Week 68

Yup... the nativity festival thing was postponed due to "Severe weather"...  which was rain during friday and friday alone....  so they cancled the whole weekend and moved to this week instead, after we invited all those people.  That was pretty lame.  

People here are funny, at just the threat of snow or icy conditions they cancel school.  so friday there was no school... Haha.  Also if there are threats of snow everybody in town goes and buys all the milk and bread out of all the stores...  I think it's hilarious.

We had exchanges this week, i went with Elder Boyce in his area.  We for the first time of my mission had a successful time tracting!  Someone actually invited us in to hear our message.  It totally caught us off guard.  Never before has that happened for me.  And then later that hour we found 5 bucks on the road!  it was the holy grail of streets to tract. 

We taught seminary twice in the past week, it was good and all, but waking up at 4 to get ready and drive there is no bueno.  

The Christmas Devotional was Great!  i love to hear from the Brethren.   And motab was pretty good too.  

Okay, now i have a funny story that is pretty long so bear with it... Its funny

So one of our neighbors / members just had a baby on wednesday...  But they texted us like through the whole thing almost... Not the actual birth but like their stay at the hospital.   So we get a text Wed. Morning at like 4:30

"Arrived @ gateway Hospital!"

Wakes me up, i'm mad, don't respond...

Then at 12:27  ( and this whole story is literally straight out of the phone...)

"Oxytocin is at 8 milliunit/min.  Contractions steady"

(.... Thanks bro ramsey...) Still don't reply

5:29 PM

"Catrina's OB broke the water.  No baby yet"

Still have no idea why he's texting us all this.

11:10 PM  Wakes us up again...

"Melody Irene ramsey was born @ 10:30 pm. 6 lbs 11 oz 20 1/2 inches long"

?!?!? WHAT?  They gave birth to a toddler?!?! That's freaking bigger then yoda! and at 6 lbs only? man, is it just like one super long finger or something?

1:45 AM!!!

"Moving from rm 3204 to 3308."

.........  Are you freaking kidding me?  Why would you text us at nearly 2 in the morning that your changing rooms...

They wanted us to come over and see it on sunday afternoon, so we did.  Man, i was curious to see this toddler infant.  So we get there and he says the same thing, that she's 20 inches long and 6 lbs...  oh man, i wonder if that's really what he thinks.  But nah, she's like 20 cm's long

And thats the story.

Love Ya'll

-Elder Martin 

Week 67

Welp, this week was pretty great.  Thanksgiving was great.  I'm so thankful to be on my mission and to be in this ward!

So this week started off with a good p-day, we played two on two volley ball, Me and Elder Alvarez, against our companions.  They both think they are just the most athletic people out there so they were talking a big game, well needless to say we smoked them.  so after two games of getting walloped they got frustrated and said they wanted to play basketball instead.  Well everyone here knows i am terribad at Basketball and elder Alvarez isn't to great at it either, so they expected an easy win.  First to 7 wins.  Well long story a little bit shorter, we won.  Ha...  humbled them real good.

Anywho, so Tuesday we had Interviews, so those are always really good.  Good trainings too.

Then after dinner we saw Bro. Hooper, one of the LA's.  He's a lonely old man who's really nice.  So we went over and had a normal visit with him, but at the end we found out he didn't have any plans for thanksgiving and the holidays in general.  So we went over Thanksgiving night and had another really good visit with him.  

Thanksgiving was really good though, we had 2 dinners.  One at the Kleins, and one at a Less active's house,  The Browns.  So at the browns they had like 20 of the kids and grandkids and stuff, all of whom i don't think are members.  So thats a promising sign that Bro Brown would invite us over with all his kids and stuff.  I think he's about ready to come back.

Saturday we did our ward Turkey bowl, which was fun.  The warmest turkey bowl i've ever encountered...  Then later we had another thanksgiving Dinner with the Isoms, they are a really cool family.  So get this,  Their daughter auditioned for the new starwars movie...  Even if she doesn't get in i think that'd be pretty sweet.  

Then after that dinner we went back to Shelbyville!!!  Awwwhh yeah, back to the place of my birth.  For the Baptism's of Barbara and Fannie.  So that was prettty sweet. 

But, this email is too long and boring so i'll cut it off here.

Love Ya'll!

-Elder Martin

Week 66

The weather is already in winter mode...  I should snow tomorrow.  :(

 

But last week was really good, not so much work wise...  and we were both pretty sick last week.  So i'm not sure why i enjoyed last week so much. 

 

We did play some halfway decent volleyball!  and were going to again today!  So that's fantastic!

 

There is an inactive family here, the Slaughters, and we heard they were in the hospital and wanted their home teacher to come see them, so Bro. Richards called us and asked if we could go with him, and of course we did.  Well the Slaughters are a really cool older couple who we hadn't ever met before, and they apparently really like the missionaries!  So we are going to start going over there pretty regularly as they have also expressed interest in coming back to church.  He might even be Santa in our ward Christmas party!

