FYI: This blog is being taken care of by Sister Martin's mom Sharon Martin - sharon-martin@telus.net. She is posting emails and pictures that I am sending to her each week.

Monday, 11 August 2014

Slow Sundays, law suits and soaking wet sisters!

Life is beautiful! Life is grand! Life is dandy! How many other ways can I say that I love my life?! I feel like Ammon today:

Alma 26:1-3
1 And now, these are the words of Ammon to his brethren, which say thus: My brothers and my brethren, behold I say unto you, how great reason have we to rejoice; for could we have supposed when we started from the land of Zarahemla that God would have granted unto us such great blessings?

 2 And now, I ask, what great blessings has he bestowed upon us? Can ye tell?

 3 Behold, I answer for you; for our brethren, the Lamanites, were in darkness, yea, even in the darkest abyss, but behold, how many of them are brought to behold the marvelous light of God! And this is the blessing which hath been bestowed upon us, that we have been made instruments in the hands of God to bring about this great work.

There is no greater joy than being able to testify of Jesus Christ every day! To declare that he still lives and changes lives!! It is the greatest honour and priviledge! 

Ok, well time to cut the sap for a bit and get to the silly bits! I now present to you........the week......sarcastic, cheeky Sister Martin style!

A Brief History of My Country:
Fact about missions: they automatically make you incredibly patriotic about your country!

I don't know why! But for whatever reason you suddenly love everything about your home that you used to hate, simply because it no longer surrounds you (I guess absence really does make the heart grow fonder!)

Well I was having a I heart Canada moment with another elder friend from Alberta as we blabbered on about all the things we love/miss about home! During our conversation he revealed to me a life changing fact about our beloved land of the "true north strong and free!".

How did they name Canada?: Easy! They just picked a bunch of random letters and put "A" in-between each one:

C- "EH"- N- "EH"- D- "EH"

Cheesey? Yes! Did I laugh really hard! Yes! Did I feel more inclined to say Eh for the rest of the day! Absolutely! 

Final conclusion and disclaimer about my country: The stereotype that Canadians are funny and tell lots of jokes is probably true, but no one ever said that they were funny jokes or free of cheese!! :)

Heart attacking for the realists: 

I often joke that I was raised on sarcasm! Therefore when I get together with other sarcastic people, you never know what to expect!
We were with a YSA girl the other day and were making hearts to heart attack someones home! Together her and I gave birth to a genius (or maybe just weird) idea!

Cut all the sappy love messages and instead heart attack homes with sarcasm hearts. They could say things like:

"You suck"
"I actually don't like you that much"

Yes, we are weird, but as we envisioned it we found it really funny picturing the reactions of people if they saw this! When you see a heart you automatically feel like you should be happy and feel loved, but the sarcastic phrases would make the moment so confusing and awkward! 

Our most recent law suit:
Sister C and I were talking about our favourite desserts and she said she loves Krispy Kremes. This launched a conversation about doughnuts and then we made a discovery. Krispy Kreme is the worst name ever! It is the biggest lie! Krispy Kreme doughnuts are not in the least degree Krispy at all! 

I got her all excited when I pointed out that she is from America: or in other words-- the land of ridiculous law suits! She could sue Krispy Kreme for false advertising! Their implied name does not accurately describe their doughnuts at all! 

We laughed, but then realized that people win ridiculous law suits like this all this time in the USA and thought about the possibilities for a moment! But you all can relax! We decided not to sue them today! It would be awkward to sue someone while wearing a badge that says we represent Jesus Christ! I don't think Jesus would sue krispy kreme, so we decided to put our retirement plan on the back-burner for now! ;)

The Geography of Chorley:
There is a village in Chorley called Buckshaw village! Based on our experiences this week, we have dubbed it the following new names:

1. Duckshaw Village: Lately the village has experienced a strange uprising in its duck population! There are ducks everywhere! It's a duck infestation! I know what the people of Buckshaw village will be eating for Christmas this year! ;)

2. Bombshell Village: So it turns out that Buckshaw village is build right on top of an old bomb-testing ground. There are literally giant pieces of bombs only few feet below all the nice new beautiful homes! There are laws here that you can't dig more than 6 feet (or something like that) below ground because you could possible blow up the whole village if you do! (I really wish I was joking but I'm not!). 

What can I say? Buckshaw Village is "da bomb"! 

Quote of the Week:
"Fast Sunday is slow Sunday!"

Can I get a Hallelujah and an amen!?!?! Funny, yet realistic description of a classic LDS fast sunday. Between the lack of food and water, the weird never-ending story testimonies that you always hear at least once in fast and testimony meeting, and the way time seems to conveniently stop forever as you wait for your "fast breaking" meal to cook, fast sunday really is slow sunday! 

Elders Vs. Sisters:

Each week we set goals for how many lessons we hope to teach that week etc. They are a pretty important and big part of missionary work and are very prayerfully and thoughtfully set......unless you are the elders in Chorley!

Usually it takes 3 hours to plan and set these goals! The elders revealed to us the new way that they set their goals last week.

Bubbles.

No joke. They just blew bubbles, and the number of bubbles that they blew was the number that they picked for their goal.

How many lessons do we want to teach to members this week?
 *Blow...."pop" "pop" "pop" "pop" "pop" "pop" "pop"

Ok! 7 it is!

Wouldn't it be great to be an elder sometimes??!

A note from Isaiah:
Nope. It's not a spiritual thought! 

We were talking about 2 Nephi 13/ Isaiah 3 the other day. This is the chapter where Isaiah describes what people of our time will look like! We were imagining what Isiah's reaction must of been when we saw how weird/alien we look now compared to the conservative people of his time.

We joked that he must have left a note for the future prophets who would translate his words to read:

"Dear prophets! Good luck! Sucks to be you! Love Isaiah!"

Questions of the Soul:
Fun fact about me! My shoes don't fit me terribly well so I lose my shoe on average between 4-10 times per day as we are walking. In typical Sister Martin fashion we were running across a busy street and my shoe fell off in the middle of the road. I joked after that in that moment time froze as I pondered: "Is my shoe worth my life??". Sister C pointed out to me that that was possible one of the deepest questions of the SOLE, she had ever heard (Preach My Gospel Chapter 5 has a section that talks about questions of the soul- a popular missionary topic!) 

English Hurricanes:
We officially survived our 1st "hurricane". Everyone was freaking out and saying there would be a hurricane Sunday night. Turns out a hurricane here just means an average wind storm back home. Phewwww (I was picturing like Hurricane Katrina when they 1st starting going on about it!). 

We definitely got soaked and wind blown (unlucky for us, we had no appointments so we had to go tracting in the "hurricane".....now does that not sound so hard core??!) but came out just fine :) Strange confession-- after this mission I actually don't mind rain that much now!

Time is up! I have more stories but will have to save them for another week! I love you all! I especially love you because despite all my lame/dumb jokes each week, you still find a place in your heart to love me! ;)

Have a brilliant week!
Hope the time goes quickly for you and slowly for me!
Sister Martin


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