Week 5

Again thanks for the comments (Melanie sends them all to me). First, Aubree, I specifically told you and your family about my blog, I made your mom write it down and you were in the room when I told her. I told you when melanie texted me the idea of it, so you have no excuses =] and second, I'm a Martin he he.

Speaking of Turleys... I ran into someone here named Bob Gibson, he said he knew Grandpa and Teddy quite well, it was really fun to talk to him, I'll have to talk to him more and get some dirt!

Well the mission life continues to improve with each day! I love it here! This week has been incredible, with the changes we've made recently in our tracting, the outcome has been immediate. My first 3 weeks here, not a single person let us in their home, no one wanted us to come back, and last week we have had 6 or more people either invite us in, or invite us back, or just talk to us for a while. It's been incredible, we went from 2 investigators to 5 investigators with the potential to have 2 more, so maybe 7. And we keep finding! We find new people to teach every day, I love it! I love teaching, when we don't have investigators to teach, we teach the members. So much has happened this week I can barely even remember it now! We started teaching someone named Kelly, he loves talking to us, has a very open mind, but doesn't really have a desire to go to church just yet. We also tracted into someone named Trent, he's about 20 years old and only believes in what he can see and touch, we teach him tonight! He said he enjoys learning so he'll listen to us, but he's convinced that he wont progress with us very far, he wouldn't commit to pray, he said he thinks its weird to just talk to yourself. I was with my zone leader when we tracted into him, we were on exchanges, so I had a pro =] he got a doorstep prayer, which I offered, and we gave him a book of mormon and a plan of salvation pamphlet. I'm very excited to teach him tonight. Then we have another family that we have dinner with tomorrow, they already seem like they are Mormon, really nice guy, I only met him and his son. I think I heard that his wife is a member, but I don't remember. Anyway, I'm just so excited for the work! I went to bed last night thinking "Oh man, tomorrow's P-day" Don't get me wrong, I am excited to write this and other letters, I love writing letters, but I just want to get out there and find more people! On Saturday we set aside 2 hours to find 3 people. Well we found more than 3, we had so much success on one side of the street, at exactly 4 we stopped having success! The Lord is truly the one who directs this work!

We plan our day the night before, and on wednesday night, and even on thursday we had an hour that we just couldn't figure out what to do! we spent a good 30 minutes trying to figure out what we should do during that hour, we came up with nothing. We left it blank, the hour we couldn't figure out was 7:30 to 8:30. At 7:30 that night we received a phone call from our Zone Leaders saying that we needed to go give a blessing, I was given a number to call for more information. I called the number and the lady on the other line was crying and almost even panicking, I could barely understand, but her mom was having a hard time breathing, she was a really old lady and apparently she kept saying she just wanted to die. The old lady was not LDS, neither was any of her family except one of her daughters, the one who called us. So we went to the Hospital and met with the family, they kept telling her to stay, and to fight for her life because they all loved her, and they said "You can't do this to us, you have to stay here" she was getting very aggravated with them, and the Dr even came in and said they were causing problems, her heart beat increased and her breathing became very fast. Elder Campbell was asked to anoint, which meant that I would be giving the blessing. I was nervous, I was in a room with a family who wanted a miracle, and a lady who didn't. As I started to speak I wanted very much to give a blessing of healing, but I could not. I instead gave one of comfort, that she would enjoy the remainder of her time, and that her breathing would relax and that she would be comfortable. A couple of times thoughts came from my own mind of how I could give a healing blessing, but as soon as I was going to put them into words, the thoughts left my mind. She passed away 6 hours later. I don't know what effects it will have on her family, one of the granddaughters is investigating the church. I learned a lot though. It was an incredible experience, it wasn't til a couple days later that we remembered how hard of a time we had with planning out a time for that hour of the day. My mission has so far been full of these kinds of experiences, where the planning is inspired, our footsteps are inspired, and even our words. I have a testimony that God is truly at the head of this work. I know that the Book of Mormon is the word of God! I'm so happy to be where I am, while I miss you all, I am where the Lord wants me.

Until next week my friends!

Elder Martin