Monday, October 17th, 2011

"WHOA! Did you see that?!"
"What??"
"That crazy thing that just flew by!"
"You mean that blurr?"
"Yeah! What was that??"
"That was my first transfer!"

Holy COW! I'm through my first planner and don't even know how it happened! I only have one more left before I'm out of the training program and might be expected to train!! AAAAAHHH!! Time is FLYING!
 Okay! So Potosi is the geographic center of our area, but the vast majority of people live in Desloge(where we ACTUALLY live) and Bonne Terre, with Potosi being the next largest town. We live RIGHT on the edge of our area, if you look, Park Hills is in Farmington(where we lived before) Ward. Our address is Bonne Terre because the mailing out here is really funky. The demographics are that this is the country, and there is not a variety at all except the 20 or so employees working at the two Chinese buffets all of whom came from China, and the same number working at the two fairly authentic Mexican(HALLELUJAH!) places. We have our own 2010 Chevy Malibu full-time, but we really don't use many miles because Potosi is a 50 mile round trip and we only go there twice a week or so and most of our work is in Desloge and Bonne Terre. Funny you mention it, I got my first in-field haircut yesterday with my comp at Sister Peters' house, she works at Penny's cutting hair and did it for free! She is very sweet and has already fed us once as well! The members aren't feeding us very often, but that has alot to do with the activity rate and the fact that we aren't allowed to pass around a calendar and have to schedule them on the fly. Our staple diet has been pancakes and eggs for breakfast, top ramen or a bagel and cream cheese for lunch, and pasta for dinner, but last night we threw together some old noodles we didn't finish, a can of green beans, baby carrots, italian sausage, and lots of butter and garlic into our new(to us) electric griddle a member gave us and had some GREAT stir-fry! Okay, missionary story time.
This week has been rough. We set some high goals and have been working really hard to achieve them, but appointments kept falling through, mostly because everyone out here is getting sick, and new appointments all got scheduled for this week. Finding was going well, but we wanted six new investigators, which means we had to teach them a lesson and set up a following appointment. We only had 2 new as of Saturday night at 8:15. We had an appointment fall through so we started tracting these low-income apartments, and the last two doors were tender mercies from the Lord. The first was a wonderful single mother who isn't into any religion but said it was only because she hadn'y found one, and Elder Marshall and I both saw the light in her eyes as we shared a brief message of the Restoration and set up an appopintment and decided she was the reason our appointment dropped. So we had one door left, it was 8:30, and we had 2 out of 6 investigators for the week. We knock the door, and a lady answers and laughs and tell someone inside it's "church people". The response comes "sorry, we're flat broke" and I call inside, "What we share is free" (that exchange can be found paralleled in Our Search For Happiness, you'll find it if you read it) and she called us in. There were four people and a young child, the woman calling to us has brain cancer, and we began teaching them the Plan of Salvation and getting to know and love all of them. We got a lesson scheduled for tonight with all four. We made our goal that the Lord wanted us to set, and He led us right to His children who needed us most. We got home at 9:40 glowing. We will also be teaching them the stop Smoking Workshop (three of them have been smoking since 7 or 8) at their request. I love this work. I am so excited for tonight. We could have stopped and gone home before we found those people, but 3 profound times now the Lord has blessed us at the end of our most difficult days.

Love,
Elder Marshall

The view from our balcony. Walmart anyone?
What was an R8 doing in FARMINGTON, MO?!
Sister Peters cutting my hair on her front porch yesterday :)

***Update***

Elder is finally in his apartment.  This is his new mailing address.  Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to write him!  I can only imagine how much he appreciates it.  And as the months get colder, he will appreciate it even more!

Brenda 

Elder James Marshall
102 John Court #104
Bonne Terre, MO 63628

Monday, 10 Oct 2011

I AM sleeping tight in my own bed, now! Though my feet stick off the end most nights, haha! I can't imagine what my 6'5" companion is doing every night! Having our own place is very nice,if for no other reason than actually living IN our area cuts way down on travel time and we can be much more productive, I love it! That Old Testament really is cool, many of the disillusioned people we talk to who may or may not be ready for the Gospel talk about how churches need to be more Biblical, especially regarding the Old Testament. OT trivia!
Q: Did Moses have the Melchizedek Priesthood? If so, where did he get it from? 

I asked for more detailed conversion stories from you because I love sharing them, I love telling people, especially youth, about how it wasn't the words of anyone, but the example of one young man who was quite alone in his beliefs that is blessing the lives of my entire family and every person I meet on my mission. The Lord truly blessed me with a mother who so keenly recognizes light and truth and shared it with her husband and family. Something that I have especially found to be true this week is the way the Lord works with us. He extends tender mercies, but often at the end of a grueling path. This week was very hard, and just as we were at our most fatigued, and at the end of our night, our appointment fell through with a promising potential, and we decided we had to just keep working until the clock hit 9, at guess what?? We set up two appointments next week with three separate and AWESOME new investigators (including our next door neighbor) and met a less active member who we can start teaching and hopefully get back to church! All within half an hour! This is the Lord's work, and no unhallowed hand can stop it from going forth! I do, however, ask you to pray for Ronny Helm. He is our most promising investigator, and has a baptismal date, but we are pushing it back, because we are being impressed that he isn't quite ready and he has had some struggles with the Word of Wisdom. We taught him the stop Smoking Workshop, but he has had trouble adhering to it, so we are praying very hard that his desire and the Spirit will overcome what he cannot. We taught three new investigators this week and have appointments with all of them and they could all very well be baptized if they are willing, not to mention those we found but aren't teaching until next week! The more I strive to give my all to this work, the more my faith grows, and the less influence the adversary has over me.

