Hello all my family and especially mom. Elder Evans and I had alot of appointments in the middle of the day, so we decided to do our proselyting time in the middle of the day rather than the last three hours. Let me start from the beginning of the week.
Right after we got done with our emails last week, we went to a referral that we got from a member in the ward. The members themselves are very in active, but they simply say because they do not like the ward. Other than that, they love to get involved in missionary work and they give us many referrals a week. I do have to add that most do fall through, so we were a little skeptical going to the potential investigators house. We knocked on his door and he let us right in. We ended up having an hour lesson with him. About half way through the lesson a friend of his came in to his house and he sat in for the rest of the lesson. Before we knew it we had two new investigators and another appointment for next week. A surprise to both Elder Evans and I. Seeing that these two investigators were going to be different we decided to really pray and to be ready for them today. We met with them about three hours ago. So this is really recent. We were able to get a joint teach with the member that gave us the referral in the first place. We went and started our lesson. The friend was not there but the original potential was. He is from Greece, he is Greek orthodox and he came to us with a problem. The reason he asked for the missionaries is because he needed an answer to a question: how he could find happiness in his life. Let me tell you, when he told us that, Elder Evans and I could not help but smile. We knew that this was what was going to bring him happiness. Our second lesson started really well. We got to the point where we believed and felt that he was ready for a baptism date, and right when we started to talk about baptism he stopped us and told us that he didn’t need it because he had already been baptized. We had to spend the rest of our lesson explaining to him proper authority. But he could not get it. No matter how hard we tried, he simply wanted to go to both churches. At the end we were able to get him to feel the spirit and to simply ask his Father in Heaven what to do. That we as missionaries did our part, now it was time to let him find out that the church is true by asking his Father in heaven. The whole time that we had been meeting with him he did not understand why we prayed the way we do. Why we pray to God and Jesus Christ? Why we don’t symbol the cross when we do pray? We finally got him to pray to Heavenly Father and he said the most powerful prayer that I have ever heard in my life thus far. He simply thanked his Heavenly Father that we had met with him today, and that we were blessing his life. Then he simply asked God and I quote, (and this was in German, so the words or the exact translation is a little weird) "Heavenly father, please help me to know what church I must follow, I do not want to follow the bad church. Please help me to know which is your true church? Is it this church or the Greek orthodox church?" Never before have I ever seen someone ask God that direct before with such want to know. I hope and I will pray so hard this week that he will receive an answer by the next time that we meet with him on Friday.
We also had a auch-tauch this week, which I am sorry but I have no idea how to say that word in English, but it is when two missionaries change companions for 24 hours with other missionaries. I was on tauch with Elder Huff, he is about the same age as me and he has been out for about five transfers. We had a great time, we were able to learn from one another and we created a great friendship. I was somewhat sad when we had to tauch back.
We also did more dwarf finding days with the sisters this week, alot of fun but really no success, we must have dwarfed atleast fifty houses and not a single potential, those days are hard to swallow. But the sisters somehow always make it fun.
The rest of the week was pretty standard: lessons and more door knocking.
I am so happy to hear that your missionary mom’s dinner went well and that you had a great time, I hope that you will be able to stay in contact with all of these moms and keep learning from all of them. All Sister Hammock and I could do was just laugh because we knew that her mom and you would just simply have the time of your life while you were there. I am glad that you did. We had our own lunch that day, or more simply put, we had hot fudge sundaes at McDonalds before we had to go home for the night. It lasted about fifteen minutes. It’s all the time that we had.
I did get your package from the mission home, and I am still waiting on the package for Halloween. Thank you for all the food, I loved it all. I remember you saying before I left that I would miss peanut butter, but I don’t. What I miss is, kool-aid, and Kraft macaroni and cheese. Please in the next box send me mac and cheese. I miss it so much!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The Sisters, Elder Evans and I visited another chapel today and they get more and more beautiful the more that I see. I can’t get enough of them.
I do have to go. I love my mission, and would not leave it for the world. The people of Augsburg need this gospel and that’s what I am here to do. Give them the message of happiness!
Remember you always walk with me, in my heart, mind and in spirit.
Elder Martinez
P.S don’t let Maddox forget who his favorite cousin is.
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