Week 59: Christmas Caroling and New Companion News

Howdy y'all! And a Merry Christmas too!

It was a rather good week, we were pretty busy. My companion, Elder Harris had his final interview with President McCune, and today I received a call that my new companion will be Elder Sanchez. He will be the new zone leader with me, so that will make me senior companion and the senior zone leader. Thus begins my reign of terror over the Provo Peak Zone haha.

We finally caught up with Alex to teach him this week. We also had a great lesson with Leandro and Sarah (where my Portuguese was not too bad at all...I'll have to take the lead in Portuguese now!).

We also did some really fun caroling to different contacts, including one to the Fernandez family where we sang along with to other Christmas songs, then shared the movie "He Is the Gift" which was wonderful. In general it's been a great week.

Elder Harris has been a wonderful companion. We talk about all sorts of things and laugh about a bunch of different stuff too. I'm really excited to use more Christmas based stuff in our teaching for the next coming week before Christmas! We have the ward Christmas parties for both the Spanish and Portuguese wards at the end of this week, I will likely gain weight.

Merry Christmas to all!


-Elder Martin

Week 58: Gaudete!

Christmas music, Charlie Brown Christmas trees, Christmas lessons...
This is such a great time to be a missionary!

This week went rather well despite many canceled lessons. Diego, a recent convert from Argentina, who we love so much, finally went home (after 14 years in the US) to his family Sunday night. He bore a wonderful testimony in Fast and Testimony meeting on Sunday.

This week Elder Harris and I caught a mouse in our apartment. We went to Station 22 Cafe. We also had two MLC councils with all the zone leaders and sister's training in the mission. Elder Clark of the 70 was with us.....Super cool and we learned a lot!

We also had our zone training meeting last Friday where we talked a lot about Christmas and some different policies on music in the mission, it was interesting being in the leadership position when I'm so used to being on the other end, but we've got a really cool zone and I don't think we'll have many problems. I look forward to becoming friends with all of them.

There were no new investigators this week, but we've taught a lot of cool lessons, including a Portuguese speaking lesson to an investigator who will be going back to Brazil for the holidays, but who we committed to go to church and read and pray during that month. In fact he has an LDS church five minutes behind his house, so it should be pretty easy for him ha ha.

Peace!

Week 57: Thanksgiving--The More You Eat, The More Thankful You Are

Happy Thanksgiving!

It was a fantastic week. Thanksgiving was great, the turkey bowl was super fun and the dinners were quite filling and fun-filled. We picked up a new investigator, and the ones we already have are doing super well. Elder Harris is speedily becoming one of my favorite companions, from hilarious happenings (including a very opinionated lady from Spain) to deep talks on everything from philosophy to people problems, and notably a talk on the history of Languages. I will be with Elder Harris until the December 18th when he finishes his mission, so I will not be with him on Christmas.

I saw my old companion, Elder Contreras again, he came down to visit for Thanksgiving!

He was one of my first companions in Goshen with Elder Rios, and he's doing well at BYU Idaho.

Guess what my ward mission leader's son's name is?

Leandro and Sara, two of our new Brazilian investigators, are progressing amazingly, and are super fun to be around. We had dinner with them after our last lesson, and I taught them to say "y'all" and "howdy", as the denounced tootsie rolls were tasting terrible.

We had a really spiritual lesson with an investigator named Alex that should be baptized this month. He has been facing some real trials, and we gave him a blessing that was quite powerful. I also got to trek down to Goshen for the Baptism of Milena where I was asked to be a witness. It was quite fun to see everyone again.

This coming week is gonna be super busy, we're going hammer the area with the new Christmas video/cards the Church has come out with, and we're gonna carol too. Super exciting!

-Elder Martin

Week 56: No Fear

So the Lord's blessings are real. Just so y'all know.

The highlight of this week was finding three new investigators.  One is named Victor, who we teach in English and is just super ready to change his life and super open, it's so awesome.  The other two are a couple from Brazil that we taught for the first time last night, they are really cool too.  It's crazy, I helped teach and participated in a large part of the small talk of the lesson too, despite that it was in Portuguese. I should have been frightened, as I didn't even get a MTC to learn how to teach in Portuguese!  I only know a few words and yet I was right in the thick of it, the Gift of Tongues is real.

