First Baptism!

Hermanos y Hermanas,

 

Sorry, I wrote a whole email last week with expanations about the Manhattan Temple and everything, but I guess I didn't quite send it. Sorry about that!

 

This week has been insane, as always. Every night my trainee and I get home for planning and have to kind of laugh at our first step after prayer, "Review your day," because every day here in New Jersey is so random and filled with crazy adventures!

 

My very first baptism of the mission was this week! Abraham Alejandro, who we met in the thrift store, has really impressed everyone with his dedication in learning about the gospel and his desire to better himself and follow Christ. I am grateful to have had a part in helping Hermano Abraham come to accept the gospel. We were also really excited that our friend Luis, who was inactive for a long time until the elders ran into him in Trenton a few months ago (and is now teaching the gospel principles class and preparing to start his mission papers!), was able to baptize him.

 

My companion and I asked two of the members to give short talks at the baptismal service, and our friends John and Destiny Fisihetau sang a beautiful hymn for Hermano Abraham. But I didn't think to play the hymns for us all to sing, so I found myself behind the piano during the service, thanking my mother for making me practice piano all of those years and praying that I could get through them without having practiced hardly at all for so long! (Luckily, some of our branch members sing really loudly so that kind of covered up my mistakes:)  Hermano Abraham bore a powerful testimony after his baptism, quoting scriptures and sharing how he has experienced change recently and knows that through Christ is the only was for us to be happy through the trials we have in life. It is amazing to see the light that conversion brings into people's lives.

 

We have been inviting our older neighbor across the hall, a less-active member, to come to church, and he finally came yesterday! We have also been teaching our cute upstairs-neighbor who is in her 20's, and she is a good friend and really interested and we hope to see her keep progressing in the gospel.

 

The Work of Salvation missionary broadcast from the Marriot Center  was really inspiring! I encourage everyone to watch it! We watched it at our branch president's home with the young women's president and the other elders in our tiny branch. The apostles announced that we will be using internet and other technology more and more in daily missionary work to really spread the gospel. There was a huge focus on the members and ward leaders taking responsiblity in arranging for the full-time to teach people who are ready to here. The other day my trainee and I had an experience tracting in a huge apartment complex in the rain, trying to find former investigators and being rejected. It was a learning experience, but hopefully this new focus will lead us to much more productive missionary work that that!

 

Here in New Jersey, the mosquitos are out, my hair is frizzing up a bit in the humidity, and the trees are still really green and the roads twirly and busy! I have come to know the members of our branch quite well, and we are hoping to involve them more and more in our teaching. If I ever mess up on something, though, they are sure to correct me! I am learning a lot as a new missionary and trainer, but my faith in God and the Plan of Salvation is getting stronger and stronger.

 

I love you all! Thank you for all of your support! Please don't let me lose touch with you! I love your emails and letters. Please pray for the missionary work worldwide and remember that we are all missionaries as members of the Lord's church!

 

Love,

Hermana Marissa Martin

President and Sister Jeppson came and met Hermano Abraham before sacrament meeting started and stayed for part of the meeting before going to other meetings. :) John and Destiny were a huge part of making this possible for Hermano Abraham and they sang a beautiful song at the baptism! I love you all so much! Thank you Sister Daniels and Sister Nava for everything! We all love and miss you here in Hightstown! :)

 

Hermana Nava is home

Marissa's trainer, Hermana Nava, completed her mission in June.
Marissa's grandparents were able to attend her ward to hear her speak in Sacrament Meeting.
 They were so happy to meet each other!

Transfer #3 and New York City!

Mis amores,

This week has been insane! I am still in the good, old Hightstown area which has everything from intense city to suburbs, to farmlands. My trainer is back in the "real world" in Utah, and Sister Daniels in is a different area training her new sister! We went to transfer conference last Tuesday, where we received some inspiring instruction from President Jeppson and his assistants, and then got paired up with our new companions! There are about 10 sisters who have been called as trainers after their first 12 weeks in the mission field.

 

My new trainee's name is Sister Stansel- and I am so excited to be serving with her! She is from Idaho Falls. She is an adorable little missionary with a burning testimony and a sweet disposition. She is very intellectual and fun to talk to. Her pure, bold, and loving testimony is just what the people of this area need! We are getting along just great! :)

 

Our wonderful investigator, Abraham Alejandro, agreed to be baptized and had his baptismal interview with our district leader, Elder Greer, yesterday! His baptism is being planned for right after church next Sunday! We are so excited and grateful that my other sister companions and our friends Destiny and John Fihisetau and other members have helped him in his conversion process. But Hermano Abraham is so amazing all on his own. He bears his testimony to us and references things that he has learned from the scriptures and pamphlets we've given him. He even shared that he realizes that Joseph Smith was foreordained to be a prophet for our days and that the Law of Tithing relates to the Word of Wisdom, in that we shouldn't take into ourselves more than that which we need! Hermano Abraham amazes me and you can see the Light of Christ in his eyes.

 

We went to the Manhattan Temple this week! It was my first temple experience in the mission field. I drove with my companion to Union City, New Jersey, where we met some of the other elders at a church and took a little bus across the border into New York and then walked about 20 blocks right through Times Square! It was so exciting! It is a unique feeling to be viewed as a missionary representing the Lord in such a wild, and worldly place. The temple is right off of Broadway, and my companion and I were excited to be right there where so many famous musicals have started out!

 

This was so cool! And the temple was such an amazing, spiritual experience! I love my new companion too. :) She appreciates musicals as well, so we're good. :)

 

(No, we are not advertising for the play...)

 

This is a picture of 2 "zones" (with the most sisters we've ever had in this group) when Elder and Sister Koelliker came and spoke to us on a mission tour.  We are awkwardly on the top with the elders for some reason.

