A Spiritual Feast

This post is copied from the Benton's mission blog. It sounds like they had a wonderful time and learned many great things.

I absolutely LOVE that Sister Benton keeps up a blog. It, I believe is another "tender mercy" from Heavenly Father to give us, as her parents, (and each of you) another opportunity to see and learn more about the great work going on in Argentina.

From one mom to another, thanks Cheryl...YOU are the best!

We've had a spiritual feast for the last two days with the visit to our mission of President & Sister Bowen. President Bowen is the President of the South America South Area (including Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay), a member of the Seventy (a "General Authority" for our Church), and he presides over all the affairs of the Church in this southern portion of South America.
We traveled with the Bowens to all of our Mission Zones to meet with all of our missionaries, and both President and Sister Bowen spent lots of hours counseling, teaching and instructing us all.
President Bowen spent some time helping me understand my purpose and role here in Argentina. He said to me, "You were foreordained before you came to this world to be on this Mission, at this time, here in Argentina." I felt courage, support and strength when he told me that.
My favorite teaching that President Bowen taught us was when he said, "Everyone is special, but no one is special," a true doctrine found in the scriptures where we are taught that the worth of all of our souls is great in the sight of God, but no one of God's children is more important than another, and God is greater than us all.
President Bowen taught us many other profound concepts (mostly in Spanish), but we'll just tell you a few favorites here:
One of Evrett's favorite "take away" phrases from President Bowen is, "Miracles are always found on the far side of obedience and hard work."
Our Assistants each had a favorite teaching from President Bowen.
Elder Stephens: When he taught about who holds the "keys"(llaves in Spanish) of the Priesthood for various realms of responsibility in the Church, compared with the concept of the "authority" of the Priesthood.
Elder Pannier: When he taught the concept, "We act differently when we know who we are,"
and then he taught the Lord's words from the scriptures defining who we are, beginning with our spiritual forefather, the prophet Abraham in the Old Testament.
I liked Sister Bowen's teaching that, when we serve a mission and then return to our family, there is more of us to share with our family. I also was impressed with how well she speaks Spanish!
Thanks very much for your visit President & Sister Bowen! Your precious time has made lasting memories for all of us! We know you have lots of other responsibilities, but we hold out hope that we'll be able to have another "spiritual feast" with you sometime during the next year.
You two are the BEST!
Posted by Cheryl & Evrett
President and Sister Benton (left), President and Sister Bowen (right)