December 14th - First Transfer Call Experience

Hola all y'all!!

Transfer calls came on Saturday night. Coasty's and ours came as we were carrying a bunch of stuff into our apartment, so when the phone rang we stopped at the bottom of our stairs, holding all our stuff in our arms. And our breath.

.....drum roll.....

We're both staying in the Hunstville Rama!! yay!!  Two minutes later, Moline and West got their call outside our door. West is leaving after only spending one transfer (though 5 weeks) in the Rama (branch). Moline, who has been in the field just one transfer longer than me, is going to be training a brand new missionary!! I'm not going to be the baby of the zone/district anymore!!! xP

This week was a fun challenge. We worked to reach our goals despite having the Mission Christmas party on Friday (which went well - hula-hooping in the talent show wise - despite major lack of preparation) and the shift on Sunday evening at the Festival. I think the best experience from this week was taking two bi-lingual girls (Spanish and English) from the branch with us tracting and contacting. Kelly and Sandra are 12 and 8 respectively. We tracted a bit in their neighborhood (first contact was in Spanish and Kelly rocked it), and then went contacting at the mall. We had 6 lessons and about 20 may-we-teach-you's, and they each gave out a Book of Mormon. They both were great helps and it was so fun seeing these two young girls get involved with missionary work and maybe start preparing for their own missions. Sandra, the younger one, was especially brave and shared her knowledge of the Book of Mormon and the Gospel readily. I hope to emulate the same excitement about the Gospel that they had throughout my mission.

Coasty, while we were at the mall, challenged me with a You-Aint-Down for a group of 5 or 6 rowdy teenagers, only one of which was female. I was hesitant. Kelly actually told me not to and said they probably wouldn't be interested.

*Challenge accepted.*

I walked over and addressed the one girl in the group and we started talking. She turned out to be fairly curious about what we were doing and accepted a Book of Mormon from Kelly. It was a neat experience to show our missionary friend for a day that you can't judge people and how they'll respond just by looking at them, and that's why we have to talk to EVERYONE.

Hermana Acosta and I are still focusing on expanding our teaching pool for the most part, but we have a couple investigators and potentials that we have high hopes for, especially Jaquelyn. She's been reading the Book of Mormon with her daughters and we're hoping to extend more commitments to her this week to determine where she's at in her progression with the church.

Well. That's all for now!

The Church is true,

The Book is blue,

and God loves you!!

~Hermana Martin