Week 2, August 6 - Out on the town, scoping some historical sights for a day.

Elder Martinez

Roomates

Hello Mom and all my family,

Things are going great out here in Preston. Time really does just fly by when you are working hard everyday. It feels like I am at church and school for 13 hours a day everyday when I am at the MTC. Its hard. You all said it would be and I didnt believe you, but I do know that is for sure now. From the emails that I read it seems like you have all seen me and all the other missionarys in the MTC in the padgent. Yes I do actually sing....very beautifully at that. But its a good morale boost after a long days study to walk into that stadium and have every person stand and cheer for you. It makes you feel like your doing whats right. The people here are very proud of there church history and the missionarys. After every show they all come up to us and shake our hands and tell us that we are all disciples and workers of our Heavenly Father and we are doing his work. They are right. The first wave of missionarys that came with us to the MTC are leaving tomorrow beacuse they are all speaking english. Its kind of sad because we have become really good freinds and its sad to see them go. But they will all be good missionarys

On a more personal note, i am doing great. I am already losing weight even in the MTC. Some of my pants I have to already double over because they are starting to get bigger. The chefs here are so funny, because there is only about 90 missionarys here right now they all know our names and they all love to talk to us and get to know us while we walk in the line and get our food. I am learning the language really well, at this point its just trying to memorize the vocab. and it is not very easy. The elders that are all going to the Alpine - German speaking mission are all really cool people, and they come from all over the world. Becuase we are all here for the same amount of time and we are all in the same area of the MTC. We have gotten to know each other very well and i have to tell you a story:

Tthere is a companionship of an elder from Great Britian and an elder from France. the elder form Great Britian can speak German ok, about like the rest of us. But the one from France cannot even speak English let alone German. and they told us that as they were giving a mock lesson they were teaching about the plan of salvation and that lead into the commandments. and remember they are all saying this in German and the investigators is speaking German as well. and the investigator asked what are the commandments, and before the elder from
great Gritian could say anything, the French elder said "no sex" in the best german accent he could muster up. and as we heard this we all started laughing so hard we were on the ground rolling around. The only thing that the Great Britian elder could say to us was "you dirty dirty fenchman". it was probably the highlight of my week.

This week on our pday we were also able to go see the the spots of where the first saints congrigated and met and we also saw some other church sites. it was really cool. Very beautiful. I will include some pictures.

well I have to go, more people to email.

Love you mom and all my family. Two weeks down, and 98 more to go. hahah. I'm looking forward to every one of them.

oh and p.s there is going to be five of the 12 apostales coming to see the padgent, and guess who gets to meet them.........this missionary does. hahahaha... I will send pictures if I can get them.

Sister Linford and I are temple missionaries in Preston and saw your great missionary sons on their way to Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.  They are in great spirits and studying hard.  They will obviously be great missionaries.  We thought you would enjoy seeing their smiling faces.  Let us know if you receive this and can open the attachment. Sincerely, Elder Ray and Sister Joanne Linford

This email was a wonderful surprise.

Week 1, July 31, 2013

Hello from england! hahaha! well let me tell you that it has been a really interesting week from when we got on the plan to now when i am writing this email to. so why dont i just start from the beggining. y zer gut fur die ine der familie. ya wunderbar! well when i left and i went to my gate i sate there for about twenty minutes until elder packer came and met me there. when we saw we already knew who eachother were because of you guys and missionary moms. but we left and right from the get go i was excited. we got on our way and one of the sturidest on the plan asked us about what we were doing and why we had suits on a plan. we were able to get to talk to here and were able to give here a book of mormon and she said that she was going to look up the missionarys in Georgia because she had herd alot of good things about the church.

as we got into georgia we got delayed at the gate and we had to sprint to the terminal and it turns out that they had waited about ten minutes just for us because the ticket had missionarys for church of jusus christ of latter day saints on it, and they wanted the flight to be protected so they decided to wait for us. it seems that no matter were you are you are recignized for the things that the church an missionarys do for everybody. it really lets you know that the spirit and heavinly father walks with all of his missionarys. as the eight hour flight went on and the stinkey russian that i was sitting next was snoring and farting away that was when i had my first "what am i doing"moments. it was hard but i got through it. we got into manchester and everbody was talking to us and asking us questions in the line to get through boarder control, they asked us why we were there or why we would give up two years to do this work, it was really cool and they were all really friendly about and they all whished us "the best of luck americans"

we got to the mtc and you have to remember that i have been awake for about 24 hours at this point but in england it was only 12 in the afternoon. so by the time we got done with oriantation, getting my companion writing home to let you know i got here safe to the time i actually got to bed, i was awake for anout 48 hours. to me it really seemed like just one long day not really two, i was one day behind for a couple days.

