Clovis, New Mexico

Hello everyone,

I am being transferred and have a ton of things to do so this will be really short!  I am serving with Elder Krizin in Clovis, New Mexico.  If you have heard that name before it is because we have served together already.  I am the district leader and we have 4 people in our district.  The two of us and a set of sisters.  I don't know much about the area but the address is 2100 Mitchell apt 11 Clovis, New Mexico 88101.  

I will really miss Midland and Elder Rose.  We were a great team and had a lot of fun with the members and those were taught. There are some wonderful people there!

It is so great to know that our Heavenly Father loves us enough to care for us as individuals!

Gotta run...Love to everyone,

Elder Marshall

Oh, the church is true!

So Grateful For This Gospel

Hey,

You asked if we can go I get to go to baptisms in my district.  If there is a baptism in the area we are allowed to go if we have an investigator.  I would like to go to them all especially those I interviewed.  There is such a great spirit that is at baptisms. 

Not to much has happened this week for us. We are out working, but it's been slow, and kinda hectic as you can tell I ended up having to email you on Thursday.

We are working with a few people who are wonderful!  

It breaks my heart to hear about people doing thing they know are wrong or breaking commandments, but I can't control anyone's agency, that was satan's plan. I know we teach and talk about what is right and wrong. It is agency, but to every choice their is a consequence or reaction. We will be judged for our actions especially those we are making when we KNOW what is right or wrong. It tears me up inside to know people I love are not living up to their potential... Thank goodness for the atonement.  We all can use it as often as we need it.

I am so grateful for this gospel. I am grateful for the Book of Mormon, and the rest of the canon of scripture we have. I know that Joseph Smith is a Prophet. It's either that or he is the greatest con-artist in the world. I know with out a doubt that the Prophet Joseph Smith was directed and lead by God. It is undeniable. God loves us. I know that. I know he wants the best for us even if it means we have to go through trials to learn. We are to become more like God. We can do that as we endure through our trials with a determination, and a joy knowing that we are becoming like God. I know that Thomas Spencer Monson is a prophet of God. Listening to him speak is so soothing. I know that he is directed by God. I am forever grateful for the doctrine of the Church of Jesus Christ. It makes logic sense and you can feel the spirit as you study it. 

I love you,
Elder Marshall 

PS I am jealous you were all at the cabin, but I bet you are jealous I am serving a mission!  I can't wait to go to the cabin again. We have fun going with the Walker's. I love that game we play where we all act things out.  We all look silly but do it anyway because we all like to WIN!!! I guess next year Marissa and I will be back, and the year after Craig. You'll just have to wait till then to see who is on the winning team.  

I saw some of the photos of the office! It looks great!! Congrats Dad on all of your hard work. 

God Love Us

Hey Everyone;

This week was excellent!!  I was able to interview a couple people for baptism. I love interviewing for baptism. Usually it takes about 20 minutes, but we end up talking for over an hour. I love how strong the spirit is as we talk. One I did Sunday I was almost in tears, and it wasn't anything in particular she said. It was the power of her testimony and the spirit in the room. I love this church. I am so grateful for the divinity of the doctrine we have. I know everything we teach to be true. I know of the love God has for each and every single one of us. It is proven to us through everything we teach. We have a prophet, we have the opportunity to live with our families for eternity, Christ's church was restored, the priesthood is on the earth, we have truth through the Book of Mormon, the Prophet and other scriptures.  All of these things show us of how much God loves us. I can not express how wonderful this is to me. I am so grateful for this truth.

We had Zone Conference this past week. That went well. We were able to have some time as a Zone to play games and relax. It was pretty nice.

Oh we have a new mission office address right now.
The new address for the mission office is:

 

Texas Lubbock Mission

6310  114^th Street

Lubbock, Texas  79424

I guess if you have anything to send around the time of transfers you can send it there. Transfers is the 12th & 13th that Tuesday and Wednesday.  We will find out next Saturday if we get moved, not this up coming one the 9th.

Oh I spoke to soon about the MICE. They're BACK. Well at least we got a couple more. We know right where the hole is so now we can shove some steel wool in there. I guess that prevents them from coming back in. I HOPE!!

Oh, my birthday is coming up... hint hint...I need razor foils, my razor is a remington. I need to find out what the model number is to the razor so you can get more foils. My foil now has a hole in it and it hurts like flippin crazy to shave, but I got a manual razor until I can get some new foils. Oh in the next package can you send me my cologne. the one million. the one that looks like a gold bar? Don't forget the gummy worms!

