To My Favorite People in the Whole Wide World:
MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
First and most importantly, let me tell you what time I'm going to be calling on Friday.....I'll probably end up calling at about 10:00 a.m. your time (noon, mine). I'm so stinkin excited, you have no idea!! This christmas is going to be just amazing! :) I have high hopes for it. Sister Ferguson and I are invited to a members home (The Fitzsimons) for breakfast and present opening and for phone calls. Probably lunch too. Usually they have the missionaries over all day long, but we promised other people that we would come by as well. Then dinner with another family and then we promised the Rodriguez family (who we had thanksgiving with) that we would come over in the evening. It's going to be a great day! I'm so excited to talk to all of you!!!!!!! And so excited for Christmas, haha, I love this time of year. And another great thing going on.....the day after christmas is Greg's baptism! He is finally set and finalized and going through with it! I can't wait! He is so excited to have a fresh start too. So keep praying for him! We all know this is when Satan works his hardest. But what a great christmas present for him, right? :) From the email from mom, I realized that you guys don't know much about Greg. He is 50 years old, divorced for a couple years now and has one son who is about 16. His wife doesn't let him see him though. Greg has made a lot of awesome leaps and bounds in his life! From overcoming drugs and alcohol (before we met him) and now he is completely done smoking! He really wants this fresh start, he loves church, loves the people and wants to make it a permanent thing. He's awesome. And then as for other investigators, Kyleigh is a 12 year old girl who is going to be baptized on Jan. 9 and the two kids from the less-active family (now activated) we will begin teaching after the holidays. They are in Florida, so we will start when they come back. We are also beginning to teach a man named Bobby Kennedy, who's wife is a member and his dad joined the church before he died. His sister is also a pretty active member, so we are excited for him too! I honestly love this area!!! If it was my choice, I'd stay at least another transfer, but I have a feeling I'll probably go somewhere new.
Anyway, about that winter storm we had over here. It really wasn't too bad. Bad for the first big snow fall of the year, but later on in the season, this kind of snow won't be bad. We did wake up to it snowing and it snowed all day long (I think it was about 11-12 inches and ........we were snowed in all day long :( Our district leader told us to stay in, so we had to do a lot to keep ourselves sane! haha. I've been working on some projects for lessons, put together your christmas package (it will probably be late, but it is coming), went out and built a snow man and snow angels, and went to bed way early! Man, I never want a day in like that again! Seriously, when I eventually get home, you guys are going to have to keep my busy like none other because I can't sit still very well! haha. Oh and along with the crazy snow, church was cancelled on Sunday. Luckily they had a sacrament meeting later in the day and we could go out and work. But no real church.
Sorry, I have made this long enough! I need to keep things to share with you when I talk to you on FRIDAY!!! Yay, I can't wait! I love you guys and hope you have the best christmas ever!!!!!!
Love, Holly
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Week 36- Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays!!
December 21, 2009
Week 35- no subject
December 14, 2009
Hi Everyone! :)
Thank you for all the birthday packages and birthday emails! I loved it! I think Sis. Ferguson was getting a little jealous because I was getting a package almost everyday for 4 days! haha And letters in the mail. I've been pretty spoiled with the mail lately, so thank you!!! If you want, you can keep bringing it! :) My birthday was very good! I couldn't have asked for a better birthday on the mission. It started out with Sis. Ferguson making me a pancake breakfast and then at district meeting the district leader made a cake! It was a banana spice cake, and it was the first one he has ever made! And surprisingly, it was way good. We also went out to Applebee's for lunch. They are such a good district, probably one of my favorites! Then that night, we had a Relief Society Progressive Dinner. No one knew it was my birthday, but by the end they caught wind and everyone sang happy birthday. I thought it would stay underwrap, but one of our less-actives we are working with came and she brought me a little present (mary kay items!) so that's how it got out. But it was a fun way to spend my birthday. We had an investigator come, a couple less-actives, and tons of members to spend the evening with.
Now as for the work, we had an amazing experience. Sister Ferguson and I had been reallly really worried about Greg. He had gotten pretty sick and we hadn't been able to contact him for over 2 weeks. We tried calling and stopping by, leaving messages, but nothing! At interviews, President Summerhays told us to back off for a couple weeks and wait til he calls us. You can probably imagine I didn't like that advice! haha, especially since his baptism is set for the 19th. But he's my mission president, so I decided that I would listen and exercise a little faith. We would pray our guts out that Greg would contact us. Then, this past Friday, he DID call us!!!!!! Finally, oh my goodness I was SO happy! He asked us to come over that night to see him. Luckily our other appointment fell through so we could. He told us that on top of being sick, he got antied by a LOT of people. He really felt like he was being picked on for the decisions he was making. But, he is a lot stronger then that. He decided that he likes the feeling of being at church and learning from us a lot better then the feelings he gets when he is with these other people. So he wants to continue moving forward to his baptism and to be surrounded by church people! I am so thankful for him!!! And so thankful for Heavenly Father working with him to overcome all the adversity he has had. And that he chose to follow the spirit! We are pushing his baptism back a little bit, but he's still all for it! :)
We also are working with an over-aged youth. Her name is Kyleigh and she is such a cute girl! She was actually baptized when she was 8 but somehow her records got lost and they have no way of proving the date she was originally baptized. So the bishop wants us to teach her again and baptize her. She comes from a less-active family who is starting to come back, so this should be really good for them! We are hoping that through this, we can help the family get to the temple to get sealed too! I love this family (the Walmer's) and can't wait for their progression.
I hope everyone has such a great week! Good luck with everything going on and a good holiday season!!!!!
I GET TO TALK TO YOU IN JUST A WEEK AND A HALF! I can't wait! :) Love you and miss you all. Merry Christmas!
Love, Holly
Week 34- Happy Birthday to ME!
December 8, 2009
Hi Family!
Can I just start off to say this has been a GREAT week so far. The work has been a little rough but just random things have been so good here. First of all, we had zone conference yesterday. Hence the fact that I'm writing these emails on Tuesday. P-day will be normal again next week though. So don't forget to write on Sunday night! Zone conference was amazing though! It was all christmas-y and motivating. They have a year end video of things that have gone on throughout the mission during the year and we all got a copy of it. It's a way good video! Can't wait for you to watch it someday!!! And of course they sang happy birthday to me and the other missionaries who have birthdays in December.
Our first district meeting with our new district was last week. And surprise.....I'm the only non-spanish speaking missionary! hahaha. There is one elder that comes straight from Mexico-no MTC or anything-and he is trying to learn english. I can't really talk to him a whole lot, except the few words he knows. He's a good elder though, really tries so hard! So to make it fair for this elder, we sing and pray in spanish. My district leader had me say the closing prayer too!!! :) hahahaha. Sister Ferguson had to whisper in my ear with what to say, but I'm excited because I'll get to learn a little more spanish! I'm happy! Plus, Sister Ferguson is starting to take spanish language study in the morning, so I'll be able to learn right along with her.
We also had our first snow here on Saturday. It pretty much snowed ALL DAY LONG......but now it's all melted away. Makes me feel like I'm at home in Boise. Usually I just need to wear sweaters and I'm ok. Now here is the WAY cool thing that just happened today! We had an appointment with a less-active this morning, Sis. Peterson. She's way cool, I love her! As we were talking, we got on the topic of cutting down our own christmas trees and where they got theres and everything. Then she asked us if she could take us to cut down our own christmas tree! Since today was P-day, we told her we could go today. Her and her husband just happened to be doing nothing too! So they took us to a tree farm and we cut down our very own-----7 foot----christmas tree!!! For only $15 too :) Amazing right? So we have a real tree in our apartment! I'm so excited, it will be a real christmas....sort of. Minus being with you guys. But I can't wait to talk to you all on Christmas, it's going to come up so fast.
I love you all, thank you SO SO SO SO SO much for the birthday package! I absolutely love it. Have an amazing week and I will talk to you soon. Love you!
Love, Holly
P.S. When does BSU play in the Fiesta Bowl??? That is stinkin awesome, I'm excited for them. We went and worked with a sister in Hershey last week and met one of their investigators. He is actually a HUGE Boise State fan! He even loves Ian Johnson so much. I told him I'd try to get him a #41 Jersey for him and I'd give it to him at his baptism :) (He doesn't have a baptism date yet) So.......do you think I could get Chrissy's address please????? thank you! Love you!
Week 33- I'M STAYING IN LITITZ
November 30, 2009
I'm SOOOOOOO HAPPY I get to stay in Lititz for another transfer!!!! :) If you all were praying for me to stay here, thank you so so so much! I was praying hard core too! haha. We are just having so many wonderful things happen here, working with great people, and this ward is so amazing. I did NOT want to leave. Sister Ferguson and I are staying together for another transfer too! We get to spend my birthday, christmas, and the new year together!!! I bet you could already picture this, but when I found out I was staying, I started doing cartwheels around the apartment because I was so happy.
Greg is still doing really well. He slipped again and smoked a cigarette :( He has to be smoke free for 2 weeks before his baptism. He is still set and excited for Dec. 19th, so I really hope he stays strong! I'm so excited to see him get baptized though! He's awesome and he knows the church is true! Greg even gave us a referrel a couple weeks ago. He had a friend named Gwen that he was very concerned about and wanted us to give her a call. But he didn't want us to tell her who was concerned. So Sis. Ferguson cold called her and told her who we were, told her a friend was concerned for her and asked if we could meet. She said yes, so we met her this past Friday. Greg also didn't tell us what he was concerned about, but we had a feeling it was going to be about money. BUT it wasn't! :) She is so prepared for the gospel in her life! She told us she just felt like something was missing in her life and she felt so alone. She cried as she was telling us too. I then asked what she felt she was missing and she said God. PERFECT! We shared all about the restoration with her, focusing it around how much the savior loves her, individually. She said she was really excited to read from the Book of Mormon and find out more. I am so excited for her too!
Thanksgiving was really good! We spent the day with a less active/nonmember family, the Rodriguez family. We actually invited ourselves over, but they were happy for us to come. They love us! But Sis. Rodriguez had a 21 lb turkey, 20 lb ham, 5 different desserts, and every thanksgiving food you could imagine! SO MUCH FOOD! It was really yummy though. We also went to two other homes and had dessert. Lets just say that I was full all day Friday and Saturday too!
Hope your thanksgiving was good too! Happy Holiday Season!!!! I love this time of year. Oh, one more thing. The day after thanksgiving, an older woman in the ward (who's husband is less-active, so it was legit) asked us to come put up her christmas tree and decorate it :) She made us cookies and hot chocolate and played christmas Mo-Tab. Then we shared a message about angels. Perfect way to start off the christmas season! Alright, I've really got to go now. I love you all and can't wait to hear from you! I'll talk to you REALLY SOON!!!!! :) Have a good week.
Love, Holly
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Week 32- Awesome Week!
November 23, 2009
Hi!
This has been such an awesome week! We really have a lot of good, exciting things going on here in Lititz!!!! Transfers are in a week so, PLEEEEEEAAAAASSE keep praying that I stay here!!!! I am praying that I will! haha, and I keep hinting to President that I need to stay here too. Hopefully his will, my will, and the Lord's will are all in line with eachother! :) :) :) Greg is still progressing so awesomely! He did slip and smoked one cigarette this past week, but I think it really shook him and he learned his lesson. Right when we got to his home, he told us right away what had happened, but then he was all gung-ho about making sure all of his baptism plans were still in order. haha. He's great. He bought his church clothes. He just needs them hemmed and he is all set to get baptized! We finished all the lessons with him last week, now it's just in limbo kind of. We want him to feel completely comfortable and ready to get baptized, but we are also like "what are you waiting for??" haha. He IS ready! Maybe we should tell him that he shouldn't procrastinate! haha, jk.
At church yesterday, we had a GREAT turnout! We had 5 investigators at church and 13 less-actives! :) That is the most I've seen my whole mission! We have also been working with a less-active family, the Lay family who has been consistentley coming to church now. They have 2 overaged youth so we just asked Sister Lay if she wanted us to teach her children towards baptism. She said yes, so we will begin teaching them tonight.
We did a sisters exchange in Hershey this past week too. That was a lot of fun! For part of the day I worked with one sister (Sister Villa from Mexico) and then in the afternoon I worked with another sister (Sister Wolfgramm). I had a lot of fun, got to meet some of their investigators. I taught this old man they are teaching, who is about 90 years old and he is a member of the RLDS church. They have a struggle trying to get past the whole authority to baptize but he was a great old man! haha, so funny and so nice!
I am out of time on the computer so I gotta go real fast! I LOVE YOU AND MISS YOU ALLLLL!!!!!! Have such a happy week and
HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(I'll probably be having 2-3 meals, haha, expect me to be fat when I come home from my mission)
Love you!
Love, Holly
Week 31 - Hola Amigos!
November 16, 2009
Hi my favorite family!!
How is everything going at home? Hope all is good. Is it staying warm for you? Yesterday was a VERY nice day here in Pennsylvania. I actually went out tracting in just a short sleeve shirt and I was fine! That probably won't be lasting very long though. The computer system is being extremely slow today, so I'm sorry that I can't write all of you individually this week. I actually couldn't read Kelsey's email either! Next week, hopefully I can read two from you! :)
This week has been pretty good. First some very good news, at least for me anyway. We had zone conference on Thursday and I told you that some things were going to be changing. Well I'm loving these changes! We are now no longer counting how much tracting time we've done or how many people we talk to. We are now just focusing on increasing our number of people set with baptism dates, progressing investigators, and investigators at sacrament meeting. I think this is a great focus because it really bugged me before that we had to count exactly how much time we've tracted and how many people we've talked to. That's not really what we should be focusing on, we should be focusing on helping people progress towards baptism and making and keeping commitments. Of course I understand that finding and sharing the gospel with people is important, but it now gives me a new sense of excitement. I felt like before I was just doing it because if I didn't, our leaders were going to get on our cases and make us feel bad. Now I can go out and tract because I really, really want to find someone who is ready to hear the gospel. I don't know if that makes any sense, but I'm stoked about it!
