Week 24

MERRY CHRISTMAS! Oh I'm excited about Christmas, I'll be celebrating in shorts and a T-shirt! I got my first present a few days ago from the Nampa 17th Ward! how exciting, tell them all thank you.

Let me tell you about my awesome week! Tuesday was good, can't remember it though he he... oh yeah that is right, I had a meeting with the Halls! Every tuesday from now on. They are great, David is so much more ready for Baptism than he realizes, he is really doing well! It's always fun to go over there, as they are pretty much family! literally. Did Ruby send you pictures mom? we were playing with Chickens, maybe you can give them to Melanie and she can post them on the Blog.

Wednesday is the weirdest thing... I can't remember any of it!

Friday I had an awesome exchange with Elder Westbroek, he is our District Leader, he just got released as the Assistant to the President, so it was a great opportunity to learn from him all day, we put up some Christmas lights in the morning and did some tracting and contacting, it was a fun day.

It all led up to the greatest day of the week! Saturday. All day exchanges again with a priest in the ward. 10 AM we go tracting, ridiculous story... so we are talking to this lady and she has two dogs barking at us the whole time we are talking, she wasn't interested, so we start to leave, and one dog BITES MY SHOE! he just takes a nip at me as I'm walking away! stupid dog... named Maverick because the lady said "Maverick, what do you think you're doing?" I nearly kicked the dog in the face, but I caught myself. It's reactionary okay? If someone bites my shoe, my reaction is to kick back. Had she not been there.... So at 12:00 we went to a baptism! Asa. I taught her once, but then found out she was in a different ward. But I still wanted to go to the baptism. It was pretty good. Then we had lunch, I made my famous fried potatoes... they are quite famous! and thanks Christine for the idea of Brown Sugar in them... its actually my secret ingredient to almost everything. Saturday was probably my best batch of potatoes. Mmmm... I remember it like it happened only 2 days ago.... anyway, so we started teaching a girl Lauren on Saturday, we've been meeting with her for a while, but never got to teach her, she has been coming to church though. So I finally got to teach her, it was really good! she has already read the book of Mormon all the way through, and is again in Jacob! She knows that this is the right path, but is having a hard time committing to it, she will probably end up losing a lot of friends over it, which is really sad. We had a great lesson though, or at least I think so.

Right after the lesson, we had another Baptism. Trisha Miller!! YES!!! What a wonderful experience, it was such a great baptism, the spirit was so strong, she was crying through a lot of it. She was so prepared for it, it was so wonderful! I am so grateful I had the opportunity to teach her the gospel and to see the changes she has made, and the changes the Gospel has made in her life.

That was my week I guess! It was a great week, and I can't wait for this week cause every week is awesome out here!

Elder Martin

Week 23

Hello friends and family, how is it goin'?

Things here are awesome! It's still in the mid 70's, so I'm lovin' life, how is the weather there? he he, nah can you imagine?

So let me tell you about this week. Our awesome investigator Trisha didn't go to church a couple week ago, we were worried. I called her about an appointment, and she had cancelled, she wouldn't set one for that week, it felt as though she was backing off, I was so worried! I talked to Elder Farnsworth, and told him that same thing, I talked to the RS president, and asked her to call Trisha to invite her for a dinner to try and guage the situation. Thursday I was planning for the week with Elder Nuttall, but the phone wasn't with us, so when I got to the phone I had 4 missed calls, and 4 messages! AGH! I saw that one was E. Farnsworth, one was the RS president, and one was Trisha, and then someone else... First one was Elder Farnsworth, he said "Elder Martin, I just talked to Trisha. We need to talk, but I think it would be best if we talked in person." His voice was sad, he helped teach her for 5 weeks, he grew to love her as much as I did. I was devestated! NO!! This was obviously not good. Next message, Trisha. Similar somber voice, "This message is for Elder Martin, I just wanted to call and let you know some things. E. Farnsworth said I should talk to you. I was wondering if I can be Baptized on December 18th" WHAT??? That's not at ALL what I expected! That little punk Farnsworth, so I call her back and we iron out some details, and now she is going to be baptized THIS SATURDAY! YES!!! Oh I was so excited, and I still am SO excited! I was so scared for a while, but it ended up being so wonderful.

Last Saturday we did an all day split with some priests in the ward. It was an awesome experience, I wish I could have had that before I came out on my mission. We started at 8 AM and they came and studied with us, I asked my companion to study the Restoration lesson, because we would be teaching it that day. We ended up having the opportunity to teach it 3 times. One was to his family, which I set up, but he was unaware of, but it was a great experience. He had the wonderful priviledge of tracting! although no real bible bashers, that's too bad, but oh well. It was a great day. I had another lesson on faith. When I was with E. Farnsworth, he one day said "We'll get 52 contacts today" a contact is where we teach a principle and bear testimony and invite them to do something, we've been asked to contact 140 people a week, or 20 people a day. It's not very easy to get sometimes, with so many people not letting us say anything, they just say no thanks and that's it. Well, I doubted Elder Farnsworth, we ended up with more than 52 contacts that day. So for this saturday Elder Nuttall and I were planning, and I said "We need 80 contacts between the two of us" he said "Impossible" and looking back on the previous experience, I thought 'not so' so I told him we could get it if we had faith. I told him I could get 50 contacts, if he could just get 30, he said okay. Then I changed it, and said "No, I'll get 52 contacts" We didn't quite get 80. Elder Nuttall got 17 with his companion, and I got ... ... 52!!! I knew that I could get that if I put my faith in the Lord, and somehow he worked his miracles as he always does. I know that when we do what the Lord asks, he will always prepare a way for us. This week we got exactly 140 contacts. It may not be a significant story, but it strengthened my faith. Also taught me that faith requires action, we acted, and the Lord worked through us. That whole day was very spirit filled.

