November 28, 2011- More Pictures

Yes, we made Indian hats for Thanksgiving :) missionaries give each other spirtual animals and so those are what's written on our hats! I am an appaloosa, which is a wild horse. . .long story!

Ward mission leader's home burned while the family was out of town. 

 Emily's new odometer melted  in the fire.

Hiking the San Tan Mountains was easier going up in the light than going down in the dark with no flashlight. The dark and cactus made a prickly situation!

By accident, Emily and Sister Doll matched colors in their Sunday outfits.

 Had to take a picture of it since so many members commented.  The cutest Sisters ever!!

Friendly Visitors on Nov, 24, 2011

Heather's friend, Bryan Wright with his sister, mom and dad visited Emily on Thanksgiving while in AZ for the holiday.  They were so kind to fix her bike, Sister Doll's bike and bring lots of great treats!

THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!

Bryan's dad, Tom Wright with Emily and Sister Doll

HAPPY BIRTHDAY HEATHER!!!! I love you and miss you to pieces

Hello Hello!
Happy Late Thanksgiving to everyone :)  my Thanksgiving was GREAT!!!!!  from 12 through the rest of the day on Thur. was our p-day so we started off the day by ding-dong-ditching :)  ha ha this was, of course,  my idea! one of our bishop's wives kindly agreed to make us some goodies for some of our investigators so we made a cute note telling them that we were thankful for them, left it on the porch, and then ditched! good times!!

Then we headed over the the Jablonski's (part-member family) for A FEAST! she had EVERYTHING! sadly mom she didn't have time to make the rolls but she did have plenty of other yummy treats. It def was lacking without the slush and homemade rolls though.. just not the same!

In the middle of dinner I checked our phone and we had a missed call from an 801 number.... hmm! guess who is was... Heather's boyfriend, BRYAN! We called him back and he informed me that he forgot my package! waa waa waa!  He felt horrible and probably realizing that this was not the ideal first impression for his gf''s BEST FRIEND to have on him, ha ha, he quickly asked me what i wanted! Well... since my odometer melted in a house fire, that popped into my head, and it was done! :)  HE IS AWESOME! So ya he totally hooked me up! my bike is BRAND SPANKIN NEW! new seat, handle bars, odometer, and it doesn't squeak anymore :)  oh and i can't forget about the new addition that he put on there.. a horn! ha ha legit huh! I love it! THANK YOU Bryan! also, he was accompanied by his awesome family who stocked us with TONS of good stuff! They are all so kind! ha ha i felt like they were my family because they know my family, so it was cool to see them on Thanksgiving! Sister doll and i also went hiking to watch the sunset and that was beautiful!

Toni's Baptism is TOMORROW and we are just soo excited! the best news though, is that she told her entire family about it. She was super nervous and didn't even want to tell her husband but we stressed the importance of doing so MULTIPLE times, and on Sat. she finally did it, and they all support her! ohhh boy what an answer to a lot of prayers that was! so now we're all set for tomorrow and we can hardly wait! Jennifer is doing awesome and she is just so excited for her Dec. 10 baptism!

last night was the annual Stake Christmas concert and we got 6 of our investigators to come and the members did AWESOME with inviting lot of their friends and family to come as well! Ohh boy how i love this time of the year! its in the 80's and its the Christmas season and i swear people are just happier :)

I love you all!

love sister martin

November 21, 2011

Hello,

Josh got baptised!

Yes, this is a wedding! anthony and Amy got married and we got special permission to attend!

This is a blow-up turkey!  I have never seen so much blow-up decorations in my life . . .

 I'm glad alot of people in MO don't have them.  They are just not for me.

Before i say anything, I just want to recognize Mike Akin who passed away earlier this week on the  Nov. 17!  mike was an amazing man and his thoughtful letters he sent to me always lifted my spirits. He will dearly be missed! My thoughts and prayers go to my sister, Kass, and the rest of her family!

