pictures sent 11.30.09

the nagasaki district

welcome to eikaiwa

this is the place

The Christmas display I made

mmhmmm

bike fun

sukiyaki

i made these oishikattayo

my apato

soccer with tayo

mmmmmmm

pic for the honbu

before

after

paper crane girl

letter sent 11.30.09

minasan konnichiwa

genki yo. this week has been really good i prob cant remeber all the good thats happened. i taught lesson one to a pi sitting on the curb. my japanese is improving, weve found lots of potential investigators and have helped or are in the process of getting people back to church not to mention the baptismal commitment im going to extend to tsunenari at 5 today.

so the work is going well here in the isahaya and the lord is really guiding it and leading us to people that need our help. heres a couple highlights. thursday night we visited kita shimai and she made us dinner. it was werid soup and stuff but delsicous. we taught her about thankgsgiving and being thankful so i invited everyone another member was there to say what they were thankful for, it went relly well and the spirit was really strong, great lesson. so no turkey or not much food but an amzing thanksgiving.

another highlight is going to a restuarnt with takayama an eternal investigator we met for the first time. shes way nice and loves the missonaries. she says to call her taka mama cause shes our japense mom. anyways she took us out and i had sukiyaki, way good and some raw egg stuff and this miso soup with a weird fish in it. it was all so good haha. shes really cool and im loking forward to lessons with her to come.

so i have a lot more stories and good stuff but ill share one that happened yesterday. a memeber yamasaki took us to the kuroda family that live far away. brother kuroda is active but the wife is not, anyways we vistied them and had an amazing lesson. elder reyes and i gave them the lesson we had to do for combined relief society and priesthood(which we only had 20 minutes to prepare for btw haha) anyways i shared one of my favorite scripts which ive already shared but mosiah 24 13-15 especially, Sister kuroda really need it. i shared my experience with that scripture, then reyes shared with her D&C 121 a great scripture as well. at the end we both gave our akashi(testimony) by the end both sister yamasaki and kuroda were crying. they were surprised and impressed with the power we had when we spoke and how strongly they could feel the spirit. they were impressed with how i could speak and the power i had. it was really cool, nobody has ever told me that before. anyways i didnt really do anything the spirit is what touched them, not me. i think thats an imprtant lesson. the spirit is the real teacher in any lesson desho? anyway that was areally a cool experience and sister kuroda was very genki afterword and promised us to come to church next week! it was so sweet.

its great to be a missionary her in isahaya. to be working as the instrument of the lord among the japanese people. what an amazing thing. life can be hard, it will be hard for absolutely everyone, theres no away around it, but we have the gospel the scriptures and our heavenly father to help us through hard times. it is our ONLY constant. and when those dark times of mist come and we cant see, we must blindly hold tight to it. i have a very strong testiomony of this. I know that God is our heavenly Father. that he loves each and everyone of us and wants to help us. he is there and he will comfort you, he will give you strength to keep going. we just have to ask. this is my testimony in the name of jesus christ Amen.

愛しているよ
martinez長老

letter sent 11.23.09

well another week has flewn by. Today Im in nagasaki again for junkai tonight but were spending the pday in nagasaki. were going to go to the atomic bomb museum and the batting cages so that should be a lot of fun. i like this city alot.

anyway thanks for the letters this week and it sounds like everyone is doing well.

well im doing very well, this week has been a little slow but good. Tsunenari our main investigator has been gone hes in kobe this week but we have an apt set with him in one week from tonight. so im looking forward to that. other than that we have been working with kawabata a less active. we had lesson with him this week about keeping the commandments. we shared with him in mosiah 2 the blessed state of those you keep the commandments, the eien no shiawase eternal happiness we can obtain. i love this scripture. its so simple and really helps us put things into perspective cause often times i think we see everything as temporal, but if we kept an eternal perspective life would be a lot easier. anyways it was a really good lesson.

