Week 69

Well, I wish I could report a super exciting week, but I unfortunately cannot! It was good though.

 

Monday night we did another FHE activity with a family, we played four square.  It was a lot of fun.  ummm... hmmm what else happened...

 

So Isay has been interesting.  I'm worried, cause he says no matter what he is going to be baptized on November 19th.  Problem is, we wont allow it, so I assume he may end up trying to baptize himself... and that could be real interesting.  The week started out real bad with him, we went over on tuesday and he was still very upset and giving us a bunch of Book of Mormon verses that supposedly prove why he can't be disallowed from being baptized for being on probation.  We provided counter scriptures, and he said "show me one scripture where someone wasn't allowed to be baptized" So I showed him one in Acts where Peter tells a group of people to repent and be baptized, and then he tells the sanhedrin to repent and be converted, so that by the time judgement comes they might be able to be forgiven of their sins... we explained that they weren't allowed to be baptized in this life for their works against the Savior and their responsibility in his murder.  He didn't like that, he said "Well that was wrong of Peter, no one can say that... that's why there are so many churches today! ya know what, I bet that every time someone is told they can't be baptized, they just start their own church.  Maybe that's what I will do!" So we flooded him with apostasy scriptures, showing it to be a BAD Idea. 

 

We went over Saturday and he had calmed down considerably, he has a lot of questions, and still argues, but he wasn't as contentious, and is more willing to learn and listen and pray.  We're again a bit excited about him.

 

Saturday we did a service project, the stake one.  It was fun I guess... but I didn't get to wear a helping hands shirt =[.  But it was still good.

 

Thursday and Friday we stayed in all day cause Elder Geren has been sick.  But it was good, I got to learn a lot of great things.  Number 1 was a statement made by Joseph Smith, something to the effect of "Weary the Lord, until He blesses you." That is my new theme.  There are righteous things that I desire, I want people to teach, I want more faith, so on, and thus I will ask until I receive, there is a parable about it as well in the bible.  The Lord WANTS to bless us, but according to the Bible Dictionary, the highest of blessings are conditional upon our asking for them!

 

I love that all prayers are answered.  I love that everything that we teach in this church are TRUE.  One investigator we have... or rather a recent convert who is less active, told us of an article she read by an LDS guy about how you dont' have to be fully engaged in the church, about how there isn't just black and white, about how you can stay on middle ground, still live how you want and go to church and pick what you want to believe.  AH! It was horrible, who would write such an awful article! I hate the philosophies of certain LDS members of the church, they go against the Apostles, they want to keep a summer cottage in Babylon! The Savior himself said that we are either hot or cold, and if we are lukewarm, he will spew us out of his mouth! sounds like a poor way to live.  I wish everyone would just be obedient to the commandments of God, life is SO MUCH BETTER! that's my rant for the day.  Don't be stupid, just do whats right.

 

Elder Martin

Week 68

Dear the People,

 

What an interesting week.

 

Item number 1.  Transfers.  No changes for me, except that in our zone we lost one missionary, Elder Nelson, the greatest missionary ever, I was real sad to see him go.  The meeting was fun as always, it was good to see some old friends, and my old Zone Leader, Elder Henrie is the new Assistant to the President. 

 

After transfer meeting I had an appointment with a podiatrist, I think that's how its spelled, a foot doctor.  My feet had been killing me for a couple of months, and I finally decided to see what was wrong.  My left foot has nerve damage, and my right foot has plantar fasciitis, but not at the heal, instead at the ball of the foot.  So, in order to fix this they used what seems to be their 'fix-all' and shot cortisone into my feet... first my left foot they took the 2 inch needle (literally! it was -------------------------- <-- that long!) and put some under my skin, real shallow, didn't hurt too bad... but I did get slightly worried as I watched my foot turn super pale white and look like death! Then he got another needle for my right foot, and he said "okay, this is going to hurt." Holy cow he wasn't lying!!! he went in from the side of my foot and shoved the needle all the way into my foot which caused an involuntary jerk as he brushed past nerves and things... that's what he said anyway "I know this hurts, the needle is touching nerves." It was surprising how much it hurt... it wasn't horrible, but worse than I would have ever expected.  I'm supposed to go in 3 weeks again for the same thing, I'm going to take my camera and video the whole thing.  My foot was numb the rest of the day, that was fun, I could finally walk again! then that night the numbness wore off and my left foot was in constant pain! I didn't think I would sleep, but I did, and I woke up with no pain in my foot for the first time in MONTHS! that next night it was my RIGHT foot that was in pain, and I woke up the next morning with no pain at all! the pain has tapered off now, its very minimal, but still obviously healing.  I'm so excited to not have so much pain in my feet, its such a weird feeling to be able to walk!

 

It's been a really tough weekend! we went from having a lot to do, to nothing.  We had two with a baptismal date a couple days ago, and now one of them moved unexpectedly to new hampshire, and the other one doesn't really like us right now.  I've been doing a lot of praying and fasting.  I don't know how things will turn out... but I know that God is in charge, and everything will be okay if I simply will put my trust in him.  If this wasn't true, missionary work would be real tough! thankfully the Gospel is real, its a fact, and we can all know for ourselves with just a little bit of effort on our part. 

 

Elder Martin

Pictures

Transfers came. I haven't heard where
 Elder Martin is, if he'll be staying or going, but President's blog had some pictures. Guess what? Once again, Elder Martin is caught with food. :)

This is he and his companion from a different day and mission pres. blog post.

Week 67

It's been a good week.

We have two investigators we're really working a lot with, one is Isay and the other is Richard. Isay we meet with probably every day! He is crazy and awesome. He's changed so much since we have met him! He talks SO much! he finally came to church on sunday and he absolutely loved it! We helped him change a tire yesterday.

