Sister Bennett - Lost and Found

Well, we lost Sister Bennett for about a week and a half. We got a nebulous Preparation Day email from her (Thursday July 18) that said she was scheduled to leave the Peru MTC on July 23  and then something about possibly not getting her Visa and maybe going to Texas until it came - with no more detail than that. On the 23rd, I sat glued by the phone all day, hoping that she might get to call since when her sister Britton left the Provo MTC a few weeks earlier, she got to call us. But, no call came, no email, no voicemail, nothing, from her or her mission. Guessing she must still be in the Peru MTC, we waited until her MTC Pday expecting the typical Email from there. Again, nothing. Starting to get very confused, I sent an email to the MTC asking if she was still there. I got a prompt reply that she had in fact left for her mission office on the 23rd, and they were certain of her arrival there since they had dropped her off, the mission office being just down the street from MTC.  So, at least we knew she was not in Texas or in the MTC and was actually somewhere in Lima Peru being a missionary, as protected as she could possibly be. That is all we knew until the following Monday (4 excruciating days of suspense later) when an email popped up from her telling us she was there, working as a real missionary. So, that accounts for the gap in the blog and now we resume tracking her using her short weekly emails  as posted on this blog. Real mail remains a bit of a mystery so we have never received anything from her from Peru - in fact, we still have not received a letter from her President that he apparently sent when she arrived on July 23 (a month ago today). As far as us getting stuff to her, we have sent stuff to the church missionary pouch system that seems to work - with about a 4 or 5 week delay. We have also used DearElder.com which works as well (same as using the pouch, they just do it for you - although, I think you can send a longer letter with DearElder since their character limit seems a lot longer than the single page the pouch 'rules' say you can use - and it is a lot easier since you don't have to go to the post office or write by hand). We have not tried a package. There is actually a family from Peru in our ward that is going down there soon and is going to take her a couple of things which should REALLY boost her morale. I think it will be an incredible experience for her to see somebody from home that is actually from Peru. I suspect that she will get some good referrals as well as she makes contact with them.

There are apparently a lot of people actually reading this blog. I missed a couple of weeks and started getting messages wondering why I was loafing. I will do better in the future now knowing that it is actually being used. THANK YOU SO MUCH to those of you who are obviously watching and praying with interest to the adventures of my daughters! Note that if you look at the bottom of each post, there is a link that says 'No Comments'. If you click on it, you can leave a comment (or reprimand for a slacking blog admin staff - OK, it's just me) and then the link text will update to show how many comments - but remains the only way this blog is set up to allow comments. I will work on an improvement.

So, I will now pick up where her last email from the MTC left off, hopefully without any future interruptions (although, you will note in her letter that she still only has a tourist Visa and we are wondering how she is staying there and how precarious that is!)...

Kenny