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
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Week 32- Awesome Week!
November 23, 2009
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
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