Week 85

Well, its transfer time.

Great news, I am STAYING HERE! and so is Elder Davenport, so I will be his last companion, and I will most likely end my mission in Cottonwood, which means that I will have spent my entire mission in just TWO AREAS! I was in my first area for 14 months, and my second area for 10! most people don't stay even 10 months in one area, most people think 6 is a long time.  I love my mission, I love the places I have served, and am so excited to be here in Cottonwood still.  We have the best area in the mission, we have beautiful Sedona, and Mingus mountain, we have the Verde River... okay that's nothing to brag about, its called the Dirty Verde, its a gross river.  But we have the best missionaries in the mission, and an incredible Stake President.  All is well, but will be better.

So its been a crazy week, once again I forgot my planner, so I will have to try and remember everything.

I have had some incredible studies this past week, and have learned a lot! I love the gospel! I love the scriptures!!! God has hidden so many little treasures throughout the standard works, and you can't find them unless you search, I can't wait to find more.

Some missionaries in my district kept telling me about a guy named Bob.  They said "Elder Martin, you have to come with us! we can't answer his questions, you can convert him." Obviously not true, but he had questions that I had answers to, mostly regarding the apostasy, so I said I would love to go.  Well, it turns out Bob is a 19 year old Sophist who thinks he's the man, and also he's a Taoist.  Which was a recent change, he has been a lot of religions I guess.  So we go over there, and apparently the missionaries kept saying that I would answer all his questions, so he already had an expectation that was not going to be easy to meet.  He was an idiot! The discussion went over an hour, and I was getting fed up with it, cause it was just ridiculous, not once did he have a question regarding the scriptures, he was all about energy and how God is just energy, he was also big into reincarnation.  This may have actually been my first "Bash".  I've gotten in arguments before, but I straight out told him "Reincarnation is false." He didn't like that, to which I said "Truth is what it is, and it doesn't care if you like it or not." He talked about how he was confronted by a demon, and he said "Tao protect me" and he saw a big hand come out and snatch the demon away, and how tao is very powerful.  I told him that the power of God far outweighs the power of any other force or false god.  He also didn't much like that.  He didn't like that God wasn't a piece of energy, and that we say He has a body of flesh and bones, he says that is way beneath God.  We entertained him for the first 45 minutes, and we were tactful... after that the gloves came off, the last 15 minutes I think were absolutely brilliant... there were actually 4 missionaries there, and we all bore testimony of the truth of what WE were teaching, and told him there is no other way nor name given.  It was honestly fun, but frustrating. 

I am so glad there are normal people here too! We had a wonderful baptism of Deanna on Saturday.  It's been a lot of hard work here, and finally there was a pay off.  It was so wonderful to see her baptized, and then confirmed the next day.  Elder Davenport baptized her, and I confirmed.  When those things happen, it outweighs all the hardships and the long days! As always, the water was almost scalding when we filled the font, and almost freezing when she entered the font.  I find it amusing. 

I wish I had more time, but again I am running short on it.

Elder Martin