Two quick stories of the week.....Sis Ferguson and I were tracting a couple days ago and we ran into one of the general managers at CiCi's Pizza. Now you have to understand that Cici's pizza is in a central location where ALL the missionaries in the area go. So this guy see's us A LOT! haha. At first we didn't recognize him but once we remembered, he opened up to us a lot. He told us of some things that have been going on in his life right now and that it was such a miracle that we showed up right then. Missionaries have never really shared the gospel with him before but we shared the whole message of the restoration with him and gave him a Book of Mormon. In return, he gave us a HUGE stack of coupons to Cici's pizza for free lunch buffet!!!!! Sweet huh????? We'll follow up when we see him at Cici's :) Yummy.
We also got a referrel for a girl who actually called up the church building so she could learn more. We contacted her and set up an appointment to meet her at the church building. Unfortunately she didn't show up (we'll have to try to contact her again) BUT it was a blessing that we were there. Another ward was having a clothes drive/clothes exchange. Greg pushed back his baptism because he didn't have nice clothes to wear to church. SO, we found him a whole bunch of nice shirts and nice pants and they fit him!!! Maybe he'll be ready to move his baptism back up :)
That's all for this week. Can't wait to hear from all of you next week! Transfers are coming up again on Dec. 1st, so keep praying for me that I'll stay in Lititz next transfer. I love it here and I want to be able to be there for Greg's baptism! (p.s. amanda's baptism was this past friday!!!!!) Love you all and hope you have a fantastic week! Stay strong!
Love, Holly
Week 30 - New P-Day
November 9, 2009
Hello my family!!!!!
I just wanted to write a quick email and let you know that our P-day has changed......yet again. It's officially been moved BACK to Mondays. So you can write me Sundays after church and never have to forget about it again. :) It actually came as such a surprise last night. This coming Thursday, we have a zone conference so we knew that P-day was going to be a different this week. But last night, our district leader called and told us that it is offically changing back to Monday. I guess we are going to be having a whole lot of new changes that we will find out about on Thursday.
So not a whole lot to update you on these past couple days since I wrote last, but Sunday was a very eventful day at church! It was the Primary Program so OF COURSE tons of non-members would be coming! We actually had about 9-10 less-actives come that we are working with, 3 of our own investigators, and LOTS of non-members that we met. We stayed pretty busy. Have you had your primary program yet?? I love it, it has officially become one of my absolute favorite sundays of the year.
This email is short, sorry! But here are a couple pictures from Halloween. I hope you enjoy them :) We had some fun! Have a great week! I love you all and miss you all tons and tons.
Love, Holly
Pictures:
1. Sis. Ferguson and I with a family we work with. The Doyle's. Bro. Doyle (getting baptized on dec. 19) is cookie monster! haha.
2. Our halloween costumes and making carmeled apples on Halloween!
3. Our district combined with another district LAST transfer......(back row) E. Juarez, Neerings, Clark, Blasco, Ferguson, Me, DeYoung (front row) Naeata, Warren, Bullock.
4. Our current disctrict...starting in back row....Clark, me, Ferguson, Blasco, Eregera, and Gamez.
5. Beautiful flaming red tree!!! :)
6. A covered bridge. They are everywhere and I LOVE them!
Week 29- Happy November!
November 5, 2009
Hi There!
I'm not really sure what to share with you this week! It's been kind of a blur for me, but it's been a good week too.
Halloween was a blast! For some strange reason, Lancaster County decided to do all their trick or treating on Friday night instead of Saturday night. Of course we couldn't go trick or treating or anything, but we had dinner at a young couples house on Friday and they were dressing up to take some kids trick or treating! haha. Bro. Doyle was cookie monster and Sis. Doyle was a ladybug. So cute! I'll send pictures of it next week too. We went to our wards trunk-or-treat that night too which was pretty fun. Not a lot of people showed up since it was on Friday night but there was a decent turn out and some non-members came that we got to talk to. Kids are so fun when they get candy! haha. And being the missionary that we are......we handed out candy and pass-along cards. :) Genious right? haha. On Saturday night, we were required to be in our apartment at 6:00 pm. Sister Ferguson and I decided to have a little fun and make some carmeled apples, carmeled popcorn, and dress up! Since Ryan sent me a bat headband in his package, I dressed all in black and was a bat for halloween :) Sister Ferguson got the great idea to put hangers behind her back to make fairy wings, and she was a fairy princess. We took a lot of pictures of that too, so I'll send them next week.
Greg is still doing well. Hasn't smoked for over a week! :) Thank you for all your prayers for him! It's really helping and he is still stoked to keep coming to church. One sad thing though.....he wants to push back his baptism. He still really wants to be baptized but he doesn't feel quite ready yet (he wants a haircut and church clothes before he is baptized). So he is now set for Dec. 19th. That will be in the next transfer, so I'm hoping and praying, again, that I'll get to stay in Lititz next transfer. So pray for me for that too......PLEASE!!! :) Bro. Doyle is set to be baptized the same day. He's in the same situation, he needs to stop smoking...but he's getting closer. The bishop even offered to buy him a prescription that cuts back the cravings. Hopefully that works!
I'm almost out of time but I have one crazy thing that happened yesterday to tell you. We were visiting a less-active woman and she was complaining of having seizures all morning long. When we walked in her home, she was even hunched over on the couch. It wasn't the on the floor, shaking and trembling seizures, but she would just kind of start looking very tired and dizzy and she said her arms and legs would go numb. So while we were there she had to call an ambulance to come get her and take her to the hospital! That was quite an experience. She called us later that night when she got home and said the doctor told her she was having seizures due to some of the medication she was taking. So....be careful with medications that you take! haha, don't overdue them!
Anyway, I hope everyone is having a fantastic week, and has a fantastic coming up week! I love you all and miss you all tons! Can't wait to hear from you again. Love you so much! :)
Love, Holly
Hi There!
I'm not really sure what to share with you this week! It's been kind of a blur for me, but it's been a good week too.
Halloween was a blast! For some strange reason, Lancaster County decided to do all their trick or treating on Friday night instead of Saturday night. Of course we couldn't go trick or treating or anything, but we had dinner at a young couples house on Friday and they were dressing up to take some kids trick or treating! haha. Bro. Doyle was cookie monster and Sis. Doyle was a ladybug. So cute! I'll send pictures of it next week too. We went to our wards trunk-or-treat that night too which was pretty fun. Not a lot of people showed up since it was on Friday night but there was a decent turn out and some non-members came that we got to talk to. Kids are so fun when they get candy! haha. And being the missionary that we are......we handed out candy and pass-along cards. :) Genious right? haha. On Saturday night, we were required to be in our apartment at 6:00 pm. Sister Ferguson and I decided to have a little fun and make some carmeled apples, carmeled popcorn, and dress up! Since Ryan sent me a bat headband in his package, I dressed all in black and was a bat for halloween :) Sister Ferguson got the great idea to put hangers behind her back to make fairy wings, and she was a fairy princess. We took a lot of pictures of that too, so I'll send them next week.
Greg is still doing well. Hasn't smoked for over a week! :) Thank you for all your prayers for him! It's really helping and he is still stoked to keep coming to church. One sad thing though.....he wants to push back his baptism. He still really wants to be baptized but he doesn't feel quite ready yet (he wants a haircut and church clothes before he is baptized). So he is now set for Dec. 19th. That will be in the next transfer, so I'm hoping and praying, again, that I'll get to stay in Lititz next transfer. So pray for me for that too......PLEASE!!! :) Bro. Doyle is set to be baptized the same day. He's in the same situation, he needs to stop smoking...but he's getting closer. The bishop even offered to buy him a prescription that cuts back the cravings. Hopefully that works!
I'm almost out of time but I have one crazy thing that happened yesterday to tell you. We were visiting a less-active woman and she was complaining of having seizures all morning long. When we walked in her home, she was even hunched over on the couch. It wasn't the on the floor, shaking and trembling seizures, but she would just kind of start looking very tired and dizzy and she said her arms and legs would go numb. So while we were there she had to call an ambulance to come get her and take her to the hospital! That was quite an experience. She called us later that night when she got home and said the doctor told her she was having seizures due to some of the medication she was taking. So....be careful with medications that you take! haha, don't overdue them!
Anyway, I hope everyone is having a fantastic week, and has a fantastic coming up week! I love you all and miss you all tons! Can't wait to hear from you again. Love you so much! :)
Love, Holly
Monday, November 2, 2009
Week 28- Crazy and Busy!
October 29, 2009
Hello again!
Thanks for all the emails this week! I love getting lots :) It makes me feel loved! haha. Well let me jump right in to what we've been up to this past week. Which is a lot! Like I told you last week, we took over the elders area that we shared a ward with. So now our area is huge!!! We practically spend most of our time in their area now.....maybe we should move our apartment over there? No, not really. I like ours too much. Anyway, we've still been trying to contact all the people the elders had been working with. We're still working on it. They did a lot of less-active work, so we are really trying to contact everyone! We had a pretty cool experience yesterday. Actually, on Tuesday we tried to stop by a referrel that the elders had gotten but hadn't contacted yet. So we stopped by and she wasn't home, but her ex-husband was there. We talked to him for a while, shared the restoration with him and he totally accepted a Book of Mormon. He even said he felt something special as he was looking at a picture of the first vision. Pretty cool huh? Unfortunately he's going to jail soon (woops), so we couldn't get a return appointment with him. But we DID contact this girl yesterday! She is so awesome! She was actually referred by her mom who just recently got baptized a couple months ago. As we were talking to her (her name is Alicia) she was telling us what a change her mom has made since she joined the church. She said it was a complete 180 degrees and she really likes the change she sees! So she is really interested in learning more. We are going to see her again next week! I'm so excited about it! Plus she her mom can motivate, encourage, and excite her too as she continues learning! YAY! Plus, I don't remember if I told you before, but Amanda, who I was teaching over in Dover, is getting baptized!!!!!! :) :) :) I'm so excited for her! I wish I could go! She's one of my favorite people so far! Now...as for Greg, he's still doing really great too! We visited him on Monday and he only did one puff of cigarette in two days! He's doing so well! Keep praying for him that he'll have the faith and the strength to quit all together! We're seeing him again this evening, so let week I'll let you know how he's still coming along. Oh and mom, thank you so so so so so much for the package!!!!!!!! It was such a fun surprise and soooooo cute!!! I'm wearing the cute aqua sweater with the satin bow right now :) I love it, thank you! Will someone also do me a favor? Will you get me Angela, Josie, Sabra, and Katelyn's addresses for me please? I want to write them, but have no idea what their addresses are. Thank you! Hope you all have such a great week. I love you all tons and miss you tons and tons too! Bye
Love, Holly
Hello again!
Thanks for all the emails this week! I love getting lots :) It makes me feel loved! haha. Well let me jump right in to what we've been up to this past week. Which is a lot! Like I told you last week, we took over the elders area that we shared a ward with. So now our area is huge!!! We practically spend most of our time in their area now.....maybe we should move our apartment over there? No, not really. I like ours too much. Anyway, we've still been trying to contact all the people the elders had been working with. We're still working on it. They did a lot of less-active work, so we are really trying to contact everyone! We had a pretty cool experience yesterday. Actually, on Tuesday we tried to stop by a referrel that the elders had gotten but hadn't contacted yet. So we stopped by and she wasn't home, but her ex-husband was there. We talked to him for a while, shared the restoration with him and he totally accepted a Book of Mormon. He even said he felt something special as he was looking at a picture of the first vision. Pretty cool huh? Unfortunately he's going to jail soon (woops), so we couldn't get a return appointment with him. But we DID contact this girl yesterday! She is so awesome! She was actually referred by her mom who just recently got baptized a couple months ago. As we were talking to her (her name is Alicia) she was telling us what a change her mom has made since she joined the church. She said it was a complete 180 degrees and she really likes the change she sees! So she is really interested in learning more. We are going to see her again next week! I'm so excited about it! Plus she her mom can motivate, encourage, and excite her too as she continues learning! YAY! Plus, I don't remember if I told you before, but Amanda, who I was teaching over in Dover, is getting baptized!!!!!! :) :) :) I'm so excited for her! I wish I could go! She's one of my favorite people so far! Now...as for Greg, he's still doing really great too! We visited him on Monday and he only did one puff of cigarette in two days! He's doing so well! Keep praying for him that he'll have the faith and the strength to quit all together! We're seeing him again this evening, so let week I'll let you know how he's still coming along. Oh and mom, thank you so so so so so much for the package!!!!!!!! It was such a fun surprise and soooooo cute!!! I'm wearing the cute aqua sweater with the satin bow right now :) I love it, thank you! Will someone also do me a favor? Will you get me Angela, Josie, Sabra, and Katelyn's addresses for me please? I want to write them, but have no idea what their addresses are. Thank you! Hope you all have such a great week. I love you all tons and miss you tons and tons too! Bye
Love, Holly
Week 27- Mission Tour
October 22, 2009
Helloooo everyone!
