Hey team! It's been a pretty good week though I don't have a bunch to
say about it. We've had some good lessons this week. We got a good
fellowship per for our investigator George and they turned out to
already be good friends so they have a really good time whenever we go
teach him. George is finally overcoming all of his word of wisdom
problems and he even came to all three hours of church! We couldn't be
more happy for him! He's going to be baptized March 5 and we are
looking forward to it.

Wednesday we had like the longest Zone Conference ever! It went from
12:00-6:00 and then we had a neat little thing where our Ward mission
leaders and bishops/branch presidents came down and we all had
training from 6:00-8:00 since it takes a while to drive to Springfield
we didn't get back to our area until 10:00. We were all asked to
prepare a talk on the atonement so president could randomly choose
people to speak. I had a feeling I was going to be called on so I made
sure mine was good. He had us prepare 20 minute talks and then when he
called on us he asked that we only do 4 minutes of it! So I barley
scratched the surface of what I wanted to talk about. He called three
missionaries up to give talks and no surprise to me I got called on. I
talked briefly about the Enabling Power of the atonement and then got
to bear my testimony. It felt pretty awesome. If you ever get your
hands on a April 2012 Ensign be sure to read Elder Bednar's talk; The
Atonement and the Journey of Mortality. It's so good!

Besides all that not a ton happened. We've been having great lessons
and have been good at getting people on date. We have been trying to
do good finding but we didn't find any new investigators this week.
The 2nd Ward Sisters and Elders keep finding 15-20 new investigators a
week each! We need to step up our game so we don't look like the weak
link in our district. So yeah. Love you all!

Elder S. Jackson Martin
Oregon Eugene Mission
Oakridge Branch

Well hello team. Elder Johnson reminded me that I can dictate a email
with my voice so that is what I'm going to do. It's been a pretty slow
week, but we were able to baptize Sylvia which was awesome. Elder
Johnson perform the baptism and it was awesome he did a great job.

The rest of the week was pretty dry because a lot of lessons fell
through. We did however go on exchanges with Springfield 2nd Ward and
that was really fun. I exchanged with Elder Watson and he is a riot. I
absolutely love him! We came out together and it was good to rekindle
the old flame. The strangest thing happened while I was over in
Springfield. This guy showed up to their church building asking for
money. And the only people there were the relief society ladies so
they were freaking out. Naturally they called us and we showed up like
superheroes and assessed the situation. When we showed up this guy was
clearly very very high on drugs and he was wanting some money because
he had gambled away some money that he borrowed. So we tried our
hardest to figure out what the situation was and help him but he kind
of went off in all different direction and couldn't stay focused. In
the end we just told him it would give him a call if we could think of
anything and told him to talk to the bishop. We we then gave the guy
some soup and sent him on his way. It was a bizarre experience.

I met a lot of crazy people in Springfield. One lady who was a
hardcore feminist didn't want to talk about Joseph Smith because he
was a man and all men are evil, but then she went on to say that she
admired us because we were good men of God with the power of the
spirit. We were a bit confused. We also met a lady from Scotland who
was just the sweetest lady. Haha she had a little Pomeranian dog named
Simon and him and I became best friends right away and he sat on my
lap the whole time and wouldn't let me get up when it was time to
leave. I'll attach a picture. When it was time to exchange back with
Elder Johnson and Elder Lambert Elder Watson and I were talking so
much that we missed our exit and were practically halfway to Roseburg
before we realized that we were not going the right way. Haha Elder
Watson is so easily distracted.

Silvia's baptism was awesome! Elder Johnson almost dropped her because
instead of taking it back nice and easy she just went deadweight and
launched herself backward. When she came up she exclaimed "THAT FELT
GREAT!" It was pretty great. She will be confirmed this coming Sunday
since we had Regional Conference yesterday.

For regional conference we had a regional broadcast with Elder
Renlund. As we listened with the spirit we figured out some great
things to talk to our investigators about. His talk was directed at
the whole North West region of the world but I felt that it was so
directly pointed at missionary work. Last night we knocked on the door
of a man who was convinced that Christ had no need for a church on the
Earth despite the fact that we showed him through the bible where it
talks about him establishing his church. When it became clear that he
was unwilling to listen to us I used something Elder Renlund had said.
"I can see that we cannot agree and we respect your beliefs. All we
ask is that you extended us the same courtesy." He kind of paused on
that comment and then Elder Johnson and I bore our testimony that we
knew Christ had established his Church and that it had been restored
through the Prophet Joseph Smith and there was no amount of ridiculing
or arguing could change that. We left his home feeling like we had
done all we could and felt good about the testimony we bore.

