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

Create Success

Hello everyone-

A few personal notes- and a couple of successes this week:)

That is so crazy to hear that Matt already is an AP.  He is a great missionary!

That's crazy that James is serving so close to his family on his mission! He too will be a great missionary.  Hard work and service makes you happy.

I'm excited to see the pictures of the building! I'll be praying that you are able to move in this weekend! The office will do great there and I am sure dad will love the 2 minute drive or walk to work.

Oh something else I can think of that I'd like is Gummy worms. There is a gas station off of the 215 and Gibson. I think it's a speedee mart. it's right over there by Cassy and Evan's place.  They sell these gummy worms in a plastic bag with paper at the top. I can't remember what kind they are, but I LOVE those ones. I can't find them here anywhere.  Also, Could you maybe see about finding P90X in a paper form? possibly with photos. I am trying to look for something that I can do to work out that will cut down on my fat. The bottom of me looks great, because of the bikes... while the top is.....

This past week was a really great one. On Tuesday I went on Exchanges with Elder Crawford. He's a new missionary. We had one of the funniest experiences! HAHA This little girl probably 8 or 9  comes creeping up to us like crouched down and was acting almost like gollum off of Lord of The Rings. She was hunched down and in a loud whisper voice she said "You punched my friend in her face! I'm going to RIP you apart!" then we said "What?" and she said again in the same creepy loud whisper voice "YOU PUNCHED ..... IN THE FACE!! I'M GOING TO KILL YOU!!!!" We looked at each other and said "We didn't do anything." then she stands up and in a normal voice she said "OH! oh! Sorry guys!" then she ran off! HAHAHAHA it was the funniest thing!

This last weekend we had I.....'s  baptism, Saturday. It was great! Elder Rose baptized her and then on Sunday I confirmed her. She was so cute on the stairs before she went into the water she looked up at elder Rose and whispered "I'm nervous!" It was really exciting to see how happy her family was for her to get baptized.

This Next weekend we have J..'s baptism on the 29th after Church on Sunday. He is so ready to get baptized. He knows the gospel so well! I can not wait.

I can't think of anything else that has happened.

I'm dying from allergies here. It is getting really bad.

Love,

Elder Marshall
PS here is a talk ans a thought :)

Create success
                                                                Elder M. Russell Ballard

     Our time in the mission field is short but eternally important. As we examine the mission field, we see that some missionaries succeed to a great degree and others seem to stumble along, trying to stay enthusiastic, but somehow not obtaining the results which they desire. What makes the difference between a highly successful missionary that baptizes regularly and a missionary that seldom baptizes? Through examining the trends in the missions, we find that it is not the area, it is not the people, and it is not the time of year. Instead it is the attitude of the missionaries and their ability to utilize and apply the talents that they possess. We know that a missionary with a good attitude produces good results; fair attitude, fair results; poor attitude, poor results. The missionary with a good attitude works with the people and not through them. 

     Ability means nothing to a missionary if it is not used. The greatest men came to the top because the strength that grew out of meeting resistance. Self-deceptions are responsible for more then three-fourths of all the so-called “unexplained failures” in the mission field. Many missionaries in the race for success explain their shortcomings as they do in the game of bowling. If they fail to win, something was wrong with the ally, the pins, their arms, their members, their companions, their areas, etc. etc. The trouble is never themselves. Of all the distinguished failures, those who deserve the least sympathy are the ones who gather in foolish little cliques, praise each other, deceive each other, criticize others, and fool themselves. They say, “I am not appreciated.” “I have had bad luck all my mission. Others have had a better chance.” “I wish I could have the fortune of Elder ‘success.’” A fireball missionary starts when an investigator says “no!” This is a plain and simple concept but very true. 

     Do not be a missionary who complains about his companion his leaders, and his burdens. Instead be a missionary who can be placed in any area and in any set of circumstances and be relied on to set things right. Become a creator of circumstances instead of a creature of circumstances. 

     Success does not depend on the message, but on the messenger. We each learn that failure and excuses go together, so we must learn to get away from excuses. Dull or slow months are for dull missionaries, so remember that sharp missionaries don’t have any. 

     This is why success is not luck. It can be predicted and followed each day into a successful week, year, and mission. Live one day at a time as though it where a building block. Do each day what should be done that day, and do not under-work, because that brings on the “bad luck” and slumps. 

     By being able to control what we put in this mind of ours, we determine our own lives. “as we sow, so shall we reap.” We can see how important it is to sow the right beginning thoughts. Another interesting fact about our minds is that we can only entertain one thought at a time. Therefore, your destiny may be determined by one single thought, and it is up to you whether you make it positive or negative. Think baptism and you will baptize. Your actions, attitude, mission, and life will be directed by your thoughts.

     Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve. If you can’t see yourself baptizing, then you probably never will. A desire does not come from practical knowledge, but it comes from compulsions and obsessions. Desire leads to a goal, and it is the starting point of all achievement. The power of definite desire is beyond all practical goals that use no emotion. We need to get involved emotionally in our goal to baptize. Who will baptize next? The mission field is successful only to successful missionaries.

The Chapel is Such a Spiritual Place

Things are good here in Midland. :) We have had clouds tempt us but nothing hit the ground. We need rain so bad here in this area.

Are y'all taking pictures of the new office? I can't wait to see the changes.

Grandma seems to be having a hard time. That has to be terrible for her.  Give her my love.

It's hard to read the Book of Mormon for the first time through. I know, but as long as Austin keeps pushing through it, whether he enjoys it or not just get it done. The second time through it is much easier to read. I know we read it all of the time as a family but it is so important to read it on your own.  Then pray.  Soon you again a testimony and reading it becomes a part of who you are.