It's Hictionary time!
"Do any of you want some soda?" = "Yun's want some sody?"
Waashington = Warshington
Tur Du Lac = Turtle luck
El Tapatio (Mex restaurant) - elta-PATIO

Love,
Elder Marshall!

Monday, 3 Oct 2011

Elder Marshall I got my call.

 Salt Lake, UT south mission!

more detailed info soon to arrive to you by mail.

-Elder Vilayvong

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ELDER VILAYVONG!!!!!!!!!!!!! I cannot believe we will be out serving at the same time!!!!!! That is SO cool! A good friend of mine name Billy Shuster is serving there but Spanish speaking! KENNY, CONGRATULATIONS!!! I love you so much, Elder, and can't even express to you the enormity of blessings that will come to you for being willing and able to serve. I can't wait to hear more, and to be able to write you on your mission! Our letters will get to each other in like, two days! SO AWESOME!! Thank you for always being an example to me of service and virtue, I can't wait to be sitting at your homecoming talk!

-Elder Marshall

Hola!
Holding to that rod of iron is an infallible way to the tree of Life as a family, even when we stumble, if we hang onto it, we will be heading the right direction. YAY! My heart is SO full right now hearing Dad's wonderful depiction of Kenny's call and hearing that Brie got her papers turned in! I pray for them often, and I am so grateful for the Love the Lord has for them and the examples that they are to their families and soon to the whole world. Man, I wish I could be as cool as Kenny, haha, projector movie nights? That's AWESOME! If you tried to do that here right now everyone would freeze to death! The roofs, cars, and lawns are already covered with frost every morning! Conference is SOOOOO much more wonderful as a missionary than at any other time! Every day is kind of like a Sunday for us, so conference weekend is quite the event! I loved all of the talks so much, and how much I learned. Did you just LOVE Richard G. Scott's Saturday morning testimony of the Old Testament, mom? Or the talk(can't remember off the top of my head) that mentioned the importance of modesty, and that it is a protection and shield? Elder Oak's bright pink tie was my favorite one, bytheway, which was yours? Everything is on track for us to FINALLY move into our apartment, we could have today, but it's P-day, so we asked if we could do it tomorrow, turns out the Mission Office is moving tomorrow, so we will be moving in on Wednesday! Speaking of which, did you get the letter in the mail that the mission office is moving? PLEASE tell everyone you(or I) know and get them that address, I would hate for anything to get lost in the move!
We started the Stop Smoking workshop with our investigator with a date, Ronny Helm, and he is doing great, though the grapefruit juice is tough to swallow(literally), and he came to THREE sessions of conference, including Priesthood session! We are so excited, he already has multiple fellowshippers who are very active and we look forward to his service as a member of the Potosi Branch! Inactivity is a major issue out here, I don't know if I already told you that, partly from health and age, though. So we are focusing a lot on visiting those who haven't been coming regularly and hope to see some progress in that department. Oh! I got kicked out of my first house yesterday. He invited us in after talking briefly, and then asked us to leave when my companion invited him to read and pray, it was a weird 180, but hopefully the Spirit will work on him, he kept the Book of Mormon. I am learning very quickly the vital importance of loving the people I serve. Love is the central motive to all that God does for His children, so if we are to serve Him, we cannot do it without sincere love for our fellow beings. Hence the words of the scriptures teaching us that nothing we do means anything without Charity.

Something that I realize now more than ever, is that not only are members ALSO required to do missionary work, all of us, as members of the Church, ARE the missionary's of the Church, and the responsibility is only given to the full-time Elders to teach in preparation for Baptism and fill in to help the MEMBERS in their missionary efforts. If I had prayed as hard for missionary work when I was home as I do now, I would have been a much better missionary in the way I should have been when I wasn't called full-time. You stand side-by-side with us as the front lines of Chirst's gospel. Most of His children where you live, at least, are far more likely to have met or known a Mormon than to have met with the missionaries. You must be the core of the Lord's missionary work in order for it to go forth with the force that it is able to, and you have been a wonderful example of that to me. Keep up the good work! And just as important, KEEP READING!
I think of all of the things my family and friends have done for me and truly stand all amazed. I love you all so much. I can say without a second thought that I has the best friends a boy could ask for, and the best family I could have ever imagined. I hope all is well in San Diego.

Love,
Elder James Ray Marshall

Mon, 26 Sep 2011

I am so glad to hear everything is going so well!! PLEASE mom do whatever you can to emphasize modesty every chance you get! Young Women usually don't even notice it, but it really does dull the Spirit in multiple ways, no matter the circumstance, and the Spirit is something that my mission has taught me more than anything else is absolutely essential to us being happy. Modesty has a tremendous effect on everything to where our own thoughts drift off to, what we inherently worry about, what other people think of us, what other people expect of us, fulfilling what the Lord wants for us, and more. It seems like a fickle guideline, but it truly represents so much more and can be a very real strength for everyone, and as I've said before, I realize more and more everyday how amazing my wonderful parents are and how careful you were to teach all of us the things we needed to know, whether we realized it or not.

The Elder before us was named Mike MAson!

Aaaaaand we pet a camel we saw on the highway one day!