Week 36- Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays!!

December 21, 2009

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

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