My japanese is getting a lot better esp this transfer. im understanding a little more and speaking better, but still have a long way to go. but im doing well. i understand the jist of whats being said so thats helped me alot so that i can bear testimony and talk about things which are actualy relevant.

saturday was a pretty crazy day. we tried to visit a less acvtive and got lost (my comp is not very good with directions). we got lost in the middle of nowhere, completely inaka. but it was a fun bike ride i guess, we ended up finding the LA though so that was goood.

other than that we have done a lot of housing. we found 3 really good potentials this week so that was good and hopefully we will have more lessons next week.

well time is flying by, its the last week of my second transfer in the field which is crazy. i cant believe it. but im slowly getting a hang of things and slowly learning how to be a missionary haha. but im getting into it. i love it here, i love being a missionary. its been a good week sorry i dont have much more to say. thanks for the love and support,

愛しているよ
martinez 長老

letter sent 11.15.09

genki?
well this has been another amazing week. its been pretty busy. anyway it started off with eikaiwa on wednesday. eikaiwa is so much fun. i love it. its fun to have a good time with the japanese people and i think that they like my class. its been good, i teach them pretty hard enlgish actually and random things.

well on thursday i went to fukuoka for zone conference. Elder stevenson of the seventy did all of the training and stuff. it was really good. i leanred alot and had a good time catching up with some of my doki (mtc friends). it was good. elder stevenson is super cool. he said a lot of really cool things and i think all helped us become better missionaires. he also talked about the history of the book of mormon. heber j grant was the first to come to japan in like 1901 or something he and a few other came to be missionaries, after like 3 to 5 years alma translated the first book of mormon, called the mormon ke. he ordered them very specially with gold engravings and other features to give to the leaders of japan. today the same copies have been again published and the church is working on giving it to the emperor of japan. its crazy. they have been giving them to a lot of mayors latley but that would be so cool if the emperor had one eh? anyway that was cool to hear.

so saturday we went to the sasebo chapel for thanksgiving. it was cool. all the members of the base made us tons of american food and together we had a real thanksgiving dinner. turkey mashed potatoes gravy stuffing pies and the works. it was so goood. it was cool to talk with people i could understand and my first glimpse of what being a missionary in america would be like, it was weird but amazing. so for 2 hours i was in america, haha. it was a very nice treat.

so this week has also been really cold. but im doing ok, i actually like it.

umm oh so our investogator tsunenari is hokkaido again but when he returns we are going to have another lesson. it might be next week but hopefully this week. but when ever it is im going to be able to commit him to baptism! hes heard all the lessons and seems to have a testimony, were not sure why he doesnt have a baptismal date. this will be our 2nd apt with him so im really excited, please pray for him and for me and elder reyes. i know hell say yes if everything goes well. im really excited to that though.

but this week we have worked with a less active kawabata. hes a really nice man. he needs help with a few things but he loves the missionaries. we have good lessons with him. we also visited a family that we found housing the lady with 2 kids, we were able to teach her prayer at the genkon and talk about families, i showed her a picture of you guys and bore my testimony. this was probably the highlight of my week. i felt the spirit so strongly when i talked about prayer and being away from you guys. it was really cool. i hope she reads the book of mormon. we actually left with a prayer as well,it was cool.

well i think thats about it, weve had some good lessons this week. im happy to be here and that i can be here serving the lord. this work is amazing. thanks for the love and support and ill talk with you next week

love
martinez長老

letter sent 11.08.09

hey i hope this letter finds everyone good this week, especially you dad, i know its a little early but i think your having your party right now anyway so HAPPY BIRTHDAY or 誕生日おめでとうございます　. Hope you have a good one. dont get to old while im gone ok? we have a lot of tennis matches　and stuff like that to ｄo.

Anyway so this week was a nother great week. it started off with junkai or splits with the zone leaders. It was cool to be able to dendou with them. It gave me a new enthuasism for it and we had a lot of fun while doing it. It was a good experience for sure.

well lets see im feeling better today ive been kind of sick the last week and a half with a cold cough thing but doing better. in japan everyone is super paranoid of that stuff so everyone wears these masks as i display very well in my picture.

anyway umm A lady in our ward made us a very good dinner one night as seen in my picture as well, it was really good but i dont know what it was really besides the ton katsu. o and the weird thing i ate this week was raw squid and salmon and shrimp at the 105yen sushi bar. it was all good but the squid was pretty chewy, but i like raw salmon though its good. but im starting to like that stuff alot more.

