[6/30/2014] Week 69: Spiritual Highs

Hey, hey!

This week was rough in a few ways, but awesome in others. Elder Haupu and I were dropped by most of our investigators and struggled to find new ones, but definitely found a lot of potentials. We have a goal for eight new investigators this week, which we feel really good about and committed to. We are going to work so hard!

We are definitely doing better in our relationship, and I've just been praying for lots of charity and humility. One thing came to me randomly during personal study. I think it's way cool that the Church is no longer represented solely by white kids from Utah (nothing wrong with those). Instead, we have people from all over the world, including from Hawaii who, rather than bumming it on a beach and surfing all summer, are working hard to serve the Lord Jesus Christ. I tell you, the gospel does something amazing to young people. Well, all people. But us young people in particular.

Elder Pymm and I spent some time on the infamous West Casino Road on Thursday, and witnessed an incident of domestic violence between two neighbors spurred by the vicious kick of a child's plastic tricycle. Seriously? And they both ended up in the hospital. But you know what happened after that? We were walking back to the apartment to grab Elder Pymm's suit coat (for a baptismal interview), and ran into Andrew on the way there. When we first walked up to him, Andrew, a young single adult, called out, "Hey, guys! How goes the mission?" Not a member, Andrew had heavy exposure to the members and doctrine of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints while in Army basic training. He found his curiosity piqued and has of late been looking to find a good church and good community. He recently moved up here with his girlfriend, they broke up, she moved out, and he stayed because he likes his job. He agreed to a chapel tour the next day, and the tour went wonderfully! We will see him soon; either tonight at Ward Home Evening (that's what they call it in a Young Single Adult ward) or tomorrow for a lesson.

District Hike at Japanese Gulch!

The zone did wonderfully this month. If I'm not mistaken, there were 9 people baptized and 10 confirmed (one baptism took place on May 31st) in the Everett zone for the month of June. That's magnificent! Some of these converts were a while in the making, but many were a result of keeping investigators on date and getting them fellowshipped and to church each week to create true conversion and real growth. Honestly, there are some great missionaries in this zone, and phenomenal district leaders. I think they were key in staying close to the proselyting missionaries and training them on how to keep investigators progressing spiritually and socially.

I had the opportunity of attending a ward mission leader training session for the Everett stake last night, and learned some really cool things from President Duce (mission presidency) and others. I love member missionary work! Here's one quote I wrote down:

"They have the keys to prepare the investigators for baptism; we have the keys to find and invite."
      -President Porterfield (President of the Everett, Washington Stake), on missionaries and members.

My brothers (June, 2014)

I love y'all! And I love that picture! I will be buff one day like all my brudders. In the meantime, basketball in the mornings will have to do for my exercise.

Elder Martin

[6/23/2014] Week 68: A Crazy Week

Hey, howdy!

Me Holding the Title of Standards of Excellence,
which we made for zone meeting!

The Everett Zone!

I tell you, it's been a crazy week. Yesterday was especially stressful. Elder Haupu and I were asked to teach mission prep at 7:30am, teach Elders' quorum in third hour, share a little bit in Gospel Principles about priesthood organization, and at the same time, had to find two new speakers for our stake cottage meeting last night--we had three set up, but two of them were suddenly unavailable come Saturday evening. Church gets out at 4:30pm, and cottage meeting started at 7:00. I was really stressed out for the first time since I trained Elder Benedict! On top of that, we received a call at about 5:50pm from someone in Arlington requesting that a blessing be given to a patient in Providence Hospital, which stood in North Everett, about 15 minutes from the stake center in South Everett. Of course, we went!
The patient was a 52 year-old inactive member by the name of Darrell, and when we arrived, his eyes lit up as he managed a few words: "I sure could use a blessing." After the blessing, just one word: "Calming." He requested we leave him with a Book of Mormon, which we did, and then we were on our way back to South Everett (it was a judgment call with the marshmallows) for the cottage meeting. We were even 15 minutes early! I love being on the Lord's errand.

Oh, and cottage meeting ended up being really great! We had almost the whole zone there with people they are teaching.

Baptism of Jessica and Zach Flanagan

This week has been a little different for finding since the college is closed. It doesn't reopen for summer quarter until June 30th, so we've had to work a little bit harder to find and talk with YSA's. What's cool is that we decided to visit a less-active young single adult, and then afterward, we simply tracted the rest of his street. We ended up talking with a young single adult at almost every door that was opened to us, and even found some people who want us to come back. What a blessing! The Lord always provides a way for us to move His work forward.