I can't really think of to much new that's going on.
I love you.
Love,
Elder Marshall

Looking For More to Teach

Hello everyone-

Not much time, I have a million things to do today so I will write a quick note, just because it is short doesn't mean I don't love everyone who spends time reading.....

That's so neat to hear that the office property is almost done. It sucks that people used the property for trash.  Hope it all gets cleaned up fast.  Are the scout and missionaries helping?  I love helping.  Change of pace. 

You spoke in church Sunday too?  I was asked to give a 15 minute talk on repentance and the atonement.  I spoke for about 7 and a half minutes.  I prepared for like 2 weeks and  had plenty of material, but.. I was blank the whole time I was up there. I basically shared the couple points I had written down and then bore testimony and sat down.  I learned even if a talk is bad you should thank the person who spoke so they feel good about themselves and are less afraid when they get up. I am going to thank people more.

I miss taking long trips and driving for long periods of time. In Big Spring it was an hour drive down and an hour back every Tuesday for district meeting. That was nice. Has he driven to the cabin? It's a nice drive out there. The gorge is fun, and going up the mountain will give him some good experience. I'll never forget the time Austin drove in the church parking lot. I thought we were going to die! HAHA Hope he is better!  Speaking of the cabin...I will get mail next week, right?  

Oh man.... Evan, I'm not going to lie, doing anything with bombs sounds like the coolest job to have in the navy. Write to me and tell me about it.  

This week has been okay. We are working with a couple people, and are still looking for more to teach. Hopefully we'll find more people to teach this week. :)

It's good to hear everything is going well at home. 

Take some time to study the gospel.  It brings the spirit into your life and makes things go better.

Still no mice!!!!:) 

Love you all,

Elder Marshall

A Special Thanks to the Women in My Life

So the mice have seemed to cease and desist. I am SO HAPPY! I have been praying that they would all die already. We haven't had a trap go off in a while. :) I was hoping to catch one and rub antifreeze all over it, someone said that it would work to kill them all, and let it go again so it would kill every single one of the little varmints!  I'm glad they stopped.. Maybe God knew I would probably had animal cruelty charges if they didn't stop. :)

This week was an up and down one. Wednesday we went on exchanges. So it made for an interesting 24 hours.

Thursday it rained all day long and REALLY HARD! We couldn't do much cause it was flooding everywhere to where even on a bike our feet would be buried in the water so we took it easy till it dissipated. The drain system here sucks. They made their streets and didn't think about how to move the water to somewhere resourceful. They should come to Vegas to see how it is done!

I learned how to make Spanish rice the other day. I think it was Tuesday. We had dinner at a members house and she gave me the recipe on how to make red Spanish rice. I'm going to try and make it this week... so we'll have to see if it turns out. I'll let you know how that goes depending on if I can remember to write about it.

Saturday the Spanish branch had a mothers day dinner. We went to that. It was funny Elder Rose and I were out working and we got a call from Singles elders, who dropped off Spanish elders and called and said, " One of the hermanos in the ward here asked if you were coming to the dinner tonight." We talked a little and he told me that they walked up to this hermano and he said "Hey, it's good to see you elders. Everything is inside ready to be set up. Oh! is Elder Marshall coming?" haha I found it kinda funny that I don't even speak spanish or talk to much to the Spanish branch (because of my lack of Spanish) and they were asking if I was going to come. At the dinner we Elder Giles & Elder Robles (Spanish Elders) Elder Weldon & Elder Gerber (Singles Elders) Elder Rose & I, and Sister Hamaker and Sister Zahrt went up and sang "Love Is Spoken Here."

Sunday I had the opportunity to give Joe the Aaronic Priesthood! That was a challenge! I didn't even know and then In Elders Quorum two seconds before we were supposed to do it I found out that he chose me! :) So it's pretty cool! I never thought I would be doing that until I was older! It's pretty exciting to me.

 

Even late in his life, President Smith remembered with fondness how his mother, Sarah Farr Smith, taught him to pray:

“I was trained at the knee of a Latter-day Saint mother. One of the first things I remember was when she took me by the hand and led me upstairs. In the room there were two beds, the bed in which my parents slept, and a little trundle bed over on the other side. I can remember it as if it were yesterday. When we got upstairs, she sat down by my little trundle bed. She had me kneel in front of her. She folded my hands and took them in hers, and taught me my first prayer. I will never forget it. I do not want to forget it. It is one of the loveliest memories that I have in life, an angelic mother sitting down by my bedside and teaching me to pray.

