August 26, 2013 On his way to Brazil

Family and friends,

We were able to speak with Jordan Monday during his stop over on the way to Belo.  He left Monday morning from Pocatello to SLC to Minneapolis to Detroit to São Paulo to Belo Horizonte arriving some time Tuesday afternoon. I won't complain about my one stopover any more. He was in great spirits and although he loved his time in Pocatello, was excited to get to his mission. He had a moment of pride (righteous) when he told us how he and Elder Vigill came into a newly opened area to begin building the teaching pool - during just the last week they taught 33 discussions.  Elder Vigill was an excellent trainer and hard worker, we know that training will benefit Jordan throughout his mission.

There were about eight missionaries traveling down to Brazil by the time he arrived in Detroit and he was reunited with his MTC companion there!

His mission has a facebook page where several pictures were posted of the new arrivals.  I have attached a couple, but if you are interested, the facebook page is: 

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Miss%C3%A3o-Brasil-Belo-Horizonte/264306523678497

We are not sure when we will hear from him next but we wanted to give you a short update.

Thank you for your love and prayers.

Getting to the airport with all the other Missionaries who received their visas.

All of us with President and Sister Fortunato

Elder Lutz and Elder Bravo from the Provo MTC

First time trying some Brazilian snacks

Training time

Amazing meal! Sister Fortunato is a great cook.

A very warm welcome

August 19, 2013 Blessed for obedience

 

Hey thanks for all the letters. It sounds like everyone is doing great!  When is the next marathon mom and dad?  You are working hard it sounds like!  All your missionary work is awesome, mom! That's the kind of members missionaries love! We have a ton of returned missionaries that are always wanting to come on splits with us and they're super helpful.  

 

This week is going to be interesting.  ISU starts school on the 26th so one of the wards is about to explode! I can't wait for all the new potential investigators to move in.

 

Crazy thing happened on Tuesday.  Elder Vigil and I were sitting on our bikes in Old Town Pocatello checking our planners when this lady just busts out her front door and starts screaming, "I don't have sticky fingers!  I didn't steal the ring!"  She went on about this stuff for like 3 minutes and Elder Vigil and I were just starring at her shocked.  After she was done she ran back inside and slammed the door.  We laughed so hard afterwards.  

 

I went on splits for the first time this week.  I had some cool experiences with the other missionaries. We met a guy named Kenny who is a recovering drug addict.  When we walked in, he had no shirt on and neither did his two kids running around the house.  He doesn't have a job and his wife works everyday for about 10 hours to care for the family.  They have a rough situation.  They didn't have any chairs, so we sat on upside down 5 gallon buckets.  He told us that he had a rough childhood too. That when he was a baby teething, his parents would rub vodka on his gums to stop his crying.  He really wants to have a good life for his kids but he seems lost.  I hope the other missionaries can bring him to the church so that his family can be strengthened.

 

Later that day we met a lady named Becky who is trying to come back to activity.  A couple months ago she finally got a new job, but it made her work on Sundays.  She continued to read the scriptures and pray everyday for help and she eventually was blessed for her continued obedience.  This week she got a promotion after just a couple months and now she's the one who sets her schedule so she can attend church every Sunday like she wanted.  The Lord is so loving of his children.  

 

We found 5 new investigators this week.  Two of them have a baptismal date!  I haven't even met them yet though because Elder Vigil and Elder Arrowches found them on exchanges...I'm psyched to meet them tonight though!

 

This week we find out about exchanges so maybe I'll here about my visa who knows?  

 

I love you guys,

 

Elder Marsh

 

August 12, 2013 Rappers in Idaho?

Dear Family,

Good week here in IPM (Idaho Pocatello Mission).  So first things first.  We set a baptismal date with Victor.  He's still not very sure if he wants to be baptized yet but we told him that if he set a date, he would get an answer to his prayers by that time.  I said, "How about you prepare for baptism on September 21 (which just happens to be a Saturday about a month away which gives him enough time to come to church 3 or more times;)"  His response was, "I don't know, how about I prepare for December 1?"  We were thinking "haha what?That's not good enough, that's hardly a baptismal date it's so far away!"  Eventually we talked him down to September 28 so that's a little better. 

