Week 55

Alright, well... hmmm... Ummm, so this is what is happening. It's transfer week. No one in the District is being transferred. Whoohooo! I'm staying here another six weeks... which I've known for the past six weeks, but its still good and I am happy.

I had a good week! I'm trying to remember the good points though. I LOVE living in my new house, or Casita (spanish for small house). This coming week I think we are going to be getting a lot done, I'm excited. We had a few hangups last week... Thursday was pretty much shot... a lot of meetings and planning, Friday we had some meetings, but they were good... got to get to know the mission President a little better, and that is always good. We went and stopped by a family we are going to start teaching... not an investigator family, just a family that is starting to come back to church... they are an awesome family, a lot of fun, very well behaved children! so that's good.

Saturday I went on splits with Zone Leaders, Elder Mendenhall, he's awesome. I am trying desperately to convince them that we need a truck in our area, so I decided I would innocently take him down the worst roads we have. He agrees we need a truck, but it still probably wont happen. So I took him down this horrible dirt road, and saw houses that I have never been to before, so we started tracting the road and we knocked on the third of four houses and talked for an hour with this couple. It was a great conversation! he kept saying "Oh I need to get going" and then he would ask another question! we ended up teaching the first lesson, which is the Restoration. Before we got to the part about Joseph Smith they asked "So who is the man that God chose to restore the gospel in our day? and when was that?" so we were led beautifully into our next point! It was so perfect, the reason we teach many of the points BEFORE Joseph Smith is so they will see the need to have a restoration in OUR day.

Have I told you about Dale? Dale is crazy, and he has done a lot of drugs I think in his day, and plenty of alchohol to go along with it. We've been trying to work with him, he's so sad, and so afraid to die. Well we went over the other day, and it turns out he has a twin brother, and it was the weirdest thing in the world! he was so normal!!! he looked exactly like him of course, but sober. So strange to see such a contrast, and to see what drugs will do to you! So many teenagers just think "Ah yeah cool cool, drugs are fun, it makes things better, makes you happy!" wow, they screw up lives, they destroy your mind, and it doesn't take much to affect you the rest of your life.

Well I can testify that the church is still most definitely the true church! God's church, and the only way we can find happiness in life. People like to find other ways, and they will always fail, ALWAYS. You cannot find lasting and real happiness unless it includes the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the TRUE Gospel of Jesus Christ, as restored through the Prophet Joseph Smith.

Elder Martin