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Monday, January 25, 2010

letter sent 1.25.10

its been a really good week i dontknow where to start. we had a cleaning inspection on wednesday so that took some time to prepare for but we have the cleanest aprtment in the mission now. haha. i geuss thats cool. um we also had zone conference today in taniyama. it was cool, to see more of japan. ive seen almost all of kyushu already and i love it. Zone conference was way good. for the AP training i had my first family home evening in Japan. they talked about our family here in japan, and the realtionships we need to build within our ward, with our companion and everyone we come in contact with. everyone learns something from us whether were teacxhing or not, how we act and present ourselves. so that was pretty good. we need to set the example for others so they can see our happiness and want to feel the samne love we feel as members. So that was cool. and then next day we had a junkai or split with the APs it was so fun. theyre awesome. we had lot of fun with them. we had several lessons with investigators and less actives that day which all went well except for a less active i taught in a crazy hospital, that didnt go to well...oops that night we ate at a mexican resturant in miyazaki! i was so pumped the cheif is mexican, were going to be friends. haha hes cool soo that was awesome. hisashiburi. we got to wear sonbrarros and stuff too natsukashii. after we took out shane, a half gaijin family here in miyazaki, hes home now from byu idaho but going back next semester and preparing for a mission. It was fun to dendo with him and show him how fun it can be. i wish i would have done that before my mission.That night the petersens gave me a birthday present . a huge bag of chips salsa, gaucamole, cheese and stuff. it was awesome..and tortillas. there way nice yous should look them up on facebook and be there friend. anyways that night the 22nd i ate some icecream and blackthunder with the aps to celbrate it was sso good. on my birthday we did service at the petersens house(they run kindergarden( so that was way good to finally be able to work outside, jpanese peopl normally dont let you serve them.
so we had lots of good lessons this week. me and one of the aps, elder stevenson ,the 70s son, had a lesson with hiejima. it was really well. it was on ether 12 12 and taking blind stps of faith, it was really good i extended the baptismal commitment and she wants to but her parents are hantai because there buddhist. so hoepfully something can change with that. and yesterday we met with kadota. we read out of the new gospel principles book about repentance. it was also good, hes on his way to baptism as well. he wants to repent and then be baptized but it might take a while. im so excited for him, hes going to be such a solid member.
pretty much all of our ionvestigators have tobacco problem so thats been tough but i love shareing mosiah 2 41, it really puts things into porportion. temporal sastisfdaction or eternal happiness, god will bless those who keep his commandments, sweet promise and pretty easy to follow the commandments if we just keep an eternal perspective.
lastly today, pday was awesome. tokutome kyodai shimai took us to the worlds longest pedestrian suspension bridge in the world. it was so nice to be outside in the wilderness. it reminded me of alma 3044, all things denote there is a god a surpreme creator. it was so sweet, i have good pictures but cant send them here so someday. its to bad cause i have tons of good pictures and theres actually people in them. anuyways the tokutomes drove us out there we stopped at a farm of papaya cabbage cucumbers and other stuff. they were friends of the tokutomes and loved meeting gaijin liker us haha they gave us tones of yasai veggies. then we had lunch, we ate miyazakis very own chicken nanban. so good, and now im here. so its been a long week, but im doing well. its awesome to be here in japan sharing the best message this world has to offer. anyone can find happiness through this gospel, i mean i have thousands of miles away with weird food people language and no family. talk about miracles.
until next week.
love elder martinez

Saturday, January 23, 2010

Happy Birthday


This (obviously) is last year. Hopefully he had a great 20th birthday today. We love you Elder Martinez!

Monday, January 18, 2010

Letter sent 1.17.10

so my weeek was well, we were busy and had alot of lessons, tsuda is progressing he came to church but left half way through sacrament and i still dont know why. haha funny man i think everything is all good, well i set 2 baptismal dates this week! me. cool eh. they are not strong so i dont know if theyll keep it but its really helping them progress. i made one with yuki and yuge. there nice people and have good desires but we have a lot to work on before the 14th. i hope they make it. tsuda also has a baptismal date for the 14th. it will be interesting to see what will happen. our srtongest investigator doesnt have a baptismal date but is working on repenting he says hell be baptized after he repents, it may take a while but hell be a strong member when he gets baptized i hope ill be here when he gets baptized. hes awesome. we met with him yesterday. anyway i guess ill right about other stuff about my week in my mass email. but it was good, my companions birthday wasa the 16th i made him cake and junk tried to make it good. he turned 20 as well, on week before mine. also zone conference is this week so ill get to have my interview with the mission pres and ask about the email. oh and this weekend on the 22 and 23 me and elder burnett are going on splits with the APs of the mission. im scared i dont know why there coming normally they just go on splits with zone leaders but im justa junior and brunett is a district l;eader so i dont know why its happening. maybe cause my companion is going zone leader but i dont know, itrs scary for me none the less. well im not sure what to write about . its been a crazy week. lots going on in miyazaki. its a cool place with good place. we have awesome members and a ton of investigators. oh and they have pizza but its not good haha they put like mayo and corn and weird stuff haha but ill
eat something good.