Congratulations Tyson and Brittany! I'm so happy for them! :) Happy Birthday to Cassy, Byron, Angie and Peter.  I can't believe Peter is a year old.  I bet he is getting big!

So I don't have a ton to write about. My bike is in the shop for the week... My back tire so so out of alignment that it was dragging on the brakes on both sides. It's probably going to cost about 60$ but they are giving me a discount and loaning me a bike for free. They are also going to take care of all the problems it has with out extra cost on my part. What a blessing..

Oh where can I get a copy of my priesthood line?

Also I need some work outs printed out... I need to get into shape. My legs are rocks, but... the rest of my body is... ummm... not... hahaha I am  about 200 lbs now and I don't look like I've gained weight, but apparently I have. My clothes still fit!

This week was pretty great. Well, It had it's really high ups, and it's very lows. Wednesday Sister Wilkey in my district got transferred to help some sisters in another area. She is super great! She is always high energy and fun to be around. So it was really sad to have her leave. She made a huge difference in my mission.

Elder Rose and I lead the zone in our key indicators. We worked so hard this week I was taking naps almost everyday to catch up on my lack of sleep and from exhaustion form work.
We are teaching J... He is one of the most solid investigators!

There's a story President Augustin tells about a man at temple square that would walk back and forth between the gates from the side walk back onto the temple ground. This man had done it about 100 times and security finally approached him and asked him if there was a problem. The man replied something along the lines 'Yes, can you feel that?'  We had a really special experience with our  investigator J... We took him on a church tour so we could get him to church this Sunday.   When we were showing him around we finished with the chapel. We bore our testimonies to him while we were in there.  As we left the chapel into the foyer he turned around and walked right back into the chapel. He stood there for about a minute and then back into the foyer.  He walked in and out about 3 time then said something along the lines of "Wow, I didn't believe in that, but I can feel the difference from just walking in there."  We told him that was the spirit and he could have that after baptism all the time.  It was so neat to actually see someone feel the difference, something that we tend to take for granted. The Chapel is such a spiritual place.  He expressed that he couldn't wait. MAN! that was so exciting!

Something else exciting! We got chased by a pitbull this week! It almost cornered us between him and a major street! We were so scared! haha

Well I don't have anything else to really talk about except all of the wonderful naps I took this week :) I did work hard to deserve the naps!

I love you, and I hope everything is going great!
Love,
Elder Marshall

The Atonement is a Blessing

Hey,

I enjoy church music so much more now that I've been out. I use to hate it! I thought it was terrible... hahaha Now I enjoy singing it :) It's pretty clever of you to have used church song phrases to want us to obey :)

That's great to hear that Austin has been gaining weight. He's not the only one.... haha Kidding! I don't know how much I weigh. due to the fact that I haven't seen a scale in almost a year.

I'm glad to hear that Austin is more than half way through the Book of Mormon, and didn't leave Lehi's family in the wilderness. I am loving reading out of the Book of Mormon. I have a miss cut copy, and everyone thinks I should have just sent it home and kept it pristine, but it's only worth as much as you've put it to use. Kinda like if you buy something really expensive and never use it. that would be a waste. We should be putting the Book of Mormon to use daily, and not just reading a couple verses and calling it good. We should be testing it, questioning it, and really studying it.  We shouldn't walk away from it unless we've prayed about what we read. There's a quote "If you don't feel like praying, pray till you do." We should be applying that to our studying of the Book of Mormon to be, If you don't feel like reading, read till you do. I find myself captivated in reading it. I love the Book of Mormon.

That's sad to hear about Grandma not doing well. I hope as sad as this may sound that she passes soon, I am sure she would rather be with Grandpa than having the troubles she is now. I know that I'll miss her, but I also know that I will be able to see her again. The other day Elder Rose and I were teaching the Great Plan of Redemption, or the Plan of Salvation. What a blessing this is for all of us. We had finished teaching J.., the sickest investigator! I was bearing my testimony about the Plan of Salvation which I wasn't sure if I had a testimony of, and I said I know that our families will be able to return to live together again, and I was in tears. I now know of the truth of the Plan of Salvation. I know with out a doubt that it is true. I can not deny it. I look forward to seeing Grandpa again.

It's great to hear about how well the building is going. I am excited to see pictures of it! I really excited for dad! I bet the day he says it's done he's going to sleep for a week! hahaha :) I really miss dad too. We have had some great talks driving in the truck to and from work and some really good laughs! :)  I love you Dad.

For Easter in sacrament meeting while listening to the talks I was really thinking about Christ and what he did for us.   

Omni 26. And now, my beloved brethren, I would that ye should come unto Christ, who is the Holy One of Israel, and partake of his salvation, and the power of his redemption. Yea, come unto him, and offer your whole souls as an offering unto him, and continue in fasting and praying, and endure to the end; and as the Lord liveth ye will be saved.

This scripture really stuck out to me. What a blessing the atonement is for each of us. That is our main message as missionaries. I know that the restoration is important, but the atonement is what brings the faith, the opportunity to repent and be baptized so we can receive the Holy Spirit, and it is what gives us the hope to endure to the end. There would be no hope for us no purpose to live with out the atonement. I am forever grateful for that.
I love you! I hope your week will be great! :)
Love,
Elder Marshall

PS  Our area is huge! and we're a bike area! I don't know if you can look up ward boundaries on Lds.orgbut if you can look up Midland 3rds It's fetching intense!
I love my Companion! He's super great. He's a lot of fun to serve with. Once he came out of his shell he became a loose cannon! haha He is great!