First week in the field letter!

Dear Family and Friends, and those who accidentally stumbled upon this website,

I am here!! I'm in Arizona, let me tell you it is HOT! The members here are amazing, and I'm convinced its because satan's hosts can't handle the heat. It's been over 110 every day I've been here... it once got below 100 at night and it seemed so wonderfully cool! When they wind blows its like having a blow dryer hit you in the face, its way too hot. But its better than cold. I love it here, I love doing actual missionary work all day long! Even if tracting has been almost completely unproductive, just to watch myself as I am walking down a dusty road in my white shirt and tie makes me feel like a missionary, and it fulfills all of my dreams. It's fun. No other way to describe the work other than fun... not jovial levity kind of fun, but its truly enjoyable to do the work of God. I have been very blessed. My trainer is a good guy, my president is amazing and the area is wonderful! It's truly the number 1 mission in the world! and that's from the mouth my president, and he doesn't lie. Also Neil L. Anderson came down a while back and told them things would be changing and they would be getting missionaries that would amaze the President, or something like that, so he always says "The Arizona Phoenix mission is the Number 1 mission in the world, because we have the number 1 missionaries in the world". Apparently I slipped through the cracks and came here anyway.

We were tracting and my trainer would say "okay now its your turn" so my first two tries I would say "Hi we're the missionaries from" SLAM I couldn't even get through my statement... so I left it up to my trainer for a while and he was unsuccessful, I didn't like his approach so I tried again with a different one, finally I got to say what I wanted to say, and for the first time since I'd been there we got a return appointment! it did however fall through, but still. Since then, I've had no luck. There are some serious cactus here! it's awesome, the kind you see on TV, the kind you associate with cactus.

The gospel is true! It can't not be true with the things I've seen and heard and more importantly FELT. I know its true, and I know what I am doing really is the work of the Lord, and He really is guiding His missionaries. Without Him we'd be 100% unproductive. Be nice to the missionaries there, and feed them steak! I got fed steak last night, it was delicious... but don't worry I'm trying hard to not get fat, I'm doing pretty good so far I think.

Elder Martin