T3 W5

Wow, Thanksgiving week was always hectic at home, but not nearly as hectic as when you're serving a mission. We had a total of 5 Thanksgiving appointments, and on Friday my stomach hurt so bad I wanted to roll over and die. People were just like 'Come over and have some food with us!' (and we can't exactly say no..) But it was fun. An even greater blessing was that the APs (important missionaries) called and told us that we would be getting a truck! I'll upload a picture of it next week, but it's much better than our little Subaru. For those of you who are car people, it's a Nissan Frontier, and I'm sure it'll be useful for pulling people out of ditches when they slide off the road!

It seems that everyone here has a problem with smoking. It's sad because we can only do so much to help them, they really have to just push through that on their own. (With God of course) Everyone we're helping is making very good progress however. One has only had 1 smoke in the past 5 days (D.J.) and we're so happy for him! He can feel himself pushing it off and becoming stronger each day. 

Currently, we still have a great number of people that we're teaching. Ashton, Elijah, Elyanna, and Karen are on date for this month, and while I may not be here, they are very solid, and I'm sure they'll be there for whoever is in this area. We had been having a hard time fining new people to teach, but yesterday someone in the college branch had us come to their apartment with like 5 other members, and teach her friend on the basketball team. It was a wonderful experience, and it motivated everyone involved.

That Sunday was a absolutely crazy day. Well, we were expecting a great number of people at church, but only 2 came, which was a bummer. Then both Elder Wilson and I spoke in the sacrament building for the college branch. Because we really have no time for anything, we had only a short time to prepare for it. I basically was only able to write down a rough outline of what I wanted to talk about and wing it. I was worried I would only speak for like 8 min, and then run out of things to say, but I went on for a good 25 min, and only left 15 for Elder Wilson. No-one fell asleep or started yelling at me, so it must have been good things. I think the reason we got that referral is because we both spoke in that sacrament meeting. Finally, one other thing we did on Sunday was sing 'Because I Have Been Given Much' in the Sister's ward's sacrament meeting. They called us about a week ago to see if we could, and they wanted me to sing the Alto part down an octave. It took a little bit of effort, but I was able to figure it out, and the singing went very well.

Well, that was my week. We'll see if I'll stay next week, I'm really not sure if I want to or not. I'll be pretty happy no matter where I end up.

Love,

Elder Martineau