It has been one CRAZY week! First off, let me tell you that we had transfers and Sister Ferguson and I are staying together in Lititz. Yay! I love Lititz! BUT we are taking over a set of elder's area. We shared a ward with a set of elders who were serving in Ephrata but their area got closed down and now we are taking it over. I'm excited about it though because they are working with a lot of fun people and have a lot of progressing less-actives! Not so many investigators (except one who is EXTREMELY golden except for the fact that he's trying to quit smoking). We'll stay pretty busy these next couple weeks, but I'm excited for it. Bring it on!
Let me back up a little bit and tell you everything that has gone on this past weekend.....it's a lot! First of all, on Sunday, I had to give my first talk in sacrament meeting on my mission. And they asked me to do it Saturday night at 8:00 pm with church at 9:00 on Sunday. hahaha, this lady in our ward was supposed to give a talk and she forgot she had to work on Sunday. She's a little newer in the ward and doesn't have a ward list, so she called us to have us tell the bishopbric that she can't do it. Oh my, you know when you get a call like that, the talk has now fallen into your hands! hahaha. So I made my companion call the bishop :) And then of course she ratted me out and volunteered me to give it. That trickster, but she had already given a talk in this ward so I guess it was fair. I have to tell you it was a pretty scattered but it was on compassionate service so I just told a lot of stories and shared some quotes from a talk from the april general conference :)
We had our Mission Tour this past Monday up in Altoona. Altoona is in the middle of the state and all the missionaries from the east side of the mission gathered there. We got a call on Saturday night telling us that on Sunday night, we were going to be driving up to State College (where Penn State is) to stay with another set of sisters for the night. SISTER SLEEPOVER!! haha, it was a ton of fun. But Mission Tour was pretty good. One of the seventy, Elder C. Scott Grow came and visited with us. (he's from Idaho! He was on the school board when Centennial was built, so his name is on a plaque somewhere in there) He was very inspiring though. He had made some changes to our mission, we'll be having zone conferencee and interviews on a monthly basis now instead of every 6 weeks and they also changed up how elders do exchanges, which doesn't effect me too much. He also gave us this Ward Mission Plan that we have to all implement in our wards. It's a great program, I'm so excited for it because it is really going to push the members to be member missionaries! :) Ok I'm almost out of time so I gotta go now. I love you all and miss you all! Have a great week! Can't wait to hear from you again!
Love, Holly
Sorry that the last email was so cut off at the end. I only had a minute left on the computer I was on so I had to cut it off short. But I wanted to finish telling you about mission tour. I told you about some of the changes and some of the implementations we are doing into our ward (which by the way, I hope you are all being GREAT member missionaries and sharing the gospel with everyone you meet :) ) But he also was teaching us in how we need to be better at letting people know our purpose as missionaries. Sometimes as we are teaching these people, we become so close and such good friends that it's hard for us to drop them if they are not progressing. He was telling us how we can't continue to meet with them if they aren't doing anything about progressing. So we have to make that discernment quickly. If they are ready to hear the gospel, great, teach them. If they aren't yet or they can't make up their minds, drop them and wait for a time when they are ready. We can't try to convince them. That was kind of hard to hear because we love some of these people and want to work with them until they accept the gospel. But we also need to be working with those who are ready. Who knows if working with someone who's not ready is holding us back from finding someone who is ready. Oh, such hard decisions sometimes!!!!
Anyway, it was a great time there. Plus I got to see some of my MTC buddies that I haven't seen in 6 months. It was an all day event, from 9-4 then we had to drive back to Lititz that night. Which is about a 3-3 1/2 hour drive. Fun road trip though, right? :)
Well again, hope all is well. I love you all! And miss you all!!
Love, Holly
Helloooo everyone!
It has been one CRAZY week! First off, let me tell you that we had transfers and Sister Ferguson and I are staying together in Lititz. Yay! I love Lititz! BUT we are taking over a set of elder's area. We shared a ward with a set of elders who were serving in Ephrata but their area got closed down and now we are taking it over. I'm excited about it though because they are working with a lot of fun people and have a lot of progressing less-actives! Not so many investigators (except one who is EXTREMELY golden except for the fact that he's trying to quit smoking). We'll stay pretty busy these next couple weeks, but I'm excited for it. Bring it on!
Let me back up a little bit and tell you everything that has gone on this past weekend.....it's a lot! First of all, on Sunday, I had to give my first talk in sacrament meeting on my mission. And they asked me to do it Saturday night at 8:00 pm with church at 9:00 on Sunday. hahaha, this lady in our ward was supposed to give a talk and she forgot she had to work on Sunday. She's a little newer in the ward and doesn't have a ward list, so she called us to have us tell the bishopbric that she can't do it. Oh my, you know when you get a call like that, the talk has now fallen into your hands! hahaha. So I made my companion call the bishop :) And then of course she ratted me out and volunteered me to give it. That trickster, but she had already given a talk in this ward so I guess it was fair. I have to tell you it was a pretty scattered but it was on compassionate service so I just told a lot of stories and shared some quotes from a talk from the april general conference :)
We had our Mission Tour this past Monday up in Altoona. Altoona is in the middle of the state and all the missionaries from the east side of the mission gathered there. We got a call on Saturday night telling us that on Sunday night, we were going to be driving up to State College (where Penn State is) to stay with another set of sisters for the night. SISTER SLEEPOVER!! haha, it was a ton of fun. But Mission Tour was pretty good. One of the seventy, Elder C. Scott Grow came and visited with us. (he's from Idaho! He was on the school board when Centennial was built, so his name is on a plaque somewhere in there) He was very inspiring though. He had made some changes to our mission, we'll be having zone conferencee and interviews on a monthly basis now instead of every 6 weeks and they also changed up how elders do exchanges, which doesn't effect me too much. He also gave us this Ward Mission Plan that we have to all implement in our wards. It's a great program, I'm so excited for it because it is really going to push the members to be member missionaries! :) Ok I'm almost out of time so I gotta go now. I love you all and miss you all! Have a great week! Can't wait to hear from you again!
Love, Holly
Sorry that the last email was so cut off at the end. I only had a minute left on the computer I was on so I had to cut it off short. But I wanted to finish telling you about mission tour. I told you about some of the changes and some of the implementations we are doing into our ward (which by the way, I hope you are all being GREAT member missionaries and sharing the gospel with everyone you meet :) ) But he also was teaching us in how we need to be better at letting people know our purpose as missionaries. Sometimes as we are teaching these people, we become so close and such good friends that it's hard for us to drop them if they are not progressing. He was telling us how we can't continue to meet with them if they aren't doing anything about progressing. So we have to make that discernment quickly. If they are ready to hear the gospel, great, teach them. If they aren't yet or they can't make up their minds, drop them and wait for a time when they are ready. We can't try to convince them. That was kind of hard to hear because we love some of these people and want to work with them until they accept the gospel. But we also need to be working with those who are ready. Who knows if working with someone who's not ready is holding us back from finding someone who is ready. Oh, such hard decisions sometimes!!!!
Anyway, it was a great time there. Plus I got to see some of my MTC buddies that I haven't seen in 6 months. It was an all day event, from 9-4 then we had to drive back to Lititz that night. Which is about a 3-3 1/2 hour drive. Fun road trip though, right? :)
Well again, hope all is well. I love you all! And miss you all!!
Love, Holly
Week 26- Baby, its cold outside
October 15, 2009
Hi!!
How is everyone doing?? It's still going really well over here! I love it here in Lititz and I pray all the time that I can stay here for another transfer :) Transfers are coming up next Tuesday, so everyone pray too that I can stay here! hahaha.
Greg came to church last sunday for the first time. He really enjoyed it too! I actually had to go to a young single adult class in the ward with a less-active girl so I didn't get to see how Greg liked sunday school. Then we had some meetings after church and didn't see him after priesthood, so I was feeling very left in the dark because I didn't know how he was feeling. Our lesson in relief society/priesthood was on baptisms for the dead so of course I was like "uh-oh!" haha, we hadn't talked about that at all. BUT we met with him yesterday and he said even though he didn't understand it, we still really had fun at church. He is coming again this sunday and still looking forward to his baptism! Of course we explained it all and then we talked about the word of wisdom with him. He is trying to overcome smoking. We set some goals for him and gave him some other suggestions and luckily, he said after he paid all his bills, he doesn't have enough money to buy any cigarettes. haha, such a blessing in disguise right?? Even though he does want to quit, it's still going to be a struggle for him. So will you all pray that he can overcome it??? I'm asking for a lot of prayers today, huh? Oh well, more blessings for you too :)
We also had a less-active family of 9 come to church on sunday. SUCH a surprise to us!!! We had a lesson with Sis. Lay earlier in the week where she opened up to us a lot! She told us that it's a family decision. Once her husband is ready to go to church, then they will go. And surprise!!! They were all at church! I was SOOOOO happy to see them!
Another fun little detail of this week.....this is Sister Deal's last week of her mission! In the last week, she gets to call missionaries in her old areas to get phone numbers and addresses and stuff, so she called me :) (I'm in one of her old areas) It was so fun to talk to her! She also told me that a girl we taught in Dover, Amanda, is getting baptized!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I screamed for so much joy, I was so happy! I am not allowed to go to her baptism since it is out of my zone, but I can write to her now that she is getting baptized :) I'll have her send me pictures!
Last but not least, we do service at a nursing home every week, in the activities department. This week was a SPA day! It was soo much fun! I got to give manicures to all the cute little old women and even one old man! haha, he loved his MAN-icure :)
Ok, this email is long enough for today. Hope all is going well at home and just know that I love and miss all of you!!! Have a great week!
GO BOISE STATE!
Love, Holly
Hi!!
How is everyone doing?? It's still going really well over here! I love it here in Lititz and I pray all the time that I can stay here for another transfer :) Transfers are coming up next Tuesday, so everyone pray too that I can stay here! hahaha.
Greg came to church last sunday for the first time. He really enjoyed it too! I actually had to go to a young single adult class in the ward with a less-active girl so I didn't get to see how Greg liked sunday school. Then we had some meetings after church and didn't see him after priesthood, so I was feeling very left in the dark because I didn't know how he was feeling. Our lesson in relief society/priesthood was on baptisms for the dead so of course I was like "uh-oh!" haha, we hadn't talked about that at all. BUT we met with him yesterday and he said even though he didn't understand it, we still really had fun at church. He is coming again this sunday and still looking forward to his baptism! Of course we explained it all and then we talked about the word of wisdom with him. He is trying to overcome smoking. We set some goals for him and gave him some other suggestions and luckily, he said after he paid all his bills, he doesn't have enough money to buy any cigarettes. haha, such a blessing in disguise right?? Even though he does want to quit, it's still going to be a struggle for him. So will you all pray that he can overcome it??? I'm asking for a lot of prayers today, huh? Oh well, more blessings for you too :)
We also had a less-active family of 9 come to church on sunday. SUCH a surprise to us!!! We had a lesson with Sis. Lay earlier in the week where she opened up to us a lot! She told us that it's a family decision. Once her husband is ready to go to church, then they will go. And surprise!!! They were all at church! I was SOOOOO happy to see them!
Another fun little detail of this week.....this is Sister Deal's last week of her mission! In the last week, she gets to call missionaries in her old areas to get phone numbers and addresses and stuff, so she called me :) (I'm in one of her old areas) It was so fun to talk to her! She also told me that a girl we taught in Dover, Amanda, is getting baptized!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I screamed for so much joy, I was so happy! I am not allowed to go to her baptism since it is out of my zone, but I can write to her now that she is getting baptized :) I'll have her send me pictures!
Last but not least, we do service at a nursing home every week, in the activities department. This week was a SPA day! It was soo much fun! I got to give manicures to all the cute little old women and even one old man! haha, he loved his MAN-icure :)
Ok, this email is long enough for today. Hope all is going well at home and just know that I love and miss all of you!!! Have a great week!
GO BOISE STATE!
Love, Holly
week 25- the real email w/ pictures
October 8, 2009
Hi!
I know I've sent you all like 3 different emails (atleast to mom anyway) but here is the real update email. Conference was amazing this weekend! As a missionary, you really wish the whole world would just come in and listen to it. If only! It was so powerful, all of it. But of course Elder Holland's blew us out of the water :) He's an amazing person!
A few weeks ago, Sis. Ferguson and I met this man who goes to an episciple church. He told us that if we would go to his church, he would go to ours. So this sunday, since conference didn't start til 12:00 for us, we thought it would be a good week to go. It was quite the experience! It was in this beautiful cathedral built in the 1700's and they were all dressed in robes and walked down the middle with a cross and candles and everything. They had a program of the whole service written out and when the letters were bolded, the congregation would say those parts. The pastor gave his little sermon in the middle of it and it was actually pretty good. He talked about how we are not alone in the universe, how there are other worlds too. It was a really good experience though. I was glad to go to conference right after that and listen to the prophet and apostles spoke though....where the truth really is. :) But everyone was very friendly to us at that church. We didn't see the man we talked to...but who knows. Maybe we were there for another purpose.
Here is some really exciting news.......our investigator Greg has a baptismal date!!!!!! :) We asked if he would prepare himself for baptism on November 14th and he is excited to. He hasn't come to church yet, he is supposed to this week, but he is so cool. He loves that we help him feel closer to Christ, he recognizes the changes already he has in his life, and he really just wants to surround himself with good church people. As he continues to progress, he definitely will feel and see so much more change in his life. We're excited for him.
I hope all is well at home. I love all of you and miss you all lots! Have a great week, can't wait to hear from you again next week!!!