Okay so this week was full of blessings!  First of all we met this girl named Jennifer who came to church with her boyfriend last Sunday and we talked with her and she was interested in meeting up with us. she is very busy and didn't know her schedule so we just had to leave her with our number. We walked away a little disappointed because when we do that it never works out in our favor.   Monday she called us and we set up a lesson for Wed! okay so we met with her on wed and the lesson was awesome. The spirit was so strong and it carried our (not very good,  not well prepared) message into her heart and at the end we committed her to baptism on Dec 10! We walked out of that house on cloud 9 just busting with joy. Then on sat Josh got baptized and we invited her and her boyfriend and they came! And she came to church and we were meeting with her again TODAY! what a blessing! she is 21.  I know I've said it before but i just really do love teaching people in this age group because their hearts are just open to knew things and aren't stuck in some routine they are used to but don't really understand why they are doing it.

We also met with Toni several times this week and in one of the lessons we taught her the Word of Wisdom. Going into it we knew that she LOVES her coffee and that it would be challenging for her to give it up. In the lesson we introduced the commandment to her and she said,  "well it would make sense that I would have to give up something I like for something better!" So pretty much I was having a party in my head because of how truly amazing she is!! The Lord is preparing people everywhere for the gospel and it is truly amazing to see.

Josh's baptism went GREAT!  Prior to the baptism... not so great! This was a hard week for Josh;  he truly was going through the refiners fire. Thankfully, he stuck it out. It really is true and you see it all the time that things always get harder before they get better. It has to . . .opposition in ALL things is the Lords plan! Thank goodness for good family and friends that can help get us through all the hard times!

Okay so there is this man named Doug and he is a ward missionary in one of our wards! He calls us ALL the time because he just loves to serve. Some background on Doug is that 5 years ago he became active again.  For about 30ish years he was 100 % inactive and pretty much anti.  Once he had grandkids, his heart began to soften and he came back to the church.  He baptized his wife and they have been sealed in the temple. Well this past week, his wife's health took a turn for the worse and she has been in a coma since last week. The amazing part of this story is, that even with all he was going through, he CAME TO CHURCH Sunday and he asked us if we could go to this other area to teach one of his wife's nurses!! I guess he gave her a Book of Mormon and bore his testimony and now she wants to learn more. We are ALWAYS a missionary and his example is incredible. For all you return missionaries out there, look to Doug's example and always be a missionary! It's never convenient, but the Lord promises us that he will place people in our path that we can help and it's up to us to open our mouths!

I love you all so very much,
sister martin

November 14, 2011

Velcro wall

It's freezing her now - 70 degrees!

I'm a cactus hugger

Took Stephanie to the Visitor's Center

Hiked the San Tan Mtns. again this morning.

Blurry, but still cool!

HAPPY LATE BIRTHDAY TAYLOR AND ANDREW!
I love you both sooo very much!

hello hello!
haha i knew that you probably said no money for sister nortons mom! haha but she is 5'5 and we LOVE the skirts. she wears one of mine EVERYDAY! so she will be thrilled to receive some of her own and i might just have to borrow hers to. It's great to live with so many girls because we get to share clothes. 

Okay so you never answered me about Elder Biggins? he is from Blackfoot and his mom's name is Zana VanOrden??? there has to be a relation there. he is in my district

Okay so mom, what is your roll recipe? could you send it? the lady that is cooking us Thanksgiving dinner wants to make something that if from our families and that's what i want.

Sorry this letter is so random but THANK YOU to Jenny Bollwitt and Elisabeth Sanders for the bday wishes ( Liz i LOVE the headband!!! thanks so much) i love you both so much :) i love that my bday never ends.

Sister Doll and I made it passed transfer calls last night so were staying in Queen Creek for sure until Dec. 27!  that means we get to be together for thanksgiving and Christmas :) yeeeyyy! and the Spanish Hermanas  are both staying too so were all way pumped!

On the sadder note... this week our ward mission leader in the Ocotillo ward, his house burnt down on Thurs!! Saddest thing EVER! they had left the previous day for a trip, so luckily they weren't home but everything was lost... including my odometer! I brought it over there from him to put it on my bike but he ran out of time and returned my bike to me on wed right before they left and told me he would put it on when he returned! Sad day! i think i will just buy another one at Walmart today. so sorry about that!