Beyond that we did a lot of contacting in Orem for Portuguese people, had some brigadeiro in a dinner which was freaking awesome, did some service for the lovely Minond family that owns the Chilean Pantrucas restaurant, and in general had a great time.  Elder Harris is hilarious and we are almost literally laughing all the time; we have a list of funny things he's said already going. 

Yes, this week's been great! I'm super excited for Thanksgiving too. Thank you so much for the Thanksgiving package haha, Elder Harris was laughing so hard that I got the Thanksgiving decorations and stuff, I had just been ranting to him about how much I hate when people celebrate Christmas way too early and run over Thanksgiving, we were laughing so hard! Plus the Thanksgiving music CD you sent is awesome, and Elder Harris is grateful that he doesn't have to listen to the same MoTab "Great Thanksgiving" album over and over again anymore (Pilgrim dirges and whatnot haha).

 We're going for Thanksgiving dinner at our Ward Mission Leader's house, the Mathews. They are super cool, plus we're gonna have a bunch of former Provo Missionaries there, like Elder Contreras who I served with in Goshen with Elder Rios! I'm super excited, plus turkey bowl will be super fun, it should help me get super hungry, since the more I eat the more grateful I am, right haha? Happy Thanksgiving for now though y'all!

-Elder Martin

Week 55: Tudo Bem!

So,

Lots of changes in this last week! Where do I start? So saying goodbye in Goshen was sad, but not too sad, in the sense that there was a lot of comfort in saying "see you next year!". I'm glad I'll be able to visit Goshen easily after the mission and (with all the family connections here) for the rest of my life.

As for the new area, it is awesome. Elder Harris is hilarious and a dang good missionary, it's a shame he'll finish next month. Portuguese is coming a long slowly but surely, I can pray now and understand and follow quite a bit. With diligent practice I hope to be able to converse well enough to take the lead by the time I get my next companion. The Portuguese ward covers the whole valley, so in this week alone we've traveled to American Fork, Spanish Fork twice, Orem multiple times, and Santaquin twice too, all without needing permission to go because it's our area! Thank goodness, I probably would have felt claustrophobic in a small city area after all the space that Goshen afforded me!

The Spanish ward here is awesome too, Bishop Revuelta is such a spiritually powerful man, and I'm teaching many of the same people I did when I was in BYU Spanish, some of them are baptized active members now! Fun to see how planted seeds grow! 

As a zone leader we'll do exchanges with the district leaders and go to DTMs, if they're anything big to do president calls on us. We cover all the elders and sisters, English and Spanish, in west Provo, north south and central, the east side of Provo is another zone. I haven't done anything particularly zone leader-esque just yet other than attending all the district training meetings, but we've got great missionaries in our zone and I'm way excited to work with them all. So yeah, things are awesome here. 

We had a classic missionary experience with a door knock teaching contact with the Tobarez family Saturday night, taught them the Restoration on the fly. It was super cool, and I hope something comes out of it! 

We got snow in Provo my first day here, the cold's coming in fast, none of it has stuck though. Either way, it'll be a chilly Thanksgiving Day Turkey Bowl, and I'm stoked!

God Bless you all!

-Elder Martin (The Spanish Ward calls me Mar-teen, and the Portuguese Ward Mar-Cheen, so cool!)

Week 54: A Bittersweet Goodbye to Goshen!

Well, the news is in:

As of Transfer calls from President this morning, after 9 wonderful months I'm leaving Goshen and Elder Pena is staying and getting a new companion. President called though, because he extended me the call of being a Zone Leader. I will serve in the Provo Peak Zone (which roughly is West Provo). We will have our own Spanish Ward, the Grandview 20th, which is the one I attended a few times before at BYU with certain investigators and for Christmas.

