I am being transfered! Dos Hermanas Sevilla 12/13/10

This week has probably been the most "el loco" week I´ve had yet on the mission. It was the most succesful, the most busy and the most stressful.
Our area Dos Hermanas is really fantastic. We´re teaching a lot, we're finding tons of new people and we are having great success with some of them.



The Mission President called me last Friday and I´m moving to my next new area this coming wednesday December 15th. We are moving a week early cuz my Mission President doesn´t want us moving too close to the holidays and it's normal for me to go, cuz I´ve been here 6 months. But, I was suprised when my companion Elder Bassurto told me he was moving also. Then I was shocked and a bit upset when I heard that our area (Dos Hermanas) will be temporarely closed. We won't know for how long! We won't be replaced when gone. There will be no more Elders or sisters serving in Dos Hermanas for a while. This is the first time in 40-years! It's because out of the 20-35 missionaries that are supposed to be in Spain recently, only 4 have arrived, 3 Sisters and one Elder. We are supposed to have 120 missionaries and we only have 68. Spain is having huge problem of issuing Visas.



BUT, instead of being discouraged, me and Elder Barsurto have been working really hard. We fixed 6 baptismal dates since Friday. All different families. The first two were in a city called Lebrija, which is a little bit too far from Dos Hermana but still in our ward.
Then Elder Taylor and I set 3 more baptismal dates with some people from Paraguay. Two were a couple and 1 was a girl who lives in the same house. But, the couple came to church yesterday, and the husband said he almost burst into tears cause he felt the spirit so strong. And we set one with a man from Argentina. This guy is crazy cool. We are going to try to organize something with the Church in his country, cuz he runs a school for poor children. He provides, food, clothes and education. But, he wants to provide them with spiritual experiences as well. He used to live in Paris and he would bike from Paris all the way to Sevilla Spain. lol.
Elder Taylor is 6´8 and everywhere we went, people just stared at us! Funny, hein?

Now with 6 upcoming baptims on our list, this sets us appart of having the most potential baptisms in all of the mission. We have so many more investigators about ready to accept baptism and also plenty golden potental investigators who want to hear about the gospel. Unfortunately pretty soon we will have to turn our missionary work over to the Ward. The Ward will be in charge starting this week of making sure the baptims are met and the new investigators are being taught and cared for. The ward seems excited about the future baptisms and the potential investigators. I think the members will be able to do it. The Bishop didn´t want us to reveal to the Ward members about the "Mission being temporarely closed" in the area of Dos Hermanas.



It's been stressful preparing everything. We´ve been doing lots of meetings, and we´re going to have to teach all the ward missionaries a crash course in missionary work. We are also passing on our English classes,(which have been increasingly getting successful,) to the family from England. One of their sons wants to teach English to Spanish people as a living, so this is a perfect oppurtunity. And on top of it, we´re still living with Isabel cuz the new piso isn´t ready for us to move in yet. So it will be ready for the new missionaries, if they ever come. They sure will have a very nice place to live in. I´m also worried about packing, cuz I have a ton of stuff that I have to carry.
I definitely don't want to leave my empty soda cans behind...I've got to find room for them in my suitcases! Can you tell I had too much sodas?

My next area is in Jerez de la Frontera Of the province of Cadiz. It's actually really close to Sevilla. Lebrija is so close, I had permission from the Mission President to continue teaching the two baptismal dates from Lebrija. Our goal is actually 200, and we´re almost there.


That's good to hear that grandpa's Funeral went well. How is everyone in the family? How are you guys taking it?

See you later grandpa! Dos Hermanas Sevilla 12/06/10

I received your Christmas package... kinda. The mission office has it, I have had that confirmed. I just sent yours yesterday. don´t worry about the shipping. it wasn´t expensive at all. cuz i´m shipping it technically from NY, not Spain.

Swiss chocolate is good but it's different than the kind uncle Gilles sends. Cuz, the brands he sends is super super expensive. Just as an example it's like 6 Euroes for 6 of those best chocolates uncle Gilles sends. The small box of white chocolate coconut balls is like 5 or 7 Euros. So I sent you all stuff you haven´t tried and a little cheaper than the ones uncle Gilles sends.
Elder Bennett, couple & Elder Redd

I´ll probably be outta Dos Hermanas before Christmas, but my comp thinks he´ll go and I´ll stay. It's possible we´ll both stay. Afterall, the mission is low on travel money. They haven´t announced that, but I know they are. Spain is cool in Christmas. It's raining all the time, and it's barely above freezing. The government did some lights in all the city squares, and the trees are all dressed up with lights like temple square. Every street has lights. It's sweet. I haven´t really been shopping lately. I would if things are on sale. Diet coke was 24cents a bottle of 2-liter. That was cool.