Saturday, January 16, 2010

pictures sent 1.3.10

snow dendo

gift of Hawaii

takaMAMA

only lights in Japan

ward party

eikaiwa party

christmas morning

letter sent 1.3.10

wow it has been a long time since i have emailed. my pday was new years but everything was closed that day so i couldnt email, sorry that was a dissapointment for me too though. anyway, thanks for all the christmas gifts and stuff and esp the phone call, it was way to short but it def was good to hear from you guys. well a lot has happened that i can share so i prob will forget half of it, but thats way exciting trevor is coming home this week. thats so crazy to think about, i cant believe it. anyways. so this last couple weeks have been crazy for sure i had a great christmas, it was hard but everything leading up to christmas was great, from our gospel concert to christmas caroling at an orphanage to our church party (making christmas cakes) and our eikaiwa party. so for our eikaiwa party real quick we played a white elephant game, we went to the dollar store and bought some gifts there is a ton of ladys in eikaiwa so we bout this clay vase and a fake flower, so the funny part is im still learning japanese culture. cause when the lady opened the vase sister iwanaga gave me afunny look, the vase was not at all a vase but a sake cup! a cup for alcohol! haha everyone got a kick out of that, everyone was laughing for a long time, oops, that was my fault, haha but they all agreed it looked rather suteki(good looking) and it was a good gift anyway haha.
well anyway, it was really fun and a busy time. it didnt slow down for new years at all. new years is huge here in japan, i dint see any fire works or anything but everything closes people go to their parents house and make tons of food rather interesting food to be exact. the week of shougatsu we made mochi! its steamed rice thats beaten in to a cake, but not at all like cake, a less active member invited us to come help make it. that was a sweet experience. elder reyes and i beat the junk out of rice in a big cement bowl using wooden hammer things for like 4 hours with a bunch of japanese men. haha it was way interesting and way fun, my hand is actually still sore though. it bruised my hand pretty good, but it was cool, ill send some pics but youll have to wait for the videos to get a good idea of what im talking about. anyway that was fun
so because of shougatsu it was really hard to dendou, everyone was with their family which was good but for that same reason they didnt like us intruding. so people were not very friendly, good thing new years day was pday. another custom is to start the new year right so they cleaneverything way good its called osoji or big clean . also on new years they eat werid food thats suposebly really healthy but really weird. we actaully went to sister kitas house and she made us werid food, i had sea cucmber, whale, kelp, devils tongue and tons of other really weird stuff,elder reyes couldnt eat it so geuss who had to pick up the slack! we couldnt be rude so we had to eat it all and there was a lot! haha it was fun, and it really does clean you out. just kidding bad joke, anyway despite the hardness of dendo this week we had a lot of lessons. i finished my lesson mastery (taught all lessons short med and long in japanese with members and stuff.) but more importantly we had a lesson with hamasaki san. she is nice lady, shes a single mother of two children, shes really nice. we had our first lesson with her today. this is the lady that we found ages ago housing, and talked to hyer about families and showed a picture of you guys, anyway the lesson went really well. the spirit was def present in the room, it was amazing. we taught her the restporation and taught her how to pray. she marked moroni 10 3-5 in her scriptures and prayed to close the lesson, which is scary for someone to do that has never prayed, in front of 2 missionaries. soit went really well. we also found out she doesnt have a job which is not good. so plays pray for. i know she can find peace in this gospel as i have. when all is taken away in life..all the gospel still remains. christ is our constant, our rock and through him we can find joy and peace. i know hamasaki san and anyone on this earth can find peace through this gospel becasue i have found peace through this gospel here in a foreign land, without the people i love most, to end ill share a new favorite scripture in the bible, John 16 33. its my favorite. anyway have a great week, start of the new year right! love you all
aishiteiru
eldr martinez