First Week in Korn

Where i am at isnt only about 1 hour train ride but it is the last train stop that exists. Its all fields out here and the area is gigantic. Not only is the area gigantic, but we as Zone leaders just recently got assigned to take care of another area too. We are the closest ones to it (about 30 miles and thank goodness there is a bus). It is about an hour bus ride and right now we are only going out there once a week. Oh, its called Brandsen. Now let me tell you about my wonderful bike...First, is if you go to fast the chain comes off. Second, The seat is broken so instead of a soft cushon seat its a seat of two steel rods in an arrow shape. Let me tell you, i am super sore some days and am very excited to get new bikes this Friday. Oh, and im getting good practice for my trip from Alaska. As zone leader i dont have to do much except right now we are trying hard to reach our goal, animate the other elders, and do intercambios once a week. My comp is a great missionary and its really good to work with him. Im excited for this transfer and possible others to have some good success. We only have about 30 people in sacrament and many people have gotten offended with an elder that was here a little while before. Its going to be a difficult one but i am excited. We are going to help as much as we can. Well let me tell you about my welcoming party here. We entered into a house and 3 men came in from the other room. One with a revolver, the other a machete, and the other a knife the size of a machete. The didnt rob me or shoot me so we are all good :). This week i had lots of random thoughts, for lack of good english. In this area im not sure if i am going to baptize too much but with 700 members and 30 active, we have our work cut out for us. The other thing is im pretty sure i´ll be here til the end of my mission...which will be a long time. I really am excited about being here. Being a missionary has never been better and i wouldnt trade it for a thing. If I new the mission was going to be like this before-hand would I have still came? HECK YA! Im pretty sure i would have came out much quicker. Its hard, very hard. Heck, my bici kills me everyday and my thighs are super tired when we have to bike down the freeway against the wind for 5 miles. I wouldnt trade it for anything. Not a ferrari, not the super-model of my dreams(although if your reading this wait a couple months), and not anyhting else. Nothing in my life up to know matches up to it. Love, Elder Martino

I've moved to Korn!

Well I left! I got a call Saturday right before the second session of conference and im moving. Oh, and Dad no i wont be able to train a new 18 year old kid. I got moved as Zone leader to a smaller area called Alejandro Korn. Look it up on google. We have bikes and its all campo out here. It is by far the biggest area i have had yet. My companion is Elder Inostroza from Chile and it seems like a great missionary. I have a feeling that we are going to have lots of success together. Our mission baptized 137 last month. It was the most since 2005 and we are steadily growing in all of the areas! Im excited to be here in this area and even more excited in general to be in the mission. Last week i was almost positive i was going so we had lots of people that wanted to say goodbye to me, but we still got in some good work. It wasnt as sad to leave the area. I really feel i did some farely good work in helping that ward to grow and made some really good eternal friends. The good thing is i believe i will see everyone of them again. The most sad part of the week was i lent my camera to a little girl to take some photos for me and she deleted all of the photos i had from the MTC. I have got to start backing up my photos... Saturday we had everything set up perfect. It was a mission rule we couldnt go see conference this day if we didnt have an investigator with us. We had a family that wanted to go with us and when we showed up they couldnt go. We called everybody we know but nothing. The good thing is we were able to get half the family for the second session. Sunday morning i packed a little and then i had to hurry to the stake center to do an interview. It was rather interesting. Turns out we couldnt let him get baptized yet. Still had some things to clear up and im not sure he actually knew what he was doing. We watched the first session and right after between sessions had a baptism. A member, Hno Pedraza baptized the 12 year old girl for us, Marlen. She is a great young woman and is the first to get baptized in her whole family, and almost all of them came and they all want to get baptized. It was a great baptism and a great way to finish up in that area. I really grew to love the people and i hope they did too. I know tons of missionaries pass by over the years but i really try to make a lasting difference on as many people as i can. Interesting story. We had an innactive member of about 30 years that we went in and talked to. She started to blow up on me how i am libra and how bad of a person i will be...It wasnt to fun to hear but i kept trying to bare my testimony but she wouldnt stop. Well it kind of made me a little upset and later on that night she sent us several texts apologizing. She told me how bad she felt and how she felt the spirit but kept trying to over power it. I had only met with her 3 times over 6 months but said she was so happy to have been able to know me. Im not saying it was me because it wasnt. Im just saying one moment of showing someone what the spirit feels like can change someone entirely. Well i love yall and i hope all is well! Dont worry, i still havent left on my horse yet to escape from the mission but im getting ready!! Elder Martino