Another sad note,  last Monday we went to Extreme Air, a place with a million trampolines, and our zone leader was doing a back flip and landed on his neck and broke his back! now he is in phoenix in a rehab place and won't be able to walk for 8 months... NOT GOOD! All week i have really been reflecting on life and how anything can change in an instant. one second were all bouncing around and the next someone can't walk!  life is so precious, tangible things are so easily disposable. The only thing that we can hold on to after this life is our knowledge, state of mind, and our relationships with others. HOLD ON TO THOSE THINGS! Nothing else matters!

So next Sat. JOSH is getting baptized! we had a lesson with him last night and he told us of a spiritual experience that he had had the day before when the Spirit warned him of danger and how he heeded that warning! it is just crazy to see how much he has changed since i first met him. He is so ready and excited to be baptized :)

Also Toni came to church for the first time this Sunday and after sacrament meeting we sat down and talked to her and she just had the biggest smile on her face.  She told us that she felt like she was HOME! she said that right when she walked in the doors she knew that she was where she was supposed to be! she said that she knows she needs to be baptized and now feels like it's her mission in life. OHHH HOW I LOVE THE SPIRIT!  Great week! Life doesn't get any better then this:)

I love you all soo very much! I have a lot of letters to write back but just be patient with me.. they are coming.  Heather when i get a letter from you i just LOVE it, especially when Kenzi slips a letter in there too :) I love you all SOOO very much!

love,
sister martin

November 7, 2011

HELLO HELLO!
mom! thanks so much for the package. i shared everything except the trail mix. that was the best combination ever. did you make it? I loved the fake cockroaches inside haha!

okay so I'm sorry that i keep asking you to send me things lately but it's COLD now! haha i know to the rest of the world 70s is not cold but I think the 115 degrees thinned my bold and I'm FREEZING! haha i could REALLY use my leggings that are solid brown, black, gray and navy.  i wish i could wear my patterned stockings but sadly they have exnayed those. also i would LOVE my boots. If you are coming out the week of thanksgiving could you just bring them and then i will give them back to you after winter so that i don't have to carry them around with me? oh and also my scarves and my old navy jacket! haha sorry that is such a big list but those things are very much needed and appreciated.

Halloween was WEIRD!  it was like a full day p-day. we emailed, shopped,  then cooked some of Oliver ( a cow that one of our recent converts slaughtered, then gave to us) and made spaghetti with.  then we all met as a zone and played basketball, scum, and watched 17 miracles.  that movie was okay to me.. not my favorite but it was still good.  it was cool to see a movie that i haven't seen before though.  Halloween was good but i def didn't feel like a missionary... by the end of the day i was ready to get back to work.

Okay so cool experience. so we taught Toni this week and when we were talking to her she really opened up about a lot of things and told sister Doll and I that she feels like she has known us for years...  it was the coolest ever because we did used to know each other. I can just picture all of us hanging out in the pre-mortal world as spirits together planning a time when we would meet up again on earth!  I feel like that with all of the people that we are teaching.  this Sunday was fast Sunday and  Anthony (one of our our recent converts) got up and bore his testimony and it was the best thing ever. It's so cool to be in an area for a while because I get to see people that I've taught progress in the gospel after baptism. Dennis just got a calling on Sunday to work in the primary, and Shea has a FHE calling.  Keith is soon to get the priesthood and the list goes on! Josh will be getting baptised on the 19th and that is just super exciting! We are on the hunt for new investigators,  but hopefully this week we will be able find some from  member referrals. we contacted a former investigator this week and taught her and it was awesome. we have another lesson with her on Tue so we are super pumped for that as well.

This week someone sent sister Doll this quote and it just makes me so happy!
" Many young women are serving missions. Many are preparing to serve not because they aren't married or have nothing else to do;  but because they have a desire to serve and therefore, are being called to the work. The reason so many are going is because in the next generation Heavenly Father will be sending His priesthood army to the earth and wants to send them to Mothers who have been properly trained and taught in the gospel. What better training can a young women have than that of serving a mission."
President Gordon B. Hinckley,  Dec 2000! AMAZING!!!!

I love everything about being a missionary! I have learned soooo much and have stretched as a person more then I ever thought was possible! I love this Gospel!

love,
sister martin