as i said before elder Packer is my companion and he is really cool, me and him have alot of views that are the same and we just work well together. in our room there are two other companionships so six of us all together. we have one from north whales, from england, canada, germany, and us from the U.S.A. a kind of league of nations if you will say. they are all funny, especially the one from north whales, because he sleep talkes in english, whelsh and more recently german. haha

there are about 17 of us that are going to the aline german speaking mission. they come from all over the world mom. we even have an elder from china that is going to the alpine mission. we have our section in the luch room just for our mission where we are only allowed to pray talk and converse in german. the first dinner was pretty quit. but we are all learning fast. we are already having fluint conversations in german and its only been about a week. we are teaching two investigators(practice investigators) complete lessons in german, not as easy as it sounds because we can understand them and we have the spirit and the message in our hearts but we just dont know how to say it in german. its very frustrating. but we have one of them thinking of baptism and the othere we have a date set up and we are just teaching him lessons now. we be doing something right.

as we got deeper into the week, i had some harder days where i a hard me with the language or i just felt like my mind was mush because we study every single day for hours. we wake up by 6:30 and get ready, breakfeist by 7:00 then we study until about 9:30 p.m. it was hard especially on sunday, i really missed you guys and i was just ready to be done already. but i read a scripture that i just opened up and it really moved me. it told me that as you go foward and seek god in your mind and also have the spirit walk with all the time, you will be watched and protected and comforted. it gave that little boost that i needed. i have gotten alot bettter i still miss you but i am getting more and more excited. especially to just get in the feild.

i am learning alot that is opening my mind to alot of things, but the topic that moved me the most was that the lord gave us agencey. we all have choices in this life. to be good to be bad. to follow him or to fall away. we have agency and we can all choose. as missionays we have the opertunity to bring all unto christ by helping them recieve the restored gospel of jesus christ but they have to except. we can not force them to do what we want. we have to let them have there agency. to make them do something would make take away there agency that is what the advesary would have it. It made me think of family and friends how they choosing the path they are on. They have agency and they can choose. We have to love them and just be examples. Heavenly Father will help them and will show them the way to go.

My time is running out and I have to go but I do have to say this, send me a Chicago blackhawks scarf. Get it off amazon. If you would, that would be awesome because everbody has scarfs that are from there country and I need a blackhawks scarf. We do have peanut butter but they import it from America just for us. So, not really, but right now we do. Tell people to write me. Tell Mikey and everbody because I dont have time to read them all but I do have time to print them off and read them later. Last words. as we were walking to the temple one day a small British boy came up to me and said his name was Charlie. He said the because of boys with the white shirts and suits and name tags, his family will be together forever. He said thank you to me in his little british accent and said bye to me.

You need to charish the small things.

Talk to next week

Love your son,Poo.

elder martinez der kirche jesu christi der heiligen der letzten tage.

Elder Martinez - Preston, England MTC, July 25, 2013

Elder Martinez and Elder Packer - MTC

Elder Martinez and Elder Packer




Preston, England Temple

 

So I have arrived safley. It took forever and I am still in the same clothes that I wore when I left, but I am really excited to get started and to get learning on my new language. England is way more beautiful than I thought or what I saw in the pictures. Its very green and there are alot of cows every where. When we got here it was about 80 degrees and they were all mad because it was too hot and humid! I thought it felt great. Well I just needed to send you this email saying I was here safely and I miss and love you all. Oh, and the days that I can write everbody is wednesday, so look for my emails then. Bye, love and miss you all. Your son Poo. :)

Two emails in one day...

Well it turns out that on the first day you can email the whole day. As the day keeps going on more and more missionaries are showing up from all over the world we have people in our same room that come from Canada, Germany, Whales, also there are people in the mtc from China, Africa, and Australlia that are all serving here in Germany or in the U.K. It is really humid here though because it rains really all the time. but out of no where!!! Also I thought you might like to know that me and Elder Packer are companions for the six weeks that we are going to stay at the mtc. Tell everybody on missionary moms that it does work. Got to go, getting called to German class. Lots of love. Poo

The family




"My Boy"

 
On July 24, 2013, the family met at the Salt Lake City airport to say goodbye to Poo. While the mission that lay ahead of him was calling and saying hello to Elder Martinez. He would leave on a flight with another elder who would meet him at the airport, and the two would fly to Georgia. There they would meet a couple other missionaries and the group would fly to Manchester, England. Missionaries would be there to pick them up and drive them to the Preston England, MTC. Anthony was so excited, he couldn't wait for the flight to take off.

Elder Anthony Ray has been called to serve!

Anthony Ray, we all know as Poo, has been called to serve as a Missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. The part of the wold he will be serving in is the south of Germany, with Munich being the mission home, Switzerland, Liechenstein, and Austria.