Thursday and Friday we helped some lady move... we were tracting and asked if we could help with anything, and she asked if we cld help move, so we gave her our number and about 3 weeks later (this week) she called and asked for our help! it was unexpected. She really appreciated it, the second day we helped, there was a crazy lady there who was trying to direct everything, she made the truck get packed real poorly, so I went in and helped out, and would try to diplomatically change things positions... "Well that's a great place... what about over here though?"

Saturday we had dinner with Isay, when we first got there, he opened his fridge and there was this big bottle of expensive wine in there, and he said "Oh wow, I had no idea that this was here, how awesome!" So we said "Yeah, you should probably just give that to us, we'll take care of it." and he said "Oh no way, I'm not mormon yet! I'm drinking this thing." So we argued with him a bit, trying to convince him of the importance of giving it up. He said he wasn't there yet, but would be one day. So he cooks us food, and it was a bit scary... the whole thing was on fire a few times, and it got real smokey in the house so we left for a bit. Well we ate dinner, and then watched the restoration movie, and he loved it! He said "That's what I want, I want to show the evidence of my faith!" and later on talked about wanting to give up everything for God... so I said "Soo... now that you want to show the evidence of your faith... are you ready to give us that bottle of wine?" he said "Absolutely!" it was awesome, so he gave it to us, Elder Geren said "I'm not allowed to touch it, I'm not 21 yet." Sometimes I feel so old! So I put it in my backpack, and we went to the church and we dumped it down the drain! it felt good, but man it smelled real bad! I can't imagine anyone ever thinking to put that inside their mouth... gross.

Monday was great! we had a small exchange... one of the District Leaders in our area... actually he's my district leader, asked me to come with him to an appointment, cause he was worried that the guy was super anti, so I lovingly obliged (I often enjoy these discussions with anti mormons...) so we went and he also brought a friend with him, we did it at the church. There was Jory and Mack. Jory was real smart, and said he had some kind of Diodemic, or diadetic or something memory... in other words he supposedly had a fantastic memory and could memorize 10 pages of scripture in a month. He did have a fairly good memory and knew a lot of scriptures, but was still dumb as a rock! The conversation was civil, but they were definitely anti, Jory started the conversation in a way to try and outline OUR ignorance, by using obscure historical references and saying things like "You know about him right?" "Well surely you know the story of..." He changed that tactic pretty quick though. Long story short, we left thinking they were stupid, they left wondering, and realizing we weren't as stupid as they thought. Sometimes I was a little too... Brazen, we'll say. I told him that I thought the Nicene creed was repulsive. It was a good time though, I haven't been able to have a conversation with someone who actually knew some scriptures in a long time! It was fun.

Well that's all for today, hope you have a great week.

Elder Martin

Week 66

Alright... well its time to write for the blog, and thus I will.

My name is Elder Martin, I am a missionary, I'm serving in Cottonwood Arizona, and I am a Mormon!

So they are doing a huge media campaign here, and its awesome! we hear people talking about the I'm a Mormon commercials ALL THE TIME! some love them, and some hate them... but they just hate them cause they already hated us. We had some missionaries in our zone who got yelled at out of a window "Oh yeah, WELL IMNOT A MORMON!" ha... most people say "I love your commercials!" they are really well done, check out mormon.org if you haven't seen them. Also, if you dont' have a profile, I might encourage all who read this to log onto Mormon.org and get a profile! the leaders of the church has asked everyone to do this, so do it.

It's been a good week. We've been teaching Isay, coolest guy ever! former rastifarian, he's crazy. He has 5 big dogs... I've been taking allergy medicine all week. Isay loves the gospel, he thinks its mystical though... so we need to help him change that. He's obsessed with the Urim and Thummim, and he says that's what is holding him right now. I asked him the other day "Do you believe the Book of Mormon is the word of God?" he says he can't stop thinking about that question, and that he has talked to a lot of his friends about the question I asked. He set his own baptismal date, he said "I don't know why, but I really think that I should be baptized on November 19th!" we're just fine with that! He showed us this video from the history channel, it was so crazy! it was about how Moroni appeared to Joseph Smith, but that Moroni was actually an alien. I told him the truth is so much cooler.

Saturday was fun. We got yelled at SO much! we often get yelled at, but usually at most once or twice a day. It was fun.

Good times... Well that's all I have. The Gospel is true. Trust me, I know.

Elder Martin

Week 65

Dear people who read this blog,

I love conference. It is better than Christmas! I am so sad its over, but so glad it happened and now I get to look back on it and start applying all of my insights and key learnings from the wonderful counsel. I sure do get overwhelmed sometimes with how not good I'm doing whenever I watch conference... but I loved the talk by the only "Brother" who spoke... can't remember his name, and about taking one step at a time, and looking at how far you've come instead of how far you have to go! how inspired and inspiring! I loved the talks, Elder Christofferson gave one of the best I think! very inspiring.

I wish I had some great stories to write about! But seriously almost nothing happened this week! just a lot of tracting, and a lot of sore feet! So hopefully it will bring many blessings THIS week.

We did get a new investigator, he has been investigating for a while, but he moved from Sedona to Cottonwood, so we now get to teach him, he is awesome! super excited and very friendly, I'm really excited to teach him.

I love being up here in Cottonwood, its so beautiful and the weather is currently great! We got SOAKED the other day though, it was crazy. It wasn't so bad though, cause as soon as the rain started coming down real hard, this lady randomly stopped and gave us two umbrellas she happened to pick up at a yard sale!! The Lord sure does work in mysterious ways... she wasn't a member.

Well that's all for this week... I'll hope to have more next week.

Elder Martin