July 26, 2010
Hi all my loved ones!
It has been quite an adventuresome week! A lot of cool miracles and a lot of big disappointments. I'll start off with the bad news first and finish off with the good news. That seems like a good way to work it.
Sad news.......Karen decided not to be baptized :( She called us on Thursday and left a message saying that she didn't feel her testimony was strong enough and didn't want to be baptized anymore. Once we got the message, we called her back and ran over to her house as quickly as possible to talk to her. We visited with her for about an hour and a half trying to help her resolve her concerns, but no luck. She wants to continue trying out other churches and continue reading the Book of Mormon and praying. It's so sad!!! I hate when Satan gets his way! Grrrrr. Like Natalie told me one time though, I think we CAN throw Satan down and stomp him on his head with a little faith and love! :) ( I use that all the time now. Thanks Natalie!) She'll eventually come around. I don't know if it will be in the near future or way down the road. But she'll get there. She's had too many confirmations from the spirit to really deny the truthfulness of the church. I think she's just scared at the moment. Besides that bad news, we had SUCH a hot week this week, with tons and tons of humidity. It was almost a killer. One afternoon, we didn't have anything else to do to stay out of the heat, so we tracted all afternoon. Had dinner, then tracted again out in the heat. I was glad to have that day be over! hahaha. Good ol' missionary life.
Alrighty, now for some good news. We met with Elizabeth on Tuesday and had a GREAT lesson with her. When we told her about the first vision, she was like "Why have I never heard this before??" It was great :) She was excited to read from the Book of Mormon and continue learning more. She's awesome. But a little minor sad news....we haven't been able to get a hold of her since then. Hopefully she's still reading and doing great.......we'll catch up with her sometime!
Our investigator Jess is doing really well. She's a lot of fun! Her and her husband Jacob (who is a member) had a little bit of a hard/emotional week this past week but we taught them the plan of salvation and I think it brought her a little more hope. They both committed to reading the Book of Mormon together, so Jacob can help her understand and we should be meeting with them this next Wednesday. Jacob's mom, Sister Benedict (who gave us Jess as a referrel), called us yesterday and told us how she is impressed with how Jess is maturing and she is seeing a lot of good changes in her. Good! That's what we like to hear! :)
One other pretty cool thing that we experienced this week. Sister Westbrook and I had noticed on a previous progress record that sisters had visited a less-active family named the Emel's. Sister Westbrook had never heard of them before so we decided to go stop by and visit. They let us in and talked with us for a good amount of time! They are great people! They used to be very active about 7-8 years ago but let themselves get lazy and just stopped coming. They have 2 sons that are still very active in another part of Pennsylvania though. I guess they lived in a branch and he was ward clerk and elders quorum president at the same time and she was relief society president and they got burnt out really fast. And I think some of their inactivity is from being offended too. Anyway, they were tired of serving so they just stopped coming when they moved to this area. Sad huh? I know sometimes we can be over-worked, but that's when we learn how to deal with it and talk with the bishopric when we need a change. We invited them to come to church and even brought over another couple in the ward to meet them. Which they hit it off right away and they seem like they will be good friends! Yay. Hopefully we can start visiting them on a regular basis and help them come back to activity!
So good things are happening despite the challenging time too. I still absolutely love it here in State College! It's so much fun and we are (usually) so super busy! It's great! :) Love you guys a whole lot! I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU GOT MY TRAVEL ITINERARY ALREADY! Sick. Well I guess I'll see you guys soon enough. Have a great week!
Love, Holly
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Week 65 - Soooo Gooooooood! :)
July 19, 2010
Hi again!
I'm excited I got to finally hear all the updates about the reception and everything! And I'm glad it went wonderfully! I wish I could see some pictures! Tell Hayley to send me some through email! I'm dying to see what everyone and everything looked like!
Alright, some quick updates really fast.....we had zone conference again this past week and found out some exciting news!! President Pugh is going to be the new Seattle temple president!!!!! Cool, huh? I'm excited for him! And now excited to have a reason to go to the Seattle temple. :) We were also told about some changes that all missions are going through (again). Mostly just with missionary meetings. When I first started my mission, we had zone conference and interviews every transfer. Then in October when we had mission tour, Elder C. Scott Grow changed it to having zone conference and interviews monthly. Now it will be changed to having it quarterly. Only 4 times a year. Crazy huh?? So for sisters, they will only have 6 opportunities for zone conferences and president interviews! I'm so glad I got more then that! haha. They are starting it pretty much right now too, but luckily President Summerhays has already planned for an August zone conference. So at least I get one more! :) But my last interview will be next week.....until the exit interview. Yikes! Then they are also adding in Leadership training meetings for zone leaders, district leaders, and some sisters that will happen every other month. And they will last for 2 days. It's going to be interesting to see how this all works out!
Now for the real fun stuff! The work that is going on here! It is GREAT! Karen's baptism will be this upcoming Saturday! They announced it in church yesterday and she was just beaming! She's excited. When we visited with her this week, she said that she has been feeling a little depressed. Since she gave up coffee, she hasn't been having that 'pick-me-up' and her body is trying to adjust back to normal. In a moment of depression, she was going to give in and just drink some, but then she reminded herself that she REALLY wanted to be baptized and that would stop her if she drank it. So she stayed strong and is moving forward! She's great.