 

So this ward here puts on a Christmas Nativity festival every year for the community at our church, so we are going to be part of a live nativity for 3 days.  We are going to be some of the wise men.  And we also are in the choir so we will be singing at it.

 

But apparently they get a Ton of visitors to come to see all the dozens of nativity sets we'll have on display and stuff,  So we might be able to get several investigators from this!  Fingers crossed.

 

In other news!  Barbara and Fannie from Shelbyville who Elder Bethers and I started teaching are getting baptized this saturday!  and Elder Peterson just came from shelbyville and so he taught them as well, So we are both going down for it!  Awwhh yeah!

 

Hmmm... i know i was going to say something else, but i cant for the life of me remember...  Oh well.

 

Love Ya'll!

-Elder Martin

Week 65

So this week started off Super cold...  like low 30's and upper 20's, but the past few days has been back in the 70s... So were all good :D

Anywho, our referral we got last week also dropped us...  So that was lame, she seemed like she was going to be really good too.

So back to 0 investigators we decided we needed some investigators so we went a tracting...  And tracting, and some more tracting...  And nothing...  That's one bad thing about our area, its the richer part of Clarksville, so people are alot less willing to listen.  Silly rich people.  

Bro. Vardy came to church again yesterday, so that was awesome!  he seems to be doing really good.  

We also met another inactive family this week who were really nice, so we'll see what happens with them. 

Oh, so in other news we have 2 thanksgiving dinner's set up for now, and one's with a LA so we cant cancel that one for sure...  So pray for my belly.  i don't like having two dinner appointments. :( 

But, That's all i got for now.

Love Ya'll

-Elder Martin

Week 64

Okay... So week one with my new comp was pretty good, we saw a Ton of Less actives!  One even came to church which was pretty sweet!  Especially for which LA it was.

Anywho, a little about my companion.  I will sing you guys a song about him

Ahem 

'In West Philadelphia, born and raised

On the playground is where spent most of his days,"

and that's about it...  He's from West Philly, total goob kinda guy and he's only been out for 5 months now!  

In other news, you guys will never guess what i found out a couple of days ago!  Do ya'll know our cousin Shantel? Well apparently she lives in Clarksville...  At Fort Campbell.  Crazy huh?  So yeah, she's in my stake right now.

As far as missionary work goes, we got a referral from a member back in Dickson this past week, and this lady seems great, so we're gonna start teaching her soon! so that'll be good. 

But like i said earlier this week has mostly been Less Actives like usual.

Welp, i guess that's all for now folks!

Love Ya'll!

-Elder Martin

Week 63

Yup, transfers is here once again.  And in the Clarksville 5th ward i am staying and Elder Ellerbeck is leaving...  Another one transfer companion...  Which is kinda lame, i was hoping for at least one more with him.  

But i'm getting a guy named Elder Petersen (or peterson)...  Don't know much about him, he's newer.  Only been out for about 6 months or less.  But he was trained in Shelbyville!!!  So he's gotta be good.

Caleb is also going to get his trainer and area this transfer, so that'll be cool to at least see where he goes.

We had a really good stake conference yesterday!  Elder Pino of the 70 was there to reorganize the stake presidency.   It was pretty loud where we were sitting with all the kids in the back though so i missed alot. ;(

Well i don't have much time today.. Elder Ellerbeck still has to pack and stuff... so i guess that'll do it for today.

Love Ya'll

-Elder Martin

Week 62

Hahaha....  fall reference.

Anyways, We have spent alot of time (and miles) with Caleb this past week trying to get him prepared for a mission as best as we can.  It's a new experience, but it's been pretty rewarding as well.  You learn ALOT about PMG and missionary work in general when you are trying to teach somebody how to be a missionary.  

There has been several members who have allowed us to bring Caleb over to their house and let him teach them as he would an investigator... So essentially roleplaying.  

I think it's great for the members though, to hear the lesson's like this...  It helps them feel the spirit of missionary work and then in turn want to go and do missionary work.  So from that the ward is getting more excited about missionary work.... Its awesome.

But uhh...  yeah, this week has been spent mostly with caleb trying to get him ready, teaching members and seeing less actives with him...  

Oh!  John Ogren, our recent Convert here just got the Aaronic Priesthood yesterday!  That was great.  He's going to be a kingdom builder for sure.

Well, umm, i guess that's it for this week.. Sorry for the lame small letter.

Love Ya'll

-Elder Martin

Week 61

Yes Indeed!  The leaves are changing and falling all over, Tennessee is Beautiful right now, best time of the year for sure out here.

First a story about what we've been doing pretty much all week... Referral's.

So we get a lot of referrals from festivals and stuff right? well these one missionaries did one(festival) and sent us a referral for a 6 year old kid!!!!! But we didn't know till we got to his house, so we ask for Bryant and the dude who answered said that it was his son (the dude who answered was probably like 30 or so) so one thing led to another and he told us that this kid was only 6.   The funny thing is i know the missionaries who made this kid fill out a questionnaire...  Silly sister missionaries.

