May 28, 2012 Memorial Day and Kass' birthday!

Hello and Happy Memorial Day!
Of course, Happy Birthday Kass! I love you darling sister-in-law!

Today is so wonderful seeing flags in almost every yard! I really makes me appreciate the county we live in and the freedoms that we get to freely enjoy :) How thankful I am for the great men and women who have served,  and are serving today for all of us to be able to continue to enjoy this beautiful country. I hope you all have a blast today with  everyone today! Tell everyone hi from me!!!

Usually I bring my journal with me but I forgot it, sooo I can't remember anything! Ohhh, but mom I studied President Monson's talk this week too and I just love it!!!

Hebrew 12:1-   "Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,

This scripture was in that talk and it really stayed with me this week and helped me to have a better perspective on my days. "Run with Patience the Race that (this is key) is set before us!" What a powerful scripture filled with love from a loving Heavenly Father telling his children He has a plan prepared for all of us and it up to us to be able to achieve all that He has is store for us!

This week was HOT..until the weekend, but the week had two days of 108 degrees! Last Wed. we had 3 lessons fall through before lunch and so I was pretty worried about what we were going to do all day in the heat, but we had a whole bunch of names we just found in some really old progress records from 2008.  So we decided to visit all of those, even though we were confident none of them would still be living at those addresses, since all the names were at an apartment complex!  So we knocked and knocked and knocked and nothing was happening, UNTIL we got to a house where a lady named Esther answered the door. She poked her head out and told us she was Baptist, and was about to shut the door, but we bore a simple testimony that Christ's Church has been restored and she stopped talking and invited us in. We came in taught her about the Restoration and she completely understood and called us "her angels" by the time we were ready to leave! She is excited about reading The Book of Mormon and told us "I know that the Holy Spirit will tell me if that book is true if I have an open mind about it and pray." Shocked that she had pretty much quoted Moroni 10:4-5, we agreed and left it with her and set up a time to come back this week. She didn't want to come to church until after she had read some so I'm super excited to meet with her again, because I know that she WILL receive a witness by the power of the Holy Ghost! I know that the Book of Mormon is, in fact, Another Testament of Jesus Christ and that Christ's church and authority has been restored!
Esther is from Kenya, Africa and she has listened to God her whole life and is very in tune with the spirit, so I'm excited for her to discover the blessings of the gospel.

We also had some awesome lessons with Paco and Jaquelin, Phoenix and Lili! They are all having their struggles right now but Sister Price and I fasted yesterday and I know that will really help them in their progression in the gospel!

Agency, and the ability to choose for ourselves is a free gift that we all have,  It's something that can be super frustrating because we see people make decisions that are not the best..  I guess that's the process of learning. My parents had to suffer watching me make mistake after mistake and I will continue to see that,  not only now, but when I'm a parent as well. Seeing this process helps me to love and appreciate our Heavenly Father even more because He must be devastated at times while witnessing His children suffer so much!

I am so gratefull for Him and this "race that has been set before us".
I know that patiently running through it is the only way to go!

I love you all so very much :)

love,  sister martin

May 21, 2012

 

Hello, hello! GREAT WEEK... like always :)

 

where to start...

 

LiLi: so we taught her The Plan of Salvation this week!  LiLi is in her 20's and is married with a 4 year old and so we focused the most on eternal families!  Families are not something Heavenly Father wants us to experience here in this life only!  NO, He knows we are the most happy when we are with our families so He made it possible for families to last FOR ETERNITY!  In Matthew, we learn that with the authority of God we can be bound to our families in this life, which binds us to them in heaven! What an amazing blessing that is! So we were teaching her about this amazing concept that she has never heard before and it has filled her with peace and happiness!

LiLi left all of her family back in China and really doesn't know if she will ever see them again in person, so the knowledge that she will for sure have the opportunity to be with them after this life was very overwhelming to her! She then accepted the invitation to be baptized and it was just awesome :)  The gospel of Jesus Christ is awesome!

 

 

Also, we took Phoenix (the 8 year old) to a baptism on Saturday to see this 9 year old being baptized and right before it started we explained to him what the ordinance of baptism represented and told to pay attention to how he was feeling during the baptism because the Holy Ghost will tell his heart if it's right of not. So the talks began and then the boy was baptized and right as the boy came out of the water, Phoenix turned to us and said " I want to be baptized right now, I feel the Holy Ghost!"!  Coolest thing ever!  After the service we walked outside to meet his mom and we talked to her about setting a date and she said that she is interested in learning more!!!! She wasn't there for the baptism and never sits in when we're there, but she said that she is interested in learning about what makes her son so happy! (remember she is Buddhist) Gotta love it :)

 

The Gospel of Jesus Christ unifies us all!