I found that even though this week we had a lot of lessons fall
through we still had a lot of opportunities to bear our testimonies
and defend our faith. Along with that nice feminist lady who didn't
believe in Joseph Smith and the guy from last night, there was a
Jehovah's Witness earlier this week we met. I've found that there are
a lot of good people in any religion but the Jehovah's Witnesses no
matter how good they are sure love to argue. We contacted this guy in
his yard and he started telling us just how wrong we are and that we
had been deceived. We decided to be bold with him and told him that we
knew that the message we shared was true and offered him a Book of
Mormon, he refused so we said, "Then I suppose you have no business
telling us we are false teachers until you read this book and tell us
with all conviction that you do not believe it is true." He couldn't
really say anything to that so we wished him luck and continued on our
way.

Sorry my emails are so scattered I always remember things to put in
last minute so I hope it all made sense. Besides all that good stuff I
also rode in a sweet Corvette owned by a member in springfield and
Silvia's step dad gave me a Darth Vader helmet for no reason. That was
awesome. I'm loving it out here! I miss y'all! Hope you have a great
week. Transfer calls this weekend! Elder Johnson thinks he's staying
here but I think he's going to go off and become a Zone Leader. We
shall see. Now since Silvia got baptized we are down to 5 people on
date for baptism. Well we are going to kick butt this week! Wish us
luck!

Elder S. Jackson Martin
Oregon Eugene Mission
Oakridge Branch

OREGON PICTURES

Well everybody it's been a pretty good week! We've had some great
lessons! Oh boy Silvia had her baptismal interview and it went great.
Now that she's getting baptized here soon we need to get more people
on date because we have the most in the zone on date for baptism.
Oakridge is still super isolated but it's a nice place to be.

Well basically most this week has just been the same old work but
Friday I went on exchanges with Elder Arias who is one of the Zone
Leaders. He's a real cool guy! He is a Spanish speaking missionary
which is easy for him because he is from Mexico. We had a lot of fun
and whenever we talked to anyone Elder Arias would speak Spanish while
I would just smile and nod my head. Him and I had to do a few errands
over at the mission office and he and I stopped by the Duck's stadium
for a quick picture and that was way fun. After that we did some
Spanish tracting which consists of finding places that look Mexican
and knocking the door. I started to try to pick up on what they were
talking about and I could pick out like maybe 2 words so I just kept
smiling and nodding. That night we had a lesson with a couple that
spoke both Spanish and English! It was nice because I got to jump in a
bit more. We taught the Law of Chastity to them and helped them
understand why marriage is so huge. It was way great and they were
such pleasant people!

The next day Elder Arias and I studied and then ran some more errands
then exchanged back with our companions. Elder Johnson and I went ham
on the town and tried to get some new investigators but didn't get
any. Sunday was great and I loved testimony meeting. At 4:30 we had to
drive all the way to Springfield for Stake correlation so we got
special permission to stay the night with the zone leaders so we could
stay for P day and the zone activities. The highlight of the week we
that since the Book of Mormon Broadway play was going on in Eugene we
got to go and hand out copies of TheBook of  Mormon outside the
theater. It was good since the play creates a lot of misconceptions
about our beliefs. Not everybody accepted but it was fun to hand out
so many. We did 330 copies that night and 1842 total for the week. So
great!!!

Today we did a hike and hung out with the zone. We got to go skating
as well and it was so fun! I love being a missionary! I love you all!
I'll talk to y'all next week!

Elder S. Jackson Martin
Oregon Eugene Mission
Oakridge Branch

  Jackson's Mormon Sith impression. (not sure if videos will work)....

Well this week has been a bit lame but really good all at once!! We

now have 6 INVESTIGATORS ON DATE FOR BAPTISM!!! We are so excited for
all of them! Monday we got a call from a member in the Branch saying
her husband George wanted to take the lessons and get baptized! We
were thrilled. We had seen him at church and started to wonder if he
was interested and boom there it was! He wants to have the opportunity
to baptize his daughter and we are so happy for him! We put him on
date in the first lesson and he's so solid.

Tuesday we had a bunch of lessons and got our investigator Donnie on
date for baptism. He seemed pretty excited to take that step but first
he has to quite smoking. We met with our other investigator Joe, who
is already on date, and he is excited to go forward in the gospel and
get baptized so we talked about a lot of the commandments and it looks
like he is clean as far as a lot of the commandments he just needs to
make time for church. A lot of our other Lessons fell through
including Shauna and Troy but we scheduled to have dinner and a lesson
with them the next day. Elder Johnson was a little discouraged because
some of our investigators dropped us so I had to remind him that
rejection is part of the job.