But other then that, just about nobody answered there door this week...  Everyone was gone for Fall break i'm guessing, even our ward had hardly anyone at church the past 2 weeks.  But the break is over!  So this week should be really good.

There is also a kid in our ward (Caleb) who has Aspergers and really wanted to go on a mission, so he got interviewed by some people and they decided to let him do a trial mission thing for 12 weeks to see if he can do a full 2 year mission.  He is going to do his trail thing in the Tennessee Nashville Mission, and he's not going to the MTC and he start's at the beginning of this next transfer which is November 4th.  

So we have been asked to kind of be his MTC experience to help him know what he need's to know to be a successful missionary.  So we also will be focusing alot on that, taking him to lesson's, helping him study PMG and other stuff...  So we are basically MTC teachers!  Call me Brother Martin!!! 

That's about it for now though!

Love Ya'll!  

-Elder Martin

Week 60

Yes indeed! Fall is here in all its splendor, in all of it's glory...   The weather this week was so good, mid to upper 70's during the day and mid to low 60's at night.  So just about perfect.  Which is great because we did alot of service this week, alot of wood cutting and stacking, lawn mowing and other odd jobs.

We had Dinner with the Beck's last night, and like two other times during the week. Sister Beck is a Jamaican who cooks alot of roadkill...  yeah, if we ever eat red meat, its roadkill deer...  But last night it was some curry chicken.  John Ogren came with us last night (He being the guy who was just baptized) and we had a really good visit with him there, he plans on going on a mission next year so that's pretty sweet.  He's almost 20 right now.

In other news, i don't know if any of you guys remember me talking about the Newstead Family back in Shelbyville, well they were a family who were super golden and got baptized near the same time that Thomas Jones did, but the Spanish elder's were the ones who were teaching them...  We still saw them sometimes though.  Anyways i just heard that they are going to the temple to be sealed as a family in a couple of weeks!  That was some pretty sweet news, i really like that family.

Well, that's mostly it, so i guess i'll talk to ya'll next week!

Love Ya'll!

-Elder Martin

Week 59

Fall is here! the best time of the year ( at least in Tennessee)!  The leaves are changing and falling, the weather is pretty darn good and it just smell's better!

General Conference was Awesome!  Much good things were learned and many more will be learned when we go back and study the talks for the next 6 months in our daily studies!

John, our recent convert here, came for all 3 sessions on Saturday and enjoyed them a lot, he couldn't come for the Sunday sessions though...  He's doing really good.

This week was kinda slow,  We did have a Lot of lessons with inactives though, so that was good.

Did i mention that i really like our Bishop here?  Well i like him even more now, he's just the best :)

You wouldn't believe how many people don't come here because they've been offended years and years ago... its ridiculous.

Elder Ellerbeck and i are still doing good.  We get Fed Every Night! which is fantastic, great ward in that regard.

Anywho, i don't remember what else i wanted to say...  So i guess that'll do it

Love Ya'll!

-Elder Martin 

Week 58

Woot Woot! Gen-con in a week!  It's gonna be Great!  Big announcements are coming i bet... 

Anyways,  Clarksville is pretty Great!  the ward i'm in is Awesome especially the Bishop.  

Elder Ellerbeck is pretty good so far, we have a lot in common which is good but also bad i guess, we don't have as much variety for our investigators if you know what i mean.

We had a baptism on Saturday here, the guy who got Baptized is Awesome, he's 19.  He only met the missionaries like 3 weeks ago.  He bore his testimony on Sunday and makes good comments in Gospel Principles...  Its pretty sweet.

There are alot of people in the military in Clarksville as we have Fort Campbell...  So that's pretty neat i guess.

But uhh, not much else to talk about, that i can remember anyways...  So sorry for the puny Cameron sized letter.

Love Ya'll!

-Elder Martin

Week 57

Well Hello there!

So this week was pretty good, we had a lot of good lesson's which doesn't happen a lot... well lesson's in general don't happen a lot that is.  

We found a less active who actually lived pretty close to the church the other day and we read from the book of mormon with him.  I don't know how he's less active.  He has a better testimony then some active members.  His scriptures were all marked up, he's read the whole Jesus the Christ book, and just is really pretty smart in the gospel.  And then he came to church on sunday!! So that was pretty sweet.  All he needed was 1 person to come visit him.

But now to the subject of the email.  Transfers.

There's been a pattern throughout my mission so far, a couple of patterns actually.

1st pattern:  I stayed in my first area for 4 transfers, I stayed in my second area for 3 transfers, i stayed in my third area for 2 transfers...  So i told Elder Lofthouse that i was going to stay for only one transfer because that's what my pattern dictated.  So true to my pattern i am leaving tomorrow!  To Clarksville TN.  which is a pretty big city, there are at least 5 wards there because i'm going to Clarksville 5th ward, with Elder Ellerbeck.

