Super Cool Experience

Hey there everyone!

That's great to hear that you got a good rain this past week. The whole nation needs a good rain to bring them out of this drought. I think it's pretty ironic that two thirds of this planet is covered in water, but we don't have enough... hmm.. lol!

That's exciting that Austin could be on his mission soon! I bet he is loving going on his mini mission. Is he using those shirt stays I got him? and are they helping him out at all? like keeping his shirt in? (Not all untucked like a marshmallow) also I know he probably doesn't want to learn it, but have him learn how to sew. It will help. I always have to get Sister Lao to sew everything of mine. haha

HAWAII! That's exciting! I hope you two enjoy the heck out of it! Are you two going to visit Zed? I miss him. How is he and Tiara and their baby doing? 

So we had a super cool experience this past week! We were walking home Wednesday from the college library after our email to president. We had turned down a couple of rides because we had been praying about finding someone we can help. We both felt that we should walk all day until we found someone. So we walked up to the Central Baptist Church here in town. We have an investigator that works there and we told her we would go on a tour of the church. The church is set up very nice, and there are many great things in there. We left there and kept walking. It was about 5 o'clock and we were over by the mall. There was a Jeep that pulled over with an Air Force guy in it and he asks us if we want a ride. We had turned down a couple rides before hand from those we knew, but we looked at each other shrugged our shoulders and jumped in! We talked to him a little and found out that he is a less-active member. He has been less-active for 5 years! He told us that he had been praying and thinking about how he could get back into church, and there we were on the side of the road! An answer to his prayers! What a neat experience! As we talked on the drive home with him we are going to start teaching him. He committed to pick us up for church too. Yesterday morning there he was in the drive at our apartments! His first time to church in 5 years. I am sure his mother is over joyed! Ken is going to be a great active member when he gets back from training!  It is interesting to me how God had plans to answer both of our prayers at the same time.
I know that God loves each of us. I know that He always has our best interest in mind. He is there to guide us as long as we are willing to submit to His will and listen to the guidance the Spirit gives us.

Let Jessica know that I love her. I am grateful for the doodles she sends me! Also let her know that the reason I ask for others to get her doodles is a way of me bragging ;) Just kidding- seriously!  I love to see how happy it makes others to get things in the mail from her. It is a sight to see. I love how to watch them open up the mailbox see a letter sitting there and act like they just got free candy :) And hers are the best.

My finger is still attached :) I haven't had any accidents lately. I may be a klutz, but I have kept it under control as far as the harming myself anymore.

I am starting a quote book. Well I have been doing it for a while now. I have a book now that I keep in my pocket that is specifically for quotes. P-- and H----- know all about it. (their investigators that live in our complex) They end up getting quoted quite frequently. Usually funny things they say. One of the quotes I have in my book really stands out to me.
Continuous effort---not strength or intelligence--is the key to unlocking our potential.
-Winston Churchill
Endure to the end and rely on God.

I am happy to hear all is well with you! :) I love you!
Love,
Elder Marshall

PS

I got the CD from the Walker's!  Thanks for it!
Happy Birthday GMA!
Love you!
Elder Marshall

Two Weeks - Birthday, Zoo & BBQ

Hello to everyone! August 13

I wanted to call Austin the other day to see how he is doing and what is going on with his mission papers.  Tell him I am excited to hear where he is going!! He will be such an awesome missionary.  He has such a good attitude towards the work and serving other.

Before I go on I wanted to talk about my birthday tell you what happened and so forth. So in the morning I woke up and started to get ready to go, and My companion and I left the apartment to meet the sisters. We walk the park every morning. So we got out to the front of the complex and I called to see where they were. They lied and said they were to tired to walk so I headed back to the apartment, and they had snuck in and were decorating the apartment. Then they came over and made waffles on my waffle maker for breakfast. Sister Lao wrapped up all the presents I got from home- haha even though I had seen them already, oops I wasn't supposed to say that. Then at 11 after studies we all went and got lunch and had lunch at the park. It was nice.  After that my companion and I went to the zoo, which is terrible... lol it's the second largest zoo in NM but it is pretty sad, compared to some of the ones we have been to.... It was neat to see some of the animals though. I enjoyed it. After that we went home and the sisters had bought papa Murphy's Chicago pizza and we had that for dinner. It really meant a lot to me that they went out of their way to make the day special to me. I was really grateful for everything they did! Thank you Sister Loa and Peterson! You two are the best!

I did get the cards from you and dad. The came Monday, but that's okay :) Thank you so much. Tell Linda and Rebecca Thank you also! :)  I'll just buy a thank you card and send it to the office for everyone who thought of me. I loved opening cards for more than a week.

I got an email from Tyson, and then one from Brittany the other day. It was so good to hear form them. I miss them so much. I hope things start looking up for them. I love them both so much and I am so happy that they are happy. :)

The work is going good. I am thankful for all the people we are teaching! 

Thanks for everything you do! I love you so much.
Love,
Elder Marshall

August 20
Momma, I miss your face too!

This week was SO MUCH BETTER. We actually had things to do and almost the whole week.

Last night was FREAKIN BOSS! We had a BBQ out in the court yard of our apartment complex. I made a couple blueberry pies that were delicious. There was so much food that not all of it was eaten. There were about 12 people that showed up. We had a lot of fun we were able to get to know the people around us better. We are now teaching a young soon to be married couple that lives in our complex along with their friends. It was very successful, and I couldn't have asked for a better night.

There were a lot of people that brought things like chicken to bbq and so forth. we put it together and planned it all out and talked to a bunch of the residence in the complex and invited them to come and bring something if they wanted. It was nice to meet so many of our neighbors.