The Only Women in My Life

I want to start off by saying besides the emails, the only women i have in my life are my grandmothers. Not sad to say that i love them and they are the most faithful letter writers! Grandma y Jean son las capas! I love you two!! This morning in the bus station i had rocks thrown at me. I loved it though. I looked over at the man and he tried to look as if he didnt do anyhting and then I started to walk towards him and he started to run away. I think some people are crazy. They think im just trying to rob there money, women, or water but yet they still have lots of fear of us. Anyways, i felt as if i was being stoned as the prophets of old...sort of... This week wasnt too exciting. We broke a record with investigators in church! 12! We have a baptism this saturday and we are going to do it in the stake center between conference sessions! Her name is Marlen and she is a cool guy! One of our promising investigators had her baby saturday and tonight i get to go see them so i am pretty excited! We had a meeting this week for trainers and the new missionaries and in one week i finish training and am most likely leaving. Kind of sucks because Sunday i wont have anytime to say goodbye to many people but at the same time i am very excited for conference!!! “If you believe that you can then you are right and you can; if you don’t believe that you can then you are also right and you can’t.” That is a quote that President shared with us the other day. I wasnt til the mission that i realized how true it is. Everything starts with a desire. If you dont believe you can than you wont be able to, but if you believe you can and follow it with faith and works then you will be able to! Love, Elder Martino

Golden Couple

Lets start with tuesday. when we left it was clear sky and warm outside so we left in short sleeve. by 4 oclock it was pouring. It rained all day and got farely cold. That didnt help at all with being sick and we got fodged alot but the good thing was i kept my companion entertained with my sweet angelic voice singing to him the entire time in the street. It at least kept me happy. That night we also got to celebrate the Birthday of Ruben the husband Jacqui who we baptized a couple weeks ago. Wednesday not alot happened. Thursday was an alright day til night time. I dont know what hit me but i got a horrible headache and started to get really dizzy. In the middle of our dinner i just about blacked out but luckily i made it back to our pinch and just layed down on the floor for a couple minutes. The worst part is is that they made a very very yummy looking dinner but i couldnt eat much at all. Thursday i almost got hit by a car. MOM DONT READ! Ha, we were walking and all of the sudden word gunshots then a car came flying by a corner and almost hit me but luckily i still have cat like rflexes and i was able to dodge it. Then another car came chasing after it and then 2 seconds later there were tons of cops and ambulances. Sweet huh! Saturday morning we started at 8 oclock with a service and did 4 services in total finally finishing at 8 at night just in time for a lesson. We poured two floors, tour down walls on a second story and then cut down and burned a tree. We, i really do believe, saved our investigator and his sons life. The second story house thing was a house of wood with bricks layering the outside. Well three of the walls we could take of the bricks from the ouside but the last we couldnt because it had a house right underneath it on the other side. well we tied it off and when it was falling i was able to hold it off for a split second before it smooshed this guy and his son. It was one heavy wall! The highlight of the week is a couple we are teaching. They are golden!! As of earlier this week she didnt want to get married, but we left them with some homework and on Sunday when we talked she said we could go with her on wednesday to go get a date for marriage!! Woooo!!!!! Yesterday at church i had a member pull me aside. He is about 28 and single but an amazing guy. He is one of the best missionaries i know and he doesnt have any name badge to show it. Well the thing is is that he is going through a very very difficult time and the amazing thing was he came to me before anybody else. It is just nice to know the trust some people have in you just after serving them. Also amazing about this guy is his efforts to share the gospel. There is no such thing as an ex-missionary, just return missionary. That goes for all of us. Love, Elder Martino

Single to the Glory!