So i totally called that one

2nd pattern:  When i left the Shelbyville ward, Sister's took over one of our appartments.  so we had to clean up really well...  When i left Foxcroft they replaced us with sisters...  When i left Springfield they replaced us with sisters...  So i told elder Lofthouse that when i left sister's were going to replace us, i told him this like week 1...  Well, True to this pattern, SISTER'S ARE REPLACING US!!!

Called that one too...

it's starting to get annoying.  Especially since i was really starting to know the area so i started liking it more, and things were picking up...

I don't know what'll happen after this though, i can't stay less then 1 transfer, well unless i get ET'd.  Maybe i'll just stay the rest of my mission there.

Welp!!  That's the news this week.

Love Ya'll!

-Elder Martin

Week 56

Hello hello!

This week has been pretty good..  We had a Zone Conference on tuesday, we got lost on our way there...  luckily we left like an extra hour early so we barely made it on time..

the weather has been Amazing for most of the week, we even had a low of 49 one day!  that was crazy...

We had a couple of pretty good lessons with some people at a halfway house here in town!  so thats good.

I'm kinda rushing the letter because the computer is going to restart in a few minutes and it wont give me any say in the matter...

But uhh, oh yeah! we helped a family pack up and move for quite a while on saturday, so that was fun.

only 3 weeks till Gen-Con!!! WOOO HOOO!!

That is all.   Sorry

Love Ya'll

#ElderMartin

Week 55

So this week we did Alot of tracting... well at least alot compared to what i have done on my mission thus far.  So we obviously didn't have a very successful week.

We did talk to Danny Gale again, the guy whose wife commit suicide the other week.  Taught him the plan of Salvation.  He was really quiet the whole time and then we asked if he has felt the power of the atonement since the incident, to which he shook his head no.  So we asked him something else and then he finally started talking...  He just had a bunch of "Why" Questions, like why does God allow babies to come into the world and then die at birth or shortly after, or why did He allow his children to lose their mother.  Just stuff like that.  We had to leave soon after he started to talk though so we'll be going back sometime this week probably.

Then we also saw a lady named Michelle who i think has some good potential to get baptized sometime soon... So, more to come on that in a few weeks.

But uhhh yeah, i guess i'm kinda in the same stage as Cameron...  So sorry for the lameish letters...  But at least they're better than Cameron's!

Love Ya'll!
-Elder Martin

Week 54

So, this week we did a lot of Less Active work, which is great because we have a ton of them in this ward.

We have had 2 inactive's coming to church the past couple weeks, well we actually found out that they are both excommunicated and are looking to rejoin!  So BOOM, 2 progressing right der.

The other day we were at wallyworld picking up something for Elder Lofthouse since it was his birthday, and we find a member who recentlyish moved into the ward but doesn't want to come because she thinks she'll be judged by the people.  (She has tons of tattoos and piercings) Well her name is Nancy.

We have another person in the ward named Wade who has aspergers disease. Well his conversion story involves an investigator from 5 years ago. Which goes as follows. 

The missionaries left a sticky note for an investigator named nancy on her door which was supposed to be a couple houses down from this guys house, but somehow it stuck to a missionary and fell off on his porch, well long story short that led to his baptism...

So we are on exchanges with him and we tell him about how we find a lady at walmart who's a less active named Nancy, and he freaks out and says that "ITS THE SAME NANCY AS THE ONE FROM THE STICKY NOTE!!!!" 

now because we know she just moved to cumberland furnace 1 year ago and she was from hopkinsville about an hour and a half away where she was Active, we know for a fact its not the same nancy...

but he wont be dissuaded!  So he changes his story to say that she didn't live a few houses down but that she lived in cumberland furnace (after we tell him that's where she lives) so then we tell him that she's been a member her whole life.  So He changes his story to say that the missionaries 5 years ago told him that she was a less active.  

But he is So happy that this person is the same person whose sticky note he got, ( which it most definitely is not) and he wont accept the truth and he even went up in testimony meeting yesterday and talked about it...  We don't know what we should do, like we don't want to crush his dreams of meeting this girl but at the same time we know that he wont.  Haha... just something funny that's been going down on the side here.

WELP 

Love Ya'll!

-Elder Martin

Week 53

Well hey howdy hey ya'll!

This week has been pretty interesting,  The early part of the week was really slow and kinda lame but it did get better...

We had dinner with our next door neighbors who aren't member's so that was pretty sweet...  Which by the way, she looks alot like Christine.  Random fact.

We had our first district meeting since i've been here, and man...  hate to say it but we have a pretty lame district.

On Thursday we got a referral from a guys aunt in Washington for this guy whose wife just committed suicide last week, so we had been kinda wondering how we should approach him and stuff because he didn't know we were coming.  he wasn't there the first time we tried but he was the second time and he told us that it was still a really rough time for us to see him so he told us to leave (but in a nice way) and then he said come back in a week or two.  Apparently a lot of the churches around here have been trying to *convert* him i guess, so if he does talk to us, we have the truth and especially the fact that families are forever so of course he'll choose our church if he chooses any, so that's good i guess.

