Berry, Benjamin T

The eggs have hatched, egg-breaking animation with a glorious man with a nametag emerging, Elder Berry is here. Sorry, gotta captivate the reader somehow. I'm doing better than I deserve here in Madera. This week was amazing! We went to the temple with Victor, and I got to see my trainer, Elder Lovejoy! I hadn't seen him for so long. Truly a lifelong friend. The temple was nice and peaceful. Victor really enjoyed doing baptisms, and we ate In-N-Out burgers after. The burger was buss. I gotta learn to eat slower so I'm not just watching people eat. We have been teaching quite a few people, and it's been amazing to see the Spirit soften the hearts of all those in the room, including mine. I often am quite swift in pride because I "think" I've figured out how to be a good missionary, and the Lord never disappoints and always helps me be humble. I can't recall too much of what happened this week, but it definitely had its ups and downs. Tomorrow will be my...

Hola Hola Coca-Cola! I hope everyone is doing well! This week has been pretty insightful. As I write these emails, it seems like I completely forget every important detail about my conversion. The longer I stay out on my mission, the more I ponder what kind of person I want to be. It's something that's on my mind quite often. I often wonder if it's just my behavior changing, to be obedient unto the Lord, or if my character and nature are changing because of the Lord. I've been studying the Ricciardi letter, which is about a missionary who is a legend in a mission in England. Many missionaries are probably very familiar with this letter, and if you don't know what it is, ask me to send it to you. Ever since I've read it, my mind and vision have expanded. One thing that's helped in my missionary work is a quote that says, "When people know and feel your love, you can never be too bold." Absolutely true, and I've been more bold in my contacts and ...

Okay, this email is quick, but I don't want to hear griping, okay? Everyone likes smaller emails anyways. This week was fun, and I can't quite remember most of it, but I can testify that the power of God is real. We've had to drop a lot of the people we're teaching, which is okay. So we've been doing a lot of finding, and it's been great. Everyone's been pretty nice, but there are always the grumpy people. We talked to a lot of people, but there was this one man in particular who was quite special. We were about done for the night, and we saw this guy in the dark, leaning up against his car. He didn't seem too excited to talk to anyone, but I offered to share a scripture. After I shared the scripture, he was in tears, telling me that's exactly what he needed to hear. It made me choke up a bit, but the prayer we said after invited the spirit even more. I'm just absolutely so thankful for the love that's so readily available from Heavenly Fathe...

How’s it going, everyone? It’s been a long week, but fairly okay. This week, our house changed in the sense that we got three new elders in Madera, and one of them is in training. These elders eat SO much food. Like, it’s just gone. They’re also super stubborn about changing all of their flat tubes on their bikes, and their patches keep failing. But it’s a hoot up in here. Anyways, there are lots of stray dogs in Madera, and Elder Bunker and I had to bike. Some dogs started chasing us, and Elder Bunker yelled, “Elder Berry, help me!” I looked back, and he was really slowing down, and I was like, “Pedal!” (The dogs were small chihuahuas.) We’re okay, and he never got bit, but you can’t be scared of the ankle-biters. Most of this week was hard. It felt like a lot of stuff got canceled, and no one really wanted to talk to us. I went on exchange with one of the APs, Elder Gibson, and it was fun. We did get into a bash, but that’s okay. What’s been on my mind this week is trusting in the Lo...

Hey everyone, I'm here. This week, nothing too crazy happened because I was sick. It started on Wednesday. I got that little tickle in my throat. Then it progressively got worse, and Friday ended up being the worst day. It's hard being sick as a missionary because you can't do much when you're sick, and you can't talk to anyone. I talk to so many people daily, and it was limited so quickly. Members were still great and brought us meals, and the Spanish elders went on exchanges with my companion, covering both areas and handling our lessons and such. But I'm finally good again—I was beginning to lose my mind. On Sunday, we were out walking, and this guy wouldn't really talk to us, but then he paused and asked me, "Describe the process of photosynthesis." I was thrown off. My high school science teachers would kill me if they were here right now. I answered clumsily and halfway correctly, and he wasn't too impressed. He began to treat me like I w...

Yo, what's up! I'm still here. I realized after I sent out last week's email that I didn't add any photos—my bad. Also, that email was typed up so quickly, so that's why. This week was kind of exhausting but good. It felt like I was swimming underwater holding my breath—not sure how far I swam, but when I came up for air, I actually covered some distance. The work here in Madera has been going great. The Lord somehow manages to use dull, dollar-store plastic toys (me) to do His work. I’m a good plastic shovel, I guess. I remember always buying those toy animals or dinosaurs that "grow" in water, only for them to come out slightly bigger, curved, and extremely disfigured. I got scammed. It’s so easy to scam kids. This week felt like we ran into tons of good people! Normally in English work, people are pretty blunt, but this week they were all chill and kind. The weather is slightly cooling off, so everyone is in a better mood. I went on an exchange with the...

Yo, how's it going? Back at it. This transfer has been exhausting. I'm so tired all the time! I need a teddy bear or something. But the work is great! We had interviews with the President, and those are always amazing. I've talked to him probably a total of 40 minutes my whole mission so far. But I guess he trusts me or something—or thinks I smell. He also said I'm going to have another transfer here in Madera, which means I'd be here for about a quarter of my mission. I like it here, though. It was nice to see my family come to California for a week and "couldn't see me." I'm glad they had a good time, though. It's hot here in the Central Valley, so I don't blame them. It's been nice to see myself grow out here. Back at home, I just handled problems so much differently. But every day, there is different stuff going on out here, and it's nice to see how quickly the Lord is willing to help if we lean on Him. I feel like I've been...