We received a member referral this past week! A lady in our ward has a daughter-in-law, Jess, who has been against organized religion for most of her life. She just had a cute baby girl though and realized that she wants religion in her family. So she asked to meet with us and she's pretty much set on joining. :) We had a great first lesson with her and talked all about how the gospel blesses families. It was perfect! I guess she had a discussion with her own mom about the church and her mom told her to not take the lessons. But Jess is set on it and is going to do what she wants! Another great thing that goes along with Jess learning about the gospel is that HER sister-in-law is coming in on it too! Her name is Amber. Amber formerly had all the lessons and was set to be baptized but things came up and she fell away. But Jess is sort of bringing her back around! It's a beautiful thing! I love this gospel so much!
As for Chuck, it's still pretty much the same old-same old. He was pretty sick yesterday so he didn't come to church. But Megan (his fiancée who is a member) invited his mom to church to listen to her Relief Society lesson and she said that she was interested in coming. Unfortunately she didn't come.....but that is a step forward. His mom wasn't opposed to coming. Maybe she has just been feeling left out because Chuck doesn't tell her anything so she gets mad at the church for it. Hopefully her heart will start softening and she'll come around.
We stopped by that one girl I told you about last week, Elizabeth, who is living in a former investigators home and wants us to teach her more. We stopped by and things were just really crazy for her that day, but she wants us to come back this Tuesday to actually sit down and teach her more. She's so cute and so sincere! She is planning a wedding and was talking about how she's having a hard time finding a church to get married in because they all charge so much if you aren't a member of these certain churches. We told her that she could look at our church and it would be for free. She LOVED that idea! haha. Don't worry, we told her about the basketball hoops and everything and she said that was OK because her fiancée loves basketball! haha. Cool. She's going to come check it out :)
And one last little thing I forgot to mention......at zone conference, Sister Westbrook and I recited the family proclamation during our scripture mastery time and President came up to us and told us that Sister Summerhays is taking us to dinner and gave us $20 again! :) Oh my goodness, I love President and I love this mission! Oh, and we found out that we are getting 4 new sisters this upcoming transfer! That's a lot!!!!! But we're so excited!
Anyway, enough of my rambling. I love you all so much! I hope you have a great week and I can't wait to hear from you next week! Love you and miss you!!!!
Love, Holly
Hi again!
I'm excited I got to finally hear all the updates about the reception and everything! And I'm glad it went wonderfully! I wish I could see some pictures! Tell Hayley to send me some through email! I'm dying to see what everyone and everything looked like!
Alright, some quick updates really fast.....we had zone conference again this past week and found out some exciting news!! President Pugh is going to be the new Seattle temple president!!!!! Cool, huh? I'm excited for him! And now excited to have a reason to go to the Seattle temple. :) We were also told about some changes that all missions are going through (again). Mostly just with missionary meetings. When I first started my mission, we had zone conference and interviews every transfer. Then in October when we had mission tour, Elder C. Scott Grow changed it to having zone conference and interviews monthly. Now it will be changed to having it quarterly. Only 4 times a year. Crazy huh?? So for sisters, they will only have 6 opportunities for zone conferences and president interviews! I'm so glad I got more then that! haha. They are starting it pretty much right now too, but luckily President Summerhays has already planned for an August zone conference. So at least I get one more! :) But my last interview will be next week.....until the exit interview. Yikes! Then they are also adding in Leadership training meetings for zone leaders, district leaders, and some sisters that will happen every other month. And they will last for 2 days. It's going to be interesting to see how this all works out!
Now for the real fun stuff! The work that is going on here! It is GREAT! Karen's baptism will be this upcoming Saturday! They announced it in church yesterday and she was just beaming! She's excited. When we visited with her this week, she said that she has been feeling a little depressed. Since she gave up coffee, she hasn't been having that 'pick-me-up' and her body is trying to adjust back to normal. In a moment of depression, she was going to give in and just drink some, but then she reminded herself that she REALLY wanted to be baptized and that would stop her if she drank it. So she stayed strong and is moving forward! She's great.
We received a member referral this past week! A lady in our ward has a daughter-in-law, Jess, who has been against organized religion for most of her life. She just had a cute baby girl though and realized that she wants religion in her family. So she asked to meet with us and she's pretty much set on joining. :) We had a great first lesson with her and talked all about how the gospel blesses families. It was perfect! I guess she had a discussion with her own mom about the church and her mom told her to not take the lessons. But Jess is set on it and is going to do what she wants! Another great thing that goes along with Jess learning about the gospel is that HER sister-in-law is coming in on it too! Her name is Amber. Amber formerly had all the lessons and was set to be baptized but things came up and she fell away. But Jess is sort of bringing her back around! It's a beautiful thing! I love this gospel so much!