On Saturday there was a baptism for an 8 year old, so after that we tracted the neighborhood right across the street from the church before dinner, and Man oh man.... that neighborhood had the rudest people in it...  The first guy at least talked to us for a second, he was like "i know all about your church and i appreciate what you guys do, but i'm not interested" so we're like 'Oh, well what have you heard about us?"

"Enough..."

then as we are leaving we turn around and ask him if there is anyone around the area that he knows that might want to learn about the church, to which he says

"I would Never refer mormons to ANYONE!!!" 

So then i say to Lofthouse,  "Well... he obviously doesn't know much about the church at all then."
and i said it loud enough that i hope he heard it.

Then we see the Only somewhat nice person on that street and he turns out to be a ghost hunter, so that was a pretty neat conversation.

Then we get to the next house that answers and he immediately says

"I'm a deacon in my church, so you are welcome to go to the next house" and starts closing the door so we say 

"Oh yeah? what church do you go to?"

"I Said you are welcome to go to the Next House!!!!"  *SLAM*

Sheesh man!  i'm glad i'm not with his church...

Then at the next house a lady answers and says that she's fixin to cook supper, so we say the usual 'Okay, well when would be a better time where we could talk to you?"

"NEVER!!!!" *SLAM*

man...  if ever there needed to be a place that should've been dusted, that street was it.

Welp Thats all folks!

Love Ya'll

-Elder Martin

Week 52

Hello Hello!

 

First i wanted to say something in response to Cameron's letter from last week...  No letter's for 2 whole weeks?!?! Try no letter's your whole mission!!!!

 

Anyways.

Dickson has been pretty good so far.  So i found out that we have a Truck here!!!  full time!  and i'm the driver now!  so thats pretty neat..   It's only a chevy colorado though... 

 

Then i found out that we live in our own house!  Which is also pretty sweet.  Except that it's probably the smallest place i've lived on the mission so far....

 

Dickson is a pretty big place, not sure quite how big yet though, our ward boundaries are Huge, like even bigger then Foxcroft was, and we only have 1000 miles so we end up walking A lot for having a full time car.  So most of our time here is spent walking.

 

Heh... So we had a zone meeting on Thursday and both of us don't have a GPS so that's a thing, but anyways we take a pretty straight forward way to get to Columbia TN where our Zone Meeting is, but Elder Lofthouse tell's me to go a different way on the way back.....   Long story short, he gets us lost in some Crazy hick'ish back roads and even some dirt roads and it takes us like 2 1/2 hours to get back where as it only took maybe 50 minutes to drive there.

 

Do any of you remember me talking about "The Krew" back in lewisburg?  Well Dickson has it's own version of "The Krew'!  except this one is more ghetto.  It seemed super fake when we were there because people don't ever act like they did, at least i thought so...  Like there was this weird black guy who was throwing chairs out of his house and breaking them outside because i had a picture of Jesus on my planner and he didn't think that Jesus was white...  Crazy stuff like that, it was pretty funny.

 

Anywho, the ward here is pretty good, its got about 400 members but only like 90 to 100 people are active, and almost all of them are like 60 and over... Its an Old ward...

 

But uhh, i cant remember anyhting else... So Bye!

Love Ya

-Elder Martin

Week 51

Well Hello there!

 

First, i want to say that as i'm writing this there is the second biggest thunder storm i've seen on my mission... So... crazy stuff. flash floods and the like. 

 

Second i want to say that i am indeed getting transferred... But here is the crazy thing, So is Elder Tomlinson and elder Ackroyd!  and elder Webb is going home.  But they are bringing sister's to live in our apartment and putting two new elder's in the whitehouse apartment.  Making this the 3rd time that sisters have taken over my apartment...  out of 3 times i've moved...  What the heck... 

 

Anyways, i am going to go to a place called Dickson TN, with Elder Lofthouse who i have been on exchanges with before.  He is kind of a goober, like even more so then me.  But he's a good kid so i think we'll get a lot done in Dickson.

 

But as for my last week in the whitehouse ward, things were pretty slow...  But Kalie and Cyrell did come to church again! Which was Awesome.  Cyrell is a funny guy and hard to read sometimes but i know he'll get baptized sometime, it may be when they move to idaho in a year or it could be in a month... who knows.

 

We found a dead raccoon one day... Just in a random spot... like not on the road or near the road or anything. TENNESSEE!!!!

 

Well...  I gotta go pack and stuff...  So talk to ya'll next week

 

Love Ya'll!

-Elder Martin

Week 50

Hello hello hello!

 

This week was filled with stuff!  Except for P-day...  last p-day was LAME...  We helped pour more concrete at Brother Boyles house on Monday and Tuesday evenings, that was pretty fun, we had interviews this week as well, which was good to finally get to know the new President a little better,  We worked on Sis Durhams farm again, we Almost saw a Gnarly crash happen!  I say almost because i happened like less the 5 minutes before we got there.  Someone ran into a telephone pole and it completely demolished the car and the horn was still going off when we drove by...