Love, Holly
ps. Ok, so finally after 6 months, I'm sending pictures! :) Everytime I go to email I always forgot to bring my camera cord. So here are just a couple.
1.Giving the members "a hand" :) All the missionaries that come into that area get their hand on the wall. Pres. and Sis. Pugh's are on there too!
2. Sis. Deal and I at Gettysburg.
3. Sis. Deal, and Amber Mosely who would go tracting with us every now and then in front of 'Dover, Women of Today' :) We thought that was appropriate to take a picture in front of it.
4. Sis. Ferguson and I in Lititz, nearby our apartment
There are just some. I'll send more at another time when I can remember :) Love you all tons! Bye!
Love, Holly
Hi!
I know I've sent you all like 3 different emails (atleast to mom anyway) but here is the real update email. Conference was amazing this weekend! As a missionary, you really wish the whole world would just come in and listen to it. If only! It was so powerful, all of it. But of course Elder Holland's blew us out of the water :) He's an amazing person!
A few weeks ago, Sis. Ferguson and I met this man who goes to an episciple church. He told us that if we would go to his church, he would go to ours. So this sunday, since conference didn't start til 12:00 for us, we thought it would be a good week to go. It was quite the experience! It was in this beautiful cathedral built in the 1700's and they were all dressed in robes and walked down the middle with a cross and candles and everything. They had a program of the whole service written out and when the letters were bolded, the congregation would say those parts. The pastor gave his little sermon in the middle of it and it was actually pretty good. He talked about how we are not alone in the universe, how there are other worlds too. It was a really good experience though. I was glad to go to conference right after that and listen to the prophet and apostles spoke though....where the truth really is. :) But everyone was very friendly to us at that church. We didn't see the man we talked to...but who knows. Maybe we were there for another purpose.
Here is some really exciting news.......our investigator Greg has a baptismal date!!!!!! :) We asked if he would prepare himself for baptism on November 14th and he is excited to. He hasn't come to church yet, he is supposed to this week, but he is so cool. He loves that we help him feel closer to Christ, he recognizes the changes already he has in his life, and he really just wants to surround himself with good church people. As he continues to progress, he definitely will feel and see so much more change in his life. We're excited for him.
I hope all is well at home. I love all of you and miss you all lots! Have a great week, can't wait to hear from you again next week!!!
Love, Holly
ps. Ok, so finally after 6 months, I'm sending pictures! :) Everytime I go to email I always forgot to bring my camera cord. So here are just a couple.
1.Giving the members "a hand" :) All the missionaries that come into that area get their hand on the wall. Pres. and Sis. Pugh's are on there too!
2. Sis. Deal and I at Gettysburg.
3. Sis. Deal, and Amber Mosely who would go tracting with us every now and then in front of 'Dover, Women of Today' :) We thought that was appropriate to take a picture in front of it.
4. Sis. Ferguson and I in Lititz, nearby our apartment
There are just some. I'll send more at another time when I can remember :) Love you all tons! Bye!
Love, Holly
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Week 24- Happy October 1st!!!
October 1, 2009
Hola Famalia!!!!!!
How is everyone doing? It's going pretty good here in Lititz. So last week I told you about meeting Kayla in the park and her praying about meeting people from church. So this is what happened after that. I was trying to call people to get her a ride to church but she lives in another wards boundaries. I tried and tried to get people in my ward to go pick her up but no one was willing to drive an extra 5 miles to get her. Oh my goodness, I was getting so frustrated. I just wanted her to be able to come to church with US and feel the spirit of church again! Well no one was being willing, so I finally gave in. I finally let go of my pride and called people in the other ward boundaries to ask if they could take her. Luckily that was my very first ward out here, so I called a family that I was pretty close with and they were so willing to take her! I got to see Kayla at church for just a couple minutes but she really enjoyed it. The Bode's (the members who took her) called us later Sunday night and left a message. Bro. Bode worried me so bad, he said in his message "Sister LaMont, you need to call me back ASAP. There is an emergency!" Ooooooh scary! I called him back and this was his emergency.......he said "There is a spanish girl in our home that we can't get rid of!" hahaha, he is such a trickster. They had invited her over for dinner and she was with them the rest of the night! I'm so thankful that everything worked out so extremely well! When I just let go of my pride of wanting her with us and handing it over to the ward who really needs to take care of her, it all worked out. The Lord taught me a lesson there. No more poaching from other areas! haha.
Anyway, the rest of the week went really well. We did a sisters exchange yesterday which was a lot of fun. I love doing sisters exchanges and being able to learn from other missionaries. I took one sister, Sister Rogers, with me to an investigator and she was absolutely perfect for her! Molly is afraid to get baptized because she is scared she will fall away afterwards. We've tried to address it, but Sister Rogers did so well with helping her too. It's always good to hear from someone else who you don't work with all the time. So Molly will keep praying about it. :) We have another investigator, Greg, who told us yesterday that he knew the Book of Mormon was true. He wants to come to church soon but says he wants to get cleaned up a little first. He has longer hair and says he wouldn't feel comfortable going until he gets a hair cut and nice clothes. We told him he can come however he can, that it's ok. But if he'd feel more comfortable with that, we won't push him. That's about it for this week though. I hope you are all doing well! I miss you all tons! But love you tons as well!! Have a great week.
Love, Holly
Hola Famalia!!!!!!
How is everyone doing? It's going pretty good here in Lititz. So last week I told you about meeting Kayla in the park and her praying about meeting people from church. So this is what happened after that. I was trying to call people to get her a ride to church but she lives in another wards boundaries. I tried and tried to get people in my ward to go pick her up but no one was willing to drive an extra 5 miles to get her. Oh my goodness, I was getting so frustrated. I just wanted her to be able to come to church with US and feel the spirit of church again! Well no one was being willing, so I finally gave in. I finally let go of my pride and called people in the other ward boundaries to ask if they could take her. Luckily that was my very first ward out here, so I called a family that I was pretty close with and they were so willing to take her! I got to see Kayla at church for just a couple minutes but she really enjoyed it. The Bode's (the members who took her) called us later Sunday night and left a message. Bro. Bode worried me so bad, he said in his message "Sister LaMont, you need to call me back ASAP. There is an emergency!" Ooooooh scary! I called him back and this was his emergency.......he said "There is a spanish girl in our home that we can't get rid of!" hahaha, he is such a trickster. They had invited her over for dinner and she was with them the rest of the night! I'm so thankful that everything worked out so extremely well! When I just let go of my pride of wanting her with us and handing it over to the ward who really needs to take care of her, it all worked out. The Lord taught me a lesson there. No more poaching from other areas! haha.
Anyway, the rest of the week went really well. We did a sisters exchange yesterday which was a lot of fun. I love doing sisters exchanges and being able to learn from other missionaries. I took one sister, Sister Rogers, with me to an investigator and she was absolutely perfect for her! Molly is afraid to get baptized because she is scared she will fall away afterwards. We've tried to address it, but Sister Rogers did so well with helping her too. It's always good to hear from someone else who you don't work with all the time. So Molly will keep praying about it. :) We have another investigator, Greg, who told us yesterday that he knew the Book of Mormon was true. He wants to come to church soon but says he wants to get cleaned up a little first. He has longer hair and says he wouldn't feel comfortable going until he gets a hair cut and nice clothes. We told him he can come however he can, that it's ok. But if he'd feel more comfortable with that, we won't push him. That's about it for this week though. I hope you are all doing well! I miss you all tons! But love you tons as well!! Have a great week.
Love, Holly
Week 23- Amazing Experience
September 24, 2009
I'm going to start out with the most AMAZING experience I've had on my mission so far. On Tuesday, Sis. Ferguson and I were street contacting on the main street in Lititz and absolutely nobody was giving us the time of day. Not to mention no one was being nice to us! I was getting so frustrated and steamed up that I told Sister Ferguson we needed to go do something else.....lets go tract or something. She said, 'well lets go try contacting in the park.' So we walked over to the park and the first lady we saw was sitting on a bench so we talked to her. She then became a new investigator :) Then (here's where the amazing experience comes in) we saw a group of 3 girls feeding ducks by the river. We went over to go talk to them and found out that one is from Germany and one is from Venezuela. They are here on some kind of program where if they do babysitting jobs for a year, then they get their visa. As we were talking to them, the girl from Venezuela (Kayla) seemed to be really interested in what we were saying. Sister Ferguson speaks spanish so she started talking to her in spanish and pulled out a letter that her mom had written for her to read to investigators about the church. As she was reading it, Kayla suddenly said "That's my church!!!" She said that she has been less-active for a couple years but she has been feeling pretty alone up here in America with no one around her that she really knows. Just the day before she was thinking that she needed to go to church and she was praying to meet someone from church so she could go!!! AMAZING HUH????? I love it! I got such goosebumps when she told us that! I love when you get to see cool experiences when you are being an instrument in the Lord's hands. It made so much sense now why people were not giving us the time of day on the street! We needed to be over in the park to see Kayla! And she is coming to church on Sunday :) Another cool thing is that she is living in a city called Manheim which is probably about a 15 minute drive away and out of our area. So for her to just happen to be in Lititz is such a miracle too. I love it! Kayla is awesome! She is moving to Utah to live with her sister in a month (who is a member as well) so she'll come to church with us until then. :)
Well, that was the coolest experience. We also had stake conference this past weekend. They re-organized the stake presidency so a couple general authorities came. Elder Kenneth Johnson was one of them. He is so cool. And he has a british accent so it was fun to listen to him speak. He actually said he was just in Meridian a few weeks ago to re-organize the Meridian stake. He is such an inspiring man though. We got to shake his hand after stake conference and the first thing he said to all the missionaries was "let me see your planner!" hahaha, he was telling us that whenever we make goals, we HAVE to make a plan to reach that goal. That's how we show the Lord our faith in Him. True.
Anyway, I'd tell you more of what he was saying but I'm running out of time! I'll write it in a letter or something because he was a very good, inspiring speaker. Have a great week and I want to hear from everyone next week!!! Love you all and miss you all tons!
Love, Holly
I'm going to start out with the most AMAZING experience I've had on my mission so far. On Tuesday, Sis. Ferguson and I were street contacting on the main street in Lititz and absolutely nobody was giving us the time of day. Not to mention no one was being nice to us! I was getting so frustrated and steamed up that I told Sister Ferguson we needed to go do something else.....lets go tract or something. She said, 'well lets go try contacting in the park.' So we walked over to the park and the first lady we saw was sitting on a bench so we talked to her. She then became a new investigator :) Then (here's where the amazing experience comes in) we saw a group of 3 girls feeding ducks by the river. We went over to go talk to them and found out that one is from Germany and one is from Venezuela. They are here on some kind of program where if they do babysitting jobs for a year, then they get their visa. As we were talking to them, the girl from Venezuela (Kayla) seemed to be really interested in what we were saying. Sister Ferguson speaks spanish so she started talking to her in spanish and pulled out a letter that her mom had written for her to read to investigators about the church. As she was reading it, Kayla suddenly said "That's my church!!!" She said that she has been less-active for a couple years but she has been feeling pretty alone up here in America with no one around her that she really knows. Just the day before she was thinking that she needed to go to church and she was praying to meet someone from church so she could go!!! AMAZING HUH????? I love it! I got such goosebumps when she told us that! I love when you get to see cool experiences when you are being an instrument in the Lord's hands. It made so much sense now why people were not giving us the time of day on the street! We needed to be over in the park to see Kayla! And she is coming to church on Sunday :) Another cool thing is that she is living in a city called Manheim which is probably about a 15 minute drive away and out of our area. So for her to just happen to be in Lititz is such a miracle too. I love it! Kayla is awesome! She is moving to Utah to live with her sister in a month (who is a member as well) so she'll come to church with us until then. :)
Well, that was the coolest experience. We also had stake conference this past weekend. They re-organized the stake presidency so a couple general authorities came. Elder Kenneth Johnson was one of them. He is so cool. And he has a british accent so it was fun to listen to him speak. He actually said he was just in Meridian a few weeks ago to re-organize the Meridian stake. He is such an inspiring man though. We got to shake his hand after stake conference and the first thing he said to all the missionaries was "let me see your planner!" hahaha, he was telling us that whenever we make goals, we HAVE to make a plan to reach that goal. That's how we show the Lord our faith in Him. True.
Anyway, I'd tell you more of what he was saying but I'm running out of time! I'll write it in a letter or something because he was a very good, inspiring speaker. Have a great week and I want to hear from everyone next week!!! Love you all and miss you all tons!
Love, Holly
Week 22- Just Another Week
September 17, 2009
Hey Youz Guyz (You'zins)
Just a little Pennsyvlania language :) Well another week has come and gone. The weather has definitely become fall!!! It is starting to get a lot cooler and although the leaves on trees have been changing for weeks now, they are finally starting to fall down. I ran through a huge pile of leaves yesterday while we were out and about :) So here is just a small update of what has happened this week:
*Molly came to church again this week. We also had a cottage meeting on Sunday night that she went to, as well as a family home evening on Monday night. We visited with her on Tuesday and asked about how she liked church and everything and if she's been praying about baptism...like we committed her to do. She said she really enjoys church and she loves the people. She is just scared that if she gets baptized, she might not do the whole 'endure to the end' part and become less-active. We tried to help those concerns, told her that we live each day at a time trying to do our best with what the Lord wants us to do, but if she accidently slip, that's what the atonement is for. We can repent and get back on that path. She promised to continue praying about it and she is coming to the saturday and sunday sessions of our stake conference this sunday.