anyway this week we had a lesson with our only progressing investigator, tsunenari. hes really nice man,about 50. it was our first lesson cause hes been in hokkaido. he started it off with like a 5 minute prayer. it was really cool, hes a nice man and has heard all the lessons, so hopefully we can commit him to baptism in the next month but hes back in hokkaido this week again so its slow, other thant hat i talked to one single mother when housing which was a cool experience. she had 2 kids and we shared with here some scriptures. i bore my testimony about you guys my family. i was kind of blunt but felt i needed to be. i said, ... im only 19, i miss my family alot. your family to is wonderful and this book (bom) hasd really blessed and guided my family. i just told her how i felt and i think she liked that. we gave her a BOM and were going to visit her again this week i hope she becomes an investigator but who knows. Her kids liked us and gave me candy. all three of them were reading from the bom in the genkan though it was a special experience for sure, if all else fails a seed was planted.

oh and one other thing is yesterday i got to shimabara. we drove with brother chikuba and his wife. we went through the mountains and a narrow windy steep road. japanese mountains are beautiful and the leaves are different colors as well. it reminded me of utah, the windy roads in santa cruz mountains and our drives to and from our sweet camping trip. it was an hour drive and was really cool to just sit in my thoughts. anyway thats about it for me this week.

on thursday we have zone conference in fukuoka (elder stevenson is coming, his son is our AP) and saturday i will be celebrating thangsgiving in sasebo with american members from the base so that should be really cool as well. so thats life for me in japan. have a good week!

Martinez 長老

letter sent 11.01.09

konnichiwa

well it sounds like everyone enjoyed there halloween this year and is doing well ... except amy, get better soon! well mine was good, i guess. i celebrated wednesday night for eikaiwa. we had a cool halloween party with people from the ward and our students it was fun. the missionaries were in charge of the games so we did the classic griffin string game and musical chairs and bean bag toss for the kids with my hackysack. we had to be pretty creative cause they dont have halloween stuff or american food so i used these little little dohnuts and dipped them in flour, haha but it still tasted fine, everyone liked that game alot. it wasa fun night, Chikuba kyodai did a haunted house with was just a dark room with glow in the dark things haha it was pretty funny. there was people in it but they didnt scare you the hardest part was making it to then end cause it was so dark. it was interesting but a fun night. on halloween night i just ate my halloween treats with my companion it was pretty good.

well it is starting to get pretty cold, today especially was the first time ive been cold in japan. im happy its winter time though. oh so this week we had district mtg in nagasaki and interviews with the mission president which was good, pres margetts is very nice and is keeping good care of all his missionaries, making sure were eating right getting enough sleep making sure were happy haha. oh and then after district meeting we went to eat as a district and with the APs to an Indian resturant. We had curry and they had a scale of spice ill send the picture anyway, i took the challenge of 50x. the hottest curry. theres not much spicy food so i took it. and it dominated me. It was so hot my mouth was on fire i couldnt taste anything...it was great, gave me bad stomach ache but was fun.

also this week we started practicing for a christmas choir were going to be in. its not through the church but we sing gospel music, its way funny. picture a large afircan american lady singing praises in the south and you get me! haha its pretty sweet. the missionaries do it every year. the teacher is funny african american dude. its cool we get to meet a lot of peopl through this so hopefully it will turn into somthing good. We also met some japanese RMs there. they served in japan one in fukuoka in 05-07. there from the airforce academy. there cool guys it was weird to be able to talk to other gaijin not being missionaries, they were way nice and bought us food from the base. so of course what did i ask for..Tapatio. im was pretty pumped. and the lady they were with bought us twizzlers and marshmellow matys it was a good treat.

we didnt have many lessons this week cause we were pretty busy as ive explained but i did have a couple good experiences. on was that i placed my first book of mormon, like completely by myself. I found this teenager when housing and talked to him about our message why it was important and what its done for me, i asked him questions and eventually placed a book of mormon without help from my companion. It was so sweeet. my japanese is not that great but its pretty cool that in june i did know a word. The lord has def helped me in the last few months, its amazing. its easy to forget but we need to often, take a step back and look at how the lord has blessed our lifes each day. even for the simple things.

so thats about it for me this week. one fav scripture id like to share is alma 26:27, maybe i shared it already but its cool. we need to just put our trust in the lord, even when the next step might seem impossible to take, we need to make those blind steps of faith, and trust in the lord always, and then we will see amazing things happen. i can testify of this scripture, its kind of summed up me in the last 4 months. so just keep that scripture in mind when things get tough. well thats it for me have a good week!

愛しているよマルティネズ長老