I've noticed this week that there has really been a push in the zone for hitting standards. It's almost the new "buzz-word" in the zone. The goal of achieving the standards of excellence was one that came up with each of our zone's district leaders during accounting last night, which tells me that the message seems to have finally gotten across!

Elder Haupu and I

Often, the relationship between Elder Haupu and I gets really strained. Frequently, it is an exercise in self-control and biting my tongue that takes me right back to the transfer I spent with Elder Julius. Elder Haupu is a really good missionary, and I have a lot to learn from him, but my pride seems to get in the way of that. I have prayed a lot for humility and charity in the past several weeks, and guess what? I think it's working! Brother Hall, our ward clerk, said something profound in sacrament meeting yesterday: "Contention never was and never will be an ally of progress." I think Elder Haupu and I are a couple of pretty sharp missionaries, and the only thing Satan can manage to get in our way is contention. But if he can do that, he can really slow us down. So I'm working on being more cognizant of that!

That's pretty much what I've got for this week.

Love ya!

Elder Martin
Silver Lake Ward

P.S. An excerpt from President Bonham's letter this week, which might be helpful to you:

"We need to continue to do all in our power to let members know that “we are here to help you with missionary work.” We can also say “we are called to be teaching specialists and are ready to teach the gospel to anyone that will listen.” Notice that I am not suggesting that we say “the members are helping us with missionary work”! It is true that they do, and we want that, but that is just our “backup plan”—the backup plan is what we do when we are trying to find, teach, and baptize on our own because we have time that is not used. For now, most of our time is used in our “backup plan,” but the member understanding, skills, and confidence are growing. I see it all over the mission. One day they will keep us really busy and we won’t have time for our “backup plan.” We see that on good days and in certain spots around the mission now. I pray for that “busy-ness” to spread and grow. Pray for this to happen, then work the “backup plan” so that we have lots of good successes to invite members to join in (member present lessons, fellowshipping, inviting people to Church events) and catch the spirit of missionary work!"

I love this guy!

[6/2/2014] Week 65: Mere Christianity (C.S. Lewis)

We had such a great week!

On Friday, we met Russell Foy. He was found by the elders in the Machias, WA ward, who taught and baptized his cousin, Josh, not too long ago. Russell couldn't help but notice how much Josh has changed since his conversion. He is much happier, more full of life, and even quit drinking! Russell has heretofore been hardly religious, if at all, and more focused on things of the world. Admittedly, he "smoke[s] a lot of pot" to help his anxiety and Acid Reflux Whatever. We taught him the message of the Restoration, using the new pamphlet teaching method, and invited him to pray at the end. During the long moment of silence following his prayer, the Spirit powerfully touched each of our hearts. In fact, he described feeling "peaceful and calm, his stomach at ease, which is weird because usually I need marijuana to do that." The next day, he attended with us the baptism of a young lady that the sisters in our ward have been teaching, we taught him about the Book of Mormon after the baptism, and he accepted a baptismal date of July 27th. On Sunday, Russell attended church with us, was received magnificently by the ward, and was reading the Book of Mormon on his phone in between meetings. He'll be playing basketball with us in just a few minutes and will attend Ward Home Evening tonight. We're stoked!

I want to share an insight from President Bonham's letter this week:

"A thought about the Big Project: I grew up with a mother that could (and often did) sew clothes for herself and the rest of the family. When Sister Bonham and I were married, I knew that she could sew too (she made her own wedding dress, for example—photo at the mission home). However, in the early months of our marriage I didn’t know how well her projects would turn out. They involved trips to the fabric store for main and supplementary fabrics, zippers, buttons, sewing tools, thread, patterns, and so on. Then would come the chaos: pattern pieces sitting out—thin paper that couldn’t be lost but would fly off the table if the door opened; fabric pinned to pattern pieces and piled up; half-sewn pieces of clothing draped over chair backs or hanging on a hanger—but missing one arm; special sewing scissors that I had better not touch; contrasting pieces looking for a place to attach; zippers that looked to me like they were put in backward; and holes for buttons opposite places where no buttons hung. Sister Bonham would work away on these projects, sometimes fast and sometimes slow, fitting in other responsibilities around them and putting them together bit by bit. Sometimes it appeared to me that the project was going backward as she would take apart a seam that she had already made to adjust it to be smaller or larger. Then, after a while, the chaos would get smaller, the stray threads would get picked up, the extra pieces would find their place in the clothing, and soon she would appear, dressed in her “project,” saying, “Do you like it”? And I always did! Sometimes the project was for someone else and it appeared all packaged and ready to go in a gift box or the mail. At first, I didn’t know if these projects would always turn out. Some looked scary and I wondered if she would finish them. Probably some were better than others, but to my untrained eye, all of them turned out well. After a while I began to develop great confidence in Sister Bonham’s abilities. I didn’t worry when I saw the chaos of a new sewing project. I knew that by-and-by, after her worry and work, something wonderful would emerge. She has even passed this talent along to four of our five children. 

