Black squirrels and sufficient faith

Miracles:

Calvin Hung 

We taught Calvin the law of tithing and keeping the Sabbath day holy this week and heavens above it is like he is already a member! He asked the most inspired questions and answering them strengthened my testimony of why the Lord has given us commandments and how much he loves us! Calvin just gets it. He is so innocent and so prepared. His heart is soft and Heavenly Father is just waiting to pour blessings down on him! He is being baptized on Saturday and he is so excited! SO EXCITED! So pray that all goes well this week. He came to church yesterday and you are not gonna believe what he told me. I asked him how school was going and he said he wasn't going to do homework on Sundays because he prayed about it and the Lord told him that he needs to rest and focus on the Savior. Like WUT?! We didn't even talk about homework on Sundays! Like not at all! Then we were talking about the Book of Mormon in a lesson the other day and he said something so profound I about hit the floor. We were at a member's home and he was eating cake and we asked him how he felt reading the Book of Mormon. He paused and looked up at us and then at his cake then back at us and said "It's like eating this cake. Every word I read is a little sweeter, and I just want more." YUP. CALVIN HUNG ERRYONE. What a guy.

Elexis's baptism

Also Elexis, Sharyce's daughter, turned 8 about a week ago and was able to be baptized on Saturday along with another little girl in our ward. Oh my goodness it was so happy! After she received the Holy Ghost she ran over to Sharyce and they just embraced. Sharyce just held her and kissed her. It was as if, for a moment, nothing else in the entire world mattered except the two of them. The spirit just confirmed to me that this is Heavenly Father's work and that this gospel is all about the family, and it always will be. Sharyce's family has been blessed in countless ways, and I know there will be more and more to come!!

Oh and Kenneth (Phoebe and Tim's son) came to church on Sunday! Oh my goodness he loved it so much! He kept saying he felt like he was coming home and that church was just a big old family. The Elders were able to talk to him after and they ended up setting him for baptism on the 17th. WOOHOO! Phoebe and Tim are elated! And I am so excited for them. Kenneth's heart is just changing and it is so incredible to witness, so keep him in your prayers!

Funnies:

Calvin Quotes

 - "Aha! A dog. Does it understand us?"

 - *Walking into the University Library for a lesson "Welcome to my company." *walking into a study room to teach "This is my office."

Oh my! Did you guys know that black squirrels exist?!? Yeah Aubs...I am not even lying. They are vicious. I almost got attacked by one the other day. It was like the size of a small cheetah. Ok maybe like the size of a cheetah sized stuffed animal...but the way it looked at me it might as well have been a cheetah! yeesh.

 painted a house this week! So that was exciting! Almost fell off the latter tho

Oh and also Sister Smith and I have resorted to making up stories about each other in the middle of lessons and now our entire teaching pool and half of our members think I eat honey by the spoonful every evening, used to speak fluent Chinese and was president of my high school's "Asian Persuasion" club, won a hot dog eating contest by eating 16 hot dogs in 6 minutes, and that I hunt squirrels in my spare time at home with my Dad. My poker face is much improved y'all, so look out!

Spiritual thought:

I was reading in Alma chapter 15 this week and I want to focus especially on verses 6-11. In these verses Zeezrom is burdened down with guilt and sin so much so that he is physically ill. He requests Alma and Amulek to come unto him because he knows they are the only ones who can help. Alma asks simply "Believest thou in the power of Christ unto Salvation?...if thou believest in the redemption of Christ thou canst be healed." Zeezrom answers yea and through the power of Christ Alma and Amulek are able to heal him. The scriptures say "Zeezrom leaped upon his feet and began to walk..." As I was reading this I thought about the fact that before he was healed he had to reflect on his faith. He was asked if he believed Christ could save him, and as a result he was able to confidently answer yes. His faith was sufficient and he truly believed in the power of the Atonement. When things are hard in life I sometimes simply ask for help...but lately I have felt the spirit nudge me and ask, do you have the faith that Christ can help? So that is what I encourage all of you to do this week. When you are asking the Lord for something, or maybe if you are going through something hard stop for just a moment and ask yourself, do I have faith that Christ can help me through this? Or that Christ will give me what I need? We can all work on increasing our faith every day! So pray for more faith and the Lord will help you through.

 Bought some Husker baseball caps cuz FOOTBALL SEASON STARTS THIS WEEK!

LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH! Keep on keepin' on.

xoxo,

Sister Bengtzen