Week 38 - A very up and down week

Well this week was just really interesting honestly. Lots of cool stuff but also just some rough stuff went down.

First off, we had a really awesome Zone Conference this week. There was a very common theme in it about asking for references from every living soul that we talk to. Overall the focus was finding new people to teach AND help them to keep with it by really helping them understand that our purpose is to help people get baptized from the very first charla. I think a lot of the stuff we learned will apply very well.

Now the rough thing of the week... We taught G. the Law of Chastity, we found out really late that he was actually living with his girlfriend, even though when we first started teaching him and asked him, he said that he wasn't because he was separated. But yeah, we talked to both of them about it and honestly it was really sad for us. We love this guy so much and we promised all the eternal happiness that comes with being married and eternal families and all he told us the entire time was "I'm already happy." We couldn't get him to quite understand the importance of setting up the eternal happiness vs. the happiness right now. I really hope he talks to some more missionaries later after he has made the decision to get married. He really is a good guy.

Also, C. accidentally slept in on Sunday and K. didn't come either... so... that was less than ideal.

Other than those though, things are really good. C. accepted without any bit of a struggle the Word of Wisdom and felt super bad about sleeping in. She still prays about making it to her baptism and she really is trying to make it. She is progressing well as far as lessons and prayers and her daily reading of the Book of Mormon, we just need to help her come to church. Right now she`s working for the 6th of April now.

Also on Sunday we were really short on our goal for new investigators and we didn't think we were going to have enough people in church to meet our weekly goals. It was crazy to see how the Lord provided for us though. We really had been contacting like crazy and inviting everyone to church but nothing was working for us for some reason. Eventually though we got to Sunday, a little defeated honestly, but it was awesome because 3 people came (which is our goal every week) that were invited by members! Also, after we left to contact some more on Sunday, we found a lot of really receptive people.

Sometimes the Lord puts the trials in front of us just to see if we will keep doing what we know we should be when it gets hard; if we prove that we can keep it up, he will provide for us.

I finished reading the Book of Mormon again today, in Spanish this time. I testify that the Book of Mormon is true and holds the fullness of the doctrine of Christ and can answer all questions that we may have.

I love you all! Nos vemos!

-Elder Martin

Elder Johnson and Elder Martin posing with some graffiti 

they thought was meant just for them!

Town square in Paysandu, Uruguay 

where they travel to on P-days to email and video call.

The tower of peanut butter!  Apparently he can get it 

in Argentina where he is, just not back in Uruguay.