Easter EMM'er and Jesus Police in da house!!!

Hoppy (*insert cheese here!*)  belated Easter everyone!! Not much time to email so I'll just go straight into the highlights!

Deep questions of the soul:

So Sis. P randomly asked me a really deep, life-changing question during her language study. In typical Sis. Martin fashion, I turned it into one giant joke! :)

Sis P: "If you could ask the prophet one question, what would you ask him?"

Me (after some deep thought and contemplation): "..............Does God really have a beard, or is that just a really bad stereotype?!"

All the earth's a garden sweet....making life a bliss complete....when there's drugs(!?) ...in England!:

*For those of my friends who are not church kids, the above title is a terrible spin on a lovely church hymn called Love at Home*

Weirdest finding moment of my week.

On Monday night I stopped a man on the street to try and talk to him. Upon my approach he freaked out and looks like he is going to run away (wish I could say that I was surprised by this reaction, but anything goes when you are a missionary). He kept pointing at my badge and apologizing. He then burst out in a confession to me (while looking around him dodgily---like there were secret agents spying on us or something):

"I do apologize! I'm smoking a flower....there's no such thing as weeds! Please, don't do anything to me..."

He kept apologizing and then stuttered away all embarrassed! It was like he thought I was the police or something and that I was going to arrest him! I kept joking that he just got scared by the Jesus police!

Drugs are a rubbish thing, but I have to admit that seeing him get all scared by our missionary badges was priceless!

My new criteria for a perfect husband:

I'm not an RM yet, but I need to start planning ahead and get a rough idea of what my perfect husband will be like.....right?! ;)

So I was on the bus in Liverpool and two men got on. Both of them were deaf and after watching them for a bit, I realized that they were arguing veryyyy veryyy intensely in sign language!  (I honestly thought they were going to punch each other).

Mute arguing!!!!

I know it's not nice to stare, but I was so fascinated watching them and was wondering what they were fighting about! I realized that a deaf husband would be brilliant! Arguing would be a lot quieter (it's always so scary when parents have "loud disagreements" when you're a kid) and I would probably win because I can out-talk anything on planet earth! I was glad to see by the end of the bus trip that they appeared to have made up and were friends again :)

Tongan word of the week:

This week’s word is: Palangi

Definition: White person

...... : /

We have so many white person jokes now as the sun comes out and I look like a vampire next to Sis. P! If you can't laugh at yourself, who can you laugh at then? That is my belief and I'm sticking to it!

Best door sign of the week:

We have been tracting like crazy and I saw a great sign the other day:

"Friends welcome.....relatives by appointment!"

For some reason I have a feeling my parents will be investing in one of these before I get home, considering the rate of embarrassing stories that I increasingly manage to share each week! ;)

1st world problems at the temple:

We were driving through the countryside to get to the temple yesterday and we were all having a fit as we were stuck behind the slowest tractor on planet earth for ages! I suddenly stepped back (not literally....always wear your seat belt kids!) and observed the whole situation!

Everyone in our car was moaning and yelling at the tractor driver to turn onto another street or get off the road (like he could hear us from inside our car! Right?!). 20 or so cars lined up behind us. All of them looked like a pack of angry monkeys that had just had their lifetime supply of bananas (pronounced the English way!) stolen from them and then to be extra cruel the thief decided to have a banana bonfire right before their eyes!

I realized this as I sat next to my Tongan companion, who told me a couple of weeks ago that they cook all their food in the ground and they use collected rain-water for their daily needs.

#1st.world.problems!!!!!  (seriously?! someone needs to update me! Do they still use hashtags or what? Not that I ever used them before my mission, but I am now because it's the only thing that makes me feel up to date and relevant in this world!).

Let's be more grateful for the wonderful things we are blessed with! We 1st worlders are certainly a funny lot!

Speaking of being grateful:

I am grateful that our flat is located right next to a pub.

Why?!

Because we get free entertainment every night. This pub does karaoke! Last night I got to be lulled to sleep to the soothing overtones of a veryyyy druken lady singing a horrendous version of a Celine Dion song! It is the most hilarious thing ever! Every night is a treat and we are in fits giggling before we go to bed!

English- Canadian translations of jokes:

So I shared my multi-national, super lame pirate jokes last week! I've got another treat this week!

