Hump Day!!

WELL!!!! for starters last week after P-day we went to the Trims and did some Service, helping them Remodel the kitchen...... that was fun, got to use some jack-hammers and what not!!!! then on Tuesday, was when I emailed and said I picked rock out in the field..... that was some good fun ha ha, then went to downtown on Wednesday ran in to a "basher" who knew nothing.....pretty sad really.  We Had Dinner with the Bunnages, they are sweet... family of just about all boys and 1 girl Ha, we had salsa chicken. The family  also have two bearded dragons, a Iguana and some cave lizard thingy........

And  then THURSDAY!!!! welllll it was HALF WAY Day!! didn't do anything cool ha ha, just did weekly planning and stop by's, and had a lesson with A---- and C------, C------ was an investigator but we dropped her because she has ZERO desire to do anything..... asked her to baptism and church and she laughed and pretty much was like "yea that's funny, probably not going to happen" BUT A----- her boyfriend is super awesome!!! been less active served his mission in San Jose and has desire to come back to church to baptize his kid and get married! :) sooo were still going to work with him on that! then Friday came along and we went to Seminary and made Waffles for Sis. Wenzles class, (I knew her last time I was here, her husband was the WML) then we went to pick up mail, and sadly didn't have any :(  and after that we did a baptism interview well elder Shaw did because this girl was getting baptized into our ward but was taught by other missionaries.... long story haha .......Then we went out to Nate Martins (dude we live with) and burned a shirt for my one year! its missionary tradition hahah that was fun! :) Then Saturday we had that Baptism for Alysha Olson, which we brought our new investigator MARK to (warden burts friend, hes a member) then had a lesson with him afterwards.... talked about what he wants and it was a stellar lesson then put him on Date for June 7th and he said yes! But now we cant because he didn't go to church yesterday lol... but that's OK were still working with him and he said he wants to be baptized, Both of his Parents are passed away, Dad died in a car crash when he was 2 days old and his Mom passed from Cancer when he was 3, and then his older sister was in a major car crash and now suffers from some Brain Damage, and the Kid has an awesome attitude! literally he just glows it seems...... Later we has some more service, worked on a Garage and Installed the Trim and Siding. and after that we had a "guess who's coming to Dessert" ward event so we went to the Obers house... (knew them last year) and Chris is a Game player and his wife plays with him, like W.O.W and Diablo and stuff! sooooo  it was awesome! and then church was Yesterday! so that was my week in a nutshell! :) I am  supper happy, and now on a downhill slide!

Bunnages Family pets

Brother Martins Home for the Shirt burning.

Fire.....

Rock Picking.....

Well today we started off with district meeting then went to an acreage and "picked rock" literally that's what we did ha ha, picked big rocks so that the equipment doesn't get damaged when going through there..... It was for a English lady, pretty good rock picker now.

  SO this week wasn't super busy, just ya know 5 referrals.... then met with a new investigator in the Sierra Springs ward, invited her to Baptism and got rejected ha ha but that's alright, then picked up 2 new investigators... one tracting he's Muslim and name is Makdar were meeting with him this Friday! :) then the other names Mark a friend of Warden Burt (a member) he was at church the past 2 weeks so we decided to see if he wanted to meet.... and he did! :) so hopefully we will be getting him taught soon :) he is way awesome and were already friends because he is always at dinner with the Burt's when we are there. Then 3rd ward passed off an investigator to us who is getting baptized this Saturday..... so its "ours" lol but I'm not taking credit for that :P other than that..... the Tucker Family is doing good.... weren't at church this week they were sick but Conner the oldest son (15) was. he said they are sick but I decided to come.... he is awesome, going to make a stellar missionary! but in all honesty that's pretty much what has happened... we have several appointments this week but that's with some less active families and our new gator that I already told ya about! :) love ya lots! 

Hayley's Baptism .......

I'm sorry to let ya know I don't have a new companion as of yet... and I won't until tomorrow ha ha... as for mothers day haven't scheduled a place yet only because Elder Nelsen has been getting ready to go home..... so it hasn't been on the priority list lets say..... not to worry ha ha.