We got to go tracking for the first time this week.  I love it.  It's super inefficient as far as finding goes, but we met some good people.  We met this new group of rappers called Flight 208.  208 is the area code of south east Idaho, so basically they're probably the only rappers ever to come out of south east Idaho.  There's like 7 of them living in a 2 bedroom apartment, but they're living their dream I guess.  They rapped for us and then told us to come back any time to teach them. Rad, they could probably use the gospel in their life.

We moved out of the Assistants basement on Wednesday.  It's so sad to come home at night to an empty house!  We all got pretty close and it was fun to hear the inside information about the mission.  We have a good apartment though with everything we need.  The first like 3 days there was no shower curtain so we had to take baths.  Bath tubs are not made for people over 5 feet tall. 

This past Sunday we gave talks in sacrament meeting which was actually kind of fun.  I gave mine on faith and used bridge jumping into water as a way to explain taking a leap of faith.  I said that after someone jumps off the bridge they always look up and the next person standing on the edge and yell, "Jump! It's fun!" I asked the members of the ward to do the same when it comes to missionary work.  They have taken a leap of faith and are members of the church and told them they should encourage they're friends and family to do the same!  Analogies are fun when teaching lessons.  We try to use different analogies for different personalities that we teach.  For example, my favorite analogy is for Harry Potter fans.  The Deathly Hallows consists of the invisibility cloak, resurrection stone, and elder wand.  Any wizard that has all three is invincible against all things.  This is the same as reading the scriptures, praying, and going to church.  If you do these things, your faith will grow enough that you will be able to withstand all trials and temptations that come in life. 

I love you!

Elder Marsh

 

August 5, 2013 Wake Forest Connection

Dear Family,

Answers:

Yes, I got the side bag, it's great I love it.

I get an hour on the computer.

No word about the visa...I know you're not supposed to but can you find something out or just check everything is fine? Don't tell them I asked you to please haha.

Here are a couple pictures of beautiful Pocatello.

That's a door that we found. We wanted to get the first hobbit baptism. Nobody was home, so we'll stop by later.

 

That's my companion Elder Vigil who's from Kansas but definitely somewhere over the rainbow!  

This week went well. Way cool thing happened on Tuesday. We had gotten out of an appointment later than we planned, so we were racing to our other area so we wouldn't be late to our next one. We stopped for a second and realized that it didn't actually start for another hour so we turned around to visit someone who lived nearby. When we started in the other direction I saw a car that had a Wake Forest University sticker on it, and I made Elder Vigil stop so we could knock on the door. A girl answered who wasn't as excited as I was to see someone else from Winston-Salem. I asked her, "Are you a member of the church? I mean our church?" Kinda awkward because you forget that not everyone is a Mormon in Idaho sometimes. So we just shared a quick message of the restoration. She seemed really curios, and we left her a Book of Mormon. Maybe something will come of that...who knows?

On Thursday, we went to teach a member a short lesson, but we ended up inviting their nonmember roommate to sit in and taught the whole restoration and gave him a Book of Mormon. He's super interested. We ended up teaching him three days in a row and have another lesson tomorrow. He's reading every day and praying, so hopefully he gets an answer soon. I know he will. That's Moroni's promise!

My companion just destroys bikes. I have no idea how he does it! Earlier this week we were just riding and his rear derailer somehow got jammed into the spokes which just wrecked the chain, the derailer, the spokes and somehow bent the wheel too. We borrowed another missionary’s bike and the kicked stand kept falling down, so he got off and started kicking the bike until it broke off. It was super funny to watch. Later that day, both his tires popped! I think we just need to get him a razor scooter.

My time is up, I love you,

Elder Marsh