This week has been absolutely crazy and busy. We didn´t even have time to do normal things like planning in the morning, or night or weekly planning session. We are in the moving process, and we were supposed to be in the new house by Nov. 28. So we packed everything, all the food, books, our stuff, everything, and moved it into the new house. Which still wasn´t ready. We kept enough stuff to last 2 or so days. Except... WE´re still living at Isabel´s house, and the new house needs electricity, all the furnitture moved in, and the bathroom to be remodeled. It's kind of a sketchy situation. But, it's alright. We´re surviving. We´ve been getting fed, once or twice a day. Which is fantastic.


We´re also getting many service oppurtunities. We helped a guy remodel his giagantic house on an olive orchard. We scraped paint, (probably 80 years old and probably lead based) and repainted. I think the house is older than Utah. And one morning, the Bishop called us and asked us to come repair a fence, around the new church lot. That was an adventure cuz we had no clothes. i used flip-flops to make a chain link fence and concrete in the winter. it was an experience, for sure.
No, the car was not part of the service opportunity but it looks good! no?

Its still been raining pretty hard. It hasn´t kept us from sloshing around town.



We´ve been teaching a lot, and getting some new investigators. No baptisms, no real good progressing investigators. We´ve dropped all the bad investigators.
We had splits this week, and we also had a special training meeting. Which was good. I´ve been speaking a lot better Spanish. Its cool that you had the rare occasion to feed the missionaries. We got a training booklet which talks about how to work with members. More of a 20 page case study.

I am so sad to hear about Grandpa's passing. Here's a little thought that you can read at the funeral service today on my behalf:

´Its not goodbye, just see you later.´
Life is a journey and death is part of it. It's sad when loved ones pass on, but it's joyful to know that we will be reunited after this life. God loves us, and he has laid out a wonderful plan. And I am so grateful that this plan has been revealed to us. It makes me sad to hear that my Grandpa is gone, but I am grateful to know that this life is not the end of our journey. This knowledge gives me peace, and happiness to know that families can be together forever.
Grandpa Bennett was a good & dedicated man to the Gospel. I know he will find rest and be exhalted to the Celestial Kingdom.
If there is one thing he understood, that was love. He loved his family. He loved his plants. He loved his neighbors. He loved the Gospel. I am grateful for his example that he has set for everyone. I am grateful for his decisions and his example to me. I´ll always remember as a kid he would always tell stories. I love you grandpa and I will miss you.´

Daryl & grandpa Bennett

"Happy Thanksgiving" Dos Hermanas Sevilla 11/23/10

That sounds cool that you're in Disneyland. We´re eating with the Box family today.

We had a lot of contact with Germany this week. A member showed me a ton of maps of Germany and told me a million trucker stories through Brittian. He said it's absolutely gorgeous. I may just have to visit it one of these days. They speak English very well, so i just may.

All the trees on the side of the streets are "orange trees" and they are all in season. The wild oranges aren´t good to eat, they are as acidic as battery acid. The oranges that you can eat are vey very tasty and very very sweet. I´ve tasted both. I´ve been eating so many oranges and mandarins lately. One member gave us 3 bags full from his orchard. I really like them now.

Whats the name of Harry Potter 7 in English? Here in Spain, its "reliquoes de la muerte" Relics of the Dead. I don´t think that's the name of it in English. lol. Is it?

We had an open house for the new chapel over here, kinda like the open house to the temple. We passed many flyers, had publication in the paper, and had a big banner draped on the church. The members set up many booths inside, explaining our role in the community, our beliefs about family and joseph smilth and family history, art, music and stuff like that. The attendance was pretty low, 173 people in 1 week. But it was good. We had one miracle. A lady and her daughter approached me and Elder Barsurto and asked if we belonged to the church, and we replied yes. She expressed a desire to see inside. so we took her to the zone leaders to show inside the building. Now she and her daughter and her mother, (all named Pilar) are going to be baptized. Which is way cool. Just not to our ward.

