Monday, January 18, 2016

First week of New Transfer!



Hey everyone!!!

Hope everyone had a good week!! Our week was pretty good. Transfers were this week and a sister and Elder from my district were both transferred which was kind of a bummer because I loved me district so much, we had so much fun together, but the Lord needs them in other parts of the mission! We got two new sisters and one new elder so we have a trio in our district now. They are all great and we call ourselves e volleyball district because 4/9 of us play volleyball. Haha
We are finally coming out of the "holiday slump" which is nice. We contacted a lot of referrals this week so this coming week we should have a lot of lessons!! :D 

We had some interesting experiences this week.

So in our area we cover a military base called Dugway, it's about an hour drive away so we only go up there every Thursday evening cause we are so limited on our miles. This Thursday though when we got up there we had to have new passes made since ours were expired. We pulled over and waited like normal but we couldn't understand why it was taking so much longer than normal. Soon a guard came up to us and told us that we would need to call our sponsor and have him come get us. Apparently, as of Thursday an Act from Congress went into effect that says the federal government doesn't like the way Washington, and some other states, verify a person's identity to get their driver's license, so now TSA won't take it as valid identification?, and I have to be escorted around any military base at all times. This was how it was explained to me, I have no way of verifying how accurate this is. But I can imagine it would cause an uproar for anyone from these states trying to fly anywhere but it sounds like Jenny was able to get on the plane back to New Mexico okay?

Yesterday I met my first "interesting person". He was very sweet. We were walking back to our car and he came riding up on his bicycle and asked us if we were out preaching God's word. Of course we said yes! He asked me who our adversary was and I replied "Satan." Then he got all quiet and leaned in and said "I don't even say his name because it gives him more power and recognition..." He then proceeded to preach to us about how George Washington is a general authority and gave us some pamphlets and flyers on Thanksgiving. When we asked him if he went to church around here he pointed to an American flag, recited the pledge of allegiance, and said he was "under God". I admire his patriotism very much! We tried to share a message with him but he didn't seem all the receptive so we bore our testimonies and tried to leave him a Book of Mormon but he said he already has two.

The work here is going slow, but slow is okay. I hope that it means when the people here do realize the gospel is true they will be TRULY converted and remain active life long members of the church. I know there are people here that are ready for the gospel, we just have to find them!

This week I have been doing a lot of studying on pride and humility. Two great talks I read were "Lord, is it I?" By President Uchdorf or Beware of Pride by Ezra Taft Benson. I highly recommend everyone read them. Both are wonderful talks. President Benson talks about all the different ways pride is manifest and the things we can do to Be humble. Something I hadn't thought much about before is the fact that pride limits or stops our personal growth or progression. If we aren't humble we aren't teachable. God will have a humble people, and we can either choose to be humble or He will humble us for ourselves. I don't know about you but I would much rather have the first option haha. I think Luke 18:10-14 gives a great example of being prideful & being humble.


This week I would like to challenge you to read at least one of the talks. Just googleing the title will bring it up, and choose a way that you can develop more humility this week. I love and miss all of you and I hope everyone is doing good! Thank you for all of your emails! They all make me happy!!


Love,
Sister Abby Martinez
Sister Romero and I made Columbian food called Arepas! They were yummy!!





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