In addition, I will cover the Utah Valley Portuguese Ward. Which means that I will have to learn some Portuguese! Although President said not to worry about that too much. We'll see what it entails when I get there next week. My companion will be Elder Harris (they tell Zone Leaders who they'll serve with). I can't believe it! There's a lot of changes coming up this week! We've got a busy two days coming up here to say goodbye to so many people and packing, and then with a whole new world ahead of me next! I am kind of in shock!

As for this week though, we had some great lessons (22 in the end, not bad at all), and we spoke in the Goshen 2nd Ward, and did a musical number, I played guitar and sang with two young men from the ward and Elder Pena played Piano. Milena is still looking very set for baptism, and she brought her less active boyfriend to church yesterday which is awesome!

We had a really cool meeting last night too with President McCune and Elder Levitt of the 70 for all the Bishops and ward mission leaders for the Goshen stake, with a really cool training. I love each and every one of those men, it has been a pleasure serving with all of them. Goshen has changed my life for the better forever, and I will never forget any of those lovely towns of Elberta, Genola, Eureka, Mammoth, Mosida, and Goshen. I will come back to visit for sure while I'm at BYU and who knows... maybe I'll move back there someday!

Well, I'm kind of overwhelmed with words and so I'll close the letter here! God Bless y'all, don't play Christmas carols yet and don't go Black Friday shopping before Thanksgiving day is through!

-Elder Martin
(The longest serving Goshen Bilingual Elder for the stake since the area opened,

and freaking proud of it!)

Me on top of Godiva Mountain

Bishops and WMLs after the training meeting in Payson with President McCune

The Kropf family, who supplied my "vice" and gave me some bottled sodas haha.

The Rambo picture of me after Goshen Ward Dodgeball, 

with the Seamons, Perezes, and Larsons

Me and Brother Vallejo from Elberta, such a cool guy, 

we're going to concerts together after the mission.

Me and Bishop Kay, Goshen ward mission leader and textbook Goshenite, 

he pulled a replica sword of Laban out for a Book of Mormon lesson once, so cool.

The Cowan family, one of the younger move-ins to Goshen.

He's the Elder's Quorum President and just the bomb.com. 

She's in Young Women and was the one that really got things going with Lita. 

Her example with those girls was inspiring.

The Knightons, our landlords. His funny stories are literally the best, I could listen to him tell stories from his life literally for hours (which we actually did prior to taking this photo haha, luckily we were technically "home" so we weren't breaking rules that bad staying up late, right?)

Nick Castleton, Mayor of Eurkea, knows a lot of History and

gave our zone a tour of the town once. He's a great man.

Sister Berry, another long time Eureka resident, her husband Max was away at the time we passed by, he's an old miner and such an awesome guy, I hope I'm kicking as good as he is when I'm that age!

The Brantley Family in Eureka, we ate with them quite a few times and enjoyed it a lot, their home has a beautiful view out into Cherry Creek Valley out of Eureka.

Lee Kirk, from Eureka. I spent a lot of time with this man.

I hope his health improves, I'd like to keep seeing him after the mission.

Brother Greenhaulgh, longtime Elberta Resident and in the Bishopric, 

I went on quite a few splits with him, he would sing in lessons sometimes haha.

Brother Hansen, my old Landlord (Sister Hansen wasn't feeling well), 

we made fun of each other quite often, our witty banter was something to behold haha.

Brother Farrinsworth, this guy is the bomb, he was our old neighbor, we did a fair amount of service with him and had dinner there once, where we heard some non-approved (but freaking rocking) music haha, I asked for the names of the artists and songs haha.

Me with Goshen's senior Citizens, this wasn't a full crowd either! 

They've offered to throw me a party in Goshen when I finish my mission haha, 

They're party animals for sure.

Outside of the Senior Citizen's building.

Bishop Garner, WML in Elberta and super funny guy. 

He's a big Angel's fan and we'd talk baseball a bit.

He and Brother Sabey were the comedic center of our stake correlation meetings, haha.

The Anderson Family and Brother Clint Burdick (her father). 

It looks like he'll be going to the temple in December! 

Oh the lovely Fridell Family. They are so great, words cannot describe.

