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