January 25, 2011

[Ok, so to help in the translation from Benglish to normal English, I have included his mom's letter and his responses in more of a question-and-answer format. Ben's answers are indented and in italics (in case you couldn't figure that out...).]


Dear Elder Ben,

Not much to tell since the weather has been about the same all week. =D

Well the weather is getting hotter =P

Dad made me stay home today from church because when I woke up I had a lot of congestion and coughing. I've been fighting it for several days. I stressed because I didn't want to strand my counselors, but they came through as --really I knew--they would. That's what counselors are for; after all. I did have to miss my PPI, so haven't had a chance to get in my draft picks. I hope to be able to talk with Bro. M about that ASAP.

Yes you do get a pass. its better than the excuses investigators give. at least you didnt stay home because you had to wash clothes, or because 1 member of your family is sick so all 20 of you stayed home. ugghhhh.

Please tell me what kind of dinner recipes you would like. I don't know what you have available. I'm guessing that you can get rice, maybe pasta, but what about other stuff like tomato sauce, cheese, soy sauce, etc., and the other thing I don't know is whether you want it so you can make a meal just for you and your comp, or if you want to make something for the members who have been so kind to you. (Tell Mabel thanks for me!)

Yeah I dont know what I want to do, the simple stuff is what I have every day. I had fideos (noodles in any form) 5 times this week. Ridonkulous. thats what I say ridonkulous.

I read a story to the older kids this week about the first moon landing, and no one was able to tell me the date. When someone started to guess sometime in the 1800's, I hollered, "NO! Hey, I can remember it!" Then Mrs. Lopez went off with, "we even had TV and electricity and indoor plumbing then!" Too bad the sarcasm was probably lost on the kids.

"We went to the moon in 1969, not 1968 but the year after..." thank you Even Stevens. tell them to stop watching Jonas and watch some more Sesame Street, or maybe........READ A BOOK!!! Will Smith a few years ago at the Kids Choice awards said. "Kids for all of you I have 2 things you have to do in your lives. READ AND RUN. there is nothing you are going through that someone hasnt written a book about, and besides that its fun. Running teaches you to push yourself. If you can conquer yourself physically you can do anything. " Something like that. Way cool.
Elder Lorimer told me the quote but yeah.

Kayla is back at BYU again, and says that her back is doing better. She has to do physical therapy exercises, but they seem to be helping, and she likes her classes.

well thats great to hear about Kayla. Glad she is doing better.

[the rest should make sense on its own]
I dont have much to write mum. Sorry. I had a lot of work this week. Just lots of work. mostly I am just tired. Its all the same but I am trying to find and write down the anomalies in my day. Things that are different. Thats what is important. Finding the special moments and enjoying them. I just gotta have a few more special moments. =)
Ok gotta go

Con Amor
Elder Ben

January 25, 2010

¡Hola Flia y Amigos! Adivinen alguno. Voy a escribir todo en Castallankee. ¿Lluvia? Interestante. Esta semana pasada me dormie afuera cada noche por el calor. Las noticias. Jajajajaja que van a hacer siguiente. Alyson debe ser animado. PE es el peor, y Español es el mejor. Y su libro no va a ayudarle Mama. ¡Felicitaciones Sarah! Suerte en su trabajo nuevo ni importa cual es. Villa Dolores(the village of pain...) es un villa cerca de mendoza y Chile, el Oeste y Norte de mi misión. ¿Qué más quiere? No hay mucho aqui. Es un de 5 ramas independentas en la misión. Hay 300 miembros en esta rama y 30 asisten en un buen dia. ¡NO! No voy a golpar puertas durante la siesta por 2 razones. 1 Its gonna get me shot, and 2 I would die anyways from heat. Y personas no quieren hablar conmigo por que ellos son catolicos apostolicos romanos y voy a infierno. Mi favorita cosa es cuando compartimos una mensaje y decimos " Yo sé no quiere está mensaje de esperanza, pero sabe otras personas que quizas quieren está?" JAJAJAJAJAJAJAJA ¡Mis Hermanas! Steven. Buen Nombre. Digales mis felicitaciones. Si puedo ver, pero enviar a mi Gmail. Puedo usar para leer cosas de mi LDS mail porque todos los filtros no me permiten como rapido que quiero. El podría... jajajajaja No. No recibio las cartas del CCM. Solamente recibo cosas y cartas cada 3 semanas. I don´t know how long it takes. Thanks you.Les amoVoy a escribir una carta para describir esta semana luego para porbar la sistema del correo. entonces necesito ir. Hasta la proxima semana! =)

