Week 17

What a great week! Every week is a great week, this one greater than last!

I love being a missionary and I love my companions, I know I wont always have great companions, so I consider it a huge blessing that I have two of the best right now! they have both taught me so much about being a missionary and I know it will bless me for the remainder of my mission.

Yesterday was a wonderful day! My first baptism of someone who I have taught the whole way! Seth, a 13 year old boy was baptized last night, the program was wonderful! the talks were just perfect, the turnout was so much higher than expected, and the spirit was strong! we had an investigator there who really enjoyed it. I couldn't be happier! It's good to find, great to teach, and amazing to baptize! To see them take that step in their life, and come into the fold of God is wonderful. So exciting and uplifting! I have one more baptism before I have a possibility of being transferred, and I'm very excited for that one, its on the 13th.

We met with a famiy recently who wants to come back to church, the mom said they probably wouldn't be there on sunday but they surprised us by showing up. It's a single mother with a boy and two little girls. The youngest girl is so adorable, she tells her mother every day "Jesus misses me" and at church, they left halfway through sacrament, and the little girl was crying as she was being taken out and said "I dont' want to go home!" what a sweet girl! so young and actually WANTS to be at church! I love the wards I'm in! Yesterday I was asked to teach a class the ten commandments. We have hand actions that we do to help kids remember the ten commandments, so I went and taught the 10 year old class, it was a great experience, a lot of fun! it doesn't matter who you are, little kids just love missionaries, its funny.

I'm finally sleeping through all the snoring =] hurray!

I wish I could tell all the stories about the week, I wish I could even remember them all! I need to write notes in my planner so I can remember what to talk about in my letters home. Did I mention Vincent last week? the guy we found in the park who I thought was very promising? well at the park he told us about this Christian group he was a part of at his school. Well I called him before our lesson to ask if we were still on, and he said "Oh, well I just don't believe what I read" so I said "Well did you read what we gave you?" he said "No" I said "So how can you not believe if you didn't read it" he said "Oh well I did read it, and just didn't believe it." I didn't believe him, I knew something was not true, so I asked "Did you talk to your friends and they told you not to believe us?" he said no, but I'm positive that is exactly what happened, he excitedly told his friends about what he heard, and they immediately told him to avoid us like the plague, I asked if we could still just meet and clear up his concerns, he wouldn't. It was very sad.

So we've been without food this week, end of month, very poor... but the Lord blesses us! Tuesday we had nothing to eat for lunch, so randomly someone calls and says he's going to take us to lunch! awesome! that night we had nothing for dinner, we go to a meeting and someone has cinnamon rolls for us, well that good! but not a great dinner, we were starving. We came home and there were potatoes and steak on our doorstep! The Lord provides for us. The next day, we still didn't have anything to eat for lunch, so we were stopped by someone who gave us 10 dollars. It's amazing how the Lord watches over us, and provides when we "take no thought for ourselves".

The work is progressing so fast right now, we barely have the time to keep up. I love it!

Elder Martin