OH just throwin a shout out to my good friend Sister Hinton's little brother! She told me that he was reading my blog. Sister Hinton and I were in the MTC together. She is a super missionary and ultra funny. She is always doing goofy things to get everyone laughing.

We had Zone Conference this past week and we were able to go to Lubbock for it.  Elder Johnson of the 70 came and spoke to us. He did an excellent job. He opened it up to questions there at the end which was great to be able to communicate to him.

So I was thinking about the gospel a lot in church yesterday. Specifically how we become complacent in our beliefs. It is very easy to get into the habit and just do it just because we are expected to do it. Like going to church, reading our scriptures, or praying. Why do we do those things? Is it because we feel obligated to do them or we just do them because they are so engrained into our daily lives we just do them out of habit. We shouldn't be that way about the gospel. We should have a drive and a desire to do the things we are commanded because of the love we have for our Father in Heaven. Reading the scriptures just to do it won't be as effective or satisfying as when we pick up the scriptures with a determination to draw closer to God. The same goes with going to church. We will not get as much gain from it as we could if we are just going it to do it because we are expected to do it. I know that as we live the gospel standards with a drive to draw closer to our Father in Heaven our spiritual growth will drastically increase.

Oh for Austin to have a great object lesson to do I am going to try and record myself teaching a couple lessons one with a tea bag and the other with blocks. They have helped me out in teaching the doctrine that we are asked to teach. How is Austin doing with teaching the lessons? I hope he is loving being a missionary.  It can be so rewarding! That's great that they are living at a members home. Definitely send him his ipod. I would die out here without mine.

As we learn to love the gospel we have a desire to live it.  Living it bring the light of Christ into the world.

Transfers are in a TWO weeks--- in case anyone wants to mail me something.

Love YA
Elder Marshall

Two Weeks... Happy Birthday

Hello!!! (August 6)

I got TONS and TONS of cards every day leading up to my birthday.  I am terrible at writing people back, and I am SO SORRY! I am so thankful for all of the birthday wishes. Hearing from home made my birthday great!  I love getting mail!! All missionaries do.  It was so exciting everyday to go to the mailbox and find TONS of mail in most of it was for me!!  Thanks for the happiest of birthdays! BTW.... I didn't get the cologne, but it could have come today. I will let you know when I get it.

I am so excited for Scott. I hope they decide to use the timeshare because they will enjoy it EXTREMELY! The time shares are so nice to use. There are so many we have loved going to. 

 Tell Austin that it sucks to study. Lets be real. I don't enjoy getting up and studying, but to teach something I don't know is impossible. Pray before you study, ask God to help you learn how to love studying. Then as you are studying pray and ask for help to remember it, and then after you study pray and ask if what you have studied is true. IT IS POINTLESS TO STUDY AND THEN NOT ASK FOR GOD TO TESTIFY TO YOU OF WHAT YOU STUDY. I know when I read the Book of Mormon I read in my head as if I was narrating a play, and try to make it dramatic and exciting. As I do that I don't want to put the book down. Preach my Gospel section 2. read it over.

Sharing the gospel makes such a huge difference in lives. I've realized talking about the gospel, and growing in it together with someone; especially sharing your testimony, will make a friendships that is unbreakable. I've seen it in so many lives. Those that I have taught are so important to me. I would give anything for them.

Things are going well here. We have several investigators with many struggles. Some of the things we are not allowed to council with them about, and it makes it very difficult, but we are helping them to learn how to pray and receive revelation about their struggles. We are doing everything we know how to do to help them.

The other day we had about 20 minutes till 9 and we had gone in. When we got in we both felt that we needed to go knocking. Which is not easy to do late in the evening. So we decided that we would just knock the houses right by our apartment. We knocked 3 doors and nothing. The 4th door a woman in her late 20's answered the door.  She was very apprehensive at first. We talked to her and she knew some members of the church, and then we found out her husband is LDS and that his whole family is! She told us that missionaries have never talked to her in Clovis, but the missionaries in Utah had and they were very pushy. She said she didn't want to know anything about the church but would be willing to have us over for dinner. So Sunday evening we went over to her house with the sisters for dinner and had a good talk. She asked us questions about things and we just talked and talked and.. yeah.. talked some more. Then after dinner she texted us and told us she would like to hear more about the church!!! :D SO TIGHT!

Well that's all for now folks.
I love you!
Elder Marshall

Hey, (August 1)

Hope all is well with everyone!  New Mexico is hot and dry but I love the people here.

That's so great to hear that Austin is getting involved in so many things, church and sports. I hope he finds a friend, a solid best friend. I love knowing Tyler and Matt were always there for me and know that I am making great friends here that will be with me through my life.  I hope Austin gets his call soon.  The sooner he leaves the soon I will see him. 

I am going to miss Evan. I hope he remembers once a Marshall always a Marshall.

Building relationships as a family is so important.  Praying as a family. FHE may seem unnecessary when there are only two or if you have a young family, but it really will bless them. Taking time every night to talk to each other about their day things that are bugging them or things they love about each other. Praying together helps to building a relationship.  They could even go early in the morning and take a walk around the park. There are a lot of things that can be done to build a great relationship. Marriage is sacred.  What a great blessing the temple is too.  Attending often gives you a sense of peace.  I miss being so far away from the temple.

Things are going well. We are teaching a couple people that are great.  I have been fasting and praying more than I have in my entire life.  I am reading a lot in the Book of Mormon. I have been going through King Mosiah's speech. It is so great to be able to receive revelation through the scriptures. God loves us!

I love you. 

Love,
Elder Marshall