sooo this week went well, Monday was pday then Tuesday we met with an awesome less active and had a cool lesson with him on the importance of Church attendance, said he would come but then got really ill apparently :(  then on Wednesday we went downtown again and elder Nelsen also met with the Employment office to help him get ready for home, then  Thursday we had Elder Nelsen's last language training meeting seeing how he was a mandarin missionary at one point ha ha, that was odd I felt way left out and didn't understand anything obviously lol, then Friday was mission leadership council, where we talked about how the mission is doing with the new Standards of Excellence.  SATURDAY! started off great, got to go to the Calgary Temple, was beautiful! all the detail in it, Celestial room was pretty small surprisingly, but still gorgeous. (San Diego is still my fave) THEN!!! Hayley Tucker got baptized! :) it was way sweet and awesome. When she got out of the water her uncle picked her up and hugged her and she squealed "yea  I finally did it!" now you have to know that the last 2 times she went to do it she was to shy and nervous and scared to follow through with it.... she is the most timid shy little thing I've ever seen, you ask her a question like who is our prophet today and she breaks down crying because shes to scared to answer. its pretty funny but also tried Elder Nelsen's and my patience when we were teaching her ha ha. Sunday came along and found out we were covering both the new Sierra Springs Ward and Luxstone Ward sooo yea ha ha....I get almost all of the old Airdire 3rd ward back :)

Monday we went back to downtown seeing how we wont be going tomorrow, ran into "down town Joe" some crazy homeless man who was pretty funny, when we left he said "your looking sober and I like that! you two are looking sharp" ha ha he was awesome, other than that not a whole lot of success people are still to busy for the gospel :( but that was my week in a nutshell! :)

This is the Tucker family and Hayley... the dads not a member and now were trying to work with him! :)

 Hayley

 member's home who is an engineer and likes legos, this is an ak74-U he build! it shoots lego bricks!.. pretty cool

had some delicious red curry... got it hot level 4 out of the 5 levels they have! :) it was pretty good needless to say! :D nothing like a good ol fashioned root beer to wash it down...

Check this Monster out.....

sooo.....this week was a little less exciting, the usual this week some tracting and no such luck :( and then Wednesday we went to downtown Calgary to street contact, ended up talking with a man for about 5 blocks, we walked and talked about the world today and life he asked if i was on a mission and then was like what do you do, so i told him asked where im from i said San Diego, turns out he's actually been there! loved all the Naval and Military stuff, talked more about that then asked if he had tried doing his family history and he could find out where some of his ancestors in the war came from and background info on them then gave him a BofM so that was cool :) not much on Thursday then Friday i got my Easter package from smalls filled with all sorts of yummy candy haha and when we were at the mission office we went to the distribution center to go get some ensigns wellllll i saw the new addition of the scriptures and i really like the Small tiny ones with the snap on the front soooo i bought those haha. they are AWESOME so small and compact its great. then Saturday and Sunday were normal haha.

soooo today for pday were having a BBQ at my old house in Airdrie, haha its kinda of a last hooray before Elder Nelsen (my companion) goes home next week. its been a fun transfer though, I'm now wondering who I will be getting next haha! 

much love your kiddo Elder Martin

Elder Martin in a graffitied tunnel 

check this monster out... its a deep fried hot dog with bacon, grilled onions, hot peppers, mayo,ketchup,mustard, cheese, chili, and a fried egg! mmm sooooo good! 

Post Easter April 22

sooo.... this week was good, Easter ya know? for starters it was weird seeing Easter from a missionaries perspective, it was cool. So Monday was Pday played some ball and all that then we had a lesson with the Tuckers who are a part member family, we are teaching their daughter Haley who is 9 who will be getting baptized on may 3rd! :) 

then Tuesday we taught the Barrons, her BF wants to get baptized and her son does as well, but Terry (BF) has some more learning to do and same goes for Darrion. Those two lessons went great.... then on Wednesday was Elder Nelsen's Bday and we got to spend it street contacting in downtown!! yes.... like the heart of Calgary downtown. it was pretty cool, been a while since I've been in a city haha.... it seemed smaller then SD though..... we ate at this place called the big cheese, its a poutine place :) mmm so good,I had the Philly cheese steak poutine! So back to the contacting, sadly nothing came from it :( people are always to busy and just ignore you!. Thursday we planned for next week and did more tracting. and nada once again :( Friday a huge snow storm came in and made things very hard... it took us 2 hours to get into Calgary to pick up mail.... then drive back... it was pretty sketch but kinda fun at the same time.... :) then it cleared up kinda and went tracting again and still nothing.... but Saturday we went to a baptism for the other missionaries and that was cool her name was Kyla shes 19.... Sunday went to the new ward... wasn't as exciting as I thought it would be... haha but still cool to see people from 3rd ward there. after church we went to Bishop Mulhollands house where we had Easter dinner... his whole family was there, kinda reminded me of our house, tons of food, and laughter and kids running around and playing! :) and then back to Monday for Pday and then today we just got done with District Meetings :) sooo that's my week! 