"So why am I telling you about Sister Bonham’s sewing prowess (other than because she’s so wonderful—even now about half the clothing you see her in is homemade)? It is because I had an interesting insight this week. It comes from Moses 1:39: “For behold, this my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.” I know that sometimes we think that eternal life (the kind of life Heavenly Father lives) is just too grand of a goal for us and is not really possible. Even when we consider the idea of relying on the Savior’s atonement and having a couple trillion years to work on improving and learning and growing, we still seem to feel that we just “aren’t celestial material.” I disagree. And that is because in this case we are the “project” and Heavenly Father is the one making it. It is His work and glory to help us to receive eternal life. He is determined to get us there—and we can get there if we will choose to do the right and keep working at it, relying on the principles of the gospel and exercising faith, repenting, being baptized (entering covenants, renewing them through the sacrament), receiving (heeding) the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end. So, if we are willing, He is the project manager and He has infinite power, knowledge, wisdom, ability, patience, and love. What is to stop Him from completing his “project”—us? He can and will help us to receive eternal life if we will let Him. Now if that is not a thought to “enlighten” your day, I can’t think what is!

C. S. Lewis

C.S. Lewis put it like this:

That is why He warned people to “count the cost” before becoming Christians. ‘Make no mistake,’ He says, ‘if you let me, I will make you perfect. The moment you put yourself in My hands, that is what you are in for. Nothing less, or other, than that. You have the free will, and if you choose, you can push Me away. But if you do not push Me away, understand that I am going to see this job through. Whatever suffering it may cost you in your earthly life, whatever inconceivable purification it may cost you after death, whatever it costs Me, I will never rest, nor let you rest, until you are literally perfect—until my Father can say without reservation that He is well pleased with you, as He said He was well pleased with me. This I can do and will do. But I will not do anything less.’ (Mere Christianity, 1952)

Yesterday, in Elders' Quorum, we were asked to name our heroes as part of the lesson, and after "my dad" and "my big brother" were already on the board, I volunteered "my mission president". I really love that guy.

In other news, Elder Haupu and I continue to disagree at times, but we're doing way better at getting over it quickly.

This week, we had the responsibility of making some pretty serious correction with a missionary who already doesn't seem to like me. ( :( ) It was a difficult task for Elder Haupu and I as we haven't really had to correct on this issue before (in fact, I haven't had to correct hardly at all -- such good missionaries in this mission!), so we role played it a lot and it ended up going just about as well as it could -- at least on our end. It still wasn't received to kindly, but I guess you can't win 'em all. We recognize nobody likes to be told what to do (refer to introductory paragraph of 1 Nephi 1), but we just want him to have the best mission experience possible, and there have been too many mistakes in the mission recently to risk not saying anything.

Leanne hit her year-mark the other week, so a letter from Mom to her might be nice. She's windin' down.

Seth looks stinkin' sharp! I like that he's almost the only white guy. And that he's not wearing anything dumb (camo pants? fedora? C'mon.). He looks way classy.

So Margo's starting marching band? That's so awesome! I'm so excited for her! On that note, I had the opportunity to play the French horn yesterday for the first time in something like two years. It wasn't perfect, but the owner of the horn had a copy of Andromeda, so I was taken riiight back to Sophomore year. It felt so good. And my face was tired after playing for less than five minutes. I can't wait to hear Margo play again!

And I can't wait to hear Seth's truck running!

I love y'all!

Elder Martin

[6/16/2014] Week 67: I'm really sorry...

...but these missionaries love to play basketball, and I can't come in here (to the Family History Center) and email alone.

So I'm consistently short on time.

The scariest part is that I'm starting to like basketball too.

This week was full of small miracles. Our crazy shy investigator, Derek, prayed at the end of our lesson, came to church for all three hours, and played basketball with us today.

Our sincerely stubborn and honest-of-heart investigator from Tanzania, Yamungu, prayed at the end of our lesson (something he had refused to do because we were "of different faiths") in Swahili, committed to read the Book of Mormon (we just got him one in Swahili!), and committed to attend Ward Home Evening with us this evening, which is a huge step forward because of how cautious he has been. He just doesn't want to offend his God.