“It was such a simple prayer, but … that prayer opened for me the windows of heaven. That prayer extended to me the hand of my Father in heaven, for she had explained to me what it all meant as far as a little child could understand. From that day until now, while I have covered approximately a million miles in the world among our Father’s other children, every day and every night, wherever I have been, when I have gone to my bed or arisen from it, I have felt I was close to my Heavenly Father. He is not far away.”

I read this on Sunday and found it very appropriate to share. Especially since it's mothers day. Prayer is so important to us. I am so grateful that God is always with us.

 

I want to give a special thank you to all the women in my life that have made an impact in my life. Which is each and every single one of you. I appreciate everything you do. You bear burdens for others, buoy others up, and love with your whole heart. I know our Savior loves you.

Love,

Elder Marshall

MICE

Hello everyone-

This week was horrendous... well... parts of it were.... and others were super great!

So last Tuesday was transfers. I am still here in Midland. Elder Rose and I are still companions, thank goodness. We are having a great time together. He reminds me a lot of Tyler when we started hanging out.

Wednesday is when things started going down hill..... I found a mouse in our apartment. I HATE MICE! They're disgusting!!!  Plus having them in the apartment made it hard for me to sleep or do anything. The one I found was under the sink. He jumped out at me and tried to attack me! I caught it and ruined it's life. Did I say I HATE MICE!  After that we went to the store at like 11 to get mouse traps to get rid of them.  We totaled at 17 mice! I was ready to move apartments. I despise mice. I am fine with them when they are caged up and controlled, but when the run free and rampant through belongings they deserve to die!

So, as for the rest of the week it went really well. We spent a lot of our time out finding investigators and gathering old potentials. Saturday we had a baptism for M.... and A...... They are two younger girls that are in a part member family. They are all members now. They were so excited to get baptized.  Elder Rose baptized them and I confirmed them. It is weird doing two confirmations at the same time, but it makes a big difference when the spirit is telling you what to say.

That's about all that has gone on this week... That I can remember.

I am hopefully going to be sending a box home with camera cards home this week if I can get somethings copied over to a zipdrive.

I have a new sister in my district who has.... touretts! She is so funny! She reminds me a lot of Austin because she'll make noises or move around and I just ignore it while everyone else always looks. 

I hope all is well. Will you print off some pictures for me of the new office? or you can wait till I sent the camera cards and you can take some pictures on there and then some video of everyone and more pictures. 

As for mothers day we are allowed to make a phone call home because it took to long for missionaries to focus again after skyping home. We will hopefully be able to skype again on Christmas. I have church at 9 in the morning here until 12 here. I will probably call later on Sunday. I can also have a member coordinate when would be the best time for me to call. Maybe our recent convert will be able to set it up. He's great and loves to talk!

I love you. Thank you for all you do for me.
Love,
Elder Marshall

Study the Hymns

Hello!

I'm not quite sure how we are going to talk on mothers day. I haven't been informed on what we are able to do. I am hoping we will be able to skype, but I will hopefully know next week. What time do y'all meet for church? Ours is at 9 am. So like 7 there.

That's excellent to hear that the building passed the inspection and was given the temporary occupancy! I'm glad you've been able to move in smoothly.

So this weekend we had J..'s baptism. It was incredible! He has such a strong testimony of the gospel. He was actually starting to teach the lessons to us because we has taught everything several times. I was able to perform the baptism and Elder Rose confirmed. I FETCHING LOVE ELDER ROSE. When he was confirming you could feel the spirit so strong. The talks went very well and everything went very smooth. He will be a great strength to many people. We are going to start taking him out teaching with us and working with him so he will get to know the ward really well.

There was a combined meeting and it was on Hymns. Hymns really do bring the spirit very strong. They showed an example of two songs put together. It was a Christmas  song to the music of onward christian solders. You can really tell that the writers of the music were truly inspired by the spirit for the tune and lyric to match.
I love this song..

1. There is a green hill far away,
Without a city wall,
Where the dear Lord was crucified,
Who died to save us all.

2. We may not know, we cannot tell,
What pains he had to bear,
But we believe it was for us
He hung and suffered there.

3. There was no other good enough
To pay the price of sin.
He only could unlock the gate
Of heaven and let us in.

4. Oh, dearly, dearly has he loved!
And we must love him too,
And trust in his redeeming blood,
And try his works to do.

It is such a blessing to know this. I love that we are able to study out of the hymn book for related topics.  I am so grateful to know of what the Savior has done for us and the knowledge of happiness we have because of the atonement.

Listen to or read "the meaning of the atonement" by Cleon Skousen It is really wonderful.

http://emp.byui.edu/marrottr/Skousen-Williams.pdf. 

I hope all is well.

Love,

Elder Marshall