Elder Nelsen and Elder Martin

Elder Nelsen and Elder Martin

On the way to Calgary to do some street Contacting

Contacting in Calgary

Elder Martin and Elder Nelsen at members home

What a Week

Well every appointment except for 1! fell through this week..... that was fun.... not really, but that's alright.... we went to Mission Leadership Council on Friday and that was cool, we talked about the New Standard of Excellence that president is announcing and thats pretty much 3 personal finding hours a day and 10 people talked to outside of tracting and then 1 new investigator and 1 new less active a week.... should be interesting :P so far its been going well.

I really enjoyed Priesthood session, its always my favorite, Especially Elder Eyring... who is my favorite hah. But I really enjoyed his Priesthood Hero talk I guess we could call it, and made me think who I have had in my life and how am I going to be able to give back to that for kids or friends when i'm in that position :)

So yesterday after conference we had like 2 hours to kill before dinner, so we went tracting.... yaaaay not really haha, no success needless to say so we went for dinner, thats was good, crazy family with 6 kids all under the age of 12, then we did some MORE tracting..... well boy was I Humbled hah... as you can imagine its easy to get bored or discouraged while knocking doors... and I will admit I had the wrong attitude towards it, until we started on this street we felt prompted to knock, mainly because there was a potential investigator on that street. so we started the grind and door after door it seemed like the people had been getting nicer the farther down the street we went, We talked with a lady named Kylie who was interested because she had gone to her mormon friends church building twice in the last month and wanted to know a little more, but seemed very busy but told us to stop by later we talked for about 10 min.... then 2 houses down we met a very pregnant Destiny who was super nice. Elder Nelsen asked if she would like to know More about the Book of Mormon and speedily said yea! my friends mormon and would love to know more about her church, but i'm Due in two weeks and will be a little busy, so we asked if we could come back a month or so later and said yes. Then we get to the second to last house, the door opens up and This man seems very pleased to see us, and I felt very happy and like this was where we were suppose to be. We asked if we could share a message about the Book Of Mormon and he boldly said yes..... we testified of its truths and then set up a RETURN appointment for next Thursday at 8 :) His name is Kent and he is an Electrician by trade... that was the end to my week. It strengthened my testimony of trials of faith and prayers were answered thats for sure, and what a wonderful way to  end Conference Sunday! :) 

Elder Nelsen and Elder Martin

Elder Martin at a members home with a Cool Lego room

Back in Airdrie.......

Welllll this is going to be a transfer to remember! :D This strapping young lad is back in the land of AIRDIRE!!!!!! ahh its so exciting :) I couldn't explain how excited I was when I heard that's where I was going to be serving again! :)  So Elder Nelsen and I cover the Luxstone ward we have 150 children in primary! it is such a young ward, someone told me the Average ward age is bout 29-30 it makes for one crazy sacrament, I will tell you that much hah. So Elder Nelsen is from Sandy somewhere....  haha and not to get him trunky, but this is his last transfer so that's pretty cool for him :) I'm excited for him to be able to get back to his family. He was more into school rather than sports or video games so that's pretty cool also, and he is the middle child of 5 kids.

We actually live with members who's last name happens to be Martin as well hah, I meet them when I was in Airdrie last time. so that was nice to see them again.

We have a Chevy Cruz and we do have a washer and dryer so no worries haha..... umm I don't know what else to report on about things now because you know what Airdrie is for the most part haha......

Sooooo the weather has been unforgiving because its spring up here and its still deciding to snow and be 3 degrees lol, other than that its great! we have a few investigators who are Part Member Families.... haven't been able to teach them all yet.... just one, the V's and she was a member until she was 16 then decided to go catholic... and cant remember anything about the church, only what her husband reads online, and we all know where that goes..... so they have TONS of question but thats ok! :) he isn't there to bash just know whats real and isn't real, so that's why he asks us to confirm what he has read haha. but that just about sums up this week to be honest haha just been getting settled in and knowing the ward it feels good to be back in Airdrie! :D

Umm so as a Zone Leader on the first Friday of every month we go to Mission Leadership Council to learn about the Mission and how to better prepare it so that's cool, and then every friday night we have a mission leadership conference call to talk about whats happening in the mission and to see what baptisms are coming up! :) so that's pretty awesome! :D  A lot of changes and things to learn with this new responsibility, but all is well and I'm excited to be back in Airdrie

last day with Elder Nilsson Before I Left for Airdrie :( he went south somewhere