Russell came to church for the third time yesterday and is moving right along. He has been working on his own at quitting some addictions for a week or so and even feels comfortable enough at church to crack jokes in Elders' Quorum. He showed up in a white shirt and tie for the first time, but was short just a pair of dress shoes. He submits that since his flip-flops are Dockers brand, they count as dressy.

The Everett zone really, really finished the transfer strong (oh yeah, we received transfer calls; I'm staying with Elder Haupu!) with six baptisms this weekend and eighteen more yet to be baptized on a specific date in the coming months. We're really excited to see what this summer will bring.

Which reminds me how little time I have left. I'm scared.

Elder Zollinger, my first district deader, and Elder Lovell, my first companion as a zone leader, went home today. That's depressing.

But I received word from Elder Jones that Delores (the incredible artist investigator found through the incredible members of the Blaine ward) will be baptized on July 12th. That's just wonderful! Picked my spirits right back up. This will make 12 people to enter the waters of baptism in the Blaine ward this year. That was the ward's initial goal for the entire year of 2014! The Hastening is real. I have a testimony of that!

Elder Haupu and I focused a lot on working and role playing with members to help them learn how to invite others. We do that as our "spiritual thought" after each dinner appointment.

Gotta skedaddle!

I love y'all!

Elder Martin

P.S. The Father's Day service was awesome yesterday. I miss you, Pops!

[5/19/2014] Week 63: South Whidbey Island

Howdy!

This week has gone in a flash. I guess I say that a lot. But that's the nature of the beast.

I am getting accustomed to working in a YSA ward. It's way different contacting on a college campus, and, to be honest, I feel even more-so like a salesman/robot/bother when I approach people--I guess because it is assumed that everyone who whizzes by is on a mission (not in the LDS sense of the word, of course). So I need to figure out how to be more like myself, more natural, and less stiff.

Elder Haupu likes taking pictures on I-5 at 60mph.
...And we both like cookies.

Elder Haupu and I get along fairly well. Periodically, there is an outburst of disagreement between us, which is more often rooted in pride than right-ness or wrong-ness. We've talked about it in companionship inventory and have set specific goals to solve the problem. We remarked that "if this experience doesn't prepare [us] for marriage, [we] don't know what will." So that's nice to know. I've noticed that there are a lot of aspects of missionary service that really take the "two birds, one stone" approach. There's always a deeper purpose to what we learn here. Kudos, Heavenly Father.

I think for the most part, this zone is stocked with pretty good missionaries. And Ferndale was great too. Either President Bonham has a knack for putting good missionaries in my zones, or Heavenly Father has a knack for putting good missionaries in our mission! Many of our areas struggle with finding. Heck, Elder Haupu and I are struggling with finding. We have made plans with Elder Pymm, one of our district leaders, to carpool out to South Whidbey Island on Friday and blitz the sisters' area there to help them find new investigators. We're excited as this is an opportunity to go after "the one"!

We met with an investigator, Cameron, twice this week -- on Wednesday for a church tour and on Saturday for a lesson on the Plan of Salvation -- and he came to church on Sunday (for which he had to get off work)! Everything went pretty much perfectly; we introduced him to the bishop, sat in the second row on the sacrament side of the middle section of pews, and, as a bonus, it was a YSA ward, so it was actually really quiet! He had a great time for sure. Cameron, who is 6'5" and athletic, has the most gentle, meek heart and described feeling intimidated by Ryan (EQP and fellowshipper), Elder Haupu, and I (the first- and second-named being shorter than me!) upon his arrival at the church building, which for him was a foreign atmosphere. After having attended church with some familiar faces, of course, he is much more comfortable and will hopefully have a baptismal date soon.

Things are really starting to pick up here as we work with members and rake in information from missionaries concerning contacts living in the areas in which they currently serve as well as in areas within the Everett and Snohomish stakes in which they formerly served. Just gotta get out and meet 'em!

I've thought a lot about success over the past several days and what it means to be a successful missionary. And how we can help ourselves and other missionaries recognize the success they're being blessed with every day of their missionary service. I think a lot of the problem stems from comparing ourselves and our areas with the "outward results" of others. I'm going to keep studying on this...

Love y'all!

Elder Martin

[6/9/2014] Week 66: Pay Special Attention

To all within the sound of my keyboard,

This week was not too shabby in the way of missionary work.

But I wanna talk a little bit about my study habits.

