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

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

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