Bishop Johnson, Genola 2nd ward mission leader. He's so funny - to quote him exactly, 

"With black magic and the Priesthood we are unstoppable" hahahaha.

Perry Thomas and his family, this guy is super funny and cool, 

can't wait to see him in the Temple someday!

Ben and Robert Thomas. Through doing family history work we found that we're 5th cousins once removed haha, Ben hopefully'll be getting the Melchizedek Priesthood here soon enough.

The Goodman Family. They have dived headfirst into activity and it's been so awesome. 

He likes some really cool old music, and they'll be in the Temple next year!

The Lawrence Family, easily some of the coolest cats in Goshen. 

We spent many an hour laughing in his home. 

The Reaves family, bringing some good Southern influence into Goshen (they're from Alabama). 

She's the most amazing Gospel Principles teacher ever, and he's super funny. 

He had a stroke back in the summer.

Stake President Bylund, this man is an inspiration. 

He can talk anything from Football to Revelations, 

He had quite an eye for Missionary work too and really got things going.

The Taylor Family in Goshen. 

Due to his mustache, I would always call him Sheriff Taylor haha.

I went out with him on my first night in the area. 

Their family is super fun too, they might take me hunting in later years! 

The Sabey Family

Brother Sabey's the Goshen 2nd ward mission leader and such a great man. 

He really knows how to get along with people. 

His family is really cool too. The girls are so funny and little Evalyn's a doll too.

He hates Star Wars, so for his birthday (which was a few days after I left) 

I got him a big Star Wars poster hahaha, such a funny guy.

Something funny we found in our new apartment...

Week 52: Just Another Reason That Texas Is Zion

"Just Another Reason That Texas Is Zion" Hahaha, I made another joke of that nature in Sunday school in church yesterday, they were talking about overpopulation and how you could fit everyone into Texas with room to spare.

It's been a good week though! We were able to teach quite a bit. We have another investigator on date for baptism and it's looking like late November. This is when the Anderson girl may get baptized too, but they haven't been able to make it out to church due to family issues (hospital, work, etc).

We were able to teach almost 25 lessons again this week! And we found another family to teach - if we could just get everyone we're teaching in one week-swing, we'd be teaching 30-40 lessons a week, I guarantee it. But ah well, we'll slog at it again while we got it!

Things have been good otherwise, lots of coordination and member support, meetings and ward councils, etc. I also played guitar for the Senior Citizens in Goshen on Tuesday, which was way fun. It's been busy out here in Goshen, and we'll continue to make it that way! God bless everyone!

-Elder Martin

Week 51: Another Baptism On The Way!

Hello y'all!

We had a major cancel spree Wednesday night which cut out 5 or so lessons, but I was able to do three baptismal interviews (as District Leader) for other missionaries which is way fun. We also have set Mary Anderson on date for baptism for the 15th of November, though that may get changed a bit so her Dad can come out of the hospital to visit and see the baptism. We found three or four new people to teach as well all around the stake, and our weekly planning list is growing so much we might need to make it two pages long, and the font is already pretty small on it haha!

We did the last round of service for Hermano Guerra this week too, he's gonna be discing the fields for winter and won't be doing much else. It was way fun though and it's been great to help him out so much.

Last P-day we had an amazing hiking trip on Godiva Mountain, all the way to the very top, with TONS of mines along the way, it was really cool! We came down the Mammoth side too.

We both spoke in sacrament meeting yesterday too, and for part of it as I was talking on the Plan of Salvation I did a little "Hellfire and Damnation" preaching haha, it was fun. Just as well, this is probably the fourth time over the pulpit I have expressed my belief that Zion is actually in Texas. No one's proved me otherwise yet haha! Yes, most people get the Texas joke, but I haven't really convinced anyone yet. I even announced in a stake-wide Bishopric meeting that we should give big Texas flags instead of towels to converts as as the come out of the baptismal font haha.

That being said, I feel so blessed to be serving in this stake still, I feel like I say that every day now. Such lovely people out here, and so much potential to invite others to come unto Christ as well! Have a great week everyone!