Sometimes, from 8am-9am it's a battle between my eyelids and my willpower. Unfortunately, gravity only works in one direction (but Gravity isn't that great a singer). I've found that writing down everything that comes into my mind (questions, thoughts, feelings, and impressions) is not only beneficial in keeping my mind active and alert, but also allows me to clearly analyze and lay out everything I'm experiencing. No spiritual prompting flows by unnoticed. This often results in 30-40 minutes spent on 7 or 8 verses and several days spent on a single chapter, but I feel like I get so much of what Heavenly Father wants me to learn out of each passage. Pay special attention even to images that cross your mind as you study. This provided for a very powerful experience for me in the past week. I learned a lot about myself and about the character of the Savior this way. I invite you each to try this out, especially in attempting to understand passages from the Bible. It has helped me so much with the New Testament. This method applies beautifully with Preach My Gospel as well. Also, make sure your prayers to begin and end each study session are sincere. This does not mean they are long. In fact, get straight to the point in your prayers. Tell Him what you hope to learn. Ask Him to prepare your heart and mind for what you might learn. Thank Him for the answers to your questions that He will surely bestow upon you.

I don't have time for a whole lot else, but know this, that Emma, one of our way solid investigators, accepted a date (July 19th) on Wednesday, and then her parents flipped out last night. So please pray for her and her parents that their hearts might be softened. On Wednesday, Cameron as well committed to live the Word of Wisdom, and he slipped up by Saturday. Please pray for him to have a greater desire to live according to that law of health.

Russell is doing great. He attended church with us again on Sunday and attended Cottage Meeting last night. He will have to give up some things pretty soon for his baptismal date on July 26th.

I don't know for sure about Andrew. I will email him today.

I'm so excited about Seth's truck!!!!

And Christian's gonna be a rad missionary. I just know it!

And happy birthday, Pops! I was definitely thinkin' about you on Thursday. Turns out, one of our investigators' dad's birthday was also on Thursday. Huh.

I love y'all!

Elder Martin

[4/7/2014] Week 57: Guided Paths

Hey!

My twin brother Christian (white shirt) and friends

Those are some good pictures. Thanks for Sharon.

I hope all is well with everyone down south. Things are lookin' pretty good up north. We have been blessed with a wonderful ward and lots of missionary work this week.

This week, we learned that Aaron Simmons, whom we found through Kevin, decided to spend his time in the Blaine ward rather than YSA, so it looks like we will be having a baptism next weekend! How about that?

Conference this time around was a different experience for me. I took Elder Bednar's advice from his November visit and focused on writing the thoughts and impressions that I had. I really felt somehow that all of the General Authorities who spoke were speaking in such a personable and genuine way that made it much easier for me to stay focused. As a result, I heard Heavenly Father's voice telling me what I need to work on. I have set a lot of goals for myself to repent and improve my missionary work. Because of the strong Spirit I felt as Conference proceeded, I have a lot of motivation to follow through with these goals.

My brother Seth (center) and friends

On Friday, Elder Jones and I went on an adventure! By adventure, I mean we took the bus from Blaine to Ferndale, had a mini-exchange with the elders in the 1st ward, and took the bus back! It was the first time I've used public transit on my mission, but it saved us 24 miles on our car! Isn't that incredible? Also, we had lunch at Denny's and were waited on by a lady named Carla. Carla, who is not a member, actually has a younger sister who served a mission on Temple Square. While she was driving in Blaine some months ago, she offered Elder Lovell and I a ride in the pouring rain. We had to decline, of course, because there was no man in the car, and she drove off quickly having done a good deed in offering. Well, we happened to run into her again, and she lives in Birch Bay, and she said she'd be happy to meet with the sister missionaries there! It was awesome! Isn't it wonderful how Heavenly Father puts people together? And to think we almost went to McDonald's...

I can't think of anything else spectacular or momentous from this week. We have zone meeting coming up on Wednesday. I have been a missionary for[seemingly]ever now. The mentality is that it will never end either.

You know, I was just thinking about those tiles yesterday. Good for you, pops!

Dustin is doing wonderfully. He is up and on his feet and even at work now. He still loves the gospel, especially enjoyed conference, and is on track to speak at cottage meeting this coming Sunday. He's excited to share his story and testimony, but nervous to speak in front of so many.

My great friend, Kevin Mock

Is Brandon going to the YSA ward? Or just the YSA activities within the Katy stake? I wonder if he has ever run into or had contact with a young man named Kevin Mock? I think about him often and wonder how he's doing.

I love y'all!

Elder Martin

P.S. Dad, are you still updating my blog? I have a lot of nonmember friends who are aware of it, and I don't want them to check back and continually be disappointed and lose interest in my mission-izing...
[Dad says, "No, I was behind, but I am catching up. Sorry!"]