We finally found María... in the mental hospital. Her kids took her there. She suffers depression. Her kids want nothing to do with the church and they say their mom is crazy. So we can't baptize her but we can visit her. I really don't like the Spanish hospitals... I feel like in a 3rd world country...them and their socialized health care.

I heard the government of North-Korea shot 100 missles at South-Korea, and America might get involved. I´m pretty worried about that. The Spanish papers just totally slammed on the new book of Bush, and made fun of Palin, and honored Obama.

We´ve been having some success with an investigator named Angel. He´s the ex boyfriend of the Bishop's daughter. He´s been praying every night to konw if the church is true. and he still hasn´t had an answer. but he had a dream. He was a great mulitidude in a big and unfamilar city. And it was almost ancient. And the people were talking excitedly that Jesus had come. Kinda like the scene in 3nephi 11. So we got high hopes that he´ll be baptized soon.
We finally had one man come to our english class. He wants to talk agbout the church another day.
We´ve been doing many contacts lately, and almost all of them are old investigators. Which i hear is unheard of. They´ve heard the missionaries, 2 years ago, 20 years ago, and everything in between. We´re teaching some of them.

I´m excited today is Thanksgiving. We´re eating at the Box family's house, and the father said we could bring the whole district. We´re goihg to have turkey, jamon, all sorts of pies. And brittish people will be there. which i find ironic.
Life is good, we´re moving out this week into our new appartement and yeah.

Dos Hermanas Sevilla 11/16/10

Thanksgiving will be great this year. An american family has invited us to have a true Thanksgiving dinner with them, with pie, turkey, ham, and all sorts of good stuff you can´t get in Spain. I look so forward to it.


We had a fireside in our ward with our mission president. It was really good. The same american family mentionned above brought brownies, 3 cheesecakes and some cookies. Everything was incridibly good. I was itching to eat real cheese cake again.


We found an apartment that we like but it's being used as an office right now. The guy who will rent it to us is a professional remodeler for buildings, so it should be good. The location is incredible. Probably the best location that any missionary has ever had in this city, and it's just a little more expensive than the one we are living in now.



Anyway, we are staying with Isabell until the end of this month. Elder barsurto had expressed to our mission president how uneasy it is to live with people. Living with people can interrupt our studies. In our case Isabell has 3 TVs and David has a computer.


I was at training last lweek at the mission home in Malaga. It was really good.

Hi America


View from the pool at the mission home in Malaga


The training is over, let's all jump for joy!!

Dos Hermanas Sevilla 11/15/10

Some of the missionaries attended a 3 days specialized training at the Mission home in Malaga. Elder Bennett and his companion Elder Basurto were among the missionaries being trained.

Elder Basurto & Elder Bullen


On the pic above, Elder Bennett and Elder Masterson are showing off the weight they have lost. They each have lost around 25-30 lbs since they came on their missions. This is a walking mission and could it be the reason of their weight loss?


While all missionaries were looking at the camera, ELder Bennett had his eyes on the delicious dish in front of him and was not a bit interrested in looking at the camera.

This is a great looking group of Elders who work really hard everyday. Their enthusiasm and willingness to learn can only help them becoming the best missionaries they can be in the field. They look so happy. (Please click on the pic to see a bigger image)
Balcony: Elder Stowell, Elder Avellar, President Clegg, Elder Redd, Elder Hamilton, Elder Donoskovic

Stairs: Elder Basurto, Edler 2, Elder Masterson, Elder Burdette, Elder West, Elder Wells, Elder Ferguson, Elder Travis, Elder Taylor, Elder Bennett

Are the missionaries jumping for joy because they are the best missionaries serving in the best mission in the world or just because they are happy to have the special training over. What do you all think? (Please click on the pic to see a bigger image)

Dos Hermanas Sevilla 11/08/10

Our investigator Maria has turned into a nightmare. She has her anti-depression medication but she just won´t take it. We know she´s always home when we stop by but she pretends not to be there by not opening the door for us. We even caught her doing this.

