Oh boy what a week! We had splits with the zone leaders this week
which originally were supposed to be Friday to Saturday but it got
switched to Thursday to Friday. When we were waiting for the zone
leaders the UCC shooting happened and they were able to get the word
out quick because they were at the house of somebody when their son
who goes to UCC called and told him there was a shooting. The zone
leaders texted everyone and told them to stay off campus until the
situation was normalized. Some of our elders were within a 2 minute
walking distance of the school when it happened. Anywho then I went
with Elder Myers who was already super frazzled from everything so his
first item of business was to get caffeine so we had a tiny bit late
lunch. We then drove by the scene just to see what was going on and
there were news trucks everywhere with tons of students being
interviewed and stuff. During the whole exchange we mostly checked on
everyone and made sure they were okay. For dinner we went out and the
lady at the register was hysterical. I felt so bad for her. Then we
went to a candle light vigil and there were some good speeches, even
the governor was there.

After the exchange I learned that Elder Earl had shown Elder Zilles
how to break glass bottles full of water, which was funny because now
elder Zilles is obsessed with doing it but basically only succeeds in
hurting his hand. I tried it and broke it my second try, no big deal,
but now he's angry with me. Unfortunately we weren't recording it but
he sent me a video of Elder Earl doing it so I'll send that. Also they
got two referrals which is awesome but when we go neither one is
there.

General Conference was incredible! I loved Elder Holland's talk and
Elder Bednar's. I just loved hearing from them all so much. They were
all such great talks and I enjoyed general conference more than
before.

This week there will be a lot more lessons I hope. I'm kind of getting
discouraged with all this unsuccessful finding but it's not about me
so I'll get over that. Love you all



Elder S. Jackson Martin
Oregon Eugene Mission
South Umpqua Ward

I loved the new apostles and can't wait for their added witness. I have noticed that if we talk about the UCC shooting with people we tract into they really open up, hopefully it will make it so we can open new doors. The coolest tracting story though was when I was on splits with Elder Crowell 2 weeks ago we prayed to know where to go and he had me pick the spot and we both felt prompted to go to this one street. When we got there we started tracting and a lot of potentials were on that street but also a lot of haters. We knocked on one door and the lady was super rude so we were a bit bugged. At first we were just going to go back to the apartment but then we saw this lady out in her yard who was cleaning her motorcycle and drinking a beer. By her tattooed appearance you wouldn't think she'd want to hear it. But we both said almost at the same time as prompted by the spirit that we should go talk to her. We went over and told her about the plan of salvation as we got to know her and it was a cool conversation. Today Crowell said that she's had two lessons and is scheduled for a third! This was way awesome to hear! 

President gave me awesome advice when we met last week. He had me read John 14:21which talks about if we show we love Christ then he will manifest himself to us. The message was Christ wants us to see him and we all will, so we need to keep his commandments so that meeting can be an incredible experience. I liked that scripture a lot.