Wednesday was UGLY!!! We went out and tried to do some finding most of
the day and we stopped at DQ for lunch and a really nice man paid for
our lunch. We were so very grateful to him. The only bad thing is next
thing we knew we were sick as a couple of dogs. It was so lame I guess
we got some kind of food poisoning. We had to take a bit of a rest so
we didn't throw up or anything and that seemed to work great for us.
We went out and saw some people until it was time for dinner with
Shauna and Troy who made tasty BBQ chicken. We talked with them about
getting married so Shauna could get baptized and Troy could get re
baptized. We are so excited for them! When we got home I started
filling sick again and that whole night I couldn't even sleep a wink
because my bed is just the worst and I had a bad headache and felt
like throwing up. I finally got to sleep at 4:00 in the morning.

Thursday I was oober sick. I called the President's wife and she told
me to get some sleep. I didn't argue and took a nap. I started feeling
a bit better so we went out contacting. One house had the smell of
weed so strong in it that it took a lot for me to not throw up in
their house. The rest of the day I felt pretty miserable but we still
had a lesson with George and it went pretty well. That night we went
and saw our 15 year old investigator Silvia and got all her
arrangements for her baptism figured out for the 12th of this month.

Friday we had district meeting. And my voice was super scratchy but I
was feeling a lot better. Elder Johnson taught a pretty good district
meeting and then afterward he had district leader training so I hung
around with some other elders for a bit and we talked about life.
Finally they got done so Elder Johnson and I took of and stopped at
Walmart so we could get our groceries before we we banished once more
to Oakridge. I got a foam thing for my bed and a better pillow so I no
longer feel like I'm sleeping on a rock. We got back and taught some
great lessons and had dinner again with Shauna and Troy. They made a
killer lasagna! I've come to realize that nobody cooks as good as my
mom or grandmothers but Shauna might come close.

Saturday was good we had some good lessons and we met some awesome
guys named Marcus and Donavan who are way cool but have some
interesting views on Christianity. We set up to meet with them again
and they said that would be "the dopest dope they ever smoked" so we
might have to talk about that next time. Marcus has an awesome Afro
that he been growing out for 3 years. It's HUGE.

Sunday was awesome we had some good lessons and talks. We heard from
President Allen on Sabbath observance and he did a great job. After
church we went finding and taught a few lessons.

Well this has been the life of the fippin Mormon missionaries. I'm
loving it!! I love you all and hope you're doing great!!





Elder S. Jackson Martin
Oregon Eugene Mission
Oakridge Branch

It's been a pretty good week out here in Oakridge but a lot of
challenges with investigators too. Shauna and Troy had a way hard week
because their puppy got run over by a truck. Troy was raising him to
be a hunting dog and he was such a smart little guy and pretty well
behaved for a puppy but he got excited when they were taking him
outside and he took off into the rode. They had all kinds of other
stuff happen but it's personal stuff so o won't say too much. They are
making arrangements to get married so hopefully we can get Shauna on
date for baptism before too long. She is so excited and Troy even is
super pumped and wants to get re baptized. We are so excited for them!

Our other investigators on date are doing well mostly. Two of them are
being really flakey and it has us worried. Some other investigators of
ours are really wanting to got to a different church but said they
would prayerfully consider it so hopefully they come to the right
conclusion. We had a worldwide missionary broadcast which introduced
that our goal as missionaries is to teach repentance and baptize
converts this year. The next day we had specialized training and we
got to hear instruction from President and Sister Russell. They are
both so great and I learned a ton of things there. It's kind of fun
because for things like that we get to go to Eugene and it basically
feels like going back to the place of your birth.

I've been trying to seem like less of a robot when we tract so I'll
ask people questions about themselves at the door right away so
they're a bit more open and it usually works. Like yesterday we
knocked on this door and when the person answered I asked if the river
was always so loud and they said "Only during the winter time" and I
was like "oh is it annoying when you try to sleep?" And she said "No
it's quite soothing" and then we had a pleasant conversation then we
incorporated the gospel and she was way less nervous around toward us
by the time we brought in the gospel. Lately I've been wanting to work
more with members to get referrals because I've seen success from that
but Elder Johnson always wants to tract and I don't understand it
sometimes because we tract so much with no success.

I've met some awesome members this week and I feel way more
comfortable here than I did last week. We don't get fed much but when
we do its a real treat. I've been making myself a lot of salads lately
and they've been pretty tasty. If anybody knows any good recipes of
anything you can send them to me. I'm looking for something else to
eat other than hot pockets and salad with an occasional sandwich.

