Blog X-clusive! Christmas Charity

Crazy thing happened this week. I was walking along in the snow and I had forgotten my gloves at home. No big deal. I had just thrown a couple snowballs, and my hands were very cold (although at this point it didn't really bother me at all).

Anyway, Elder Rogers and I were street contacting downtown, and we talked to a group of wonderful homeless men for a brief time. As we shook their hands, one of them spoke. "Your hands are freezing! Would you like my gloves?" he slurred, his speech slightly impeded by alcohol.

I was stunned. "I'm fine," I stammered, "you can keep your gloves. I just left mine at home..."

Wow. Who would have that. That was probably the most kindness I had been shown all day, and it came from such an unexpected source.

Merry Christmas.

--

Elder Benge

A Sprinkling From On High

Santa Claus is coming.... *bzzzz* ... home for the holidays!... And since there's no place to go, let... Good King Wenceslas...wish you a merry Christmas and a... silent night. 

Rudolph the red-nosed reindeeer, had... pine cones and holly berries...underneath the mistletoe last night... singing polly-wolly-doodle-alla-day!

Merry Christmas everyone! The Christmas miracle of the week was that it SNOWED! Honestly, it was one of the best days of my entire mission. At night right before we turned in we built a snow-missionary. Random snowball fights would break out in the middle of our knocking sessions. Downtown Centralia actually looked pleasant in the snow. In all honesty, I didn't even know that I liked snow until that day. Sometimes something has to be taken from you before you realize how much you actually love it.

The day after the snow storm, of course, was not nearly as much fun, because it rained and we ended up tromping through freezing slush through hours on end, but it was a small price to pay for a moment in parad-ice. Despite all the spontaneous fun and frigid slippage of the week, we actually had a very successful week. We found a lot of new investigators, and had a few great people come to church. One investigator who came to church was named Rose. She had been invited by a member to come, and had not been introduced to us at all yet. Well, we met her, and set up a time later that day to meet with her in a member's home. I didn't get to go to the appointment, but she is on date to be baptized on the 30th, so (as it says in the old Dixie melody) "Shout hallelujah! Praise His holy name!" We are very excited, and grateful that we were able to meet Rose.

In other news.... umm... Centralia had a 'lighted tractor parade', which in and of itself shows quite accurately what kind of town Centralia is. (Not in a bad way, just in a very accurate way). I wouldn't be surprised if my dad had 'lighted tractor parades' in his hometown when he was growing up.

Other than that, I don't have much to say, just a lot of pictures which are very, very overdue. So with that in mind, adieu.

--

Elder Benge

Fwd:

Snow

Us at our best.

You can call me iron man.

--

Elder Benge

The Geriatric Ward

'Twas another great week in Western Washington, and all the world is green! And really wet. We are actually getting some snow today, which is really uncommon here in Washington. I am excited for it. If we get enough, we may have a snowball fight for part of zone activity today. I have a few notes on the week to tell you about.

1. I got in my first bike wreck on my entire mission! Yay! I was riding a bike around a corner and slipped in a slime-patch of wet leaves lying on the sidewalk. My bike skidded sideways and I landed on my back. It didn't hurt, but it was funny seeing the face of the man driving the car who was passing at the time.

2. This ward here is awesome, but also very... er..... experienced. They have many years of wisdom behind them. Really though, it does feel more like we are in a retirement home than a church at times, but all of the people are really awesome anyways, and I love it. 

3. Basically, the only people here who aren't old consist of the Hispanic members of the ward, who usually some English. However, I generally don't have as much interaction with them, due to the fact that Elders Pisciotta and Payne are both Spanish missionaries, and deal with that. It is very interesting being in a sacrament meeting where there is somebody up on the stand translating everything. I am tempted just to go up and try to confuse them, but I won't. Probably. (I could just go up and start rambling on and on about physics equations and values and constants and every once in a while throw in some technical sounding bit of fake jargon: "And then you divide the velocity by the angular acceleration to find the number of psidreochonics being released during the reaction..."

Anyway, that is really it. I am happy to see that it is again that time of year where Christmas is in the minds and hearts of the people. I love the Christmas spirit. I have already seen some wonderful acts of service done here, and it cheers my heart. Someone keeps crocheting scarves and stapling them in plastic bags to trees that line the road so that the homeless population can keep themselves warm. What a great thing to do!

Anyway, I challenge you all to watch the Church's new Christmas video "Light The World", and then look at and do the activities listed for each day on the "In 25 Ways. Over 25 Days" calendar. It is a wonderful thing to do. I hope you all have a very merry Christmas, and a happy December 7 as well.