*We met with a less-active family, the Rodriguez's. They are so sweet and fun! Sister Rodriguez made us an authentic hispanic dinner. Ooooh my it was so good! Brother Rodriguez actually comes to church more often then not, but his wife hasn't been there for a really long time! She mentioned to us that she wants us to start the lessons with her so she can get a refresher! Awesome! Now just church :)
*Last but not least, I met a family that missionaries have been teaching for quite a while now! The Canalis family. (I think Elder Howard actually found them) She is catholic and he is a jehovah's witness. Well, I wanted to get to know them a little and find out withat their thoughts were about the Book of Mormon and the gospel. She knows it is all true but says she's not willing to get baptized and he still doesn't believe it's true and won't pray about it. Rough right? They got in a big argument when I was there too......yikes. So I'm not too sure what is really going to happen with them. Pray for them, k?
Well that's about all the updates for this week. I hope all is well at home and I hope you all have a great week! I love you all!
Love, Holly
Hey Youz Guyz (You'zins)
Just a little Pennsyvlania language :) Well another week has come and gone. The weather has definitely become fall!!! It is starting to get a lot cooler and although the leaves on trees have been changing for weeks now, they are finally starting to fall down. I ran through a huge pile of leaves yesterday while we were out and about :) So here is just a small update of what has happened this week:
*Molly came to church again this week. We also had a cottage meeting on Sunday night that she went to, as well as a family home evening on Monday night. We visited with her on Tuesday and asked about how she liked church and everything and if she's been praying about baptism...like we committed her to do. She said she really enjoys church and she loves the people. She is just scared that if she gets baptized, she might not do the whole 'endure to the end' part and become less-active. We tried to help those concerns, told her that we live each day at a time trying to do our best with what the Lord wants us to do, but if she accidently slip, that's what the atonement is for. We can repent and get back on that path. She promised to continue praying about it and she is coming to the saturday and sunday sessions of our stake conference this sunday.
*We met with a less-active family, the Rodriguez's. They are so sweet and fun! Sister Rodriguez made us an authentic hispanic dinner. Ooooh my it was so good! Brother Rodriguez actually comes to church more often then not, but his wife hasn't been there for a really long time! She mentioned to us that she wants us to start the lessons with her so she can get a refresher! Awesome! Now just church :)
*Last but not least, I met a family that missionaries have been teaching for quite a while now! The Canalis family. (I think Elder Howard actually found them) She is catholic and he is a jehovah's witness. Well, I wanted to get to know them a little and find out withat their thoughts were about the Book of Mormon and the gospel. She knows it is all true but says she's not willing to get baptized and he still doesn't believe it's true and won't pray about it. Rough right? They got in a big argument when I was there too......yikes. So I'm not too sure what is really going to happen with them. Pray for them, k?
Well that's about all the updates for this week. I hope all is well at home and I hope you all have a great week! I love you all!
Love, Holly
Week 21- Transfer #4, Lititz PA
September 10, 2009
Good Morning!
Well, as you can probably tell from the subject of my email, we had transfers on Tuesday and I got moved to a new area with a new companion! I am in Lititz.....which is back in Lancaster County! hahahaha, it actually borders my old area of Elizabethtown. And I get to see the Amish people again. I also get to go back to the church building I was in and see my old ward from E-town. Exciting huh? My new companion is Sister Ferguson. She is from New Mexico and she's been out for just a little over a year now. Things have been pretty good so far. I've only had one whole day here but the first appointment we had was with an investigator named Molly. She's been taught a couple lessons and the last time she got visited, they asked her to pray about a baptism date. So when we went in on Wednesday, we taught her the gospel of Jesus Christ (faith, repentance, baptism, holy ghost, enduring) and asked her to pray specifically for October 10th for baptism. She said she would pray about it. She went to church last week and she loved it and plans to go again this week! Yay. I'm excited for her. So it looks like there is a lot going on here and a lot to look forward to.
So about my old area in Dover......Sister Deal and I actually both got kicked out!! Elders came in to white wash it and take over our investigators. It makes me a little jealous that they get to finish up working with Cody and get him ready for his baptism. But I am close enough to that area that I think President will let me go when he gets baptized! I sure hope so, because he is our golden investigator and I want to see him make that step and that commitment!
I have to tell you of a tender moment we had right before we left Dover. When we found out Sister Deal and I were both leaving, our ward mission leader (the Shoemaker's) invited us over for dinner. We would go over every wednesday to have dinner and correlation with them, they would take us to church every week, and we would do laundry at their house on P-day, so we got very close with them. Well at dinner before we left, the whole family went around and bore their testimonies to us about the gospel and about missionary work and how they really enjoyed having us there. And about how we've made a big impact in their lives. It was so sweet and so heart-felt. We were all in tears by the time we left! I always told Sister Deal that the Shoemaker's were like my family, a home away from home. But it never really hits you until you have to leave. I am going to miss them a lot, but they promised to come see me before I finished my mission to go home! They are the best!! You have to wonder why sisters got white-washed in for only 3 months before elders came back in to take over again. I am convinced we were needed there for one specific reason and we had accomplished that. I don't know what it was but that place will always be close to my heart! That ward was the best too!
Well this is a long email! I hope I didn't bore anyone to death! But I hope all is well at home and things are going great! I love you and miss you and can't wait to hear from you all next week!
Love, Holly
Good Morning!
Well, as you can probably tell from the subject of my email, we had transfers on Tuesday and I got moved to a new area with a new companion! I am in Lititz.....which is back in Lancaster County! hahahaha, it actually borders my old area of Elizabethtown. And I get to see the Amish people again. I also get to go back to the church building I was in and see my old ward from E-town. Exciting huh? My new companion is Sister Ferguson. She is from New Mexico and she's been out for just a little over a year now. Things have been pretty good so far. I've only had one whole day here but the first appointment we had was with an investigator named Molly. She's been taught a couple lessons and the last time she got visited, they asked her to pray about a baptism date. So when we went in on Wednesday, we taught her the gospel of Jesus Christ (faith, repentance, baptism, holy ghost, enduring) and asked her to pray specifically for October 10th for baptism. She said she would pray about it. She went to church last week and she loved it and plans to go again this week! Yay. I'm excited for her. So it looks like there is a lot going on here and a lot to look forward to.
So about my old area in Dover......Sister Deal and I actually both got kicked out!! Elders came in to white wash it and take over our investigators. It makes me a little jealous that they get to finish up working with Cody and get him ready for his baptism. But I am close enough to that area that I think President will let me go when he gets baptized! I sure hope so, because he is our golden investigator and I want to see him make that step and that commitment!
I have to tell you of a tender moment we had right before we left Dover. When we found out Sister Deal and I were both leaving, our ward mission leader (the Shoemaker's) invited us over for dinner. We would go over every wednesday to have dinner and correlation with them, they would take us to church every week, and we would do laundry at their house on P-day, so we got very close with them. Well at dinner before we left, the whole family went around and bore their testimonies to us about the gospel and about missionary work and how they really enjoyed having us there. And about how we've made a big impact in their lives. It was so sweet and so heart-felt. We were all in tears by the time we left! I always told Sister Deal that the Shoemaker's were like my family, a home away from home. But it never really hits you until you have to leave. I am going to miss them a lot, but they promised to come see me before I finished my mission to go home! They are the best!! You have to wonder why sisters got white-washed in for only 3 months before elders came back in to take over again. I am convinced we were needed there for one specific reason and we had accomplished that. I don't know what it was but that place will always be close to my heart! That ward was the best too!
Well this is a long email! I hope I didn't bore anyone to death! But I hope all is well at home and things are going great! I love you and miss you and can't wait to hear from you all next week!
Love, Holly
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Week 20 - last week of transfer #3
September 3, 2009
Hi everyone,
My mind is so scattered about this past week, I don't remember a lot of what has happened. But I'll try to recall all the great things that have happened.
Last week, we got a call from a less-active member saying that she hasn't had missionaries come over in a long time and that she would like us to come visit her and her family. I guess missionaries used to go visit her at the end of last year, but according to the teaching record, they were really hard to get a hold of. So we went and visited her and her kids. She has a nonmember husband and 3 kids who aren't members either but she wants them to start getting involved in Young Men and Young Women activities. Yay, good for them! There is one little tricky part though......we found out on Sunday that the ward boundaries were redone. So the area that they live in is going to be moved into another ward. Sad huh? We have a lot of great members who are leaving our ward, but good thing the church is the same everywhere in the world. And the elders in that ward better take good care of this less-active family! haha, they better make sure that they get to church! :)
On Monday, we had another pretty cool experience at a less-active members home. Sister Gholson and her 2 kids come to sacrament meeting every now and then. Her husband is a truck driver and is gone a lot! When he is gone, she is pretty faithful in coming, but when he's there, she doesn't come to church. Anyway, back to the point of the story, when her husband, Dave, is home and we come to visit, he usually just leaves the room and says he doesn't do that "church" thing. He's a very nice guy and likes us a lot but just doesn't like to sit in. Well on Monday, we were teaching and he came home and just sat down with us! Wow, we didn't quite know how to take it. He told us to go on with our lesson and then he started asking a lot of questions. Then we of course invited everyone to church and Sister Gholson started to make some excuses and Dave said, "No, you will be going to church this week! In fact, we will ALL be going to church this week!" hahahaha, so he invited himself to go to church! :) He went from not doing the "church" thing, to inviting himself to go. It was pretty cool. Hopefully he sticks with his word and comes! We'd love to see him there!
All else is going pretty well. Cody is still hangin in there and still is set with his baptismal date! He came to church last sunday and really liked it! Oh, and his friend that he works with who is a member of our ward......they are now dating. How cute! Well, I hope everything is great for all of you! Miss you and love you lots and lots! Have a good week!
Love, Holly
Hi everyone,
My mind is so scattered about this past week, I don't remember a lot of what has happened. But I'll try to recall all the great things that have happened.
Last week, we got a call from a less-active member saying that she hasn't had missionaries come over in a long time and that she would like us to come visit her and her family. I guess missionaries used to go visit her at the end of last year, but according to the teaching record, they were really hard to get a hold of. So we went and visited her and her kids. She has a nonmember husband and 3 kids who aren't members either but she wants them to start getting involved in Young Men and Young Women activities. Yay, good for them! There is one little tricky part though......we found out on Sunday that the ward boundaries were redone. So the area that they live in is going to be moved into another ward. Sad huh? We have a lot of great members who are leaving our ward, but good thing the church is the same everywhere in the world. And the elders in that ward better take good care of this less-active family! haha, they better make sure that they get to church! :)
On Monday, we had another pretty cool experience at a less-active members home. Sister Gholson and her 2 kids come to sacrament meeting every now and then. Her husband is a truck driver and is gone a lot! When he is gone, she is pretty faithful in coming, but when he's there, she doesn't come to church. Anyway, back to the point of the story, when her husband, Dave, is home and we come to visit, he usually just leaves the room and says he doesn't do that "church" thing. He's a very nice guy and likes us a lot but just doesn't like to sit in. Well on Monday, we were teaching and he came home and just sat down with us! Wow, we didn't quite know how to take it. He told us to go on with our lesson and then he started asking a lot of questions. Then we of course invited everyone to church and Sister Gholson started to make some excuses and Dave said, "No, you will be going to church this week! In fact, we will ALL be going to church this week!" hahahaha, so he invited himself to go to church! :) He went from not doing the "church" thing, to inviting himself to go. It was pretty cool. Hopefully he sticks with his word and comes! We'd love to see him there!
All else is going pretty well. Cody is still hangin in there and still is set with his baptismal date! He came to church last sunday and really liked it! Oh, and his friend that he works with who is a member of our ward......they are now dating. How cute! Well, I hope everything is great for all of you! Miss you and love you lots and lots! Have a good week!
Love, Holly
Week 19 - short
August 27, 2009
his will be a short email. Sad news first then good news. Sad news is that our investigator, Ron, who we set for baptism at the beginning of September dropped himself. :( He said he was going to be on the East Coast for a while and had to cancel our appointments. His wife has been giving him a lot of grief lately, so I hope that everything is ok for him! Good news now. Last sunday in church, one of the members ran up to Sister Deal and told her that she had someone for us to teach on Tuesday. So when we went to our appointment, this kid that they had for us, Cody, is absolutely golden! He's been taught by missionaries before and was almost close to baptism but a lot of things happened and he backed out or lost contact. But he works with one of the girls in our ward (Becky) and they became friends. She gave him a Book of Mormon and within a week of him having it, he's already up to Mosiah! Amazing right? He also went to the Washington DC temple grounds with Becky and said he felt so completely different on the grounds....in such a good way he's never felt before. So he is great! We just reviewed the restoration with him, got to know where he is coming from a lot and actually set him to baptism for Sept 26th. I never thought we'd be able to teach someone this amazing!
We got to see a less active family, the Meachers, at church on Sunday who hasn't been to church in a couple years. Actually, we stopped trying to visit them because we were never able to get in, except once. Then randomly on Sunday morning, we got a call from Sister Meacher saying she needed the address of the church because they wanted to go to sacrament. That was such a shock....but a good shock! And she is also feeding us dinner tonight. She really is such a sweet woman.
There is the highlights for this week. Transfers are coming up on Sept. 8 so if you're going to write to me....write to the mission office address. Or you can just wait until after transfers when I give you my new address. President hinted in interviews that he was going to transfer me to a new area. So that's what I'm planning on, but he's also been known to change his mind last minute. So we'll see. But atleast write me emails next week please!!!!!!! I'm tired of not having any mail or emails!!!