Well I must go now, I know the church is true! the spirit has been with us so strongly in the past few lessons, I wish I could tell you all about the wonderful lesson we had last night, the spirit was so strong.

Love,

Elder Martin

Week 22

Dear the World,

How is December? Cold? yeah, I bet it is... I wouldn't know though, it sometimes gets as cold as in the 40's here though! yet, its still in the beautiful 70's during the day. I am perfectly content with not having snow for Christmas.

Last monday we had a Zone Activity, we were supposed to be playing Ultimate Frisbee. We got there and played Soccer. Oh yeah, I hate soccer. I'm never playing again, I got knee'd in the back, kicked in the knee, and clotheslined! what a dumb sport. Sorry Soccer fans, its just no fun. I'll stick with Volleyball. My P-days are generally not very fun! I hate them, and I think I figured out why. P-day's my focus is on Elder Martin, what do I need to get done, what can I do for fun. The rest of the week, its what can I do for others. What a great principle, the more selfish we become, the more miserable we become. Service and selfless thinking truly is the key to happiness.

What a wonderful wonderful week this has been! absolutely incredible! I'll explain.

Tuesday was a good day, we were tracting and ran into this guy, he said he has friends who are LDS but he wasn't interested, so we kept going, 20 minutes later we were coming back the other side of the street, and he calls to us "Hey, come back, I want to talk a bit" so we went and talked to him for about an hour and a half, or maybe more like an hour, but we just answered all of his questions, we didn't have a bible with us, so we used his. I like the idea of using other people's bibles to show them what truth is. All the questions he asked we could back up with scripture, they were relatively easy questions... Baptism for the Dead, potential to become like God, excommunication. He said he had a lot of really hard questions for us to answer. The world doesn't realize that there truly is an answer to every question. We don't have to guess about God's character, or about our eternal destiny, we KNOW! we gave him a Book of Mormon and challenged him to read it 1 page at a time, then pause and ask himself if a man wrote the book, and then to pray about it, he said he'd take our challenge, I also gave him our number. He hasn't called us yet, which means he didn't truly take our challenge. Anyone alive will gain a testimony if they read the book of Mormon and Pray about it. Anyone!

Wednesday we had 5 appts! 4 of them cancelled. Boo. Relatively normal day.

Same with Thursday.

Friday however was incedible! the entire day. Yet I didn't do a single moment of proselyting, I didn't talk to anyone outside the church. We had Zone Conference in the Morning, a special Christmas Zone Conference, I played a violin duet of Still, Still, Still with Elder Cobourn, it turned out alright... we had no music, and Elder Cobourn can't play by ear, so I ended up writing out an arrangement on paper which I've never done before, so that was kind of fun. The violin I used was a little brassy, but got the job done. I'm playing next sunday as well, but I got a different violin this time, a really really nice one! Ooooh how I enjoy playing it. Anyway, that's a side note, so the Christmas Zone Conference was incredible, the spirit was so strong, and it was such a great experience, and then we went to the Mesa temple for the rest of the day. I love the temple! It is so beautiful inside of the Mesa Temple, they have scriptures and quotes by many of the doorways that really make you think and look at things differently. The spirit was very strong inside the temple, there was over 100 missionaries there which was such a neat experience.

Saturday and Sunday we had a nativity festival at the stake center, and choirs from all different churches were invited to attend. On Saturday night, the final choir was the Mt Pleasant Baptist Choir. Wow, what a treat! I'm sorry to say, but the average baptist choir has our choirs beat! Why can't we rejoice like that? Sometimes as Latter Day Saints we seem so somber and depressed. We should be the happiest people on the PLANET! We have the TRUTH, the fullness of the everlasting Gospel, we are told to REJOICE! in 1st nephi 11 I think verse 6, the Holy Ghost "Shouted with a loud voice; Hosanna!" So I've decided that when I get home I am joining a baptist choir. After the performance I went and told many of them thank you, and then later I found the choir director by her car, I told her about a concept called "Holy Envy" and that I had holy envy for her choir, and asked if she would let me join the choir after my mission. She said yes! SWEET! already in! By the end of one of their songs, they were all wiping sweat off their faces, they were panting, and nearly passing out, it was awesome! and the pianist was incredible!!!

Anyway, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir is still better...

That's all for today, thanks for listening to my rantings.

Elder Martin

Hallelujah