Tuesday, September 20, 2016

There is no growth in the comfort zone and there is no comfort in the growth zone!



Just because I am kind of weird!
Hey Family and Friends!
This has been an awesome week! My weeks as a missionary fly by so much faster than they did back home! 
There was so many cool things that happened this week! On Friday we had the chance to go to the Gilbert Temple with our zone! We get to go once a transfer! How cool is that?! So after that we went to Kneaders, a bakery and cafĂ© in Gilbert, and we tried to beat the record for what zone could eat the most pieces of French toast. So the record was set with 14 missionaries eating a total of 68 pieces. We only had 10 missionaries and we ate 59 pieces. I ate 7 pieces and I was so stuffed. 6 slices is a loaf of French bread!! We were so sad when that's all we could do haha but it was totally worth it! 
Another cool thing that happened was we helped a guy tear down a bathroom wall in his house. The demolition is always the best part so I enjoyed that until I was leaning over knocking a stud out with a sledgehammer and a piece of the AC ducting came down and hit me in the back of the head. It left a nice bump on the back of my head so that was pretty cool! I like doing service. It gives us a chance to help others and by doing that we can help others feel the love that the savior has for them.
We did a service project with the BSA. It was like a huge merit badge POW WOW
SO on Thursday all of our trainers had MLC that they had to be at so that left Elder McKee, Campbell, and myself to go out on splits for the better part of the day. All of us arrived in the field on the same day so it was a little interesting having all of us be new and going out by ourselves. Overall it was actually really cool. I know that I learned a lot about myself and I definitely learned some things I can improve on. There is no growth in the comfort zone and there is no comfort in the growth zone
One other really cool experience we had this week was hearing about a guy named Jim that we gave a book of Mormon to a few weeks ago. We haven't had the chance to meet with him, but we did meet with his girlfriend who says she is catholic. Anyways, I guess Jim has been reading from the Book of Mormon and he said that she can see a positive impact that it has on him. I was so excited to hear this! I can hardly wait to meet with him and talk about this journey that he is on! Miracles do happen!
This is a new development in our area. I thought it looked pretty cool.
This week I was hoping to hit 250 total miles since the time that I got here on my bike but I only got to 243 bummer deal! I think that I am acclimatizing to the heat because it isn't bothering me as much as it did when I first got here. 95 degrees feels really nice now haha. I really enjoy biking around here it gives us a chance to talk to everybody we meet on the street. It doesn't matter if they are playing basketball or waiting to pick their kids up from the bus. Spreading the gospel is such an amazing privilege to those that want to listen! 
Don, one of our investigators, seems like he is starting to make progress for baptism. He told us that he wants his decision to be between him and the Lord and nobody else's. He is an awesome guy and I know that when he knows that it is the right thing for him, he will make that commitment to follow Jesus Christ and his example. It is a special thing that he is doing and I am always excited to meet with him.
 I love you all and hope you have an amazing week!

Elder Ben Kestner
FHE with the Kerby's. 

It is my companion, Elder Ralph's birthday today! The WML, the Hatch's gave us some goodies!