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

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

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

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