought:

 I was reading in the Bible about Peter and I found this one thought really inspiring. After Christ's death Peter and the other apostles go back to fishing. They see the resurrected Christ on the shore and Peter swims to him. Christ asks Peter "Peter do you love me?" Three times. Each time Peter says yes lord I do love you. On the fourth time Christ says (this is not the exact quote but you get the point) "Then Peter, why are you here? Why are we back on this same shore, by these same nets, having this same conversation? Wasn’t it obvious then and isn’t it obvious now that if I want fish, I can get fish? What I need, Peter, are disciples—and I need them forever. I need someone to feed my sheep and save my lambs. I need someone to preach my gospel and defend my faith. I need someone who loves me, truly, truly loves me, and loves what our Father in Heaven has commissioned me to do. So, Peter, for the second and presumably the last time, I am asking you to leave all this and to go teach and testify, labor and serve loyally until the day in which they will do to you exactly what they did to me." Reading about this was emotional for me. I know I LOVE CHRIST but how often after spiritual experiences do I go back to the worldly things that I think I'm good at. Christ doesn't need Elder Bennion to be a good basketball player or need a guy who loves having a knowledge of sports. God needs people to gather his sheep! I ask you to pray tonight and decide if you love the Lord as Peter did? If you do, I invite you to drop your nets/worldly hobbies aside sometimes and gather the Lord's sheep in whatever way you can! I'm not saying fishing or basketball are bad things, they are actually great hobbies. But as soon as anything is taking away from gathering his sheep it is not the best thing for you to do at that moment! No one can be perfect! But we can all strive to drop our nets. When moments get hard we may find ourselves back fishing. But, I want all of you to know that is why repentance is so important. I have learned during my time at the CCM the importance of repentance. The Book of Mormon preaches repentance so I've begun to preach it as well.

Invitation:

I invite you to pray tonight to ponder how the lord can use your hands to gather his sheep. Also I invite you to read John 21 which is the chapter about Christ asking Peter to drop his nets the second time. I promise as you read this chapter you will gain a desire to feed his sheep! If you feel like you want to know more about repentance and what sections in the Book of Mormon you should read, please message me! I would love to talk to you about it!

Pictures:

(Sorry I was really bad at taking pictures this week)1. Picture of Elder Christofferson and I holding my favorite book

2. My district at the temple

3. All of the tags of my district

4. Fresh cut

5. Sunrise every morning