We were at a members home for a ward Easter activity! They live on a beautiful farm estate out in the countryside. We were doing an easter egg hunt (really hard! Lots of riddles that led us to multiple clues hidden throughout the property) and everytime we passed their turkey, it seemed like it was cackling at us! The teenager on our team suddenly yelled out to the turkey!

"You just wait until Christmas!" 

Right as she did that, the turkey stopped laughing as if it understood her!

I then yelled out, "Wouldn't it be more appropriate to say Thanksgiving instead?!"

As I said that he started laughing again!

The member replied: "He's an English turkey! That's why he doesn't understand that joke!"

She then yelled out "Christmas" again and no joke, he stopped laughing again!

The ironies of life are hilarious!!!

Best quote of today:

I was getting on the bus today and as I was getting ready to go on a very old man in the cue behind me elbowed me and said "You're getting on the wrong bus! This is the geriatrics bus only!"

I burst out laughing! The entire cue of 20+ people were all pensioners! I love the English sense of humour!

My frustration of the week:

Often sister missionaries have a common struggle with male investigators! We often have to pass them over to the elders because they'll confess being attracted to one of the sisters. We had one of these awkward situations happen recently and in my frustration I burst out:

"I hate it when our investigators try to date us instead of us dating them!"

(Explanation for those not familiar with mission lingo: When we set a date for baptism for an investigator, we will call them a "dated investigator", or i.e. we have "dated!" them!......)

True story. The end! #Sistermissionaryproblems!

We became like little children in our zone meeting on Tuesday!:

So we were in the middle of our zone meeting when suddenly some people came in the chapel and said we had to leave because there was a funeral booked to start in 30 mins. Awkward! Double booking!

So off to the primary room we went! Not so bad.....except....

The chairs were all being used for the funeral (for food afterwards) so there were no adult sized chairs for us to use. So all 30ish of us we all had to cram into the tiny primary room (English chapels are a lot more compact and small than the ones back home) and were all sitting on the tiny little Sunbeam chairs (chairs for the 3 year old kids). We literally had no elbow room and were packed on top of each other like sardines! It looked hilarious with our knees up to our faces and our elbows crammed into our sides. Missionaries in the front row were lifting their cameras into the air facing backwards and the whole room started posing for group selfies!  Priceless moments on the mission!

My favourite comment came from a random elder in the back row who burst out saying: "When Christ said we should be like little children, I don't think he meant it literally!"

I wrote a rap!

So our district leader announced last week that we would do a talent show as an ice-breaker for our 1st district meeting. My companion is shy and looked like she was going to die when she heard the news. So I came up with a brilliant way for us to do a talent together that would take a bit of the spotlight off of her (rather than her doing something by herself).

I taught Sis. P to beatbox while we were waiting for a bus the other week, so I decided to write a rap about the EMM while she laid the beat for me! In typical Sister Martin fashion, I sported my England flag cowboy hat and my new England flag football sunglasses while rapping!

My EMM Rap:

Called to serve in these mean English streets

Preaching day after day to all da homies that I meet

Defeat is not an option, the blessings are too great!
So shape up and start repenting, before it grows too late!

My waistline is expanding, from all these bowls of spag.

This helping is ginormous tea appointment hashtag!

"Truth will prevail!", I shout this everyday

In my EMM accent that sounds super..........

Wayyyyyyy out in the sticks we are only finding sheep,

Human life does not exist here, fatigue is growing deep.

I think this is an all time low my friends are super strange

The only man who talks to me is homeless and deranged!

Oh no it's the Jehova's, they give me dirty looks,

Payback is too easy, I just flash them my blue book!

I'm not supposed to covet, but this is really hard

When the zone leaders blow past me in their really fancy cars.

Despite the opposition I keep facing in this mission

My line stays in the water and I'll never cease my fishin'

I love the EMM!! It makes my joy so great!

Happiness is only found when Jesus is your mate!

Do not forget he loves you! The gospel is superb!

There is nothing truly better than the spreading of his word.

Word!! (**Inserted Manchest gangster hand sign here**)

Anyways! That is it for this week! (My mum probably just breathed a sigh of relief at that! No doubt she is probably questioning what on earth she has produced!!). Life is great! We are teaching a few solid people now so hopefully there will be some baptisms in the future! This work is truly the best!! Even during the hard times!

Until next week!

I hope the time goes quickly for you and slowly for me!

Sister Martin

Sadly she wasn't able to send any pictures this week but fortunately a sister in our ward sent me a couple from their Ward Easter Activity