Town Hall in Sevilla
Transfer happened again and I am staying here in Sevilla with Elder Earsurto for at least the next 6 weeks. We´re moving to a new apartment to the great dismay of our landlord Isabel. Elder Barsurto broke the news to her. Isabel has been crying all week and guilt tripping us everytime she could. But, she shocked me, when I saw her walLking through the chapel doors last Sunday. She hasn´t attended Church in years. It was testimony meeting, and the spirit we felt was particullarly strong cuz the ward temple trip was that week. Isabel asked if she could share her testimony even though she´s not a member. I was like, of course!! So I went up with her and she announced how devasted she was that we were moving, and I was pretty embarrassed. she did say that she felt the spirit super strong when we were staying at her place. That's good that she recognizes that.
I am glad to hear about the changes in the Ward and also thanx for sending me Jacob & Dylan MTC address. I hope more go on missions.

Dos Hermanas Sevilla 11/01/10

Funny. It rained super hard as well over here on the Saturday before Halloween. But, Halloween wasn´t observed until Sunday...lol. It's fairly new here, but they all love it. All the people see that I´m an american and ask what halloween is like in the States. They don´t do trick or treating here, they mostly throw big drunken costume parties with many decorations and such. At least the family is all drunk together lol.
Elder Barsuto & Elder Bennett

Satan threw us a low blow for Maria. The day of her baptism, she ran out of anti- depression pills and she was in the low point of her valley of depression. We spent like 5 hrs at her house this weekend. We gave her some pictures as present for her barren walls but mostly to cheer her up. Maria's baptism is reschedule for another time. a view of a spanish street.

Normally, a missionary stays 4 transfers in his first area which equals to about 6 months. I could possibly be moved to another city on the next transfer. I hope I stay. I like it here. We taught 21 lessons last week, and about 8 lessons this week. Next week will suck "numbers wise" because we´ll be in the mission home instead of teaching.
Beautiful city of Sevilla

We´ve been eating like 5 times or more at people´s houses´. We eat a fair amount at the investigator's houses.

Great choice for the new bishopric members. Could you get me the addresses of Josheph, Dylan and Jacob? Yeah, Brazil has worse problem for visa than Spain. Elder Larsen, had a friend who was going to Brazil, and he broke the record for time spent at the Provo MTC. He was there for 6 months. That particular friend was in a large group, and everybody got reasigned except this friend, and this friend´s companion. So this could be fun. They´ll probably serve in the States for a little while.
I´m glad to hear about Dylan.
Enjoy the view of the beautiful city of Sevilla. I love it here.

I´m doing well, I am working hard and stuff. I´m like the most thoughtful companion ever. It's Elder Barsuto's birthday, and I am planning a suprise celebration for him at an american family´s house. It wil be his first time tasting real cake. They don´t have cake here. It will be fun.

Dos Hermanas Sevilla 10/27/10

Thanx for the $$ update. I found out why I was so poor. I talked with the mission president. He made a phone call to the mission office and learned the Elder in charge of the finance had billed me for the shoe fee twice, instead of taking out $60, he took out $120. But, I got it back now and I am all set. Thanx for putting money in my account, I didn´t go hungry.

We've got a baptism scheduled for this Saturday, Maria. She´s a sweet old spanish lady who was ready before we found her. She passed the interview and everything. As for Kunle, we haven´t seen him since we fixed his baptism date. So it's been dropped. We got another one and his name is Monday but we quickly dropped him. I´m not sure but I think he´s a drug dealer and he lies to us heavily, which is not appreciated. I wouldn´t let a Jehova Witness baptize this man. But, his wife is good and ready. Next time we see her we´ll set a baptismal date.

My spanish is world's better. The shoes you sent me are really good and duralble Thank you. Spain taxes their goods cuz their economy sux and they need revenue somehow. No, we haven't had too much rain. My two favorite spanish dish are Gaspacho and Zamorano (I think that's how you spell them).

Dos Hermanas Sevilla 10/11/10

Here's the picture of the week. It shows a fun old tractor in an olive grove. Thanks Elder Bennett for this great photo.

We watched some general conference. The first session started at 6 in the evening. I got about 4 minutes of it out of 2 hours. But we watched the re-transmissions online without problem. It was good.

Yes, the shoes you sent have arrived at the Malaga mission office. One of the missionary working in the office called me. I now owe the office about $60.00 because they had to pay the custom fee for the package. I will get my new shoes at the end of the month.

