Week 38

Interesting week...

Monday was spent saying bye to Elder Pearson, and playing a lot of sports. That's mostly what I do on P-days these days is play sports. Basketball and deathball, also what we call chair soccer, where you all spread out in the gym and you have a chair that everyone tries to kick the soccer ball at... its kinda fun, but I hate soccer, and I'm no good at it.

Tuesday was a great day, I love the transfer meetings, they are the only meetings I actually enjoy... I take that back, I LOVE all the meetings, I just hate them at the same time... they are always uplifting, but we have a lot of them. So I set up a ride with this awesome lady in the ward, Sister Gibson, but just to pick us up, we had a ride there but not a ride back. Well, we ended up being able to get a ride back from the other people, so I called and left a message for Sister Gibson. She came anyway, but we didn't see her! she never got our message. I felt so bad! so the next day we bought her a pie and brought it to her house. She opened the door and said "You BETTER be bringing me a pie!" said it jokingly, but we apologized profusely. I just felt so awful about it, we got a call from the Assistants to the President "hey, there is some lady here saying she was supposed to pick you up". All is well now. So that night we got back and had to cancel our appt with the Bishop family because we were late in arriving, but scheduled it for thursday.

Nothing interesting for wednesday.

Thursday was great. It was my first District Meeting that I was in charge of, and I think it went quite well, it was enjoyable. That night we met with the Bishops, Chance has a date for baptism! and we had a great talk with them. I first thought (because he said so) that the only reason he was going to be baptized was "just in case" so he didn't go to Hell. Our last meeting with him revealed otherwise thankfully. What a great family.

Well I think that's all for this time. Life as a missionary is awesome! I absolutely love being a missionary. I love talking all day about the Gospel of Jesus Christ, these are the years I've been waiting for my whole life! I love it.

Elder Martin

Week 37

What an interesting/boring week.

Monday I got a haircut. Hooray! It was fun actually, there were some children from the ward over at the house, so I got to do some magic for them while Elder Jones was getting his hair cut... my magic is incredible, I must say. Elder Jones can't even figure out one of the tricks. I have two nickels, one nickel if I flip it, and they guess heads or tails, it will always be wrong, the other one will always be right. Anyway...Tuesday was awesome, I was on Splits all day with a priest in the ward, since it was spring break he was able to come, we had a great time! This ward has some great youth. Wednesday I was on splits with Elder Seiber, the District Leader, it was a good day as well. That night Elder Jones got sick, hence the boring part of the week... We had some incredible things planned for Thursday. But no, we couldn't do it. Oh well.

Sheesh, I wish there was something more to talk about. Saturday I went on Splits again with Elder Gould this time, spanish Elder, so It was not a fun day, I just sat and listened... I did get to help teach one lesson though, cause some of the kids spoke English, that was pretty fun.

I had an interesting realization yesterday in church. John 14:26 (I think that's the verse) it says that the Holy Ghost will teach us all things that we must do. It dawned on me that it did not say that the Holy Ghost will TELL us all things that we must do, but he will TEACH us... teaching is a process, if we ask for guidance, or answers to questions, he will not simply tell us what we need to know, but will show us, or teach us through experiences. It's brilliant! The Holy Ghost is AWESOME!

Sunday was an interesting day... Church was fantastic... we may have lost an investigator though, one who I've been working with since my first month on the mission. It was pretty disappointing.

Well that's all I have for the day.

Elder Martin

Week 36

Oh blast, I didn't bring pictures today from the baptism! Well, we had an awesome baptism on Saturday, Virginia Noonan. I have never taught anyone who put in so much effort. She studied the scriptures for a couple hours every day. She would ask some HARD questions! She asked about the scattering and gathering of Israel, and Mosiah 15, and about divine investiture! What kind of investigator asks about Divine Investiture! it was so awesome. She did not have a very clear knowledge of the Bible beforehand either, so she got these questions all from reading the Book of Mormon. In a month, she is through Mosiah. Well we had been prepping the ward for this baptism, we told the ward that she was worried about turnout, and that no one would come, WE MOVED THE TIME OF THE BAPTISM to accomodate people. Still, almost no one came. I was very disappointed. She bore testimony at the baptism, and it was very powerful. Her son who is not a member was there, and we will hopefully start teaching him.

