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!