--

Elder Benge

Diamond In The Rough

Hello, my dear friends, How is everyone doing. Good to hear, good to hear. This week was a wonderful one, and a wet one. In other words, 'twas a week in the Wa-Tac.

In the movie "Aladdin", the giant sand-head-beasty-thingamajigmeister say mentions that only 'the diamond in the rough' can get in. I was thinking about that this week as I knocked a street called Diamond St on what was one of the wettest days I have experienced in my time on the mission. This combination caused me to reflect upon the necessity of trials and adversity in our lives, and then I remembered that Thanksgiving was the next day, and then I started thinking about gratitude. You know, gratitude is the key to having lasting joy during the difficulties that always inevitably jump into our lives and start doing obnoxious things to us, like like loosening the bristles on our toothbrush so that the next time we brush our teeth our mouth is filled with disconnected bristles. That is right, gratitude brings hope and joy no matter what our circumstances are. So happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Other than the wetness and Thanksgiving, I cannot think of anything that is even remotely interesting (Not that rain is interesting) for me to write about. Let me see..... some members gave us a box of jalapeno potato chips! Random boring fact number two: Elder Payne is ticklish, and we randomly jump on him and tickle him! Random information number three: Elder Rogers and Elder Pisciotta got sick on different days, but fortunately we are in a foursome so we could always have two of us out working still!

Here is the last thing: Go and watch the new Christmas video released by the Church ("Light The World"). Then, look at the 25 ways in 25 days initiative they are doing foro 25 days of service. Then, do them! Therefore, if ye know these things, see that ye do them!

Go and share your light with somebody else. And then, if you are feeling extra generous, go ahead and send me a package of Skittles in the mail. I love surprise candy. (Or if you want to do some good you can go volunteer at a food bank and help feed someone that actually needs it. That is probably the better idea, although I would never ever ever in my entire life ever ever say no to candy {unless it was given to me by strangers}).

Anyway, farewell.

Re: Hi, Jack!

Sorry. I accidentally said I was in Chehalis, but I am actually in Centralia. Sorry about that, tout le monde.

Hi, Jack!

Bonjour, my dear and wonderful friends and associates. I am happy to report quickly weakly upon my week this week. I definitely had perhaps one of the must interesting non-spiritual experiences of my entire mission this week, just yesterday, in fact. However, I first must say that transfers went very well. I am now in Chehalis, and enjoying my stay thoroughly. I mistakenly reported last week that I was going to be serving with Elder Trebilcock. That was false doctrine. I was grievously mistaken, and would like to inform you that I am actually with Elder Pisciotta, Elder Rogers and Elder Payne. Yes, that is correct. I am still follow up training him, though. (I am happy, because Payne is much easier to pronounce than Troubleglock)

Anyway, let's get down to business (to defeat the huns):

Yesterday Elder Rogers and I were street contacting downtown, and we contacted a group of 4 people. Two had just gotten in the car in the back and in the driver's seat. One guy was standing up leaning on the open passenger door talking the other individual on the curb. I don't know the details, but I know that the man leaning on the door owned the car. I think he was drunk and had asked these 2 men (strangers) to drive him home or something (I am not sure on these details, I just know that he owned the car, and he did not know the guy in the driver's seat. In fact, they guys may have snuck into the car without his knowledge. I don't know).

Anyway, we talked to them, and the man on the door declined us. As we walked away (it was only a matter of seconds later), we heard a screeching of tires behind us and yelling, as the two chaunchos peeled away from the curb, buffeting the man and hurling him to the side of the road. As they screamed down the road, the man yelled for assistance and hollered for someone to call the cops. Anyway, somebody called, and the cops came, and Elder Rogers and I walked away bewildered (we could have stayed and been witnesses, I suppose, but we didn't really see the guys who took it, and we didn't really see anything else useful, either). So yeah, we got to street contact two criminals about to act! It was crazy. It was weird looking behind us a couple minutes later and seeing all the flashing lights and realizing that we had been a part of that.

Anyway, I love this area and my companions. Most of the time when  we have free time at night and are done planning and such, we play board games (the most recent is "Murder Clue", a fun variation of Clue I developed using the clue board and pieces, but in which you are trying to murder another character with a specific weapon). It is actually quite fun.