Embarrassing moment of the week!!!! I was sitting in specialized
training and we were in a chapel with some sisters sitting behind us.
I was sitting next to a new missionary named Elder Lambert and him and
I get along pretty good. I put my arm across the bench you know like
people do when they try to get comfortable in those hardwood pews. I
reached back and thought my had was touching a hymn book from the row
behind me and so I started pulling on it without even really thinking
about it. Suddenly a voice behind me says "That's my foot" and I
realized that I was touching Sister Ansus's foot! I almost died of
embarrassment but it's okay she didn't seem too weirded out.

Well I love you all! I'm loving my mission and can't wait to see what
else happens this week!!! Love y'all!



Elder S. Jackson Martin
Oregon Eugene Mission
Oakridge Branch

Greetings from the middle of nowhere! Currently Elder Johnson and I
are sitting around at the Branch President's house typing emails while
doing our laundry. There isn't much to do since we life 47 miles away
from the rest of the zone and we can't spare all those miles so we
just hang out here. Oakridge is a nice little branch with a lot of
potential. When I got here we had 1 person on date and Elder Johnson
had made a goal to have four people on date so we worked hard this
week and we got twenty three lessons in and four people on date for
baptism with two more on the way!!

On Monday I got on the transfer van and arrived in Eugene after
catching up with a couple of my old MTC friends and spending my last
moments with Elder Earl (my super awesome zone leader in Roseburg) and
Elder Holman (my favorite Canadian of all time). When we arrived at
the 18th street building we started unloading all the stuff and saying
goodbyes and hellos. I then met my new companion Elder Johnson and we
hopped into our 2014 Subaru Legacy and drove to Walmart and shopped
our hearts out. Then we went to Oakridge and taught two lessons with a
young boy named Brody and a 15 year old girl named Silvia who's on
date for baptism. Elder Johnson told me he had gotten chastised by
President earlier that day about having daily contact with people on
date. He said that we always have to have daily contact with all our
investigators that are on date so they don't fall off date. So we have
been having daily contact with all our investigators now.

Tuesday we hit the streets hard and set up all kinds of lessons and
trackted a few streets. And had a way successful day. I met our Branch
Mission Leader who is actually less active but there's a lack of
priesthood holders so he got the calling. He goes to lessons with us
and is really nice but doesn't ever seem to make it to church.
Wednesday and Thursday were the same story we trackted and taught a
lot and had great success.

Friday we went to district meeting and since Elder Johnson is the
District Leader he taught us and had us do some role plays. The AP's
came to our District meeting and I think it was to see if Elder
Johnson might be Zone Leader material but we aren't sure. Since we
live so far from Springfield we have special permission to go shopping
on Fridays since we are there already anyway so we bought some
groceries and drove back home. Fun fact about Springfield; the town in
the tv show The Simpsons is based off of Springfield. That night we
had a lesson with our investigator Shauna who is living with a
excommunicated member. They are both way nice people and want to be
baptized but first they have to get married. Shauna is really stubborn
and she asked us why she couldn't go to the temple. I tried so hard to
explain why but she didn't accept any of my answers and I felt like
such a dingus and was about the give up then Elder Johnson swooped in
and used an awesome analogy of colleges or something and suddenly it
clicked for her and she understood. After that we taught a great
lesson and Shauna and Troy both commented that we made a great team.
After that I asked Elder Johnson where he learned his analogy and he
just shrugged and said "That was all the spirit" it was pretty cool.

Saturday was a hard day because our plumbing backed up and now our
toilet and shower are down and made a huge mess. We wasted a ton of
time having to call Property Management and getting someone to check
it out. They couldn't figure it out so they called a plumber and he
didn't show up until today so hopefully when we get home it's fixed
because I need to shower. The rest of Saturday was way slow and we got
cussed out a couple times which always makes me cranky. The next day
we went to church and the Branch President must like me because he
made me say the opening prayer. We had great talks from high
councilmen and we learned a lot. The rest of the day we taught more
lessons and saw a lot of people.

So things are good here. The people are interesting but they're good.
I love the Branch President, he is here with his little grandson and
he just told him, "It's our job as MEN to fix things so if you can't
fix things then you're a little baby. Do you want to be a baby!?"
His grandson shook his head then President Allen turned to me and said
"What if you don't know how to fix something what should you do Elder
Martin?"
My answer was "Figure it out?"
And he said "There's a good man!"
So now I'm feeling good about myself and feeling pretty manly not to
be prideful or anything.

Well I guess that's all! I love you all!


Elder S. Jackson Martin
Oregon Eugene Mission
Oakridge Branch