Love, Holly
his will be a short email. Sad news first then good news. Sad news is that our investigator, Ron, who we set for baptism at the beginning of September dropped himself. :( He said he was going to be on the East Coast for a while and had to cancel our appointments. His wife has been giving him a lot of grief lately, so I hope that everything is ok for him! Good news now. Last sunday in church, one of the members ran up to Sister Deal and told her that she had someone for us to teach on Tuesday. So when we went to our appointment, this kid that they had for us, Cody, is absolutely golden! He's been taught by missionaries before and was almost close to baptism but a lot of things happened and he backed out or lost contact. But he works with one of the girls in our ward (Becky) and they became friends. She gave him a Book of Mormon and within a week of him having it, he's already up to Mosiah! Amazing right? He also went to the Washington DC temple grounds with Becky and said he felt so completely different on the grounds....in such a good way he's never felt before. So he is great! We just reviewed the restoration with him, got to know where he is coming from a lot and actually set him to baptism for Sept 26th. I never thought we'd be able to teach someone this amazing!
We got to see a less active family, the Meachers, at church on Sunday who hasn't been to church in a couple years. Actually, we stopped trying to visit them because we were never able to get in, except once. Then randomly on Sunday morning, we got a call from Sister Meacher saying she needed the address of the church because they wanted to go to sacrament. That was such a shock....but a good shock! And she is also feeding us dinner tonight. She really is such a sweet woman.
There is the highlights for this week. Transfers are coming up on Sept. 8 so if you're going to write to me....write to the mission office address. Or you can just wait until after transfers when I give you my new address. President hinted in interviews that he was going to transfer me to a new area. So that's what I'm planning on, but he's also been known to change his mind last minute. So we'll see. But atleast write me emails next week please!!!!!!! I'm tired of not having any mail or emails!!!
Love, Holly
Week 18- Hershey
August 20, 2009
Hello my family!!
So not much to report to you for this week. I'm sorry I don't have a whole lot of great things to tell you this week. It's been a little rough but it'll all get better soon, atleast in a couple weeks.
So we had a great service opportunity last week. We went to serve a lady in the ward and help her with canning!!!! It was so fun and my first time attempting to can. She has a huge garden and has been so overwhelmed with too many fruits and veggies that we decided to help her out a little. So we learned how to can peaches and pickles and boysenberry jelly. It was such a great experience! And a great opportunity to be in her home because her husband is not a member so we could open him up a little more. He actually comes to church every sunday but is just stubborn when it comes to baptism. So we'll hopefully be able to break down his walls :)
We also did a sisters exchange this past Tuesday. It was soooo much fun!!!!! The sisters who are serving in Hershey came to us and we split off. I went with one sister in the morning to do some service, then we switched at lunch and I got to go teach and tract with another sister in the afternoon. It was seriously so great! In the afternoon, I went with a sister who has been out for 14 months...Sister Sonderegger... so I got to learn a lot from her. Her style of missionary work is definitely different then Sister Deals and I LOVED it! It made me excited again to have transfers come up and hopefully get to go learn from someone new. She was very good at really getting people involved in what she was talking about, asked tons and tons of questions and wouldn't take no for an answer. She says she wants to be a lawyer someday.....and she'll be a great one!
We also went to Hershey last P-day for a sisters P-day. It was way fun! Hershey is a fun little town! They have hershey kiss lightposts and a chocolate road. We obviously couldn't go to Hershey Park, but we did go to Chocolate World and got to ride on a free ride that taught us how they make chocolate. AND free chocolate at the end. Best P-day ever??? I think so! :)
Well I hope everyone is doing so good! I miss you all lots and lots and love you lots and lots!! Keep me updated, and keep staying strong! Love, Holly
Hello my family!!
So not much to report to you for this week. I'm sorry I don't have a whole lot of great things to tell you this week. It's been a little rough but it'll all get better soon, atleast in a couple weeks.
So we had a great service opportunity last week. We went to serve a lady in the ward and help her with canning!!!! It was so fun and my first time attempting to can. She has a huge garden and has been so overwhelmed with too many fruits and veggies that we decided to help her out a little. So we learned how to can peaches and pickles and boysenberry jelly. It was such a great experience! And a great opportunity to be in her home because her husband is not a member so we could open him up a little more. He actually comes to church every sunday but is just stubborn when it comes to baptism. So we'll hopefully be able to break down his walls :)
We also did a sisters exchange this past Tuesday. It was soooo much fun!!!!! The sisters who are serving in Hershey came to us and we split off. I went with one sister in the morning to do some service, then we switched at lunch and I got to go teach and tract with another sister in the afternoon. It was seriously so great! In the afternoon, I went with a sister who has been out for 14 months...Sister Sonderegger... so I got to learn a lot from her. Her style of missionary work is definitely different then Sister Deals and I LOVED it! It made me excited again to have transfers come up and hopefully get to go learn from someone new. She was very good at really getting people involved in what she was talking about, asked tons and tons of questions and wouldn't take no for an answer. She says she wants to be a lawyer someday.....and she'll be a great one!
We also went to Hershey last P-day for a sisters P-day. It was way fun! Hershey is a fun little town! They have hershey kiss lightposts and a chocolate road. We obviously couldn't go to Hershey Park, but we did go to Chocolate World and got to ride on a free ride that taught us how they make chocolate. AND free chocolate at the end. Best P-day ever??? I think so! :)
Well I hope everyone is doing so good! I miss you all lots and lots and love you lots and lots!! Keep me updated, and keep staying strong! Love, Holly
Week 17- hi again
August 13th, 2009
Hi again!
It has been quite the week, yet again! Never a dull moment on a mission. Well first let me tell you of the hard stuff before it gets to the good stuff because it all correlates together. Last week was a pretty rough week. On top of Sister Deal being pretty sick we had 12 appointment cancellations and one of our most favorite investigator couples dropping themselves. :( They have so much potential, I always said that the wife looked like she could be a relief society president or something. haha. But I know, I know, it doesn't mean we didn't plant a seed and touch their lives somehow. They'll get baptized sometime down the road. Then on Monday, we had a zone conference. We thought we were going into that with such high hopes to be spiritually lifted and to "fill our empty reservoir". But it ended up being more of a scolding to those disobedient missionaries and also how bad we've all been about our tracting and street contacting. So that just put us down even more, especially feeling terrible because Sis. Deal is always sick and we try to do the best we can. But we felt like we just weren't good enough. Well we were both feeling pretty doom and gloom until this week. We have an investigator, Ronald, who we've been meeting with for about a month or so now. I don't remember if I've told you much about him but he was a media referrel for a DVD and has let us come over each week to meet with him since. We have great discussions with him, he always has a lot of questions, and he recognizes that the Lord has sent us to him :) Well as I was teaching a principle of a lesson, Sis. Deal kept being prompted on finding a date to set him to baptism with. So she asked him if he'd prepare to be baptized on September 5th and these were his words...."You know, the Lord is really amazing. My wife leaves out of town for two weeks on September 4th, so yes I will prepare!" (his wife has no interest at all and gives him a hard time about meeting with us) but YAY!!! He is amazing, throughout the rest of the time there he kept saying "I'll keep preparing for Sept. 5th!" Wow. Satan always works his hardest before something really good happens! So I'll keep you updated on his progress towards baptism :)
Right after his appointment, we went to another appointment with an investigator named Margie. It was only our second visit and we taught the plan of salvation and she absolutely loved it all! She really liked how it was layed out for us! We also invited her to baptism.....of course when she knew it was true. She said yes she would, but wasn't ready to set a date yet. So two pretty amazing things in a row! That is seriously what we've been needing! So please keep praying for our investigators and for us!!! :)
One more prettty funny thing.....this is classic mormon stereotype! So our bishops son and our relief society presidents daughter are engaged!!!!!!! hahaha, isn't that classic??? And more.....they started dating on July 4th and got engaged on August 4th and are getting married in December. Soooooo mormon!!! haha I love it!!!
Well that's about all the excitement and drama for the week. Hope all is well for all of you. I love you and miss you! Keep me updated on everything! Love ya!
Love, Holly
Hi again!
It has been quite the week, yet again! Never a dull moment on a mission. Well first let me tell you of the hard stuff before it gets to the good stuff because it all correlates together. Last week was a pretty rough week. On top of Sister Deal being pretty sick we had 12 appointment cancellations and one of our most favorite investigator couples dropping themselves. :( They have so much potential, I always said that the wife looked like she could be a relief society president or something. haha. But I know, I know, it doesn't mean we didn't plant a seed and touch their lives somehow. They'll get baptized sometime down the road. Then on Monday, we had a zone conference. We thought we were going into that with such high hopes to be spiritually lifted and to "fill our empty reservoir". But it ended up being more of a scolding to those disobedient missionaries and also how bad we've all been about our tracting and street contacting. So that just put us down even more, especially feeling terrible because Sis. Deal is always sick and we try to do the best we can. But we felt like we just weren't good enough. Well we were both feeling pretty doom and gloom until this week. We have an investigator, Ronald, who we've been meeting with for about a month or so now. I don't remember if I've told you much about him but he was a media referrel for a DVD and has let us come over each week to meet with him since. We have great discussions with him, he always has a lot of questions, and he recognizes that the Lord has sent us to him :) Well as I was teaching a principle of a lesson, Sis. Deal kept being prompted on finding a date to set him to baptism with. So she asked him if he'd prepare to be baptized on September 5th and these were his words...."You know, the Lord is really amazing. My wife leaves out of town for two weeks on September 4th, so yes I will prepare!" (his wife has no interest at all and gives him a hard time about meeting with us) but YAY!!! He is amazing, throughout the rest of the time there he kept saying "I'll keep preparing for Sept. 5th!" Wow. Satan always works his hardest before something really good happens! So I'll keep you updated on his progress towards baptism :)
Right after his appointment, we went to another appointment with an investigator named Margie. It was only our second visit and we taught the plan of salvation and she absolutely loved it all! She really liked how it was layed out for us! We also invited her to baptism.....of course when she knew it was true. She said yes she would, but wasn't ready to set a date yet. So two pretty amazing things in a row! That is seriously what we've been needing! So please keep praying for our investigators and for us!!! :)
One more prettty funny thing.....this is classic mormon stereotype! So our bishops son and our relief society presidents daughter are engaged!!!!!!! hahaha, isn't that classic??? And more.....they started dating on July 4th and got engaged on August 4th and are getting married in December. Soooooo mormon!!! haha I love it!!!
Well that's about all the excitement and drama for the week. Hope all is well for all of you. I love you and miss you! Keep me updated on everything! Love ya!
Love, Holly
Monday, August 10, 2009
Week 16- What up!?!
August 6, 2009
Hey!
So this may be a little bit of a short email with a lot of information in it! The elders have been waiting for us to be done so I'm going to try to be fast! First a couple fun stories. First....last P-day, we were all at the church doing emails and the elders would NOT be in the same room as us. Weird. So when we were done, we went to go tell them we were done and they could use it now and they were all playing volleyball....without us! So Sister Deal kind of freaked out since we've been feeling left out about a lot of things lately. She was like " you know, you should invite us to do things sometimes!! We've been feeling like outcasts! It's hard being a girl!!!" It was really funny. So they are waiting for US now to go play tennis.
Other funny story, we had our first district meeting on monday with our new district...in which the Harrisburg and Pittsburgh missionaires are all mixed up now. So we had to start combining ways of doing things and it was soo funny. We usually would kneel down to pray and so when half of us went down, everyone else was like "oh, I guess we are kneeling". After prayer, we usually recite D&C 4 and Our Purpose all together so it was all awkward when we wanted to start that. Anyway, it was pretty funny.
Two more stories I want to tell you about people we are teaching. One named Vinny. This was our second time teaching him and we taught the plan of salvation. The subject of baptism was coming up so much so Sis. Deal went with the flow and invited him to be baptized....once he knew it was true. He said he would...but then went on to say, "do I really need to keep meeting with you or can I just talk to you on sundays?" hahaha. We told him whatever he'd like, but we'll get him to meet with us again.
We also visited with a less-active member who has been lost from the records for a long time. Cati...her mom told us about her so we stopped by and she was SOO SWEEET! We just visited with her and got to know her. Asked her if she remembered her baptism very well and she said she didn't because she was about 9 or 10 but she did remember the day she got sealed to her parents. It was so sweet, she started crying and we talked more about the temple. After our prayer we gave her a hug and she just started crying more and said "I'm so glad someone finally came." It's like she's just been waiting for someone to come from the church, but didn't know how to get us or find us. She did say she would go to church this week too. YAY!
Anyway, sorry this is written so quickly. I hope it makes sense. But I should get going. I love all of you and miss you SOOOO MUCH!!! :) Have a great week!
Love, Holly
Hey!
So this may be a little bit of a short email with a lot of information in it! The elders have been waiting for us to be done so I'm going to try to be fast! First a couple fun stories. First....last P-day, we were all at the church doing emails and the elders would NOT be in the same room as us. Weird. So when we were done, we went to go tell them we were done and they could use it now and they were all playing volleyball....without us! So Sister Deal kind of freaked out since we've been feeling left out about a lot of things lately. She was like " you know, you should invite us to do things sometimes!! We've been feeling like outcasts! It's hard being a girl!!!" It was really funny. So they are waiting for US now to go play tennis.
Other funny story, we had our first district meeting on monday with our new district...in which the Harrisburg and Pittsburgh missionaires are all mixed up now. So we had to start combining ways of doing things and it was soo funny. We usually would kneel down to pray and so when half of us went down, everyone else was like "oh, I guess we are kneeling". After prayer, we usually recite D&C 4 and Our Purpose all together so it was all awkward when we wanted to start that. Anyway, it was pretty funny.
