Kylie's Coming Home

We received a call from Kylie's Mission President that the chronic dizziness she has been experiencing for weeks now has not gotten any better. She will be coming home on Tuesday February 2nd to have more extensive tests here at home. Please keep her in your prayers, her goal is to come home, get better, and get back to her mission as soon as she can.

Worldwide Missionary Broadcast

Hola everyone!

So this week was mostly uneventful so this will probably be a short email.

This past Wednesday morning we had this really cool worldwide missionary broadcast (which they haven't done in like 10 years so we feel pretty special) and a bunch pf leaders of the church spoke about the importance of missionary work and things we can do to be better missionaries. It was a really cool experience and it was amazing to think that all of my friends serving missions around the world were watching the same thing as me! 

They talked a lot about how important the Holy Ghost is in this work, how we are truly just the instruments in the Lord's hands and we need to do all we can to make sure the people that we talk to and teach can feel that Spirit too. It was a great reminder for me and all in all a great conference!

Nothing crazy has happened with my health in the past week. I'm still mildly sickly but I can still work and hopefully we'll have some answers this week! I got to wear this super cool holster monitor thing for 24 hours that kept a log of my heart rate and everything and I'm really grateful that I only had to have a bunch of wires attached to me for one day. It was super cool being able to see my heart rate at any given moment though!

So there's this really creepy angel stature that we pass on the way to go see Nacho and this was our best attempt to take a picture with it. Lightheadedness does not make for a skilled camera man, lo siento!

Our investigators are all still amazing. A lot of them were really busy this week so that made teaching a little more difficult but we got to stop by with a couple of them! And that gave us more opportunities to try to find more people to teach.

That's really it for the week. 

Oh! Except one funny story. We had exchanges this past week so I went up to the english speaking sister's area for a day (I have discovered that I am incapable of praying in english anymore so that'll be interesting by the time I go home!) but we were getting out of the car to go into an appointment and it was super windy so as I stepped out of the car the door swung back and I leaned into it and wacked myself in the eye (it really didn't even hurt at all though). But so the next morning I had a baby black eye and when I went back with my companion she was like "what happened to your eye?!" and I came up with a lot of fun stories about bar fights and wrestling a puma but eventually I had to admit that I hit myself in the face with a car door. So yep we got a good laugh out of that this week!

Les quiero mucho!

Hermana Martin

Milagros Everywhere!

Hola queridos amigos!

Ok so my mystery lightheadedness has returned! But that just means I got to ride in a wheelchair again around the hospital while a bunch of doctors did tests on me to try to figure out what in the world is happening. So in the process of all of that I got to see a picture of my brain! I bet most missionaries can't say that. And we've discovered that on paper I'm the epitome of health, which is actually super comforting. So still no answers but everything is still looking pretty good! 

We decided this little dirt road was as close as we got to tracting in South America

The most amazing part of this whole thing though (milagro numero uno) is that even though some mornings I can hardly walk around the apartment (that's pretty rare though, usually I just have to walk really slow and I'm fine) we just get out and go to work anyways just trusting that Heavenly Father will give me the strength I need to do whatever He wants me to do and as soon as we're out working, helping, teaching, and finding God's children here, I feel perfectly fine. I can walk normally up and down stairs, walk down a street, fend off really friendly but large dogs that decide they want to hug us, all with no problem. But as soon as we're back home at night it'll hit all over again. 

It's the weirdest thing but I've grown so much in my faith these past three weeks witnessing firsthand my daily miracle of being able to work at all. And because we're really been trying so hard to continue being good missionaries, despite our challenges, we have been so miraculously blessed here in the work this week! 

One of our incredible, wonderful, super sweet investigators, finally made it to church this past Sunday and brought her three children! She is falling in love with this gospel, as I have, and I'm so excited for her and her family! I can see how much the knowledge that their family can be eternal has already started to bless their lives. There really is nothing better than missionary work. 

A random puppy that started following us as we were knocking doors, We named her Zuly

And there was just so many other little miracles that happened this week that if I even attempted to mention a few of them this email would take days to read. We have been so clearly used as instruments in the Lord's Hands this week, which is all I have ever wanted out of my mission. He has been preparing us and trusting us with some big jobs and I am grateful beyond words of the chance that I get to wear the sacred name of Jesus Christ on my name tag that I get to put on each and every day. I am grateful beyond words for light. For the Light of Christ and the incredible power that it holds and the opportunity I get to share that with others, with God's precious children here, and that I get to be enveloped by it each day. 

A quote that I absolutely love this week that I think I may have shared before but oh well because I love it so much and I think it's so absolutely beautiful is "There is no darkness so dense, so menacing, or so difficult that it cannot be overcome by light" -Vern P. Stanfill

Love you all!

Hermana Martin