My new companion Elder Barsuto speaks English but prefers to communicate in Spanish. For some reason I am prone to teach the Africans and visit the american families in the Ward. We have 2 more baptismal dates on our agenda. One is David's friend name Kunle and the other one is a much older Spanish lady name Maria. We look forward to their baptisms.

I lost about 30 lbs and my clothes are now kind of loose on me. I look like a little kid in big man's clothes. Isabell's daughter is helping me out by altering my pants to fit. I am so grateful for her help.

The weather is bearable but the rain is harsh.

TRANSFER - 2nd Companion Elder Basurto - Dos Hermanas Sevilla 09/28/10

I learned a cool statistic the other day. There are currently about 500,000 Mormons age available to serve a mission. and about 52000 are serving.
Elder Bennett & Elder Larsen

Now about my shoes, the landlord lady Isabell helped me out. She took me to a shoe repair shop and I brought both pairs of shoes. Looking at the first pair, the shoe repair guy offered to throw them away cuz they were completely destroyed. As for the second pair of shoes, he saw that only the soles were destroyed and for 22 euroes he was able to repair them. He showed me why my shoes broke and taught me how to take care of them. He said that the cool designer shoes have hollowed soles, making an air bubble to give more comfort to the feet, but unfortunately they are way way less durable. He showed me the inside of my soles and they were absolutely smashed. But, now they feel just as good as new. He put in solid soles that will last a long time.

But Thank you for sending me new shoes. I am looking forward to receiving your package. Every shoe brand is different. I also looked for some shoes online and found that Kolh carries the same brand name shoes that I am wearing right now. The brand is called "Deer Stag". I ordered a pair with a size slightly bigger (13w) simply because the ones that I have now (size 12w) were a little tight and took a while to break-in. Don't worry, the ones that you sent me should be fine. While I'm waiting for both pair of shoes to come, I'm grateful Isabelle helped me find a shoe repair shop and the guy was able to fix one of my two pair of shoes. My shoes feel so good now and my feet don't hurt anymore. The stress about shoes is now gone.

Elder Basurto, my new & 2nd companion.

Transfer happened. Elder Larsen is no longer my companion. I am now paired with Elder Basurto. He is from Spain, but was born in Ecuador. He is cool, nice and way short. He´ll help me with my spanish. Both the Mission President and his wife said I needed to better my Spanish. Coincidence? I think not! But anyhow I´m excited. They said he´s super erecto and plays by the book, which will be different from Elder Larsen. So I´m excited to see how things roll out. He´ll be the perfect person for this area at this time. Our key investigators are from Ecuador or they are Evangelists (which he used to be one) and he has all the right resources to help this area. Me and Elder Larsen got a Muslim guy to go to church, which is very rare. Cool, hein? The bishop's son is now the Ward Mission Leader. He just returned from Bilbao and is way good friends with our Mission President Clegg.
Elder Larsen & Elder Birnhaumer getting on the bus and on their way to their new assigned area.

BAPTISMS - Dos Hermanas Sevilla 09/20/10

BAPTISM OF SAMUEL & TOP
We had everything well planned for Top & Samuel's baptisms. A couple of priesthood leaders offered to give us a ride to the Stake Center & to bring the baptismal pants with them. Top & Samuel arrived at our house at 7 as planned to leave at 7. The baptism was scheduled to start at 8. But of course our ride showed up at 8:15, and both seprately forgot the baptismal pants. To make the matter worse, we got a call from the mission president asking where we were. He randomly decided to show up, which I learned is very rare. Once we made it in downtown Sevilla, there was a giagantic procession fiesta going on and our Stake Center being in the middle made it impossible to park by it. We had to park at least a mile away. The mission president seemed slightly annoyed by the situation. Anyway, all went well and it was an awesome event. Samuel and top are really happy & they both bore incredible testimonies.
Their interviews were intense, cuz top had a hard time understanding but overall it was an amazing experience. Because we started the baptism late, we missed the last train home, but yeah it was worth it. Yesterday we attended a meeting that took all day.
Elder Larsen, Bishop Rondaln, Samuel, Top & Elder Bennett.

The Baptism of these two young men Samuel & Top went forward last Saturday night (Sept. 18th) as scheduled. Elder Larsen & Elder Bennett had taught them & worked very hard to make this special event happens. The baptism was held in the new Stake Center in Sevilla. These two were the first in the new font. I garantee they won't be the last. Great work Elders.