Two more stories I want to tell you about people we are teaching. One named Vinny. This was our second time teaching him and we taught the plan of salvation. The subject of baptism was coming up so much so Sis. Deal went with the flow and invited him to be baptized....once he knew it was true. He said he would...but then went on to say, "do I really need to keep meeting with you or can I just talk to you on sundays?" hahaha. We told him whatever he'd like, but we'll get him to meet with us again.
We also visited with a less-active member who has been lost from the records for a long time. Cati...her mom told us about her so we stopped by and she was SOO SWEEET! We just visited with her and got to know her. Asked her if she remembered her baptism very well and she said she didn't because she was about 9 or 10 but she did remember the day she got sealed to her parents. It was so sweet, she started crying and we talked more about the temple. After our prayer we gave her a hug and she just started crying more and said "I'm so glad someone finally came." It's like she's just been waiting for someone to come from the church, but didn't know how to get us or find us. She did say she would go to church this week too. YAY!
Anyway, sorry this is written so quickly. I hope it makes sense. But I should get going. I love all of you and miss you SOOOO MUCH!!! :) Have a great week!
Love, Holly
Week 15 - Transfer outcomes
July 30, 2009
Hi Everyone!
Well as you all know, we had transfers this past week. Ready for the results??????? (*ahem, drum roll please)................Sister Deal and I are staying together Yet Again in Dover. Shocking right???????? That was exactly my thoughts!! Absolutely shocking. I'm not going to get greenie busted until I'm 4 1/2 months into the mission....maybe even 6 months if I stay with her til her end!! Weird, I know! But I guess we are both needed here for some reason that we don't know yet. Now since we both weren't transfered at all, that also meant that we didn't get to go to Pittsburgh :( At our last zone conference, President Summerhays told us that all the sisters would go to transfer meeting so we could all meet eachother and get to know everyone, etc etc. Well, when we got our phone call about us staying together, our district leader also told us that we couldn't go now. Sad huh? We blocked out our whole day, we even got a member of our ward to take us! We were so excited to go meet everyone. So you can imagine the disappointment we felt. Having our whole day blocked out also meant no appointments, which then meant that we had to tract all day long!!! And wouldn't you guess, it was the hottest day we've had this whole summer. Transfers were kind of a bummer but all is well now.
So two funny stories to tell you. The first is that last Friday or Saturday, I can't remember which one, I went to go take out the trash in our apartment. On the way out it scratched my leg but I didn't really think anything of it except "ouch" until after I came back in. When I got back in, I looked down at my leg and it was COVERED in blood!! What could have scratched me to make me bleed that bad? Who knows. It's been bleeding ever since too, it got me real bad! Well on Tuesday, I was changing my bandaid and sister deal came in and looked very concerned. haha, she finally fessed up and admitted "I broke a glass and threw it in the trash and that's what attacked your leg!!!!" hahaha! 4 days later, she finally tells me it was a glass she threw away! Really, that just makes the story even better!
Next story is.....Krista you'll like this one (it's a good finding one)...we were tracting last night in an apartment complex. We were talking to this man named Alan just about the restoration and things. When we brought up the Book of Mormon, his eyes lit up. He was CURRENTLY watching Glenn Beck when we knocked on his door and he told us that he agrees with a lot of Glenn's opinions and thoughts. So he is very interested in reading the Book of Mormon. He said he was going to do it that night! hahaha. Of course we got a return appointment with him so I'm excited to see how it turns out. And THANK YOU Glenn Beck for being such a great media representative for the church! I just thought there was no better timing for us to knock on his door :)
Anyway, the work is still doing really well. Things are stil rolling along. Thanks for all you do! I sure do love all of you! Miss you lots and lots!
Love, Sister LaMont
Hi Everyone!
Well as you all know, we had transfers this past week. Ready for the results??????? (*ahem, drum roll please)................Sister Deal and I are staying together Yet Again in Dover. Shocking right???????? That was exactly my thoughts!! Absolutely shocking. I'm not going to get greenie busted until I'm 4 1/2 months into the mission....maybe even 6 months if I stay with her til her end!! Weird, I know! But I guess we are both needed here for some reason that we don't know yet. Now since we both weren't transfered at all, that also meant that we didn't get to go to Pittsburgh :( At our last zone conference, President Summerhays told us that all the sisters would go to transfer meeting so we could all meet eachother and get to know everyone, etc etc. Well, when we got our phone call about us staying together, our district leader also told us that we couldn't go now. Sad huh? We blocked out our whole day, we even got a member of our ward to take us! We were so excited to go meet everyone. So you can imagine the disappointment we felt. Having our whole day blocked out also meant no appointments, which then meant that we had to tract all day long!!! And wouldn't you guess, it was the hottest day we've had this whole summer. Transfers were kind of a bummer but all is well now.
So two funny stories to tell you. The first is that last Friday or Saturday, I can't remember which one, I went to go take out the trash in our apartment. On the way out it scratched my leg but I didn't really think anything of it except "ouch" until after I came back in. When I got back in, I looked down at my leg and it was COVERED in blood!! What could have scratched me to make me bleed that bad? Who knows. It's been bleeding ever since too, it got me real bad! Well on Tuesday, I was changing my bandaid and sister deal came in and looked very concerned. haha, she finally fessed up and admitted "I broke a glass and threw it in the trash and that's what attacked your leg!!!!" hahaha! 4 days later, she finally tells me it was a glass she threw away! Really, that just makes the story even better!
Next story is.....Krista you'll like this one (it's a good finding one)...we were tracting last night in an apartment complex. We were talking to this man named Alan just about the restoration and things. When we brought up the Book of Mormon, his eyes lit up. He was CURRENTLY watching Glenn Beck when we knocked on his door and he told us that he agrees with a lot of Glenn's opinions and thoughts. So he is very interested in reading the Book of Mormon. He said he was going to do it that night! hahaha. Of course we got a return appointment with him so I'm excited to see how it turns out. And THANK YOU Glenn Beck for being such a great media representative for the church! I just thought there was no better timing for us to knock on his door :)
Anyway, the work is still doing really well. Things are stil rolling along. Thanks for all you do! I sure do love all of you! Miss you lots and lots!
Love, Sister LaMont
Week 14 - last week of extra long transfer cycle
July 23, 2009
Hi Family!
So as you can see from the subject of my email, we are in week 7.....the last week of this transfer. I don't know if I mentioned before but because of our missions combining with Pittsburgh we had to add an extra week to this transfer because they were a week behind us. Which also means that I'll be adding an extra week to my whole mission. That also means this is my last week with Sister Deal. :( It makes me sad that we have to be seperated. But I guess it has to happen sometime.
Well as for the work, we are finally starting to get some progressing investigators! Amanda is so cute, she is the fiancee of a member of our ward. She's really started to open up to us and ask questions and share her concerns, when before she was just really quiet. Probably because we are teaching just her at her house now....with her fiancee there of course. But she's sweet too, she wants to make us dinner this coming friday night and help her decorate her apartment. She doesn't understand yet that we have to be baptized by the authority in order to go into the celestial kingdom....but it will all come in time. Once she knows the B.O.M is true and Joseph was a prophet, it will all come into place. Hopefully.
We are also teaching a husband and wife, Gabe and Deb Barsanyi. I don't know if I mentioned to you before be we met them on their front porch while tracting. They are SOOOO searching right now! Deb already seems like she is a member of the church. Shares her thoughts and feelings with religion that fall right inline with us. I feel like I'm just talking to a member when we talk to her. Gabe is really hesitant about going to an organized church and isn't quite sure how he can know for sure about the truth. I guess it's hard for him to recognize the spirit or recognize answers but he is just an amazing person as well and always asks us such deep, searching questions.
I've told you every now and then how Sister Deal has stomach problems and she has a lot of health issues. Well here is a new one as of this week. She got SHINGLES! Yikes! It started out looking like a rash on her leg that was really itchy. Then it started hurting her really bad. So we went to the doctor on Monday and it was shingles. Poor girl, always has some kind of problems she has to deal with.
I just wanted to share one last thing about how awesome our ward mission leader is! We had a correlation meeting last night and he brought up to us how he knows we are working hard and he feels he doesn't do enough. So he started praying about how he can be better at helping us out and how he can be a better missionary. Well, he decided that he wanted to go visit our investigators and just introduce himself as a member of our congregation and get to know them. He is just too good to us! I'm sure, even though these people have no idea who he is, it makes them feel happy that someone is coming to show them that they care.
Well, I've said enough for today. I should get going now....I swear P-days are busier then any other day! Have a good week! Can't wait to hear from you ALL next week! :) Sure do love ya!
Love, Holly
Monday, July 20, 2009
Week 13 - Finally! Another P-day!
July 16, 2009
Hi!
You know I love the work and sharing the gospel with others, but a week and a half without a P-day can get pretty rough! haha. But it's here and I finally get to get things done!!! Well I just wanted to tell you something pretty exciting. You know how rough it has been in this area trying to get the work moving along. My goal at the beginning of this transfer was to be able to go from one appointment to another to another all day long. Well....guess what? In the last week and a half, we've been able to do that 3 TIMES! :) It's been the best thing ever! So, the work really is picking up. Thanks for the prayers you've had for us! We are working with some really cool people now too! One girl we are working with is named Amanda. I may have told you a little about her in my last email but she is engaged to a member in our ward. We have had 2 FHE's with them and the family gets really involved with our lessons! It's so fun and I really love them because they all remind me so much of you guys! They are my family away from home right now! haha. They have a 10 year old daughter that reminds me so much of Natalie too! She's so cute! Amanda has a lot of potential too! She's pretty quiet and her family is very anti, but she tells us she wants to learn more. We are going to have an appt this week with just her and her fiancee.....not the whole family. So I think she'll really open up to us.
We also WANT to start working with a man in our ward. His name is Brother Holmes and basically he is a "dry" member. His wife is a member so he comes to church every week and he gets very involved in the lessons. According to the bishopbric though, his wife is what is holding him back. She pushes him so much into church and becoming a member that I think he gets turned off by it. So we want to just start becoming his friend, let him trust us and hopefully he'll let us teach him. He already knows a lot about the doctrine (not just the principles) so I think it's just on his time when he'll get baptized. The bishopbric says he is so, so close though!
Well, I don't think we'd be able to work with so many wonderful people if it weren't for the ward here! We do this program called a Set-A-Date where we visit with the members and share missionary experiences and basically it is to get them to do missionary work. We aren't looking for referrels or anything, just for the members to get out and share the gospel too. Every person we do it with is so amazing! It's really a missionary minded ward and they do all they can to get people interested! Sooooo......I hope you are doing your missionary work too! :) I really know (and have definitely seen this transfer) how powerful members are in sharing the gospel. It's like that one story I think someone shared in conference one time of the sheep that was stuck on a cliff. Rescue workers came to help the sheep get down but it wouldn't let them save it. Until the shepard came and the sheep heard his voice would it come down. Just like missionary work, we try to come and meet people, but we are just random strangers who they aren't really going to listen to. Its the people they know and are close with that will in a sense "rescue" them. So family, share the gospel with people you know! You don't even have to do big things, just small things like giving them a church DVD, inviting them to a ward activity, sharing some things we believe with them (family proclamation), or the big things like giving a Book of Mormon to them, inviting them to church, etc. Whatever the spirit tells you :) I expect an update of what you did next week! haha jk. But you should seriously do it!
There's my plug for the week. Thank you for being such a great family! And thanks for all your prayers! I sure do love all of you! Have an amazing week! Stay happy.
Love, Holly
Week 12- Happy late 4th of July
July 6, 2009
Hey!!
So a lot of big news happened this week that I'm just going to jump right into. This past week was the official week that the Harrisburg and Pittsburgh missions combined. We got to meet President Summerhays and his wife on Wednesday and just had a little zone conference. It was mostly a question and answer session to find out what kinds of things are changing. The first biggest/major thing is that our P-days are changing. It will now be on Thursdays. So I won't get to write you until next Thursday....but that should give you all plenty of time to write to me. :) On July 28 is our next transfer day (7 week transfer in this one). They have transfer meetings on Tuesdays and are having all the sisters go over to Pittsburgh for this one so we can meet all the other sisters. Our numbers will more then double! haha, we'll go from having only 6 sisters to having 14! But it will be a fun pow-wow over there. There are also no bikes at all in this mission. It's all either walking or cars. Not that it effects me too much but all the elders have to send their bikes home. Poor guys. There is a lot of other little changes that has happened too but none really concerning my communication home :) But it will be very interesting to see how it all turns out with the missions combining. The two greatest missions coming together to make a 'MEGA' mission! :)
This week was a pretty good one. We are now starting to see a lot of fruit from all our labors. At church yesterday, we got a less-active family come to church and the boy brought his non-member fiancee with him! She's so cute, her name is Amanda. We set up a time to meet with her for tonight! We were also able to find a couple new investigators this week....so things are picking up!
We had a pretty good 4th of July too! Our ward had a big celebration at a members home. They live on a lake so they had lots of water activities (that of course we didn't take part in....but you know I wanted to!). They also had set up fireworks in the middle of the lake to set off when it got dark and all the neighbors around the lake had some to shoot off too. We had a 7:00 curfew that night so we had to miss it all but it was fun to be with the ward. They also had a lot of non-member friends that came so a great missionary tool for us :)
I'm sorry this email is so scatter-brained. I'm trying to type as fast as I can with the little time I have. I hope you all have a wonderful week though and I can't wait to hear from you next week! Love you all and miss you lots!!!