"and it came to pass that there was no contention in the land because of the LOVE OF GOD which did dwell in the hearts of the people." 4th Nephi 1:15.

 

MOM! thank you soooo much for the new awesome camera! I'm so annoyed though my old one works!!!  It did not work with my camera card at all and i asked them if I could use one of theirs at Best Buy to see if it would work and the worker assured me that it wouldn't! LAME!   I can't believe my camera card is erased!!!!  That makes me want to cry...literally, I can't believe it!  I'm glad that I've been emailing pictures home to you,  so at least we have some! You are awesome mama :) i love you!

 

 

It's supposed to be 110 today but it really doesn't matter! Heavenly Father loves us all so much and no unhallowed hand or HEAT can stop the work from progressing. I know that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is Christ's church restored to the earth!

 

i love you all so much :)

love,  sister martin 

May 14, 2012

Hello Hello

It was so good to see my family on Skype yesterday, minus Taylor, Crystal and Kass. I have a new determination to lose weight because EVERYONE has lost weight since I left home, which is good for them, but not so good for me! haha It kinda feels like a dream, like it wasn't real life for me to have been able to talk to you. I loved it though!. It was so cute when Lindsay and Lauren called me :) I'm glad i was able to talk to them. I cant believe how well they are doing with their Personal Progress.

So last night was so cool!   Rene and Carrie, who are Paco and Jaquelin's neighbors that we haven't been able to contact... well we saw them last night. We were walking through their street and saw their light on,  so we decided to knock and they were very happy to see us. We came inside and talked with them a bit, and then Rene said " You know girls, I have to be completely honest with you ( at this point I was freaking out because I thought he was going to tell us they didn't want to meet with us anymore) and tell you that it is such a blessing you stopped by tonight when you did,  Carrie has been having the worst day! We then found out that Carrie's mom passed 5 years ago and Mother's Day is her most hated day! We were able to teach her about the Spirit World and about temples and the amazing work that can be done there to help our families be able to return to live with our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ!  I just love the Spirit because it is so powerful and bears witness to these sacred truths. So in all it was a wonderful day :)


I'll share an awesome scripture that really hit me this morning:
    "And I have a work for thee [Sister Martin] my [daughter] and thou art in the similitude of mine    Only Begotten; and mine Only Begotten is and shall be the Savior, for he is full of grace and truth..." Moses 1:6  We are ALL literal sons and daughters of a loving Heavenly Father and He loves us so very much :) What a blessing it is to know this truth!

This week we had to switch apartments with the Elder's, because our apartment was pretty big.  They put 4 Elders together where we used to live and now we live in one of the Elder's apartment. The other apartment they closed because it is saving the church money.  The Elders lived in that apartment for 10 YEARS!!!! Ya, so you can imagine what it looked like!!! Thankfully, our housing coordinator loves us so she filled in ALL the holes ...there were many... and repainted it,  which helped out a lot! After some DEEP cleaning, it is now starting to smell okay. Thank goodness.

My address has changed and I live at the same apartment complex,  but in apt 1036.
WRITE ME THERE :)

I love you all to pieces!

Much love,
Sister Martin

May 7, 2012

Hello,

 

Where to even start...

 

Phoenix!  So just to clarify, we met Phoenix right after we met with Paco and Jaquelin the first time.  We were skipping through the park and we see the family -mom,dad and son and we talked with them and Phoenix chirped up (even though the parents said no thank you because they were Buddhist) and said that he would love to learn more about Jesus. SO. . . since then we have been teaching him and this week he went on the Father and Sons campout with the ward. Sadly, his stepdad had to work but his parents gave the okay for him to go with the family that we bring with us to his lessons and he just had a blast. That is just the coolest thing ever that he was able to go!  After he got back Phoenix's mom called and just thanked us up and down for that experience for phoenix! Sweet!

 

 

Paco and Jaquelin!  They came to church this sunday! It was their first time and they showed up all spiffy Jaquelin wearing a dress and Paco even wearing a suit jacket! At the end they thanked us and seemed to have really enjoyed themselves, but we will get the real scoop this week. We had the best lesson with them and we taught them about having faith, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost and enduring to the end. It was powerful and amazing and at the end Jaquelin said "I finally get it!" It was awesome and we extended a date for baptism and they accepted so we told them that in order to get baptized, they would have to be keeping all of God's commandments, meaning getting married. They totally agreed and told us they would talk about it this week and we can make plans when we meet with them this week! SOOO EXCITED! they are just amazing :)

 

 