January 18, 2010

Stake conference! Wha! Did someone take notes? HAHAHAHA Pres. Uchtdorf. He may be my favorite. That would have been awesome, and good point about CTR. Yes Preach my Gospel is amazing. Read chapters 4 and 6. Those are good places to start. My sisters... oh my. What can I say. I have to be careful when I get out my pictures to show families, cuz all the missionaries start getting shifty eyes. =P The cards are all with me. In theory I am gonna look for a cheaper digital camera, or maybe a film camera. It will depend on what I can find, but with the kioscos and random shops that sell children's books and lingerie I can eventually find something like what I need...
This week has been good. Its not been fantastic. Its been really hot and humid but of course its the middle of summer. the problems with that are not so much the hot muggy feeling, its that no one wants to come out to talk or even come out at all. Its been difficult to get stuff done, but this week has definitely been a week of missionary/home teacher/ high council work instead of missionary work. We had some amazing lessons with our soon to be baptized investigator Lucas. He is progressing really well, and is loving what he is learning. This week we talked about the Atonement really in depth with him, and what it really means to "cast all his burdens" upon Christ. I was really going on a role of scriptures that led up to baptism and Lucas even though he is already committed to be baptized was very excited. He was all "Baptize Me!" So Elder Robison started a mini baptismal interview. He answered yes and of course and sure to most of the questions. We got through it and got to the question about supporting or participating in an abortion. He got really quiet. He looked down and mumbled that one of his girlfriends had aborted a baby(hes a bit of a player and has had lots of girlfriends). It wasnt his decision, and we explained that to him, but he still didn't feel good. We bore testimony that he had to forgive himself before he could feel forgiveness and asked him to go home and think about it really hard and then pray to be forgiven and call us in the morning. He did. He was so happy. He is so much happier. He has found that happiness and knows what we know. He knows(or at least understands) that Jesus Christ is our Lord, Savior, Redeemer, and our best friend. We can go to Him and to our Heavenly Father and prayer and feel peace and comfort. I know it to be true. Its the truth. Its why I am here.
Um on less missionary notes... I had Ice Cream the other day. Its reeeeaaallly good. There is a reason that the Grido's(kinda like B&R here) delivery number is on every missionary cell phone. =P Yeah its also about 85ish here and its raining. I love it. We woke up to the most epic clouds and rain this morning from a 99 with 50% humidity last night. I love it(have a picture that I may send next week. I used Elder Robisons camera cuz he uses SD cards) Saturday movie night* was 'Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.' Its actually not half bad. Next week is race to witch mountain or Ratatouille. I wll have pictures next week. I love you all and miss you.

*The missionaries use American movies to teach English to the locals --V

Elder Ludlow Arrives Safely at the Mission Home

Ben with President and Sister Olsen

January 11, 2010

Here's the latest from Elder Ludlow. We spoke with him on the phone during a layover in Dallas, where he was waiting with a group of 40 missionaries, all bound for Argentina. That must have been quite a sight in the international terminal. As you will read, he arrived in Argentina on Tuesday, January 5, received his assignments and got right to work. Here is what he had to say...

