Hey team! Holy cow this week has been incredible! Alturas, California
has a few downsides being as far south as mission boundaries go and
having to drive 1 hour and 45 minutes to get to zone conference
yesterday in Klamath Falls, Oregon. We also cover a branch down in
Cedarville that dips into part of Nevada. I am as far from the mission
home as possible in this mission. We are pretty isolated and cold but
I have loved it here! We had zone conference yesterday so today is P
day which is always weird having p day on any other day than monday.

Elder Willits is my companion and he is such a delight. He is always
super encouraging and loving as well as obedient and hard working. He
is super service oriented. Like today I was cleaning my desk and when
I got done I went to fold my laundry and found Elder Willits already
folding it for me. I took over and thanked him only to find that when
i got done he had made me a breakfast burrito. He is a way nice guy.

Holy cow we had some great miracles. We teach a lot of lessons for
such a small town. We are teaching a guy named Mark who has been
meeting with missionaries on and off for years and never made any
progress but since Elder Willits and his last companion followed the
spirit they have been able to put him on date for baptism and he is
making tremendous growth! We also tract a ton which has never been my
favorite thing to do but we have seen a lot of success from it this
week. We were tracting my first night here and we found a gal named
Laura who was super interested and had lived in Utah for a little
while. We also tracted into a member who said that he was "taking a
break from the church" but he told us his daughter saw us the other
day and she asked why he never has the missionaries come over. She is
10 and not baptized and they both came to church this week. Those are
just a couple of the cool things that have happened.

Zone Conference was awesome yesterday. We had a super spiritual
meeting with a ton of awesome insights. I have been loving the
Christmas season. Sharing #LIGHTtheWORLD has been so awesome. A ton of
people love watching it and we can just whip out our iPads and show it
at every door. I have been studying the life of Jesus Christ a ton and
have developed a greater love for him. I love my Savior and all that
He does for me. I know He is the Messiah and it has blessed me
tremendously to have his atonement in my life. Many times these past
few months when things get hard I can just feel His spirit all around
me filling me with peace and comfort that all will work out. I'm
coming up on 16 months in the mission field. I feel like I just
started this journey and there is still so much I don't know. But i
hope to always recognize Christ's love in my life and can come closer
to him everyday through my life.

Have a great week! I can't wait to talk to my family this Sunday!!!!!!
It will be so very special! I sure miss them but I know they are taken
care of.



~Elder S. Jackson Martin

Snow!

Hey everyone it is transfer day and I am off to Alturas, CA. I'm super
pumped to go down there with some missionary who just got done with
training. He is the district leader down there and we are ISOLATED!
Nobody is even close to us. I will be in the Klamath Falls Zone even
though that is about 1 hour and 45 minutes away.

This last week in Eugene was fun. We had some good times. This week
President Lowary, one of the mission Presidency counselors, had some
heart surgery this week and we all prayed for him as a mission. He is
recovering and Elder Lance and I got to take the sacrament to his home
today since he is in our ward. It was a way spiritual experience. It
was great to do service for someone who has done so much for me.

We took some awesome pictures with Eugene First ward the other day
after ZTM and we call them our boy band pictures. Then Elder Swiderski
decided we would have to take a really dope one on the stairwell at
their apartment. They turned out pretty good. We also had a late lunch
with First ward at Buffalo Wild Wings. It was pretty fun.

Also while we were out contacting we found the trailhead to Spencer's
Butte so we stopped for some pictures there. Anyway it was a pretty
fun week. Hard to say goodbye to some people in this ward but I'm
excited to go serve in the Alturas Branch.


~Elder S. Jackson Martin

It has been a really good week here in Eugene. We have been having a
lot of fun! We found some awesome investigators!

The zone this week has been focusing a ton on baptismal invites and as
a zone we have invited 26 people to be baptized!! It's been awesome.
Not everyone is on date yet but it looks like Eugene is picking up. We
went on exchanges this week. I went with Elder Fowers who is easily
one of my favorite in the mission great great time working hard on our
exchange. He has been trying to convince me to go to BYU Hawaii with
him. I told him if he pays for it I sure will. Anyway we had a great
time on Campus talking with everyone we saw. We taught a guy named
Mason the Plan of Salvation. Correction, he taught us the Plan of
Salvation. He knew so much about our eternal happiness and it was
incredible to be with him.

We had a great district meeting this week. While that was going on we
had zone iPad checks and a lot of missionaries got iPads taken. It was
pretty hard to see a lot of people being disobedient with their iPads.
Most the Elders in my district got their iPads taken so they are
having to use paper for everything.

Church yesterday was awesome. Also the First Presidency devotional was
so inspiring! I love it so much. #Lighttheworld has been such a
delight to share with people! It's great to see so many people serving
each other.

We found a few new people this week! That was such a positive thing
since last week was a little tough. It's the last week of the transfer
so we are going to go hard and find some more people. Two of our new
investigators are Scott and Derry. They are some great guys who love
the
Lord. We got to talk with them a lot about the Book of Mormon and what
it means. Derry knew quite a bit about it which was neat. Great guys
to teach and we are seeing them again this week.

Anyway great week with a ton of great people. Last week of the
transfer and then we will see if I stay in Eugene! Till next time
Folks!!!

~Elder S. Jackson Martin