:)

This week wasn't too crazy. We had zone conference which was fun and met a bunch of pretty cool missionaries.

I went on a quick split with the DL and we went to go teach a lady named Cara. She then told us that meeting the missionaries was a "catalyst for her turning Catholic." I guess they had started teaching her and then her super Catholic family got involved and now she's Catholic.

We were tracting one night and we met a lady who loves Jesus and the Bible and speaks french. My companion was trying to tell her that Jesus came down to the Americas to minister to the people but he said, "Jesus a tombée dans les Ameriques." Which basically means Jesus fell into the Americas. She said "Oh ok byeee." And I don't think I've ever seen someone close the door so fast.

We also went to teach some Spanish speakers with the Jacob, a member from the ward. We had 2 super cool lessons in 100% Spanish which means my companion and I basically did nothing lol. But they seemed super ready for the gospel and want to start coming to church.

Much love! 

Elder Martin

New England Snowstorms

Bonjour tous le monde!

Another great week! We taught a lot of people, went on a couple companionship exchanges, experienced our first real winter storm, and witnessed at a wedding.

To start off the week, the Zone Leaders came over on P day and played Risk with us and a couple other Elders. I won of course. Then we went on exchanges and Elder Petersen and I taught quite a lot of people. We also attended a funeral.

One of my favorite moments from this week was when we went to teach a woman named Sunday. She is from Uganda so doesn't speak French, but we brought a French Book of Mormon just in case. She happened to have a roommate named Reine who was from Burundi. She told us a story about how she was pronounced dead at a hospital, but saw a man dressed in white who basically told her that she was still needed, and her heart started beating again after 5 minutes of stillness. She seems to have no ill effects from the event and came to America at the age of 13 speaking no English, but was able to figure it out. When we told her about the Book of Mormon and gave her the French one that we had brought, she told us she wouldn't be able to sleep that night because she was so excited to read it!

There was a couple that was investigating the church and basically told the bishop that they wanted to get married as soon as possible. So Elder Ellsworth and I served as witnesses for it.

Saturday night I started an exchange with Elder Jarvis, and we had our first big winter storm. We had restrictions on the time we were allowed to be outside, and weren't allowed to drive, so we did a lot of studying and shoveled out a bunch of cars. One woman tried to pay us but we just told her we'd love to share a message about Jesus Christ, so that's going to happen next week. Somehow we were even able to give out a couple of Book of Mormons on the street that day.

If you're still reading at this point I want you to know I love you and you're awesome.

Je vous aime tous!

Elder Martin

It's Freezing

Hey everyone!

This week has been another pretty good week. Danny accepted a baptismal date, and he has some friends that are also very open to the gospel. We've been teaching a lot, and also turned down as expected. 

On Sunday we went tracting with a member of the ward who speaks Spanish. I don't remember if I mentioned it last time but the first time he came with us we found 5 new people to teach in about an hour. This time we found 3 and had some super good lessons that I didn't understand any of haha.

I met some more really cool people this week. There were a couple people that lived through the Rwanda genocide and saw some pretty horrific things. It's amazing how they can still have such strong faith. Another woman we just started teaching had her husband pass away this week from cancer and we've been trying to spend time with them and help them to cope. She calls us "mes enfants." 

Not sure why the Lord continues to bless us but I'm very thankful.

Bonjour Mes Amis!

Hey Everyone!

This week was pretty solid. We found 8 new people to teach and have one new person on date for baptism!

I'd say the highlight of the week was when we were teaching someone about the Restoration,  and they had a friend over that didn't speak any English or French. I'm not sure how much she understood about the lesson but she felt the Spirit and asked us if we could teach her another time and have her daughters translate! We visited her on Saturday and brought someone who speaks Kinyarwanda and they got along great and she wants to learn more.

Later we visited someone who just moved from Burundi about 3 months ago and taught her about the Restoration as well. She said she wanted to come to church but was worried because she only had flip flops for shoes! So we went out and got her a pair of shoes and saw her at church on Sunday. There are so many people here with such humble situations but are still grateful for everything they've been given. One man bore his testimony on Sunday about how when he moved to the US he was homeless,  even though he was pretty wealthy doctor in the DRC. The reason he moved was because he was saving girls from sex trafficking and some people involved with the government told him he either had to stop or be put to death.

One last thing... We taught someone about the Plan of Salvation this week, and he loved it. So much that he started taking notes and writing down scriptures to study, just like he did when we taught him the Restoration. 

Until next week!

Je vous aime!

Elder Martin

Happy New Year!

This week was pretty good. We found a lot of new people to teach and a lot of people that just got to the US from Africa in the past couple of months, so I'll be able to practice my French more.

One of the highlights of our week was when Jeff Andrews dropped us. He had been having missionaries over for the last few years and feigning interest because he was lonely and wanted people to visit him. We knew he wasn't really interested and possibly an agnostic psychotic. But we still had to give him a chance so we told him we wouldn't visit him unless he came to church. When he didn't come to church a couple weeks and realized we were serious, he called and left a very angry voicemail telling us basically a bunch of anti-Mormon conspiracy theories and that he had been baptized 22 years ago and had his name removed from the church. Finally got that guy on the "Do not contact" list after wasting tons of missionaries' time.

We also went on exchange again and found quite a few people to teach for the amount of time spent finding. One of the missionaries in our district left for Angola this week so that was my last exchange with him. I was sad to see Elder Harshberger go because he was a really cool guy, but I know he'll do great in Angola.

New Year's Eve we went to a member's home and played "Ticket to Ride" because we figured it might not be a good idea to tract or talk to people out on the streets because they were most likely all getting drunk. That was a lot of fun and was a nice break from all the crazies we meet.

People keep telling us the weather is abnormally warm for this time of year. Last year about this time it didn't get above 0 degrees for over two weeks, and today it's a balmy 45. I'm very greatful that we haven't gotten extreme weather yet but everyone keeps telling us it's still coming.

Happy New Year everyone!

Elder Martin