Hey everyone! It's Elder Martin way out in the land of no sales tax
and where slaves pump your gas for you! Yep things are still the same
old same old in Oregon. Me and Elder Davis are kicking butt and taking
names no doubt about it! I'm coming up quick on my 8 month mark which
means I'm almost 1/3 of the way through my mission. It's going way too
fast. Monday we got done in Eugene hanging out at the institute
building then drove back here to Oakridge and had a lesson with
George. It was way good and a great way to show Elder Davis the people
of Oakridge.

The next day we went to a little store named Cascade General and a
lady in there saw us and said she was passing through and she really
needed a blessing of comfort. We gave her a quick blessing since the
store was empty and learned she was an inactive member who was having
a tough time. It was kind of cool that we were there at that time. I
mostly introduced Elder Davis to all the key people that day like the
Branch Mission leader and Branch President and stuff. Then we went and
tried to contact some people and had a little success. We then went
and saw Shauna and Troy and they were doing really well.

Wednesday morning we were walking around town and a lady named Ruth
came up to us and said that her daughter was a member in the branch
and that she really wanted to be baptized. We were both so stunned! It
was so wild! That like never happens. We scheduled an appointment for
Saturday and then walked away from that way happy.  She ended up
having something come up on Saturday but she seems really solid. We
walked around town some more trying to contact more people and Talking
to people as we went. We got some things scheduled and some potentials
found. We are really low on miles so we walk and bike all around town
but Elder Davis's bike broke so now we are just on foot until we fix
it. It's so lame with no car. That night we contacted Donna a lady who
had met with us previously but had been dodging us really bad. She
said she's pretty stressed out because of all the stuff going on and
she's trying to quit doing drugs and told us it was just too hard. We
told her that the best way to overcome it was probably to not avoid us
but to listen to our message. She agreed with that but was still a bit
hesitant.

Thursday we went and saw Joe and talked with him for a while. And he
was doing good but still was insisting that The church wasn't for him.
In the end we were able to leave on good terms with him but totally
heartbroken for him. Luckily we convinced him to keep the Book of
Mormon and he even said he wanted to finish it so that was cool. We
also had a lesson with Tanya a recent convert and talked about the
restoration. She really enjoyed it. That night we went and saw Silvia
and her family and had a good lesson. She's still doing great  and
progressing in the gospel. Next lesson we are going to invite Dan to
be baptized and we are excited because he's so ready but every time we
invite he always puts it off. This time we'll get him.

Friday was District meeting and my old friend from Roseburg; Elder
Kroll is my district leader. It was so good to see him again and learn
from him. I love Fridays since we get to spend time with the zone and
we don't have miles to get down for P day. Besides that nothing too
exciting happened Friday.

Saturday we did a lot of finding thanks to all the appointments
falling through. But did get to meet with our investigator Aaron. We
taught the word of wisdom and learned that he was having some word of
wisdom problems and so we talked about how he could overcome that. It
was a good lesson and he shed a few tears. He said he'd probably make
it to church next week so we are counting on that.

Yesterday Elder Davis was shocked to see that 5 minutes before church
there was only 15 people there at sacrament meeting. Luckily we were
running on Mormon standard time and a lot more people walked in.
Sister Fine brought her Grandkids and o the chapel looked pretty full
even though we probably only had like25 people there. We had a few
meetings and Since Sister Fine's sons were in town she fed us dinner.
That was our first member dinner in a week so that felt good.

This week was pretty dang good! We are still going strong and hoping
to baptize before the transfer ends! Well that's it more next week!!

Elder S. Jackson Martin
Oregon Eugene Mission
Oakridge Branch