Love, Sister LaMont
Week 11 - and should we die before our journey's through
June 29th, 2009
Hi my wonderful people!!
So another week has come and gone! Even though the days have been hard, it is still going by so fast! Before I start to tell you about what has been going on this past week, I've forgotten to tell you something for the past 3 weeks now. Our missions are combining THIS week and they have a different mailing system then the Harrisburg mission. Instead they are going to have you send mail directly to our apartment....so let everyone know so they don't send it to the wrong place! My address now is 20 A Stony Ln. Dover, PA 17315
so you can send things here until I get transfered. Then I'll let you know again when it changes. And I think they were going to send the parents a letter with the new mission office address, but just in case here it is:
2589 Washington Rd. Ste 410
Pittsburgh, PA 15241
and the phone number is 412-831-7557
Ok so as for this week, Sister Deal and I did our first official split! Honestly, I LOVED it! She went and taught a less active who has children who are not baptized. She got a return appt with him so hopefully all works out and we can teach his little boy. And I went to go teach another less active family who the dad is a non member. Unfortunately they were sick and didn't call to reschedule so I couldn't meet with them. So the sister in the ward I was with went with me to visit another less active. It was just soooo nice to be able to do my thing! haha. It just was really nice to be able to take the lead myself, so I can tell I will like being a senior companion, haha.
We also found a woman this week who became a new investigator! Yay! We finally got one! Her name is Brenda and she actually called us to come visit her. She used to meet with the elders but her husband didn't like it so she had to stop. But she called us to bring a Lamb of God DVD to her and she let us have a little lesson with her and a return appt. She's so sweet and amazing! She said she has watched the Restoration DVD over 50 times and knows it's true. She does want to be baptized but is still working on it with her husband. He still won't let her do that. But we're praying that his heart is softened and that we will know what to do to help him. She is an awesome lady though! Well, I hope everything is going so good at home! I love you all and miss you all! Have a great week! :)
Love, Sista LaMont
Week Ten- Week 2 in Dover
June 22nd 2009
Hey everyone!
Well, I can't say that a lot has happened this week. So this might be a short update. The area is still pretty hard to find people to teach. We knock....and knock.....and knock....and talk....then knock some more but not much is coming out of it. BUT although our finding efforts have not been very good, the ward we are in is AMAZING!!! They are really all missionary focused and help us out in so many ways. They've given us a huge list of less-active families to visit so we spend a lot of our time trying to contact and teach these people. They are also very good at giving us referrels. Some we haven't been able to contact yet but I will let you know what comes out of these referrels. I am starting to think that this transfer will be one that we focus a lot on the less active families. A lot of them have nonmembers in there homes, so hopefully with a lot of faith and prayer, we'll be able to teach those nonmembers in the homes as well. Thats really what I'm hoping for!! haha, because our finding efforts are just not working!
Kind of a cool thing happened yesterday at church. A lady who used to live in the ward (but now lives in Nampa) came to visit and she brought a nonmember friend with her. She introduced us to her and we got to talk with her a little bit. We, of course, told her that we would LOVE to come visit her more in her home and teach her but she said she had to make sure it was ok with her husband first. She really seemed to be loving church though and soaking it all in. We asked at the end how she enjoyed it and she said she really liked it and that she "would see us again." So if that means at church, at some ward activity, or in her home we don't know. But hopefully we can teach her soon!!!!
I told you about how excited I was last week week to finally see fireflies! Well I'm still pretty excited about that! :) We were driving home one night on this road that had trees on both sides and over the top of us.....so it was like a tunnel of trees. And there were fireflies EVERYWHERE!!! Oh wow, it was probably one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen! Or maybe in the top 10, haha.
Well I should probably get going now but thanks for everything you do for me!!! Thank you so, so much for all of your prayers!!! We are in desperate need of them right now! I love you all so, so much!!! Can't wait to hear from you next week :)
Love, Sister Holly LaMont
Week Nine- I hope you know we had a hard time.
June 15th, 2009
Hi Ya'll!!
So the subject of my email has kind of been the theme to our week! haha, we read and listened to that conference talk a lot!! So let me tell you a little of how our week went. First of all, the elders who were here before us....well for one of them it was his last transfer and he was super trunky so he never wanted to work....so we hear. Pretty much we have 0 investigators. We really are starting from a completely clean slate! The week basically consisted of tracting, and tracting, and tracting. And with all that tracting, we seemed to keep talking to people who had absolutely no interest in listening to us. On this one day when we were tracting, we met this lady who first told us she wasn't interested and didn't believe in Christ but then she let us in. Then she went off about her family and how terrible they were growing up and she wrote this book about pedaphiles and was reading it to us and we tried to talk about forgiveness but she just would not hear a word we said. So we left that home feeling very.....without the spirit. The next home was a lady who was so anti-mormon that she keeps papers at door that says "what mormon missionaries don't tell you at the door" she pretty much just wanted to argue with us and we wouldn't do it so we just left. The next couple homes really just weren't very kind and wouldn't listen, so that was a bummer day. A lot of the week has been like that. So it has been hard but no worries. I'm not becoming discouraged! I am keeping up the faith and keep praying to find new people to teach. Sis. Deal and I fasted yesterday too and we went tracting last night and everyone was really nice to us! Yay, faith and prayers do work! haha. We even got to teach this one man who we street contacted and got a return appointment. I really felt the spirit strongly when we taught him and I hope he did too!! So I think the work may be picking up now! Tomorrow our district leader and his companion are coming up to our area and we are doing a tracting blitz. They are bringing people with them so they can do splits, so we'll have 3 sets of missionaries here finding people. We are so excited about that, its so nice of them to take time to help us!
Well, as for some fun things, it was Sister Deal's birthday on friday. She's 25, quarter of a century! haha, that's me in just 6 months. But our ward mission leaders wife came over at 10:00 the night before to bring over a cake and sing to her! It was so sweet! Then in the morning, I made her some banana pancakes with coconut syrup (classic) and just a little banner that said happy birthday sis. deal. I also found some birthday hats and horns at the top of one of our cupboards, so we used those to celebrate a little bit! haha. You can't let a birthday go by without doing something to celebrate!!! :)
Ok, now here is the MOST exciting thing about this week.....you ready for this? ....I saw fireflies for the first time last night!!!!!!!!!!!! They are finally out and about!!! I've been waiting for them to come since I got here! haha, I just love the flashes of lights everywhere! Maybe I'll catch one and send a picture home.
Well I should probably go now. I hope everything is going well for everyone! Have a great week! Love you all!
Love, Sister LaMont
Monday, June 8, 2009
Week 8
June 8, 2009
Hey hey everyone!!!
Ok so this week has been one of the craziest yet! Let me tell you a little about it. On Monday, we went to Intercourse, PA--Home of the Amish :) It was stinkin cool. I got a whole bunch of pictures of them and their homes and their farms...they are so interesting! We didn't do a whole lot while we were there though, p-day is too short, but we went in some cute little amish shops and went on a buggy ride. I am such a tourist! haha.
Well here's where the crazy part of the week begins. But first let me tell you how transfers work. On Saturday night, missionaries get a call from the district leader telling them who is staying and who is going....but they still dont' know where they are going. Transfer meetings are on Monday mornings and thats where he tells us. Well, on Tuesday we had interviews with President Pugh. He told us sisters in our interviews kind of what was going to be happening with transfers. He asked us "How are you and your companion" Of course I say "really good" and then he says "Good, because you'll be staying with her next transfer" Ok then!! haha, no surprise in that! He also told Sister Deal that all the sisters are staying in their areas. So we planned on staying in E-Town for the next 7 weeks...we told members and our investigators that they got to keep us. Then on Friday, Sister Deal had to call President for something and he asks "will you put me on speaker so I can talk to you and your companion?" dun dun dun....what is going on? haha, well he told us that we are LEAVING our area but staying together. Not only are we leaving but our area is closing. So we were to take the rest of the weekend to pack up and clean the apartment when we didn't have appointments so we could be ready to leave Monday morning (this morning). But we still didn't know where we were going so you can imagine us speculating all weekend long! Well it came and now we are here. :) We are serving in together in Dover...which is just a little northwest of York, PA. We just got here about an hour or so ago so we still don't know the area at all. We don't know what we are doing tonight....tracting I guess? haha. We've gotta find people to teach! But we hear that the members here are amazing! So pray that it all goes well for us! Anyway, with all that, I really can't remember a lot of other things that went on this week. We had some REALLY crazy teaching appointments....to the crazy point where we told our district leader if he would please take over our investigators! And actually that came true too. We share the ward with two elders and since our area is closing, they are taking over the whole ward AND our investigators. Isn't that funny how we had just asked him the night before? Well, time is almost out so I've gotta go now. I'll let you know how the week went trying to white-wash this area :) Sure do love all of you! Have a great week!!
Love, Holli-sister LaMont
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Week 7
June 1, 2009
Heyyyy everyone!
Can you believe I'm almost done with my first transfer?!?!? It has flown by so fast! Well, I have some crazy news for you! President Pugh called us on Saturday morning to tell us that, as we all know our mission is being combined with the Pittsburgh mission on July 1st (which is going to be a stinkin huge mission! Pittsburgh is 4 hours from where we are!). But here is the sad/crazy news. On July 1st, the whole Scranton stake is going to be moved over to the Philadelphia mission!!! Which means that all the missionaries who are serving in those areas are going to be in that mission!! Sad huh? AND!!!!!!! That means we are losing Scranton AND the Priesthood Restoration site :( I told Sister Deal what a tragedy this was, I am losing the two most important things in my life.....The Office and the Church History. hahaha, ok so maybe not the most important things in my life but two of the coolest sites in our mission!!!! I'm going to try to get President to let us have our last zone conference with him up at the restoration site. How cool would that be??
Anyway, this week was pretty good. I'm not going to lie...it's been a little hard. Sister Deal just seems to be getting sick and more sick, so we had a lot of stay in days this week. Thankfully not all day, but a lot of hours were spent at home. She's already been through all the tests and doctors and everything and they can't find anything wrong with her. She thinks she's lactose intolerant but still when she stays away from every dairy product...even things that may have dairy in them like bread, she still gets sick. So it's been really hard for her and for me. Being a new missionary...you still get a little home sick. So staying in is not a good idea for me. Although I love Sister Deal and she is a great missionary and trainer, I hope I get transfered this next transfer so I can be with a healthy missionary and work a lot more! For my sanities sake!
Well, Krista you wanted to hear some finding stories....so here is a good one. When we were doing a little tracting this week, we saw these two men standing out at their cars a couple townhouses down. We had a couple doors to knock before we got there but I could hear them say "Oh no! Let's tell them that we are christian!" hahahaha, oh the things people do to try to avoid us! So when we finally got up to them we just started chatting a little small talk and then I said "So I heard you guys say that you were christian! That's great!" haha, I think i threw them off a little. They were like "Ohh...ya...how did you hear that?" haha, I should have something like the spirit told me or something outrageous but I just said "I have great hearing!" :) Well that got there attention and we got another appointment with them. They are interesting men...their names are Stormy and Hoover and they were prison ministers! I'll let you know how their appointment goes next week if they keep it :)
Anyway, I am almost out of time, but I quickly wanted to say thank you krista for sending me a letter this week. I haven't gotten it yet but it will come. It will be so much better to read a real letter when the mail comes instead of reading the junkmail we get while my companion reads 2-3 letters a day :) Oh, and will you find out what my friends have been up to?? Becky did email me about having her baby! She's been good about keeping me updated but everyone else...I have no idea! Is Sabra engaged yet? Is Natalie getting serious with a boy? Is Katelyn or Josie pregnant yet? Is Sherri's baby going to be a boy or a girl? I need to know these things!!!
Well I hope you all have a great day! Thanks for your love and support! Can't wait to hear from you!!! Love ya tons and tons!
Love, Holly
Week 6
May 25, 2009
Hellooooo!
How are you all doing? Things have been pretty good here.....this week has been such a blur to me! haha, I'll try to rack my brain and remember what happened. Well, of course the biggest thing that happened is my first baptism!!! Joan Rios got baptized on Saturday (5/23) Yay!! It turned out really well and it was such a happy time. :) It was funny though, she is a 77 year old woman and the man that baptized her is just about her age. They have been friends for 20 years plus and he is in our ward, so she wanted him to baptize her. Well when the actual "baptism" part happened, I was praying and praying so hard that they wouldn't fall over! hahaha! I was so worried that she wouldn't be able to bend back very well and worried that he wouldn't be able to lift her back up!! Well, it's good to say that they didn't fall over at all :) Although it was very, very slow getting her back up. But it all worked out wonderfully and she's now a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints! It was also pretty cool because the week before the baptism she kept telling us that she didn't think any of her family would come. But half way during the program (unfortunately after the actual baptism) one of her sons and grandsons showed up! Atleast they came in support. It was good to see them there!
Last Tuesday, we had a New Missionary Luncheon at the mission home. They do that with all the new missionaries 3-4 weeks into the transfer, so I got to see all the elders that I came out with again and their trainers. It was great to see them again and hear about how their first few weeks. They are all awesome missionaries! I really wish I could remember more about what happened this week! I feel like the majority of it was planning the baptism. Usually the ward mission leader does that I guess, but he was out of town and the bishop is out of town. So we had to do a lot of it ourselves. So maybe thats why I can't remember a whole lot of anything else! Anyway, I'll probably have more exciting things to tell you next week! But I sure do love you all! Thanks for your support!!!
Love, Sister LaMont
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