Knee problems!!

Hey there everyone!!!

So this past week has been very busy. We have been working very hard and the work is starting to pay off. We now have an investigator on date for every Saturday in August and into September. The work is picking up so fast and President Fenn is looking at splitting our area once again.

So last week we received a referral from the sisters down in Burbonaise. It is about an hour away but its still in our Spanish area. Our area is huge and just in our area boundaries, There are twelve English companionship's. So we went down to Kankakee and visited this former. We taught her the restoration and she seemed to believe but was getting distracted by her stinking phone. So i asked her if we could watch the restoration video with her. We did and the spirit was so strong on the lesson. She started tearing up and said wow...i really need to read and pray about this book! It was awesome and we put her on date for August 24 so we are excited for Cilvia Martinez ha.

So on Friday we had zone conference! Lets just say and I'll say it again that i have been so blessed to have President Fenn as my mission President! His talk there was so powerful about member missionary work and it just blew everyone's mind!!  President Fenn also came to a devotional on Sunday night at our church for the missionaries and members as well and it was also so dang good! The bishop who was conducting got up after he spoke and said well there is no way possible i can top that so I'm just gonna bear my testimony and we will end with that!! so awesome!!!

Elder's Gaytan and Tolbert this week will be staying at our apartment and riding to appointment with us because they got into a wreak and have no car for a week. Its going to be fun and hopefully we will help them in their area because their area is very slow. We have had a lot of fun so far together and we are always looking at ways to challenge each other to go contact someone or knock on someones door ha!

So this past week i finally got permission to go to the doctor and have my knee looked at. The community care took x-rays nd said the bone looks fine! i kept telling them that i know its not the bone but they said they have to do the x-rays for precautions. So they said it don't look good and i now have appointment on Thursday mourning with a knee specialist. We will just see what happens and hopefully everything is fine!

Well thats about if for this week but thanks so much everyone for all the pictures and emails you have taken time to send me and write me! its nice hearing from you all! I was reading in the Boo of Mormon this past week and continue to find new things. I challenged everyone to read it awhile back but just in case you didn't get where i was coming from....Everyone needs to take ten to twenty minutes out of our lives and read the Book of Mormon. I have seen how it changes [peoples lives and it will change yours!!! REPRESENT!!! Everyone be safe and continue to have a amazing summer!!! I love you all and wish you the best!

Love Elder Banta    

We are not aloud anymore to carry backpacks.

Hey Everyone!! So how is everyone doing back at home? I hope everything is good and that everyone is having a good and fun summer! I'm doing great and having fun. we are so so busy that its stressful ha. But oh well because i would rather our work be really busy then slow ha!

So this past week like i said has been crazy. We are now teaching Ten Investigators and since Saturday, five of them are on date to be baptized! So its just crazy. Three of our investigators are families and we not counting them yet cause they are not one hundred percent progressing so hopefully next week we will even have more! Our area is so busy that we have had to split our area this last past week. And by that i mean two of the youth come out with us and one goes with me and the other goes with Elder McMullen. Yeah its just so busy right know. The other Spanish Elders area is dead but they can't come help us because they are like twenty minutes from us and can't be driving all those miles as a missionary. So yeah is has just been a super hectic week. So this past week we also had some really high goals. We worked hard and almost reached them all! We contacted 100 new people and got like 29 PNI's and almost 30 member presents. Its so great that our branch is finally helping us as much as possible! 

So this past week also Omar a Recent convert came on a mini mission with us. He was with us for four days and four nights. He is so awesome and is getting ready to go on a mission. Hes so funny and we have a lot of fun with him. His testimony is growing so fast and he is gonna be a awesome missionary. At first we would just put him on the spot in a lesson and he would get embarrassed but he told us he is glad we did that cause now he jumps in on his own and shares his testimony or how the lesson we are teaching has blessed his life! Its awesome and we are so proud of him! 

Also on Friday night we went on exchanges with the Ap's. They are like under the Mission President and it was scary cause they are in charge of telling us what we are dong wrong and what we are doing right! I ended up being with Elder Edwards and Elder McMullen was with Elder Lavelua. That exchanges ended up going awesome and they told us to keep doing what we are doing and the success will continue to raise. We told then okay and to look for another apartment cause our area is gonna soon need split again because of the such rapid growth and they just laughed and said alright.