Not much happened this week. A lot of meetings. We had a 7 hour meeting on Friday. I'm not a fan of meetings, but each one really is so good.

We met an awesome family last week, we were referred there, and when we got there he said "Oh hey guys, come on in" it was awesome. We're excited for it, its a full family, they have 4 boys.

Tracting has not been very common lately, and I miss it. We are going to try and do a lot of contacting this week. It's been hot here. 87 degree's last week. I'm not happy about it.

Today I get a haircut. WHOO, and more importantly, its not going to be done by Elder Kavatoe!

Well that's all for this week... not that exciting of a week.

Elder Martin

Week 35

What a crazy week! We had an awesome new investigator last sunday at church... we set up an appointment with her for Tuesday. Tuesday morning she called and said she didn't want to talk to us, and she was not going to come back to church. It was sad. But don't worry, things got worse. But before things got worse, they got much better. We had an awesome training meeting for the mission, regarding the challenge to read the Book of Mormon in 60 days, the 60 days was up, so we all went and had an opportunity to report on our key learnings and bear our testimony. I'll share with you what I shared with the mission. Early on in my reading, I was in 2nd Nephi 27, and I was tired. I was resting my head on my hand, as I read verse 4 "For behold, all ye that doeth iniquity, stay yourselves and wonder, for ye shall cry out, and cry; yea, ye shall be drunken but not with wine, ye shall stagger but not with strong drink." And after I read that, I completely fell asleep. I was out. So I wake up and I read verse 5 "For behold, the Lord hath poured out upon you the spirit of deep sleep. For behold, ye have closed your eyes and ye have rejected the prophets; and your rulers, and the seers hath he covered because of your iniquity." I woke up real quick, and I stopped REJECTING THE PROPHETS by closing my eyes, and sleeping during personal study. President Beck came and put his arm around me, and said "Elder Martin, I love you for your Honesty... I hope you learned a lesson." Everyone found it fairly amusing. President Beck gave an incredible sermon on faith, and committed us all to have more faith, and to work miracles. My faith has since increased. The spirit was very strong for the meeting.

Then we went home. Elder Kavatoe convinced us to go to this Hawaiian BBQ, so we did. I felt kinda sick after eating there, but was able to still do missionary work the rest of the night without any problems. As soon as we got home, my stomach was quite upset, so I went to bed early. I slept terribly! I couldn't sleep for more than 10 minutes at a time, and finally I woke up at 1 AM with my stomach in a great deal of pain... I got out of bed, worrying that I might throw up, I went to the bathroom, still not sure if I would throw up, as soon as I saw the toilet, I had to run to it... I was up the rest of the night. I thought it must have been that they had gotten some fish mixed in with my meat, or used the same utensils to cook them, but then Elder Jones was up throwing up as well! The verdict: We both got food poisoning. The next day was miserable, I thankfully didn't throw up again, but also I didn't eat again... I will probably not eat certain things for a few years. It was the first night I had ever stayed in from missionary work, and I dont' want to do it again. Throughout the whole thing though, I was very grateful to be having a trial to go through. I haven't had almost any trials my whole mission, so I rejoiced in being able to get so sick! Weird maybe, but still I was so glad for my afflictions, like paul I rejoiced in afflictions. The reason is cause I know it will bring me closer to God. Physical trials are easy for me. I'm not a fan of other trials though. We had to cancel a few really important appointments, that was not good.

Friday we met with a new investigator Matt. He wants proof. We gave him a few things to check out, it was a fun discussion, because the things we talked about are things I've studied quite a bit. He always says "I really hope that you can convince me to be a mormon, I really want it to be true!" No problem big guy! IT IS True! lucky for us. I think he will be a great benefit to the Kingdom of God.

Well that's all for this week my friends,

Ofa Atu,

Elder Martin