We visited Cyrell and Kalie a couple times.  One of the times we went there they were watching Whose line is it anyway!!!! ITS BACK!!  So i was pretty excited about that. 

Our ward put on this mini mission thing for the youth where we spent a day with one or two of the youth and a driver and just went out and did missionary stuff, I went with the Bishop and a kid named Matt Kinney.  It was a pretty good day. Oh and the other elders had a baptism right before that...

Speaking of the Bishop here, his name is Darrell Minton.  The funny thing about him is that he is the second Darrell I've known, (the other one of course being our uncle...) and He reminds me A lot of uncle Darrell.  He even kinda looks like him, has the same hair cut and everything.

 

Oh and Cyrell and Kalie came to church for the first time since I've been here!  all three hours and then they came to the FHE group thing after!  Which is pretty impressive.  That's 4 hours of church in a day.

 

Transfers is coming up this week,  I wonder what will happen.

 

Welp, cant think of much else to say so i'll just say Swag.

 

Love ya'll

-Elder Martin 

Week 49

Hey howdy hey familio!

 

So this week has been pretty good, we spent A lot of time with Cyrell this week, mostly cause kaylee was in Idaho for the week.  But it was good, we were able to talk to him more seriously without her there.  Like we were there and at the time were just kinda shooting the breeze when He brings up how he see's all the brother's in the ward and how they are different from what he is used to and how he wants to be more happy like them, then he says he thinks it was the priesthood!  So that was pretty sweet.  He's usually like really hard to teach cause he is so sarcastic and just kinda immature.  But we also spent p-day with him, spent most of Friday with him and like all of Saturday with him..  So he's coming along really well and i expect him to be baptized soon... at least as soon as we can get those two married...

 

We have interviews tomorrow with the new president, so that should be good... First one with him.

 

Oh and there's been a virus going around and 3/4 of us in the apartment have it to varying degrees.  so sleep has been rough.  But it's been like the first time I've been kinda sick.  at least that's lasted longer then 1 day.

 

On a random note,  Here is a sentence that i can't seem to find out how to write.

"There are three 2's in the English language"  

Which 2 do you spell? Two? Too? To?

 

Love ya'll!
#Mission #library #email

-Elder Martin

Week 48

Hello family!

 

This week was pretty darn good!  the guy we are teaching here, Cyrel, is making alot of progress! he finally read from the BoM and prayed about it and had a really good experience with it, i went to the baptism of Ryan's wife which i will go into more detail about in a bit, had my birthday, and stuff like 'aat

 

So the baptism.  The day was kinda crazy for me.  First i got a ride to the mission office from a member in my ward who works like next door to it, where some other elders were supposed to pick me up and i'd spend the morning and afternoon with them until the ride from Lebanon came to take me and Elder Dudley to Illinois.  Well, the elder's didn't come get me till like 1 o'clock...  So i was at the mission office for like 5 hours...  So the office staff people had me doing odd job's filing whatever they needed filing.  So i filed all the emails to president...  so that was kinda weird.  Then they had me file their bills and stuff.  Also kinda weird.  Anyways so the Greenhills elders finally come to pick me up and i spend the next 2 1/2 hours with them.  The greenhills elders are the ones who cover downtown Nashville...  So we had a referral who said he lived at an address on 2nd ave in Nashville, which is like the crazy street in Nashville!  anyways it turned out that the address he gave us was to Coyote Ugly...  ha.

Then my ride to Illinois shows up and we drive for 4 hours down to the baptism, but we hit this nasty traffic for like 3 miles and so we wont get to the baptism till 30 or so minutes after its supposed to start, but we called them and they were nice enough to wait for us to start it.  So finally we have the miracle baptism of Ryan's wife who wouldn't even let us see him for a long time cause she was too die hard catholic!  And the coolest part was that it was on my mission birthday! 

Well ALL the speakers talked forever and the service didn't get over till like 8:45 and we had to stay and talk for a few minutes of course, and we didn't leave till 9:05 or so...  So i had to get permission to stay the night at Lebanon's place cause we had a zone meeting the next day anyways.  We didn't get back until like 1 o'clock...  I was tired the next day.

 

And that is the end of my story!  And my email!

 

Love ya'll!

-Elder Martin

Week 47

Howdy ya'll!

 

So lets start off with the good!  For p-day last week we played Golf, which was the first time for me...  We played 18 holes and i totally sucked for the first 15, but by the 16th i finally got it under a bit of control.   It was fun though.

 

Also there was 2 baptism's in our ward this week!  The Sister's baptized a guy named Donald, and the other elder's baptized a kid named Eric, But his (Eric's) mom is crazy and she only let him get baptized if he came to idaho to do it...  So they went to idaho to do it. 

 

And Elder Dudley and I have a baptism to go to in our last area on Thursday!!!  Which is also my mission birthday! the 18th! So hopefully i can find a ride up there... which might be hard saying how its 3+ hours away. 