So also this week we got a new world wide announcement for all missionaries across the world. We are not aloud anymore to carry backpacks. We have to wear or carry side bags and i think its dumb hah! a lot of missionaries have spent money on backpacks so i wonder how this rule is gonna effect us all ha. So i went and bought me a side bag and i hate it! I miss my backpack but hey if the prophet came up with the rule we better follow it hah!

Well that's about it for this week but this Saturday we still have Luiz and Christopher on date for baptism so I'm super excited for them to be baptized!  I know this gospel is true and that it blesses families and that because of their decision to be baptized. Luiz and Christopher will be blessed! thanks so much everyone for everything you have done for me! i love you all and hope you all continue to progress in your lives and have a wonderful week! 

Love Elder Banta!
       

Saying goodbye to Elder Adams!

The scriptures are so amazing and i challenge everyone if your not reading them to start...NOW!!

Hey there everyone!

So this past week has been such an amazing blessing, but i will get to that in a minute! SO new things this week. I have recently been assigned to serve with a new companion. His name is Elder McMullen, and he is from London. His accent is so dang cool and hes a good missionary! He is a semi professional rugby player and hes awesome. He says hes going to have me in shape before we leave together so yeah pretty excited about that!

Elder Adams is for sure going to be missed but it will be nice getting to know new Elders and working with them! so also lately the other Spanish Elders in our area got into a car accident. They haven't had a car for the last couple days and have been staying at our apartment. Elder Tolbert is from delta Utah and is just like Elder Adams so we are getting along good! Elder Guytan is his companion and he came out with me! hes from Mexico and knows little English and hes so funny and awesome! I'm having a ball with them and we are working very hard!

Ok so this past week we do a thing which is called exchanges. We switch companions for 24 hours and go out with other Elders. This week i was with Elder Barnet who speaks no Spanish and i was in my area! oh great. I was nervous at first but confident. We ended up going to our investigators that know no dang English. So at both lessons we have two investigators who live there so four total! We went in there with our lesson prepared and with the spirit and left with four people on date to be baptized! what a miracle! I'm so excited for the 27 of July to come! Their names are Jose and Lorena Hernandez, and Luiz and Christopher Sanantonio. it was so awesome at watch them progress and now see them prepare to come closer to our heavenly father on that date! 

So anyways besides that the area is booming! Our investigators are all progressing and we are working hard and help them do better in their everyday lives! I was reading the firth thirteen chapter of Alma the other day and it just hit me how much the lord loves us and would do anything to help us1 The scriptures are so amazing and i challenge everyone if your not reading them to start...NOW!! hah 

Well that's about it for this week but I'm glad to be out here as a missionary and saving others! Don't be afraid to share your beliefs with anyone you know! the lord will bless you for your effort to help someone! Quote by president Fenn! I love you all and hope everything is going good! have a good week everyone and be safe! love y'all!!

Elder Skyler Banta            

Mission splits!!

The Chicago Illinois mission splits and Elder Banta is now in the Chicago West Illinois mission. 

Some of our "friends"!!

Our project we finished!

Our numbers this past week were the highest in the mission

Alright so this past week was very awesome! Our area's potential is going through the roof and its just awesome! Our numbers this past week were the highest in the mission and we were very surprised when President Fenn called us and told us that! So the work is going great and the Members and starting to work with us more and help us out a lot!

 Ok so i got some news which sucks to say but Elder Adams received a transfer call on Saturday night! I was very sad and upset at the same time cause we work so good together and are really close friends already! He is going to the Naperville zone and is going to be a district leader there! I know he is going to be awesome and work hard over there! So then President Fenn said let me talk with Elder Banta now...I am staying where i am now but i am getting a new companion named Elder McMullin. All i know is that he is from England and has only been out three months longer then me! President Fenn said that he will be senior comp because he has a little bit more experience but that i will mostly be in charge because he wont know the area like i do! So i am super excited and nervous at the same time! i just really hope that we will get along and continue to work hard together! Next week i will have more information of everything but yeah that's the big news for this week! Our new District Leader is Elder Barret and he is another stud missionary! ?Anyways so that's the big change this week so i will be going to transfer meeting this Tuesday to get my new companion and say goodbye to ElderAdams! Also this next tuesday we will now have a pair of sisters in our district! i hope they are ready to work cause we gave them a part of our area that is ready to be harvested!  