Summary of Top & Samuel's conversion by Elder Bennett
08/02/10: "We had another noche hogar with two Africans, and it was incredible! One of them name Samuel gets the gospel, he understands it and he's pretty much golden, but his buddy Top unfortunately just doesn't get it. He asks weird questions that aren't questions at all but are his mixed doctrines of evangelical teachings and stuff. At the end of the noche hogar, he changed. He started to accept more of our teachings.
We taught both of them about the Book of Mormon, modern day prophets and asked them to pray about it and be baptized. I think there's a chance for a baptism but not quite sure yet. HOPEFULLY!! They both were like: "can I be baptized again? I was already baptized in another faith, can you baptize me again?"

o8/10/10: "We asked Samuel and Top our nigerian investigators to be baptized this week. They agreed to be baptized this saturday. Unfortunately, we may have to cancel the baptism and postpone it to another day cuz we have nowhere to perform the ordinance."

08/17/10: "We canceled the baptism of Samuel and Top and it's gonna be on september 25th. We made them realize that they have to be clean before they enter the water, not repent afterwards. So they gave us that date and told us that they'd be ready by then"

08/30/10: "Our 2 Nigerians investigators Top & Samuel are getting baptized on the 18th of September and hopefully at our new stake center in downtown Sevilla."

09/07/10: "Our two investigators Samuel and Top are golden. Their baptisms are still scheduled for the 18th of September. Unfortunately the font at our Stake is still broken. We are hoping we can do the baptisms at our new Stake."

09/13/10: "Samuel and Top are super excited about their baptisms. The bishop will be the one baptizing them. We are so happy for the two of them."

09/18/10 Samuel & Top's BAPTISM
Elder Larsen, Bishop Rondaln, Samuel, Top & Elder Bennett

Dos Hermanas Sevilla 09/13/10

That's cool Josesph received his mission call to serve in Brazil. I'm happy for him. My residency problem is no longer an immediate concern. The Church legal team is currently working on the residency situation for all the missionaries, so I'll try not to worry about anything til then. Besides, going back to Madrid just to have my fingerprints taken would be money & time wasted. We'll see where this is going!

By the way, don't worry about my shoes, I'll work something out. Samuel and Top are super excited about their baptisms. The bishop will be the one baptizing them. We are so happy for the two of them.

We've been so overwhelmed with contacts, investigators and work that sometime it seems hard to accomplish them all in one week.

The Stake conference was yesterday. We attended Stake Conference in the new Stake building. It was so cool seeing so many mormons again in an actual church building, with the gym opened as overflow, as the english guy said, it feels like we're going to Church again, even though the gospel is the same world wide.

Dos Hermanas Sevilla 09/06/10

Now my other pair of shoes died as well. They both kinda still function but the outside look destroyed. I will do my best wearing them for as long as I could.
Elder Vaninetti & Elder Bennett

The days are getting shorter so it gets darker earlier. It gets dark by like 9:30pm. The weather is a lot cooler too. Last week was like 120 every day and now it's around 100.

The temporary companion (see pic below) assigned to me and for whom I was his senior companion for a few days was actually from my group when we were serving in the Provo MTC. He simply left way later than I did cuz of his visa. He and I did pretty good. We taught lessons and did other missionary stuff. We do have language rules over here too but they are just poorly enforced. We only speak spanish when talking to someone local. Most locals do not wanna speak english.


Our two Nigerian investigators Samuel and Top are golden. Their baptisms are scheduled for the 18th of September. Unfortunately the font at our Stake is still broken. We are hoping we can do the baptisms at our new Stake. It is bigger and the building is also much needed for all kinds of Church activities.
The new Stake Center in Sevilla

For this coming Saturday, we are planninng a huge activity and it should be cool. We are right now in alcala doing exchanges. This place is like a mansion. This is the second nicest place next to the mission home. We have so much to do which is really good. Having Elder larsen and I being on the front page of sister Glegg's missionary blog doesn't suprise me. We are just fantastic missionaries.


I am having horrific problems with my residency and nobody seems to know what to do. The Spain government wants me to go to Madrid just to have my fingerprints taken. It should be cool to travel back to Madrid. Hasta luego.