Hey guys!

First off, thank you soooooooo much for the stuff you sent me! The razor was easily the best thing ever. My face was starting to hurt from shaving everyday and it's already clearing up. The chocolate covered strawberries worked out great but only lasted a couple days...I loved getting all the letters and stuff from you guys. It was great. I'm going to try to write everyone back today, but if I don't please forgive me. I just got promoted to Zone Leader last week. I now am crazy busy and have time for nothing. Ha but I love it. I have gotten the chance to meet a lot of wonderful people, and a lot of oddballs too...

K, I'm scared I'm going to forget something, so if I do I'll send you a handwritten letter later today. The funniest thing happened this week tho. On Tuesday I tried to break the mile record again and I went 4:48 and broke it. Then two days later A new missionary came in and went 4:42...It was short lived....ha

Also, I'm sad because my best friends in the zone are leaving tonight to Honduras. (Elder Youngblood and Elder Larsen) They were way fun to have around. A couple days ago we had to get extra bunk beds in our room, and we pushed them together and slept in the same room. We've had a lot of fun while we were here. I'm glad I had the chance to meet a lot of these guys. This poor Elder though, (Elder Stubbs) who was my Zone Leader when I first got here, is stuck here still. He has been here for 10 week and he can't leave because of a blood clot that developed in his thigh. His whole district left already so he has been thrown around. He's from Moab and we actually started to become pretty good friends. He runs too and he's pretty funny.


I didn't get a letter or email from Jared! What happened?? Also, That's crazy that Cody got his call to St. George. There must be someone there that needs to hear him. That's great to hear about Ben too! Argentina is where it's at! After being here and reading the Book of Mormon all day, I've realized the patterns in the way the Lord works. When it's in the Lord's Will for Rachel it'll work out. I honestly think she should consider a mission though. There's some things that she could learn that would help her with her life.

I'm way jealous they are all down in St. George too. I wish I could be there! I'm so sick of seeing the same things and being inside all day. I can't wait to get out of here.

Speaking of getting out of here, I'm supposed to get travel plans on Thursday. I don't know if I'm going to Argentina or stateside for awhile. I won't know if I leave Monday or Tuesday until then too. So, for all I know right now I could leave at 3 in the morning on Monday morning and not get a chance to call you...ha but I'll try to keep you in the loop as much I can. Also, I think I'm going to send home one of my suits for when I come home. They say that I will hardly ever use a suit. So I might be sending home some things. I'm not positive yet, but at least it won't be a surprise for when you get it.

So my back is pretty much the worst thing in the world right now. It hurts constantly. Then I got bronchitis. So I'm coughing like crazy and it hurts even worse. Ha, so it's kind of hard right now.

Oh, actually I will definitely be sending you a letter in the mail. I have a crazy story to tell you about, but I don't think I'll have time to say it over an email.

Thanks so much for everything you have sent me, I appreciate it so much. I know it's not cheap to send things. Thanks for sending letters this week too. It's great to hear from you throughout the week. Also tell Rachel I'll send her a letter today. Hopefully it'll get to her soon.

I was reading through Alma and heard a talk yesterday that brought some things to light. I was kind of in a slump this week, because I started to wonder why we bothered to ask things in prayer when everything would work according to God's will anyway. Then in Alma 17, it said that they would pray and fast just so they would have a portion of His Spirit to be with them. I realized that's what brings power to your words, by having the Spirit with us. Then in a talk last night there was a story of a missionary who would promise seemingly impossible things. His companion would always get freaked out but he would always be able to do the things he promised somehow. He asked his companion how he knew it would work out. He said, that he did everything in his power to be exactly obedient to the commandments of God and then prayed and fasted to just have the Spirit be with him to direct his words. Then when it came to situations like that, he could promise these things with confidence and with the Spirit guiding his words. Then he had faith and confidence that it would happen. That really struck me.

Anyway, I think that is it. I can't think of anything else off the top of my head. I'll write anything I remember in my letter. I hope everything is going ok. Let me know if I can do anything for you guys.

Love you bunches,

Elder Benson