Week 90

Dear World, (Or more appropriately, Dear the 2 people who read this),

So there we were, Elder Davenport and I, sitting in our truck in a very remote area making phone calls.  We chose this location due to the fact that no one would drive by wondering what the heck we were doing.  A grey sedan randomly pulls in and drops off two hispanic girls, probably around 15 or 16 years old.  The car then leaves and the girls sit down on the curb.  We were quite confused, we paused for a moment and watched through our mirrors.  They just sat there for 5-7 minutes, and the grey car comes back, the exact same one and picks the girls up, it starts pulling away and then stops, and doesn't move for 5 minutes! I was starting to get worried that we were about to get shot.  The girls again get out and the car leaves! What the? so the girls sit down again for about 2 minutes, and then they get up and walk up the street and go down another road, and as they are walking they both start walking and spinning in unison with their arms outstretched.  They walk to a small field and stay there for 5-10 minutes at which point the grey car picks them up again and they leave.  It was very odd.  We left shortly thereafter, not going to lie, we had finished our phone calls and just waited for a while to see what would happen.  As we left, we passed a "Guidance Clinic" which had some apartment attachments, I looked up at the windows of the apartments as I was turning and was quite frightened as their was a tall lady standing in the window staring at us! It gave me the chills.  Scary movies never scared me... but things like that freak me out.  It was an interesting experience.

It was a really good week! I went on exchanges a couple of times with some missionaries, and had a good time.  Oh, also I got new glasses, they're pretty awesome I think, and most importantly scratch free! My other ones were so scratched I had to tilt them to look at people sometimes.  It was frustrating.  We started teaching a new family... by family I mean a father and son, the father is a less active member returning to activity, and the son is a non-member who is going to be baptized.  We set a date for baptism that first meeting for April 14th. 

We were asked by a part member family this week to dig a trench for them.  I always love doing service because its something different, and its always good to work with your hands.  This I was unprepared for.  Arizona dirt is more like Cement.  At first we were given a hoe and a shovel, quite disappointing.  Later the husband came home and knew where some pick-axes were, so that helped considerably.  It went mostly okay, except when I would find a giant rock with the pick axe, which was quite often.  My hands still hurt.  We didn't finish the first day, so I went back with another Elder on exchanges and finished.  The second day was worse than the first! but it was kinda enjoyable.

Well, I think that's all for this week.  Hope you all have a wonderful week.

Elder Martin

Week 89

What a week...

 

It started off slow.  I started preparing for a talent show that took place on Saturday.  Monday I went to try and get some background music for a song I was going to sing (I'll explain more later) but was unable to.  Ah, being a missionary sometimes is a handicap, if I could just have had the computer control, I would have been able to get it done that day.  No luck.    Tuesday I went to a different member to try and get it, he got the music for me, so we listened to it in the car on our way home, and it SKIPPED A VERSE! I felt like an idiot, we've tried 3 times to this point, so we call him and tell him its the wrong one, we go back and get the right one.  So, time to practice.  Hard to do as a missionary, cause we have so many other things to do.  I enlisted the help of one 'Elder Morton' from Meridian Idaho, who would be singing some parts of it, we practiced once on Wednesday, again on thursday during our Dinner hour, and then on Friday we had a sound check.  We did the sound check and it went awful! we didn't know what we were doing, so we went and practiced it 3 times and nearly perfected it.  Tried again with the microphones, and it was good! we were excited.  Satruday comes around and we get all of our investigators invited, and all the less active members, hoping that they would care enough to come and support me, secretly also wanting them to just come to a church event! no one showed up!!! It was a stake talent show, so quite a few other people showed up.  I will be sending Melanie some video soon so she can post what occurred.  It was well received, everyone seemed to really enjoy it.  It was a parody of Bohemian Rhapsody, a missionary parody.  It was a lot of fun! had a few mistakes... Elder Morton had 2 lines, both of which he messed up, but he still did really awesome.  I at one point accidentally turned off the Mic.  But it was fun.  Sunday in Sacrament meeting, a high councilor spoke, and for 5 minutes he talked about my song! it was a little bit awkward. 

