We have to Keep Pressing On!

Hello Family and Friends! 

This week has been a really awesome and unique. I have learned so much and we saw multiple blessings. 

Earlier this week we had interviews with the President and that was amazing. President Wheeler is so inspired and he does such an amazing job at being the head of this mission. I really look up to him and he leads by example. 

One really fun thing we did this week was racing in the Pine Wood Derby. So one of the wards that we cover only has 2 cub scouts so they challenged all of the activity day girls and their dads to make some cars so naturally we signed up to do that as well! Last P-day we made our car and put the finishing touches on Tuesday. So when Wednesday came around we were race ready! Unfortunately we didn't win but we did race pretty well and we were probably in like the top 10. Not bad for a couple of Elders haha.

 This week i had the amazing opportunity of conducting my first baptismal interview. It was a very sacred and humbling to me. It was for a young couple who decided to learn more about the church because his Dad is a member. Anyways they were definitely ready for baptism and they were so excited. On Saturday the baptism came around and it was super spiritual. It is so humbling to watch people make promises to follow our savior Jesus Christ. 

One kind of funny thing that happened after the baptism was i was talking to a missionary who used to serve here in AZ and suddenly this random guy got right up in my grill and started to tell me how much he liked my tie. Yes my tie was very beautiful, but within the first 10 seconds it was obvious that he was 3 sheets to the wind.. drunk haha. So i figured it would be some nice entertainment to talk to him for a while. The whole time he was rocking a nice Russian accent. Haha! After we had enough he told us to press on and do the Lords work! 

It was a really awesome week. I loved it. The Church is so true and the Gospel is for everyone. I will agree with the drunk guy. This is the Lords work! We have to keep pressing on! I love you all and hope to hear from you all next week! ​

Elder Ben Kestner

CalliKestWard the Trio

Hello Family and Friends! 

This has been one roller coaster of a week! So this week started out kind of slow. We started Tuesday with District meeting and a zone lunch so that was lots of fun. Then we went out and started to work the rest of the day. When we got home for the night we got a call from the Assistants to the President and they asked us if we would take Elder Steward into our companionship as a Trio. So we accepted and now there are 3 of us! Elder Steward had been out on his mission for about 9 months and then he was sent home for surgery because he tore his Labrum and Rotator Cuff. 9 months of being home and he is back in the field. So that is pretty much what has been super new for this week.

 Later this week some really cool things happened. We have been really focused on trying to find people to teach and we can definitely see what happens when we put our efforts towards finding. Anyways this week we finished tracting this long stretch of happy rd and all the side streets and it was really cool, overall we found quite a few potential people to teach. When we were going through our area book we found a name of a person that some other missionaries had contacted a few times. We had gone through this list a couple of times but this one certain time Lexis name stood out more than the others. So we decided that we were going to visit Lexi on Thursday. She was really nice and very welcoming so we invited her to church and set up an appointment for tonight with her. We will see what comes of it but i know that it is all in the Lords hands. Slowly but surely the work is picking up.

 On Wednesday we had the chance to go to the Gilbert Temple and enjoy the sacred peace that resides in the house of the Lord. It was an amazing experience. The temple truly is the House of the Lord we can feel his loving presence abundantly. I love the temple and for all of the blessings that it has brought me personally. It was really awesome it had been like 2 months since i had been to the temple so it was super nice to go.

My Zone

I love you all so much and i hope that life is going great for all of you! 

Another thing is today we are going to build a pinewood derby car for the track that is on Wednesday haha! 

Elder Ben Kestner