So this past week like i said we have been working really hard! We had a ton of member present lessons and it was just going good!  One crazy thing that happened this week...So i was on exchanges with Elder Barret. We went to Rosalinda's and Cielos. When we pulled in Cielo the daughter was siting on the porch crying and Hermana Rosalinda was on the phone inside crying! we didn't know what had happened so we started to slowly ask. We had Omar with us who is a youth in the ward and he speaks really goodSpanish. He talked with the daughter and we talked with her. She told us they got into a fight and the next thing we new is the cops we pulling us right behind us! The first officer came up to us and said wow you beat us here so what happened. I couldn't hold myself and started laughing and said were not the cops or anything and he thought we were. He then asked what we were doing there so we told him she's one of our members and we were coming to teach her! The cops found out that thedaughter was hitting the mom cause she took her phone. The cops told the daughter that if they have to come back tonight that she was going to jail. Keep in mind the daughter is only 17 years old. So they left and we went to talk with Hermana Rosalinda. She told us she took her phone cause she came home from work and walked in on her daughter and her boyfriend breaking the law of chastity on her floor. We were blown away and brought her in to talk with the mom and daughter. They started arguing and we stopped thembefore it got out of hand again. I then called President Ramirez our branchPresident to see what to do. He told them to both come to church tomorrow so he could talk with them. The daughter then started yelling at me and saying i don't even believe in god anyways so I'm not going! you missionaries are crap blah blah blah. I just said that i know god is real and that she is one of his daughters. She looked at me like i just yelled at you and that'sall you have to say? So yeah we left and i haven't heard anything since that so yeah it was a crazy day.
I have learned to be more patient out here cause before when someone would yell at us like that i just wanted to scream at them back! I'm glad i learned that and please keep them in your prayers! 

Well there is a lot more stories and stuff but I'm doing good and we have to go enjoy our last p-day here with Elder Adams. I hope everyone ad a wonderfulholiday and everyone is doing good! Miss you all and will talk to you next week! love you all!!

Elder Banta              

"The rain came down and the floods came up!"

Hey there y'all. Hows everyone doing? 

Well I'm doing good here and the temperature seems like it rises and rises every dang day! The stupid humidity is the only thing that is effecting me! Anyways well besides that I'm doing good! 

So this week we had three really huge and horribly storms! No tornado or anything but "The rain came down and the floods came up!" We sang this song is church with the primary in Spanish and it was so funny! But yes its starting to flood again! no one has seriously been effected by it yet but if it keeps going as it is they will be soon! Everyday around 4 it gets cloudy and starts to rain for a couple of hours! I love it cause i love the rain but the storms here are crazy. We have been without power on and off for about three days know! In the pics you will see what happened in my neighborhood! Lightning came through and went to work on the neighborhood. It was so crazy and Elder Adams and myself watched from out apartment two houses get hit and three trees get destroyed all within a couple hundred feet of our apartment. It was so sad and we went to help them but the fire department wouldn't let us. No one was hurt but there was damage everywhere!

So besides that this past week has been really good! We went on exchanges with our zone leaders on Friday. i was with Elder Winegar in our area and he is a English elder who doesn't know any Spanish. We went trackting in our area and ran into a bunch of people. I had to do all the talking and it was super scary. We trackted into a lady named Lupe and now she is our newest investigator. Shes very solid and accepted to read the book of Moron and to pray about it. I was super nervous but did okay i guess.

After that we had another lesson with our strongest investigator Jose Sanchez. He is still doing awesome and progressing so fast. During our lesson he told us about a movie he is going to be in. Its a old Mexican cowboy movie and he just started laughing and said listen here muchachos... 

I'm going to be in this movie and I'm a Sheriff in the movie. We are looking for a guy who has killed a bunch of people and i got a great idea. You guys come in and while we are thinking of a plan to kill this guy, you come in and teach us about the ten commandments and how we shouldn't kill. Wouldn't that be great? i just started laughing and Elder Adams said well we have to call our mission President and get permission for something like that. He just laughed and said tell your president he can be in it too if he wants. Long Story short, we will not be in the movie ha and President Fenn said that he will find out more and get back to us hah! So that was a funny experience!

Well that's about it for this week and thanks everyone for everything and sorry if i missed your email this week! I'll get you next week! love you all, be safe, and have a fun fourth of July! 

Love Elder Banta