-Elder Martin

Week 50: Regular Weeks At Last!

Hello y'all!

As much as I enjoyed Stake and General Conference and the Ogden Temple Re-dedication, I have been rather glad to see just "regular sundays" coming up for the next few weeks. It's hard to have church attendance when there's no church haha! That being said we didn't have too many of our investigators show up yesterday, which is a bit of a bummer, but things happen (e.g. a wedding and a hospital trip in the case of our two closest families). In any case we've found three new families to teach, two less actives and one part member, and if we can finally nail down appointments with all the people we've got, we'll be teaching like crazy. Teaching is great by the way. Teaching the recent convert lessons to Lita is so fun. Her family continues to do very well, and she's on top of everything.

We also got to see the "Meet the Mormons" movie in a chapel before it came out in theaters (a dual zone missionaries-only screening), and despite my original thoughts that it might be lame, it was actually way good! I recommend seeing it to everyone!

We also did a service project picking pumpkins for Hermano Guerra's farm again, it both got me into a Halloween mood and also got Smashing Pumpkins songs badly stuck in my head haha. Hope everyone has a great week!

-Elder Martin

The Lovely Old time Goshenite Jensen Family

I put hot sauce on everything now haha. 

This is just from the past month or two. 

Ah, being a Spanish Elder!

The Pumpkins we helped pick for Hermano Guerra. 

We got to take some of our own home, 

I took a weird one just to smash in honor of Smashing Pumpkins haha.

Elder Pena being a Jewish High Priest haha.

So, dinner last night with the Jewett Family, and Sister Jewett's mother was there. Her name is Sister Atkinson, born in Francis, Utah. My Great Grandmother (my Mom's father's mother) was an Atkinson from Francis, so we look it up, and what do you know - we're related, via my Great-Great-Great Grandfather Amos Stiles Atkinson. That's the second cousin of sorts of found in the area haha, of the joys of serving in your ancestral home of Utah haha.

Week 49: General Conference

Oh yeah, I did love Conference, and as you might have saw with the Facebook pictures, I got to go again (which was very unlikely and unexpected I can assure you) for the Sunday afternoon session. It was the bomb.com.  It was way cool hearing the talks in Spanish too, though it was better when I was actually there, because having just the English subtitles on the conference center screens was much easier on my brain then having someone speaking over it in English, which since I understood and could hear both languages was mentally tiring in the extreme haha. I'm going to go back and watch each in pure spanish, I'm excited.

I also got to go to Conference with Elder Rivera, and boy was that great. We caught up and talked about old times, and just in general affirmed our friendship. I completely get what you mean about appreciating my trainer more now that I am one. He's such a great guy, I can't believe he finishes his mission in December, that will be a sad day for me when he leaves. Luckily he's still looking at schooling here in Utah, so hopefully he won't be far from me afterwards. It was great too to have a real fluent conversation (and lots of hilarious joking) with him in Spanish, oh boy it was great fun. 

We also went to the conference center by linking up in Heber (meaning I got to drive through Provo Canyon for the first time in months, it looks great with the fall, as does Heber Valley) and then going north, passing by Park City and the like up there, which was way fun! I missed Sunday morning session in transit, but Saturday I caught first session with Carma Bell and some of her friends (see the picture to come, I watched conference with a bunch of cute girls, Bishop Kay afterward asked me how our "date" was haha) and the afternoon session with my family-away-from-family, the Davis family. It was a good time for sure. 

Elder Holland's talk was superb, as was Elder Christofferson's, Elder Robbin's, and Elder Benard's. And of course both the Spanish talks. To be honest though, with a lot of them I got the impression that I need to go back and read them, which is a first for me.

One of the Mission Boundaries, out west of Eureka.

Carma Bell and her friends, who we watched the Saturday morning session of Conference with. 

Yeah, these are the girls I run around with on my mission, we're a pretty wild bunch.

Me with my trainer Elder Rivera at General Conference together.  

He leaves in December, so it was great to have some time to spend with him!

We sat on the third row in Conference, we were way close!