Anyway, that is all I have to say. We aren't really teaching anyone yet. It is weird having a half Spanish companionship, because a lot of times we will be at the houses of Latino members and such and my comp is talking while I just sit and strain and wriggle in my seat trying to hear familiar words taught to me in my youth by my mother.

Anyway, have a wonderful week, my dearly beloved brethren and sisteren.

--

Elder Benge

The Breastplate of Riotousness

Good morning, dear people of the world. This week was interesting mostly because of transfer calls; and what wonderful transfer calls they were, too! Ahhh yes, I shall be sad to leave Olympia, but the thought of a fresh area is just invigorating. I will be heading down to Centralia, WA, and her is the really exciting part: I am going to be in a foursome! HALLELUJAH! Sing praises from morn until even! I am pumped. I will be with Elder Pisciotta (pronounced 'Pish-oda' making it sound sort of like a man with a lisp talking about an 'angry' Master Yoda), Elder Trebilcock (Good luck on that one. I have no dependable idea on how to say it, but I think it is like the treble clef in music mixed with a rooster), and Elder Rogers (pronounced 'Raw-goo-airse' [Jk. It's pronounced normal]).

Elder Pithyyoda and Elder Tremblingcrock are both Spanish Missionaries, and Elder Tribbleclock is also in his second transfer, meaning I am helping follow up train him. I am very excited. Normally Centralia is an spanish-missionary-only area, so it was a huge surprise that I am going there.

Ha ha! Pretty soon my emails are going to contain smatterings of espanol, and after that they will probably be written entirely in the foreign dialect, at which point you will stop reading them and I will lose contact with you entirely. Anyway, I am excited for the transfer. We also met with an investigator named Elisa this week who we found through a media referral (she referred herself). She is way solid, and is taking the Book of Mormon to a week long conference for her job to study it during every available moment. I am fairly certain she will be baptized, although I will be gone at that point. Anyway, farewell, dear amigos! Have a good week.

Also, here is my new address:

1007 Roosevelt Ave Upper

 Centralia, Wa 98531

(The 'upper' part is because we live on the upper floor, apparently)

--

Elder Benge

Fwd: The Imp

PHOTOBOMBING 101

On Mon, Nov 14, 2016 at 9:32 AM, David Benge wrote:

Elder Benge the Younger has been honing his photobombing skills and is getting more proficient at it. I guess I am proud ☺:

On this last one, I might have actually caught Jerry Lewis in a time warp, but I think it is Elder Benge the Younger:

There are more people bombing this photo than not:

Love you all!

The Dribbling Deceased

I must be quick today, for presently I must dash away. As Puck from The Seussification of  A Midsummer Night's Dream said (according to my foggy memory) "Razzamatazzimapip-pip- putan! I'll go get that flower just as quick as a can!"

By far the highlight of the week was Elder Seegmiller's funeral. Because this is his last transfer, we gave him a funeral before District meeting. The service consisted mostly of extemporaneous musical eulogies, and a formal reading of the cause of death, and a tribute to his life. The best moment came as we lifted the table he was laid on and carried it into the room (with his face concealed by a thin blanket). Well, Elder Stuart made me laugh really hard as I was picking up my side of the table. Well, as anyone who knows me really well can attest, when I start laughing uncontrollably, I also start drooling without restraint, and this was no exception. Soon, the blanket over poor Elder Seegmiller's face was saturated with my saliva. That made me laugh even harder, especially because he had to go through the entire funeral service with the damp cloth on his forehead. It was awesome. 

We also had some preparation for Elder's Quorum this week. On Friday we went to see one of our potential investigators, and there was a moving truck at her house. Surprise! She was moving away! Well, we helped her load all of her belongings into the truck despite the grievances caused by her nuisance of a child (possibly the most obnoxious child I have ever laid eyes upon, but that might also have been because he had clearly been drinking a lot of Mountain Dew and he was on a sugar and a caffeine high [his mattress had a freshly made urine stain from the night before on it. :D]).

Anyway, we returned home fatigued from our labors, only to discover another moving van right across the street from us. So we went and helped out. It was a lot of fun, but my forearms were pretty tired by the end of the day.

We got to do a lot of service today, including rushing to the hospital and giving a blessing to a pregnant mother whose child was apparently stubborn enough that he was refusing to be born even when he really needed to be.

There is something intensely satisfying about being a ministering angel for the Lord. I am sure John the Beloved and the 3 Nephites just love doing this for so long. You are at the beck and call of God and are always available to help out those in need. It is just fantastic. 

Anywhart, that is really all that I have today, so I hope that you all have a wonderful week.

--

Elder Benge