 

But other then that not a lot happened here this week.  As the subject implies, this was kind of a slow week here, we've been trying to visit all our referral's from the festivals but no one seems to be home.   It is ridiculous. 

 

We did get to meet the new Mission President on Friday!  That was good, he seems pretty sweet, he was involved a lot with the youth for like his whole married life so he's super fun.  And he play's volleyball so maybe i'll be able to play with him sometime.

 

Welp, not much else to talk about...  Sorry for the puny letter!

 

Love Ya'll!

-Elder Martin

Week 46

That's right peep's, Springfield branch could be started as soon as two weeks.  probably more like 4 weeks but it depends on the next week or two.

 

Anyways, there are a couple of amusing stories that i have for you this week. 

First, there was this inactive guy who passed away last week, and he asked to have a memorial service at the Mormon church, which was pretty neat, and also a good missionary opportunity.  So about 2 days before they decide it might be good to notify us that we (the missionaries in the ward, which is 4 elder's and 3 sister) are going to be singing At the funeral...  So they pick this lame song that no one has ever heard of called the old rugged cross, and the day before were practicing it and it was just Awful...  So after the sisters pleaded with someone to change the song we just sang "I know that my Redeemer Lives" and it was still pretty bad, but A LOT better then the other song would've been.   Oh and also one of the sister's was asked to talk at the funeral... Oh man, that would be weird, talking at someone's funeral who you've Never met... 

 

Next story, we were helping someone move the other day and they gave us an ottoman (i have no idea how to spell that) thing to take home, well it didn't fit in the trunk so we figured "When in Tennessee, do as the Tennesseans do" so we put it on the top of the car and had our arms sticking out the windows to hold it down.  Now, this would've been fine to take it home, which was like 30 minutes away, cause we'd be going 40 mph or so the whole way,  But the lady we helped move needed us to help her unpack a few things at her new house, Which she said was only a few minutes away.  So we follow her with this thing on our car and then she does it..... She turned onto the freeway!!  This is when things got crazy.  At first only the two elder's in back had to hold it down, but on the freeway all of us had to.  And the lady was Hauling in her moving van and we had to keep up cause we didn't know where her new house was.  Needless to say we almost lost it a few times and our arms and wrists were way tired after it all...

 

Anyways...  We had the baptism for the lady on Saturday,and the font had drained like halfway when i actually did it.  The stopper didn't work or something.  So it was pretty sketchy.

 

i guess that's all for now...

 

Love Ya'll!!!

-Elder Martin

Week 45

So! we had this big ol' festival on saturday!  It was Great!  We had a booth like right in the middle of everything, and we got 105 referrals from it!  several of which were people from other places, so we gave alot of referral's to other missionaries as well...

But we've already got 2 families that were teaching now from the festival!  so the work here is definately progressing!

 

Oh, and as we were just talking to the people walking by and stuff at the festival, there was this guy that set up catty corner to us and started yelling that everyone is a sinner and going to hell and stuff like that.  When he set up and started saying all that crap you could totally tell that the spirit wasn't there anymore.  Everyone at the festival hated this guy, we had a bunch of people thank us for the way we went about sharing our belief's and not by telling everyone that they won't ever make it to heaven.   Anyways, after a while, this guy started bashing on us and saying all kinds of crap.  It's funny how you can tell when satan tries to put up obstacles to try to stop the work from progressing.    So after an hour or 2 of this guy being a total dork, the lady who kinda ran the whole thing drove right in front of him with a golf cart and unloaded to big speakers and started blaring music to drown him out.  It was pretty sweet.

The funny thing is, some of the missionaries went up and talked to one of the dude's henchmen and found out that they believed that everyone in the world EXCEPT THEM were sinners.  They thought they were perfect, that the put aside their sins years ago. Hahaha... silly.

 

 

 

We had another one of our FHE group things at our WML's house sunday night, and we had over 60 people there this time, so we are totally gonna have a branch up here probably within a month or 2.

 

Anyways... I'm like out of time, so sorry for the short email again...

 

Love Ya'll

-Elder Martin

Week 44

That's right!  There's totally gonna be a branch here in the near future.  We just had our first FHE group thing last night to see what kind of numbers we'd get to attend a branch if there was one.  And we had 52 people come to it!  With many more who couldn't come this week but will be there next week!  Right now the people here have to drive 30 minutes or more to church depending on where they live, which really puts off a lot of people.  So if we had a meeting place here in town i think it would be really good for the people here. 

 

Also this Saturday there's this huge town festival thing and we're going to have a booth right in the middle of the town square where we'll have presentations about the apostasy and restoration, and about the Book of Mormon.  Another part of the mission did the same thing a few months ago and had a Ton of success and got over 250 referrals!  This was in a town that was in the same boat we are in now, and now they have a branch and will soon have a ward and that unit has 5 or 6 sets of missionaries just to keep up with the referrals! 