 

So the weather has been crazy up here lately! Thursday, it was 70+ degrees! it was awesome! Saturday got really windy, Sunday we woke up to snow! and Today even MORE snow! Sedona was hit with a full foot of snow.  Worst part about it is that we live in a terrible apartment! its really not that bad, but the roof does leak, and its right over my BED! thankfully I was able to move it so it just misses me by about a half an inch. 

 

Hmmm, what else happened this week? It was Elder Davenport's Birthday.  On Sunday I stood up in Priesthood Meeting and said "Tomorrow is Elder Davenports Birthday, and he will be accepting Gifts Cards, as well as Cake, or anything that his companion can benefit from".  He got nothing.  I hope I didn't jinx it for him.

 

So we were tracting on Friday, and we walked by this house with a bunch of kids outside, and one just walked out, and we saw the family inside, the mom yells to her kid "And Don't talk to those weirdo's in ties!" ha... thanks lady.  Is it strange that I quite enjoy those situations and stories? they always make me laugh.  We were the weirdo's???? It was 4 in the afternoon and she was still in her PJ's, but whatever.

 

Welll.... I think that is about all for this week.

 

Love,

 

Elder Martin

Week 88

Welp... My week out of hades is COMPLETE!!!! [insert hallelujah chorus here]

 

but seriously, that was one of the longest weeks of my life!!! but so good!

 

Tuesday: Nothing happened

 

Wednesday: Zone Leader Council; longest meeting in the world.  7 hours, normally the meeting I hate most in life, but this time was incredible! we had tracy watson, the head of proselyting in the church come, as well as Lane Steinagal who is the manager of ... something... teaching? at the MTC yes, manager of the teaching department at the MTC, both have been mission presidents.  We spoke for a long time regarding the Doctrine of Christ; Faith, Repentance, Baptism, Holy Ghost, Enduring to the End.  It was wonderful... for a while I had been frustrated that so many of the meetings I go to haven't been about the gospel, but have been about techniques for missionary work, so this was incredibly refreshing.  I was surprised when the meeting ended.  After that we stayed in phoenix and split with some other missionaries, I went with an Elder Cannon, who I knew really well in my last area, I was very excited and we had a blast!

 

I also had another appointment with a foot doctor on Wednesday.  It hurt.  It was very strange actually, when he pulled the needle out of my foot, I felt a wave of intense cold sweep through my foot, it kinda scared me, so I asked about it, he said "Oops, I guess I got to close to the nerve." sweet.

 

Thursday: Leadership Meeting; 7 hours long.  Almost an exact repeat of the previous day.  We practiced a new contacting method, which I'm excited for, and Tracy Watson called me out of the group to help him demonstrate... I didn't have to do anything but stand thankfully, but I definitely stood up there awkwardly with him for about 15 minutes.  He's the man.

 

Friday: Zone Meeting; 3 hours long.  We spent most of our spare time after leadership meeting trying to change the zone meeting to fit what we had just learned, and then everything we planned for just went out the window anyway.  It was Elder Davenports last Zone Meeting, so he gave his departing testimony.  That's always crazy.

 

Friday-Saturday; Splits with the Assistants; 27 hours long.  All was well, we tried to sneak transfer news out of him, but we were unsuccessful.

 

Through it all, we found 2 people who are going to be baptized, it was very exciting, Martha and Vanessa, and we have an appointment tonight with someone who will most likely be baptized as well.  We are going to soon have success here!  What a good week.

 

Elder Martin

Week 87

It's been a trying week! But a lot of fun!

Most of the week was spent moving.  We moved out of the Phelps home, and into an apartment with the Spanish Elders in the Zone.  We were told we could move in on wednesday a little bit early, so we packed on Tuesday and got everything ready, wednesday came, we went to get the keys, and the news changed.  We weren't allowed to move in until THURSDAY! So we went home and unpacked the things we needed, whined for a few minutes, and then went to some appointments.  Which all happened to cancel.  Wednesday started out real good though, we had a good district meeting, and then we went to pepe's cafe for a district lunch.  Oh... back up for a minute.  So my good friend Elder Nelson has moved to prescott (By the way, did anyone know that Brother Decker is now Bishop Decker?) we still talk often, and he's probably my favorite missionary of all times, so his mom came to visit this week! not him, just his recent converts and things, so Monday night we had dinner with her, it was a lot of fun.  Tuesday we saw her as well, and the connolly's who the other missionaries stay with.  Wednesday at pepe's Sister Nelson and the Connolly's show up! it was funny, but awesome cause they paid for all of us! I was then hailed as a hero as it was my inspired suggestion to eat there that day. 

