Hello family and friends. We are still alive and kickin' out here in Southern California! President Martin (Jerry) and I just returned from a mission president seminar in Newport Beach. It was wonderful!! We learned from many of our Church leaders (Elder Christofferson one of the 12 Apostles, President Clayton, and Elder Arnold of the Seventy, and Brother Allen who heads the missionary department) how to be better leaders of our mission. Our testimonies have grown and we are excited to implement our training.

I did promise that most of this blog would be about Adam. He seems to be doing great!!! While we were gone Camie and her two boys (Benjamin and Joshua) came over to stay with Adam and get him to Seminary and school. He loves his little nephews.

On a typical day Adam gets up at 6:10 and gets ready for seminary and school. He goes to Seminary at 6:30. From Seminary we take him to Hart High School. He stays in school until 3:00 p.m. when we pick him us (unless he walks). He has a sweet job filming the football games from the end zone. He is considered part of the coaching staff. I will learn to attach pictures so you can see him in his staff shirt. There is generally one game/week. He travels to some of the games. Adam also takes a video productions class. Get his autograph now--he may be a big director or producer one day.

On weekends Adam enjoys doing things with his Dad or the missionaries. He keeps up with a lot of friends on Facebook. Adam's favorite fast food is In N Out Burger. He loves his burgers "animal style." ("Animal style" means the burger is covered in sauteed onions.) He likes steaks. They are probably his favorite food. Almost every day Adam goes swimming in the community pool which is about 5 or 6 houses down. Occasionally he plays basketball with his Dad and has even won a game of one-on-one with him. (He is the only child to accomplish this--Jerry has tied his dad.)

Adam is not impressed with the dessert. He does not like going North of our valley (through the Joshua trees) to Palmdale, Lancaster or Ridgecrest. He can't understand why anyone would live there. It even makes Moab, Utah look good to him. Adam much prefers the city and suburb areas.

One great story on Adam. We had Elder and Sister Hafen doing a mission tour with us last week. We had just finished a debriefing session with the Hafens where they complimented us on the things we were doing well and gave some helpful suggestions on what we could do to make things better. Both the Hafens and Martins were exhausted from a long day. We said goodnight to each other and went into our separate bedrooms when we heard Adam's bedroom door burst open. "Aren't we going to read the Book of Mormon tonight? Adam queried. Talk about being called to repentance by a 17 year old. We read one chapter. We wonder what we will do in two years when we no longer have Adam here to keep us on the "straight and narrow."