I'M HERE!!!! 6 months of waiting from the day my call came(7-July-2009 to 5-Jan-2010) The change I recognize in myself from 6 months(ok more like the last 2) is intense. I'm really happy. Lets start with where I left the MTC. I left the MTC on monday at 8:00 am and got to Villa Dolores(my area) at 4:00 am wednesday. There were breaks in there but thats about 24 hours of travel time and 13 hours of waiting... But yeah it was weird getting dropped off in Salt Lake and all of the missionaries I was with being all "Welcome to Babylon." It was seriously weird going from the MTC where the most skin you was when someone wore a short sleeve shirt, the only time you heard music was when you were in Devotionals, and TV was the big screen to watch Music and the Spoken Word, to the airport where there were girls in short skirts and low tops(why would you do that in Utah in the 30 degree weather? I don't know) with music over the loud speakers and TVs all over. Major culture shock. Then we hopped on that plane to Dallas and then we were there for 5 hours. Fun... Again there was some major culture shock. oh well. Everyone sounded good when I got to call. =) Ok the Buenos Aires flight left at 7:00 pm texas time. That was the longest flight of my life. like there was no way I was sleeping ever. babies crying people watching movies(which we were told not to do) and missionaries twitching in their seats from want of a bed and to be asleep with the lights out at 10:30. =P Well after the longest plane ride of my life we landed in Buenos Aires to a 30 degree Celsius with 45% humidity from the 30 degrees F 0% humidity in utah. It was so nice. Ha ha. Well we started through customs and we began to get in one of the lines to pay the customs fee of $131 American(that the MTC gave us) and we get pulled aside and put into the next line. We kinda freaked out for a second, but we were fine. It was weird. The only problem was this line was long and all the missionaries who were in the line were standing there with the passports out waving them around looking like the biggest tourists. I was like "oh man we are going to get put in the other line that no one comes out of, put your stupid passports away."(an in head quote) well customs after that was a breeze, got our luggage and met Alberto. He was all like "Passports!" and we were like "huh why uhhh" we gave them to him and he runs off and we go "what the crap" he actually just made copies but for how long he was gone... lol he was with church travel so it wasnt that big of a deal. Anyways. we then got bussed over to the smaller municipal airport for interior flights and met up with some of the other missionaries(the natives) who were going to cordoba. 3 were going to cordoba and we talked with them and learned some castellano in exchange for english phrases. Im sorry to say that I am now learning castellano Sarah, and Dad. *shoulder shrug* Well we all got onto our plane and flew into cordoba where we met President and Hermana Olsen. They are nice. President Olsen is intense, but nice. We took care of logistic stuff and got our first interview with president, and then we had dinner(empanadas, where have you been all my life?!) and got our companions. My companion is Elder Robison. He is from Newport Oregon, and wants to be a chef when he gets back. He leaves on the 31st of March. Then as we left the mission home to go to the bus station it started raining. Its not normal rain. Its hardcore rain and wind and thunder and lightning. Its awesome. Well our bus didn't leave Cordoba until 1200 so we got to wait for 2 hours and absorb argentina. There is no shame here. Immodesty in the USA has nothing on Argentina. and that crosses gender borders too...eww. anyways... Yeah long bus ride into Villa Dolores, but there was a thunder storm with lightning so it was kinda cool. The buses are weird, but not that bad. I finally got into the pension(apartment) and crashed at about 4:30. and my luggage came finally on thursday. good thing I took a step further and packed extra beyond the 1 day they told me to. Well day 2 we spent getting food for me and taking care of errands for the branch president because the Elders who were here before lost the keys, and day 3 we finally did some work. We rode bikes that day. I must define a bike. It is a busted piece of junk that has been duct taped and welded together from pot metal. That is a mission bike. my bike at home is reallllllyy nice, and works. The bike I rode had small tires, a busted chain, and a seat that went place it shouldn't. It was really fun for the 20 miles I rode that day. but it was a great day none the less. We started the day and tracted a bit and then we had lunch(lomitos are a beef steak, a piece of ham, a fried egg{which goes on every food here} and mayonesa sandwich) then we took the bikes and rode out to an area called piedra pintada, which we found out is where the rich North Americans who don't want to be bothered live and where everyone goes to camp. So no success there, then we rode down into the ghettoish area(this is the really actual ghetto where the houses are like cardboard) and we found a whole bunch of inactive members there. like literally the whole neighborhood. Apparently some rich australian missionary couple came and basically bought baptisms...so we spent some time trying to invite people to church, and that was unsucessful. Then we rode down to the other part of the city and ran into more members. the inactive ward mission leader(awkward) and a few families. We also met the Relief Society President who is the nicest old lady ever!! it was her 56th bday and she invited us to come back later and have pizza. SO GOOD. Argentine pizza is legit. like really really good. its not the same as american pizza, but still its pretty darn good. That was that day and then day 4 we walked alot. like the far end of town, to the far end of town in the middle of the siestatime so HOT. We did do alot of good finding though. We found an older lady(Alicia) that we will have to see about, and a big 40 year old hombre named Gaston and they are both pretty interested. Then we met with our investigator with a baptisimal date Lucas. Hes 21 and he is looking for forgiveness, cuz he says the catholics just told him to say some hail marys and he would be fine and everyone else told him he was going to hell. Its an amazing oppotunity to teach a young man with so much faith. He wasn't feeling well and we were talking about the priesthood and how it has the power to heal. He stopped us and said "so you have that?" we said yes and he said can you heal me? I have had this flu problem for awhile" We said do you believe you can be healed? He said if I can receive an answer from God that the Book of Mormon is true then of course I can be healed. So we did. The lesson had a completely different note from then on. Then we taught English class to our only student who showed up. Irene is 8 yrs old and is a little sweetheart. Then we watched a movied(its english class and movie night every saturday) UP! I love the spanish words for fun things like the cone of shame(Cona de verguenza) and funny other stuff. Then we had church yesterday. Umm the EQP is nuts. We have the new manuals and he looks at it and goes like whats this, and teaches this long discourse on how we would have been conceived spiritually..... icky. anyways... We have had some cool storms that are over the mountains and the clouds come without the rain, but we get to see the lightning. Thats really only the stuff that goes on here. Next week I may have more news to give. Other than that I would suggest that if ANYONE wants to get in contact with me they should email me instead of sending me a letter. Its like a 8 week wait for letters, from pouch to customs to the office to me. so please email me.

Bye for now, I love you all. =) The Church is true the Sky is blue and so is the Book

MTC District