Thursday we actually got to move.  Friday we were informed we couldn't use our shower until Monday! WHAT? how frustrating, I guess every time we took a shower, it would leak to our downstairs neighbors...whiners... So this weekend wasn't very fun, but oh well.

We have a less active member we are working with who called us one night in near tears, he asked if we could hurry to his house and give him a blessing, so we rushed over.  He has been having a lot of headaches lately that have lasted for about a week.  In the past he fell off a 50 foot cliff and lived, he fell off a moving vehicle and lived, each time it caused some brain trauma, but no damage.  So the Dr. told him he is in danger of an aneurism and he didn't much like that news.  He was frantic in fact, we thought it would be a good wake up call for him.  2 days later we went over and he was drunk.  Dang it.

I swear I had so much more to say! but I can't remember.  I need to write things down more I guess.

Elder Martin

Week 86

Editorial: This was supposed to be published last week, but I guess I didn't do it. Sorry!

It's time to report on my week.  This time I have my planner on hand, so I should be able to recall a few more stories.

To start, transfer week was fun! I always love the transfer meeting.  It's fun to see where everyone is going, and who the new companionships are.  This was an interesting one.  So how transfers work is; on tuesday morning we receive the news of who in the Zone is being transferred.  That's all we know, is that they need to pack.  They don't know who their next companion is, or where they are going to go... that is all found out at the transfer meeting.  At the transfer meeting, the new missionaries are introduced and then the new companionships are announced, they will go Zone by Zone, and say "In the Cottonwood Zone, serving in the Mingus area, Elder Martin will continue serving there with his new companion Elder Davenport" and that is when you find everything out if you are being transferred.  So this time, they said "In the Prescott Zone, in the something area (can't remember) Elder Keele will be serving with Elder Hohman".  Following some confusion, President Taylor then said "You didn't know you were being transferred did you?" to which the missionaries said "No." "Well that's because we just made that change, here's the plan, you will go home for 2 days and pack and then head up to prescott.  Ha, it was crazy.  Transfer week is stressful, until you get the news, and think  "Oh good, I don't have to pack, I'm staying here for another 6 weeks." But no one is safe any longer, its funny.

After transfers I had a Dr. Appointment for my feet which are still hurting tremendously, and have been for the past 8 months.  I got a shot of cortisone in each foot, which is supposed to take away the pain within 48 hours... first time I did it, it was miraculous and I couldn't feel any pain for 3 weeks.  Well its been almost a week and there is no change, if anything I feel like my feet are now angry at me, they hurt even more.  I don't go back to phoenix until middle of next week, so hopefully I can resolve it then.

Thursday we visited an investigator named Rona who is awesome.  She just doesn't think we have anything that she needs.  She practically lives the gospel, she obeys all the commandments, I suppose with the exception of being baptized and partaking of the sacrament.  So we teach her about the Restoration, and she says its all good and stuff, but she still doesn't see how it will change her life, or why she would need to be a part of it.  So we went into bold mode a little bit.  She has heard a lot about the gospel from previous friends, we asked if she had heard of the degrees of glory, which she had, which her friend once told her "You are solidly in kingdom two right now".  We talked about how without the gospel, you can still be saved in the Kingdom of Heaven, with consideration to the Terrestrial or Telestial Glories.  But to be able to live with your family for Eternity, as well as live forever in the presence of God, you must be baptized as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and receive the blessings and ordinances that are only found in the Temples.  She said "Okay, I guess I have a few things to think about and pray about." Good!!! Before she saw no need to even search, and now she see's the need.  If she prays about the Book of Mormon, then the problem will be solved.  How nice that that solves all problems.  The Book of Mormon, the ultimate Panacea.

Saturday and Sunday was stake conference.  I loved every minute of stake conference! the talks were incredible.  I literally had a front row seat, which helps a ton! It was the perfect setting for investigators.  What a shame none of ours showed up.

Well, that's all for this day, I will talk to you the next time I write.

Elder Martin