The things in italics are by way of explanation and are writen by Ben's mom, Joleen)

Monday, August 19, 2013 2:45 PM

HOLA Familia,

Les amo mucho! y les extreno mucho. Mami, su espanol es magnifico, pero mi espanol es no bueno y yo salio para el campo en una semana!!! (I love you much and I miss you much.) Mom, your Spanish is magnificent but my Spanish is not good and I leave for the field in a week.) This week has been ups and downs. On Tuesday a lot of missionaries dreams where made true when.......(drum roll please) ELDER RICHARD G SCOTT came and spoke with us. It was so awesome and I was so happy that I could sing "Jesus once of humble birth" in the choir and bear my testimony of the Savior to him. He spoke a lot about missions and said that he even struggled with companions so if an apostle struggled then I guess it is only natural for me too. It was just so awesome and he talked mostly about prayer. The simple yet profound way that he talked was amazing and it made me re evaluate the way I am saying my prayers. The week before they talked about scripture study and then he talked about prayer so it really is about the basic simple things of the gospel that really matter. I don’t know if I told you last week but I started a study journal that my teacher gave me an idea for and when I use it, it really enhances my study. Elder Richard G Scott also invoked an apostolic blessing on all those learning a foreign language, through our faith and giving all the effort that we have. I guess that is pretty important since I'M GOING TO ARGENTINA ON MONDAY!!!! On Thursday they gave me a paper in the mail that said my visa wasn't coming and that I would be getting a re-assignment so I was prepping with that and getting excited and then today they dropped the bomb on us. BOOM!! In the mail we got our travel plans, to Atlanta, Georgia and then to Argentina starting 7:30 Monday morning and getting to Buenos Aires and 8:30 Tuesday morning!! The church is trying a new policy where they will send us down on travel visas and then get us our actual visas while we are in Argentina. My district kind of made fun of me because I said I was going to have faith that I would go to Argentina and my visa would come. It just shows that the Lord can do anything and the church is true. I'll get to call you from the airport so look forward to that. Thank you for all your prayers and faith in my behalf, I guess the Lord needs me in Argentina right now! All the missionaries in my district going to Argentina are in the same travel group. I was going to wait until the end of the email to tell you but I'm just too excited. The Lord has blessed me so much and I really need to start cracking down on Spanish, yikes. TALL means technology assisted language learning, so Spanish on the computer but sometimes it means try not to fall asleep at the computer haha. TRC is teaching the members like they volunteer and we go and teach them a lesson in Spanish, it is always very rewarding. Thank you for the socks I threw away all my old ones. (He had taken old socks he already had for work out socks and discovered holes in two pair right off the bat.) I am glad to hear about all the adventures that the family is having. (Daniel wants to run for Student Body Treasurer and I asked Ben for ideas for his speech. We thought he could dress like a pirate.) ARGH ya scurvy stars, I'll keep yer booty safe if ya make me treasurer, and if not............... you will feel the wrath of my filthy bad breath, ARGH. haha I don't know I am kind of on cloud nine right now I guess, good luck Daniel you'll do great. Carolyn good luck with your permit the promise I made Matthew applies to you too, if you want to look fly while rollin down the street feel free to use my sunglasses! Matthew I am excited for you and for you continue to prepare to become a great missionary, work on loving everyone which you are already great at, it is such a big part of missionary work. If a person knows all the lessons and such but doesn't know how to love then there knowledge is void. Mom I know you are probably already crying because of the Argentina news but prepare sus ojos (your eyes) once again. Our speaker at the devotional last night was none other than Via Sikahema! (Via is a guy Joleen went to high school with) It was so cool to see him and hear him speak. He talked a lot about the mission he served in South Dakota and was pretty funny. So that reminded me of you and now get ready for the crying part. For the movie we watched "For Such a Time as This" which is a talk that Elder Holland gave to the MTC. Before Sister Holland spoke He stood up there with her having his arm around her. You could feel the love that he had for her and it was just so sweet and tender. It made me think of my sweet mother and the love that my parents have for each other. Elders talk about missing hugging girls and I guess I do too, but most of all I miss being able to give my mommy big hugs every day. You have done so much for the salvation of souls. You served a mission and helped the gente en Honduras (people in Honduras) come to the gospel and find the way to salvation. When you returned home you waited patiently for a worthy priesthood holder who would take you to the temple and have you be sealed for time and all eternity. When that time finally came you went with love and trust in the Lord and then immediately started a family. You have done so much for the salvation of your family and have made so many Christ like sacrifices. I know my Savior so much better because of you and your example. I sat in that meeting just crying and I’m even tearing up a bit now, how embarrassing. You have raised a daughter to be worthy to be married in the temple and have done a lot for the salvation of the new Lamorauex family. Now, I, your son, go to Argentina to help the people find their way to Christ. I am eternally grateful to you and words can not describe the love I feel for you and the rest of the family. I will always be momma’s little boy. I hope that me serving a mission can bring all the blessings of heaven to my family because you all deserve todo las bendiciones Dios les da (all the blessings that God gives). I love you all so much. Also thank you for my name mother. You have told me how you chose my name before but it was always kind of just those "cool story" things and I don't think I had told anyone about it. I was talking with Elder Patey the other day and some how we got to talking about names and some of the special names in his family. I told him that while my mom was pregnant with my older sister she was trying to think of names for her and then in the shower just had the strongest impression that her first son needed to be named Benjamin Thomas Andrew. As I related that story and especially when I said my name it was like a fireball exploded inside me. It almost blew me out of my chair in the cafeteria. I know that is who I am and the Lord knows Benjamin Thomas Andrew and has work for him to do. I got to go to the temple again today and that was very nice. It was my genius idea to go to that cafeteria instead of the MTC one and so my whole district and a lot from our zone headed over a half hour early. Turns out that the cafeteria is closed on Mondays...... So I got something out of the vending machine. The cool thing was though that we got to help in the laundry room with the extra time we had. I worked on pairing shoes together and I guess that they were really behind from Saturday and so needed the help. It was really bueno to serve, and especially in the temple. I won’t get to go again, at least not in English for almost two more years. The MTC has been great but I'm ready to go. It has served its purpose and now it is time for me to serve mine. Elder Mckean and I are going to try and really knock it out of the park this week because it is our last week as zone leaders. I talked with him about being more obedient, I won’t go into specifics, but a lot of little things have been semi or disobedient and it was really weighing on me. It was hard for me to bring up because I am really not a confrontational person but the Lord Helped me with it. I really am going to focus on just loving other people and getting to know them as much as I can and on being more strictly obedient. Obedience is SOOOO important. A quote from my sacrament meeting yesterday, "Obedience rules the Spirit and the Spirit rules the work." It doesn't matter if I don't "want" to keep a rule I need to keep it because that is the pattern. I haven't really had too many problems with that myself but it is always a little hard, and not all the elders have the same drive as I do. We are all still 18 year old guys after all. The branch president has corrected activities that we have done and when they tell you something is wrong then you just stop doing it, easy as that. I love all of you so much and hope you have a fantastic week, the next time you hear from me will probably be in an airport in Atlanta Georgia any time between 4:58 and 9:11 (long layover!) We already said we aren't going to waste our travel time and are going to try and spread the light of Christ any way we can whether through giving out a Libro (Book) or just having a nice conversation.

Love,

Elder Benjamin Thomas Andrew