So that's what's happening over here right now.

 

Other then those, there hasn't been much that's been too exciting or crazy...  we had to go get our wheel changed at a ford dealership (cause were driving a ford fusion) and they took forever to do it... 

 

I played volleyball for what seems to be the first time in a forever long time last P-day!  but it was sand volleyball.....  so it wasn't nearly as good as it could've been.

 

But yeah....  We also have a baptism on the 15th,  she's been coming to church for like a year and is now finnaly getting baptized! So that's pretty cool!

 

Well!  That's all i got for now folks!

 

Love ya'll

-Elder Martin

Week 43

Howdy!  So it turns out that i'm actually in a town called Springfield in Tennessee, not whitehouse... We are in the whitehouse ward, but we are working right now to get a branch in springfield!  we could maybe get a branch started in as little as a month.

The Ward Mission Leader here is Awesome, so i'm excited to work with him.

There is 7 missionaries in the whitehouse ward right now, which is pretty crazy because like 6 months ago they didn't have any in this ward..  They had what we called Traveling missionaries who would cover like 4 wards and they would just drive through and visit them all and stuff, but now this ward has 2 sets of Elder's and a tri-panionship of Hermana's... pretty crazy stuff!

 

Elder Tomlinson is a cool dude, he reminds me A lot of Elder Bethers, so it should be a good transfer and maybe more.  He's a hard worker from Idaho, from a town called "Mud lake", he and his family own a trucking company, Oh and he was also a professional wake boarder...  He's pretty intense, he's broken like 20 bones doing stuff.

 

Anyways... i have some really stupid news.   President and Sister McKee got called home and will be leaving on July 1st...  They were supposed to stay another year but i guess with all of Sister McKee's health issues the Brothren decided to send them home, Even though she's almost back to full health.  They had the whole mission have a meeting yesterday that they told everyone about only 2 days before, where they pretty much tried to let us down easy.  It was a rough meeting with a lot of emotions... There isn't many people i respect more than President McKee ...  So it's really sad to see him go. 

 Our new mission president will be President Andersen, who's from Ogden Utah.

 

Well...  I don't have much to say this week, so i guess i'll end there. 

 

Love Ya'll!

-Elder Martin

Week 42

Hello!

This past week has been pretty good.  I pretty much knew it was going to be my last week with Elder Dudley (which is sad...  He's great) so we made it a good one.  Had a good district meeting, had some good lesson's with Justin, the guy who's getting baptized this Saturday! (He is Super Prepared and very ready)  Well... maybe, the ward always tries to fight us on when we baptize people... They want to just baptize him after church on Sunday, which we know as missionaries isn't as good because he will then have to wait a lot longer to get the Holy Ghost.  Especially since he won't be able to make it to church the next week.  In my mission we are told to baptize people on Saturday and confirm them the next day.  Cause for some reason they don't let us baptize someone and confirm them right after...  Don't know why,  But that's what President wants so i'm not going to question it.

So besides that we got Transfer calls...  And here's the crazy part, They are whitewashing us!?!  Right before our baptism.  So i guess the ward will do whatever they want to.  Anyways the even crazier part is that they are putting Sister's here instead of elders!  Which is i guess why they whitewashed us.  

So yeah, i'm going to a place (well at least the ward is called) Whitehouse in Tennessee.  Its just above Nashville.  And Elder Dudley is going to Lebenon Tennessee, which is going to be in my new zone!  So at least we'll still see each other at meetings and such.

Oh and my new companion... Elder Tomlinson.  He uhh...  Got sent home a few months ago.  But he's back!  So that's good that he had enough of a desire to come back right?  His companion at the time who also got sent home didn't come back though...

So, we'll see how this goes.

Welp, i guess that's all for now.  Gotta go back and clean the apartment super well for the Sisters....

Love ya'll

-Elder Martin

Week 41

Hello there!  It was Great to talk to all ya'll again last night!  But at the same time now i feel like i don't have much to talk about...

Lets see,  We met a guy named Justin Stevens the other day (he referred himself on Mormon.org, Which is AWESOME) So he's gonna get baptized...  We've seen him twice and have set appointments every Tuesday and Thursday morning with him.  He's almost as prepared as Ryan was.

Speaking of Ryan, when i was on exchanges with the other Elders, they went over to Ryan's and were finally able to teach his wife!  she sat down with them and watched the restoration video with them, and then later that night Ryan texted them and said that his wife is actually considering joining our church now!!! What a Miracle!!  she was So anti before! 

On a different note, remember those slugs i was talking about that are infesting our house?  Well we usually catch them cause they're quite easy to catch.  Well, we have this one slug, who leaves his nasty slug trails All over this one room,  Almost every morning we find more trails...  but then he's always gone!!!  This slug is So sneaky its beyond logical...  we can't find where he hides or anything cause of his sneakiness.  So now we have just put a lot of salt down on the ground...  made salt circles and such.

Well, i guess that's all i have for today...

Love Ya'll!

-Elder Martin