Deborah!  A month or so ago we met Deborah and she told us to come back, which we did 2 times and both times she said I'm not feeling well and asked us to come back another time. We were thinking that she really wasn't interested, but thought we would try back one more time. So we did and to our surprise she answered and invited us in. We then sat down and tried to get to know her a bit and asked her about her family and she just completely opened up and told us about two of her sons that had passed. She proceeded to tell us -very emotionally- that one of her sons  (who was atheist)  appeared to her in a dream and told her not to worry about him because he is the happiest that he had ever been and he is in school right now learning about Jesus with a bunch of other people!!!!  You can imagine Sister Price and I are freaking out because she is completely describing the Spirit World and we told her that we knew that the experience she had was true and that those who have passed are intact at this time,  learning more about Jesus in the Spirit World. She was very relieved that we didn't think  she was crazy and she agreed to meet with us again. She wasn't able to attend church this Sunday but she looked at as firmly and said.. "But I will soon"! 

 

Missionary work is the best work that can be done!

 

Ohh man so much to write and so little time...

On friday our mission did something that we had never before done. From 8 am- 8:30 pm all the missionaries met as zones and read the Book of Mormon... ALL DAY! If you asked me to do that before my mission I would've definitely said no way, but it was the BEST experience ever!  We were to focus on Christ and highlight references of Him, His attributes, and His words and it was just amazing to be able to do that!

 

I know that the Book of Mormon is the word of God and is in fact Another Testiment of Jesus Christ! The biggest thing that stuck out to me is that the Book of Mormon is written PLAINLY for us! it is so plain and we just complicate it. The gospel is so simple for a reason; so that we can know EXACTLY how we can return to live with Him! 

 

I love you all! Go and read the Book of Mormon TODAY!  It will bring the Spirit into your lives that you just can't deny.

love,

Sister Martin

April 30, 2012

 HELLO transfer calls are in and the verdicts is.....
WERE STAYING TOGETHER! I am sooo excited because we work so well together and there is still so much to be done. Actually, everyone in our whole zone but one, is staying here which makes me SOO happy because we have the best zone ever right now and I was sad for the changes. My district and zone leaders are BOMB and we have so much fun together. We recently started a diet competition against our ZLs and we are going to kick their trash!  It's fun to have a good zone with people who actually talk to the Sisters... ughhh kinda annoying but I love all these elders and I'm with Elder Bitton again, who I'm related to if you remember.. his gma is Zena Van Ordon.


I got your package on Thursday mom and THANKYOU SOO MUCH! I love having more pictures and it was just so great to get a package!  I love you so much momma!


Last week was awesome! Sadly, we didn't meet with Paco or Jaclyn because that were both out of town,  but we will see them this week. So the night that we met them, we also met another couple, Rene and Carrie, and set up a time to meet with them. So we met them last week and go figure,  they are next door neighbors to Paco and Jaclyn and  are literally the EXACT same people! They aren't married, the male is more open and the gf is open but will def take more time. They are awesome, and tomorrow we will be teaching them about eternal marriage and the plan of salvation! haha it is weird,  but they both accepted a soft commit for baptism too, so we could have a double wedding and baptism!  :)

Phoenix -the 8 year old came to church again last Sun.. This week we left him with the "Finding Faith in Christ" dvd and as I sat by him in church I asked him about it and he said "What was wrong with that boy? You know the one that looked like a hurt bug..?" haha, "ohh the boy that had a seizure that Christ healed?" hahaha, I just love him. He just loves church and soaks everything in and just loves learning about the stories of Jesus Christ. His dad picked him up from church and actually came into the church building this time so that was pretty cool!


This week we also met a couple named Lili and Ooo who just recently moved here from China. Lili speaks pretty good english so we talked to her and invited her to church. We weren't sure how much they even got from the whole conversation but guess what,  they came to church! It was the craziest thing and it's awesome, because there is a guy in the ward that speaks Mandarin, so it's pretty perfect! Hopefully, we will begin to teach them soon.


Funny story of the week. We taught this guy named Rafael a few times, and for the past three weeks he was in mexico. We we saw him this week and he said he didn't want to meet with us anymore and then said, "but hey I was thinking about you two while I was in mexico and I got you both something." He then went inside while Sister Price and I looked at each other in confusion and disbelief.  He came back out with 2 keychainsfor us from Mexico! hahaha He got us parting gifts... it was quite funny and random.


It also RAINED one day last week. Not just a little... ALOT  and we werecaught in it and it was AWESOME! I love this work more then anything!!!!

Yeah, RAIN!

I love getting wet when it's so hot!

Ok,  it's pouring on Sister Price!

I love you,

Sister Martin