THE BEST TWO YEARS

Dear Dad, Mom, Sam and Emma,
So I was looking through my letters I need to reply to and guess what! Five of them are from you! I think I'm just a little outnumbered in the letter writing department!
So Emma, you asked me if I would say that a mission is the best two years. It's a hard question to answer. It really is. Um, I have had some amazing times and some extrememly hard times and so I would definately say that it's been (or will be) the best two years for my life. I wouldn't trade my mission for anything.
That's really funny about yours and Carson's dreams. It sounds like you all miss me like CRAZY! lol I have the feeling that the Colorado Colorado Springs Mission boundries won't be changing anytime soon. Especially to Eugene Oregon!
Mom, thanks so much for reminding me about the blessings I received when I received the Melchizedek Priesthood. It was a nice treat to be able to refresh my memory. I've been reading through my patriarchal blessing lately. The more I've read it the more I've come to realize that every time He tells me a blessing I can receive He also tells me what I need to do to receive it! I made an extra copy and went through and marked all the blessings in blue and what I hAve to do to get the blessing in red. I have really grown to love my blessing.
That is awesome about Laura! I hope that the missionaries do go over and see her. I remember when Elder Nelson was here he promised us Elders that the work we do here would not only affect those we serve but also our entire family back home. I love to hear that the gospel is having an impact on our family near and far because it is a testimony to me that God keeps his promises. I am trying to work hard so that I won't hinder that blessing/promise at all. I'm positive that as we all combine our faith we will see miracles in our family.
So Emma, you asked how the food was. Well, so far all the dinners here have been really good. I've had beef stew, sloppy joes, brisket (so good!), spaghetti (which has grown on me), hamburgers, alfredo, roast chicken, and lots more good food. I had some pea soup (actually called Island Soup) over at a Jamaican families house and I thought I would hate it but it was really good. So food hasn't been bad at all. (Knock on wood!)
You also asked about P-day. They're usually pretty boring actually. The main things we do are shop, e-mail and do laundry. Sometimes we'll go over to the Boydes and play pool or go to the Barks and play cards but usually we keep to ourselves so we don't bother anyone. We also have gotten together with the YM and played basketball and also we got together once with Elder Bownman and Elder Slade and played board games.
Thanks for the talk you sent mom. The one on humility. A mission is very good at teaching you and allowing you to practice humility!
Well, it snowed again today, but it has mostly melted away. But we still have plenty of snow to go. I hear that March and April are the worst snow months here. Yippee! (Not!) I'm actually getting tired of the snow. Can you believe it?!
So in our Zone Conference President Pfile broke down our week for us and showed us how much time we really have to accomplish stuff. I thought you might like to see what a typical week in the life of a missionary consists of.

24hours - 8 hours sleeping leaves 16 hours a day times 7 days a week which is
112 hours week - 23 hours of morning santification a week, leaving
89 hours - 3 hours for weekly planning, leaving
86 hours - 2 hours for district meeting, leaving
84 hours - 10 hours of church a week (we cover 2 wards plus PEC), leaving
74 hours - 11 hours of planning a week, leaving
63 hours - 14 hours for lunch and dinner a week, leaving
49 hours - 8 hours for P-day, leaving
41 hours - 15 hours of tracting a week, leaving
26 hours - 20 hours teaching lessons each week, leaving
6 hours - 4 hours of service a week, leaving
2 hours miscellaneous

Pretty crazy huh! It keeps us very busy.
President Pfile also talked about the armor of God and he taught us all a really cool point. He said, "If you notice, the armor of God only covers our front. Why doesn't it cover our backs as well?"
He looked at each of us and said, "I'll tell you why. It is because we never retreat."
I thought that was cool. We move foreward through life. Through the good times and the bad and we never retreat or lower our standards because that is when Satan can get us. It was a great Zone Conference.
Well, let me think. What else is there to tell you? I bought myself a travel size blender! It's really small so I can take it with me whenever I get transferred. So now I'm having a fruit shake about every morning. I'm loving it! It's a little spendy to get the fruit but it's managable and so worth it.
Well, I think that's about all the news from me. I hope that your week is going awesome!
I love you all.
Love Ben
P.S. I forgot to tell you about mine and Elder Torres' dirt clod war! We were out tracting on Saturday and we were on this long dirt road and the houses were, like 20 miles apart, and so we had to keep ourselves occuppied and so we each got on a different side of the road and threw dirt clods at each other and tried to dodge them so we wouldn't get hit! We kind of lost track of the score...we mostly just had fun throwing dirt clods at each other! We probably only each got hit about 10 times over the course of twenty minutes, and we stayed pretty clean! It was fun.