July 14 Elder Martin Letter

This week was just OK....we had 2 investigator appointments fall through, and when we would return to our potential investigators, no answers... but we did teach Bro Perry who's less active this week and he was at church on Sunday so that was awesome, we did some service in his front yard too! also taught Aaron Smith who is another Less Active he seems to still be progressing! and then we taught Kylar who will be getting baptized on the 26th! :) if anything else crosses my mind i will let you guys know! :) love ya both! :D

Bathtub racer

I think the Picture explains it all

July 7th email

Well this week was pretty good I might say..... started off with getting a sweet new shirt from Calvin Kline originally 80 got it for 30! then on Tuesday Canada Day we had some District meetings and then went to a lunch at the Beatties house, there was about 5 other Families there and we just hung out played some Frisbee and what not, then this one family's some the Trims pulled out this thing called the Phantom.. its a remote controlled helicopter that has a HD camera on it linked to your cell phone! its pretty cool...then had dinner with an awesome family, the Villas. Wednesday we had an awesome lesson with our less active friend Bro Perry who has been coming back to church lately......Then on Thursday Elder Shaw turned 1 whole year! yaaaay ha ha, then we had our baptism interview for Holly and had a lesson later with the other family who's son is getting baptized, which takes us to Friday July 4th! where I spent 6 hours in a Mission Leadership Council discussing the needs of the mission, we then had a sweet lesson with another less active  who wants to get active again so he can baptize his son next year! he is So awesome! We invited him to the Saturday Pancake breakfast and he came! then he came to church on Sunday too! now on to Saturday Had a Pancake breakfast in the morning, right after that went to Holly's Baptism it was awesome! she was so thrilled you could just feel it....

after that we went back out to the Beatties to "celebrate" our 4th! and burn elder Shaw's 1 year shirt.... well I was lame and forgot my camera but that's OK were doing more this week! :) but lets just say that Gas soaked white shirt.... in a potato cannon = BALL OF FIRE!!! possibly the most amazing thing ever!  and then we come to Sunday when Aron came to church! and Holly Bore her Testimony! pretty much a sweet week! :) 

Holly's Baptism 

burning stuff with a huge magnifying class.... also at the Beatties!

Soaking in that Vitamin D

Canada day cake at Villas!

June 30th post

 soooo my week was not to bad we had 2 lessons with holly, she is now ready to be baptized on the 5th..... then we met with this other family whose 9 year old isn't baptized yet, so we will be getting him ready to baptize on the 26th.... then we laid some Sod for our Elders quorum president on Saturday, then went and hung drywall for this part member family for 4 hours..... that was tiring, ha ha..... then Sunday I gave a talk on Joseph Smith and the Importance of him being a prophet for the Restoration of the Church It seemed to go very well, Also met with two less active families this week, and then saw them at church so that was fun! :) also the non member who we helped drywall came to church and another less active we haven't seen for a while did as well! sooo that was pretty cool and my week! :P

Elder Larsen Getting Transferred 

Elder Day going home :(

Sharing good Gospel downtown

June 23rd post

Well this week was busy with all that fun Zone Leader stuff.... Monday we went to District meetings then after that we taught Holly commandments, Then Tuesday was Pday, and Wednesday TRANSFERS! We got there at 8:00 and left at 11:00 then went to the Mall ate lunch. shopped for the New greenie, took Elder Eastes with us because he was waiting for his companion to come up from the south, went home got some groceries, went back to transfers at 3 got back at 5:30 ate some dinner real quick then went to a meeting back in Calgary for training on the Ward Mission Leaders and the Idaho Initiative.... Heard of it? all in all it turned out to be an 18 hour day! it was insane.... then Thursday we Weekly planned and that took most of the day because we had to figure out the new zone stuff... Friday we had a Special Leadership training meeting on how to be an effective leader/ know what the missions doing type thing... then we left and got mail, then had to get our oil changed didn't get back to Airdrie till 5 then either.... and Saturday we FINALLY got out to find people, all in about 2 hours we placed 4 Copies of the Book of Mormon and had probably 5-6 good gospel talks with people so that was a sweet day! Then Sunday we had a linger longer after church and now that brings me to my day today! :)

June 17th post

Well once again not a super whole lot of stuff to report on.... Yesterday we met with our gator (investigator) Holly, she is 12 and is a Foster Child living with the Stephenson family right now, taught her the Plan of Salvation and Gospel! shes awesome, and she already has a testimony of fasting! She and her family fasted for her social worker to allow her to take the Missionary Lessons and get Baptized, so that's how were meeting with her! Baptism date on July 5th, that's always fun :)

all of our stop by's, we have been making nobody is home and all of out other gators, we cant catch anymore, but we have Chris who is interested still, who is a friend of the Hudson family, hes 16-17 and tells them he will be coming to church this sunday so thats exciting! hopefully we can meet with him this week. See the problem with the Youth is that school is just getting finished and its Finals and all that so they are really busy..... so its kinda understandable.