Kind of a lower week this week. Yesterday was really upsetting. I have been trying so hard with certain families to come to church and they do once. Saturday we passed by all of the baptismal dates we had and called all of them that night an they all promised to go. well all but 2 didnt come. We lost 7 baptisms yesterday and im hoping we can regain a couple. It was really a frustrating day. The good news is we did have an awesome couple come with us and a less active girl who came for the first time in a long time. Her whole family is active so they are excited to have her back. This week had a lot of walking. It was a beautiful week but the majority of our citas failed on us. I will admit yesterday in church i was sitting in sacrament and i was really upset. I was thinking about how transfers are coming up soon and i could move on to a new area. Well heads up to future missionaries, you shouldnt ever have that attitude. You look on the bright side and keep working. The good days arent good without the bad days being super super crappy. Another thing that has caught my mind is the fact that i cant help everyone. I do my part but then it is up to them. I show them where to step but they are the ones that have to lift up there heavy foot and make the step. Last wednesday we are a meeting for all district leaders in the mission. It was really good at first. The point when the elders started to ask too many simple questions was when it went wrong. Thats th point when having no meeting at all is better then having one. Besides that part the meeting helped me think alot about what i can do better to help these missionaries. The problem is just finding out how to do it. The mission is going well. Its difficult right now with little success and sickness but we just keep moving forwardj with our eye SINGLE to the glory of god. You gotta love it!! Love, Elder Martino

Experience of a Life Time!

Well im going to start out with the best part of the week, Wednesday. They called me monday asking if wednesday we would be willing to go to the temple and help clean it from the open house. My response was heck ya! We got there at 9 in the morning and were working with a guy named Drake Hill. He is the head architect and designer for over 80 temples now. It is amazing how he could remember EXACTLY where every little thing belonged. Well 8 of us spent the day being his little ducklings following him around everywhere he went. I got to hang paintings, put the furniture and set it all up in all of the sealing rooms, celestial room, and confirmation room. We got to walk upstairs and see EVERYTHING. It was really really cool. We spent almost the entire day with him til President came to pick us up. We even got President a couple little gifts...OH!! Best part! So i had the opportunity to, with permission, break vases from the temple anterior. I told Bro, Hill that in a year if he needed an assistant helper to just give me a call and id be more then willing to help him! Besides this day we had a good week. We had two service projects on saturday that kind of wore me out. Now this week we are preparing for this weekend. Friday we have a fireside With Elder Eyring, Elder Ballard, and Elder Christofferson. Saturday we have the temple culture activity and then on sunday we have the dedication. I have a feeling it is going to be a very good week. Have a good week!!!! Love, elder Martino

Wet and Amazing Week!

Well it was an ama

zing week!! We had an amazing baptism with alot of people there! Before the baptism I had to go over to another area to do an intrerview and fly back to get back ontime for the baptism and to get it all set up. There were some amazing talks and i wont lie, i almost manly cried when he baptized his wife and when she come up they gave eachother a big hug. Im a little sad becasue in a year when they can enter the temple it will be almost a month after i get home! Extension...? Still have plenty of time to think. We had one hot day this week and then it get real cold again and now its back to average. We found some great people this week and are really working hard. I do have bad news though...Transfers came....They were actually going to move me but decided to have me stay here for one more transfer which i am very happy for. I would like to stay here at least one more. Its amazing how every area eventually and quickly comes to be your home. Granted I know exactly every street in the area, but i love it here. Interesting enough but i have to go to the doctor this week because i have what i think is a ganglion cyst on my wrist. Bad news is its been there for at least 6 months and ive just blown it off so we will see what happens. Prettty much two options. One is to smash a book on my hand and have it blow up and the other is surgery, but before i do anything dumb im going to make sure i know exactly what it is. In two weeks i have the awesome opportunity to go to a fire side with President Eyring and participate in the cultural ceremony here. Woo!!! Love, Elder Martino