Cambios Grandes! - Transfers

Buenas dias!

Sister Nava met Marissa's grandma
 in Murray when she returned home.

Wow, big changes are happening in the New Jersey Morristown Mission! Sister Daniels and I got a phone call last Thursday night from President Jeppson. He called us to serve as trainers for some of the new sisters who are coming in this week! Today is our last P-Day with Sister Nava, who is going back to Murray, Utah this Wednesday! As a companionship, we have been able to see the "fruits of our labors" that have come from working in a brand new area where we knew absolutely nobody, but now we have good relationships with the inspiring members of the Spanish branch here, we are teaching some investigators who are coming to church, and we have big hopes for the area. We were pretty sure that Sister Daniels would be the one out of the two of us to be transferred to another area of New Jersey with her trainee. We got the transfer text from our leaders this morning saying yes, Sister Daniels will be leaving me too. Now the Lord and the members will be helping me and my new companion work the area of Hightstown together!

 

We are working with one family- a husband and wife and son, who already have friends in the branch, but don't completely understand the Book of Mormon/ Restoration. They appreciate the organization and truths of the church, though. I have a big responsibility to help them and our other investigators of this area progress towards baptism, as well as love the less-active people of the branch and help them remember the significance of their baptismal covenants and their testimonies and help welcome them back to church.

 

Pres. Harrison, put together a "Noche de Hogar/ Despedida" (Family Home Evening/ Goodbye-party) for Sister Nava, since this is her last area of her mission! We met with a good percentage of the branch members there and even some investigators in one of the members' backyards and enjoyed the time together singing hymns, sharing thoughts and gratitude for Sister Nava, and, of course, eating some great food from places like Puerto Rico and Mexico! :) The home we went to was huge, and it was fun to see one of the older, single men named Elizeo find one of their fancy patio chairs looking as content as you could ever imagine by himself on the other side of the pool.

 

When I got my mission call, I had NO IDEA how much being a Spanish-speaking missionary influence me! I am living in part of a culture totally different and meeting so many different people than I would have known here had I been English-speaking. It is great that learning a new language will give me more skills for the future, but it is also amazing that learning this language gives me the opportunity to communicate the gospel message with these people here who also need it so desperately, just like everyone does! I am grateful that God has a plan for all of us.

 

Besides being Spanish-speaking, being a sister missionary has changed me in ways I never could have imagined!! I am so blessed to have been raised in an active family of the Church who taught me gospel principles and commandments in the home, as well as leaders in church, seminary teachers, friends, and so forth. I am especially grateful that right now I have the structure of the missionary schedule and opportunity to really contemplate what is important to me as a Latter-Day Saint and WHY we do the things we do. I am recognizing so many weaknesses and overcoming them through repentance. I understand more why we need Jesus Christ as part of God's Plan of Salvation, why we follow commandments  (tithing, the Word of Wisdom, following the prophet), and why the principles and ordinances of the Gospel of Jesus Christ- faith, repentance, baptism, the Gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to end are essential for everyone. I appreciate more that we as people would not be able to follow the Gospel of Jesus Christ without the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ for these last days through Joseph Smith and modern prophets! As I come to understand these ideas, it is so much more natural to be a missionary and become more like Christ!

 

I love you all! Thank you for all that you do! Keep building love and faith in the Gospel in your homes!

Love,

Hermana Martin

Miracle Sunday!

Querido Familia y Amigos,
I just wish all of you could witness the amazing testimony meeting we had yesterday in our little branch! My heart was so full of love and the Spirit, I could barely handle it!

At 10am before church, my companions and I had a lesson with an investigator named Abraham (Ah-brahm), one of the happiest, most humble, tiny Guatemalan men you'll ever meet! We met him while we were doing service at a local thrift store and I just started talking to him and got his information and he said we could come over sometime!

So far, we've had a really hard time getting investigators to sacrament meeting. But yesterday, including Abraham, we had 5!! (6 if you include another lady who has been coming for a while but can't be baptized yet).

This is not even all that happened, but here are some classic moments from the Princeton 3rd Branch Sacrament Meeting:

First up to bear her testimony as usual is Hermana Robles, who LOVES everyone and everything and shares her love about 200 times in her testimony. We love her!
Hermana Daniels, Hermana Nava, and I bore our testimonies in Spanish- it is incredible to hear how far we've come as trainees with the language!!
A sweet, shy member got up to bear her testimony and my heart was so full.
THEN... Our cute Dominican investigator named Madelyn who surprised us by showing up at church, walked up with her baby and bore her testimony and said she will be baptized sometime!
Then Abraham went up and bore a strong, heartfult testimony for everyone at his 3rd time at church!
Then another young investigator named Andres who we haven't even had a lesson with yet- just invited to church- went and expressed his gratitude for us inviting him to church and his own testimony!
And our friend Luis who was inactive for about a year and is going to start his mission papers soon bore his testimony for us all!

We also had an older Peruvian man named Rigoberto in church for his first time and he loved it and wants to bring his granddaughter next week. The morning of, our investigator named Ivon (the one who answered the door in his paint-covered jeans) finally decided to come to church! The members helped us so much by giving them rides and fellowshipping them!


Another miracle: My adorable friend, Destiny, who I met at BYU-Hawaii last semester in my English class, is HERE! After I got my call, she got really excited and told me that she'd be coming to New Jersey. I hadn't talked to her since. Then one day in our chapel at church I see her- and she had married her boyfriend about 2 weeks earlier! Destiny served in Canada, Spanish-speaking and her husband served in Samoa. They decided to stay in our Spanish branch for the time they are here. Now these two returned missionaries are strengthening the branch so much and helping us give Abraham and other investigators rides to and from church and helping us in lessons!

So many miracles! We are so blessed! I love you all!

Love,
Hermana Martin