Then we had dinner with the Ober Family this week whos an awesome family, really young couple... , then we also ate with this other sweet family the Villas... they are just awesome and fun! but that was my week.... oh and I guess an important thing is that SHAW AND I ARE STAYING TOGETHER!!! 

this is Elder Larsen and I sharing a cinnamon bun! haha

Double Rainbow

June 9th Pictures

Car ride to Drumheller With Mandarin Elders

Biggest TREX in the world!

Atop of said TREX

Elder Shaw, Abunawara, Chronis! (the Mandarins!)

The Hoodoos!

The Zone!

ok this is a schwarma

Grass Service Project (before Picture)... he didn't give us a after shot.

Elder Martin email June 2nd

Alrighty well this week was pretty full of events... so i feel like it started on Wednesday when our Zone went to downtown Calgary to do some contacting,  Elder Shaw and I were going to try a new place to eat called "Joeys" is seafood so we looked it up on my GPS and when we got off the Train we headed that way, (totally opposite direction we normally go to eat) so were walking to 5th Ave and we finally come to the building and its not there (I need to update my GPS haha) so were slightly annoyed and decide to start walking to our appointment we have at this Shwarma place were thus dude wanted to know why we have the only "true" religion as he puts it, so we start walking when all of a sudden this man stops us and Points to our name Tags and says I'm one of you. so Elder Shaw and I were puzzled because this was a Black man with a very thick accent... tells us his name is Jean from Tanzania, then he says "I was baptized in 2005" so we start talking to him and he tells us his story, so he was baptized in 2005 and that day was his 1st day in Canada, it was starting to rain and he says "elders can you help me find a place to stay where I can get on my feet, I came here with nothing but my backpack and clothes on my back" SO! I took him to Tim Hortons and got him a hot chocolate (he looked cold and wet) then we called the Mission Office to find the Address to the Drop in Center got that all set up for him and i couldn't help to ask him is he needed any money, he humbly said "Elder like I said I have nothing, anything you can do for me will help" wellllll I thought  mom would do the exact same thing! so I went to the bank withdrew 60$ and handed it to him with our phone number and told him to keep in contact with us. the next day he called us to say he made it to the drop in center ok and got a place to stay, and just yesterday he said he just got a job out in brooks! I dont know about you guys but that was no mere chance we ran across Jean.... for some odd reason we wanted sea food that day.... and I will be honest, Canada doesn't have good sea food haha. BUT it was so awesome!!! 

So Thursday rolls around that was a pretty normal day, nothing super happened, Friday was normal then we went to meet with the new investigator we picked up 2 weeks ago, he didn't let us in and said hes read about 1/4 of the BofM and just talked to us on the front porch, so were like well there has to be someone were suppose to meet on this street so we start knocking doors.... when we get to this one and no answer then 2 kids on bikes ride up and there like 10 and just start talking to us, one asks "are you christian" and were like yea... then hes like "but aren't you guys mormon" haha so we talked with them about their day and such then the house we just knocked and we were standing outside of, garage door opened and then the car pulled in and it was this kid about 17, we start talking to him and ended up picking him up as a new investigator as well! then one of the kids on a bike (who stayed through all this discussion) asks us "do you think we will live again? like get another body, because I asked my mom that and she doesn't know" so we explained that and gave them both our card and they said they would go talk to their parents. Now i don't know if they actually did but hey, everyone gets to hear the gospel no matter how small! :)

Saturday went over well... moved people for like 6 hours! then we went to Adult Conference,  at the end I was talking to Dillon Roush (knew him when i was here last) he is a YSA kid and has been wondering if he should go on a mission, well he finally put in his papers and got his call... annnnnddd hes going to CARLSBAD CALIFORNIA!!!!! I seriously flipped out when I heard that and was so excited for him, so when i get home i'm going to have to take a trip and go bother him up in Carlsbad! 

Now comes Sunday... went to the Canada wide broadcast by President Eyring and Elder Holland that was pretty sweet, threw down on investigators getting baptized and kids at home needing to man up and leave things behind to go serve a mission, that talk was based off of a Family/Son in Taber that i swear i met haha, just cant remember them.... im sure you can find it on LDS.org you should go look up that Conference it was good :) Then we met at the Hudsons to teach one of their kids friends who is interested about the church and where it came from, we taught Lesson 1 and he seemed pretty interested and told us now all he has to do is see if its true for himself, sooo alll in all a geat week! :)

 annnnd now back to normal monday for Pday, were headed out to Drumheller today! :)