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