As for Chuck, it's still pretty much the same old-same old. He was pretty sick yesterday so he didn't come to church. But Megan (his fiancée who is a member) invited his mom to church to listen to her Relief Society lesson and she said that she was interested in coming. Unfortunately she didn't come.....but that is a step forward. His mom wasn't opposed to coming. Maybe she has just been feeling left out because Chuck doesn't tell her anything so she gets mad at the church for it. Hopefully her heart will start softening and she'll come around.
We stopped by that one girl I told you about last week, Elizabeth, who is living in a former investigators home and wants us to teach her more. We stopped by and things were just really crazy for her that day, but she wants us to come back this Tuesday to actually sit down and teach her more. She's so cute and so sincere! She is planning a wedding and was talking about how she's having a hard time finding a church to get married in because they all charge so much if you aren't a member of these certain churches. We told her that she could look at our church and it would be for free. She LOVED that idea! haha. Don't worry, we told her about the basketball hoops and everything and she said that was OK because her fiancée loves basketball! haha. Cool. She's going to come check it out :)
And one last little thing I forgot to mention......at zone conference, Sister Westbrook and I recited the family proclamation during our scripture mastery time and President came up to us and told us that Sister Summerhays is taking us to dinner and gave us $20 again! :) Oh my goodness, I love President and I love this mission! Oh, and we found out that we are getting 4 new sisters this upcoming transfer! That's a lot!!!!! But we're so excited!
Anyway, enough of my rambling. I love you all so much! I hope you have a great week and I can't wait to hear from you next week! Love you and miss you!!!!
Love, Holly
Week 64 - What's going on???
July 12, 2010
Hi!
Kelsey told me that Jorge finally made it up here just in time for the reception!! YAYYYYY! It finally happened!!!! But no one else wrote to me about it so I am so curious to know how it all went. I want DETAILS! How is he doing here in America? Probably a ton of culture shock, haha. Poor boy. Please let me know everything all about it!
So I realized last week after I was all done emailing that I forgot to give you my new address. So here it is:
10 Vairo Blvd. Apt 245C
State College, PA 16803
Now you can send me some fun packages and letters and let everyone else know what it is so they can write to me in the last couple months left out here in PA and update me on their lives before I get home!
Alright, now I can tell you a little bit of what is going on out here. Things are going so good! Karen is still set for her baptism on July 24th. She gets cold feet every now and then but then she overcomes it and moves forward with faith. She is great. We had a lesson on the word of wisdom last time and her only addiction was coffee. But she easily committed to stop drinking coffee and stopped it that very day. I'm so proud of her :) When people let the gospel play a role in their lives, I love seeing their countenances change to become such a happy, bright person. It's beautiful. As for Chuck though, he's still doing good and wants to be baptized. He didn't make it to his baptism date this past Saturday though because he didn't ever talk to his mom about it. So we visited with him last night and set him with a new date of August 14th and committed him to just sit down with his mom this week and just talk to her about some of the things we believe in. Megan (chuck's fiancee who is a member) is teaching Relief Society next week too, so she's going to invite his mom to church. I never ever thought that this would be the issue I saw the most out on my mission....parents who don't let their adult children be baptized. It's a huge stumbling block in people's progressions, understandably. Children love their parents so they want to respect them, but that goes for each individual. So parents should respect the children too, especially when it's for so great a cause. Sometimes I just wish I could just stand on rooftops and clear up all confusions that people have about the church and everyone would believe me. Too bad it doesn't work that way though.
Here is my last story for the week. As I was doing my personal study this past week and during our weekly planning, I felt that we should look up some former investigators to stop by and see if they are interested again. I really, really, really want to find, teach, and baptize a family before the end of my mission so I was trying to look up all the families that have been taught. We stopped by a lot and they weren't home, a lot had moved, and we stopped by one house that I had actually starred in my notes because I felt so good about it, had moved as well. But the lady who answered the door was SO friendly to us! She talked to us for a long time and her son actually told us that he had seen us before. I guess the sisters had tracted into his grandma's house a little while ago when he was there and he remembered. Anyway, as we were talking about the church, she told us that she has been looking for a church herself. (Her name is Elizabeth by the way) She has gotten on this website called beliefnet or something like that and took a quiz about the things she believes in and it gave her a list of different churches that matched up with her beliefs. Ours was on her list!!!! She was going through and studying about the churches on her list but hadn't gotten to ours yet. So we got her information so we can teach her more! She seemed pretty excited about it too. I'm pretty excited about it! I'm praying that this is legit and that she sincerely investigates!!! That would be an amazingly awesome story!
Well, please let me know everything that is going on at home! I hate not knowing how things are going! Have an awesome week! Love you all! Keep being great member missionaries!
Love, Holly
Hi!
Kelsey told me that Jorge finally made it up here just in time for the reception!! YAYYYYY! It finally happened!!!! But no one else wrote to me about it so I am so curious to know how it all went. I want DETAILS! How is he doing here in America? Probably a ton of culture shock, haha. Poor boy. Please let me know everything all about it!
So I realized last week after I was all done emailing that I forgot to give you my new address. So here it is:
10 Vairo Blvd. Apt 245C
State College, PA 16803
Now you can send me some fun packages and letters and let everyone else know what it is so they can write to me in the last couple months left out here in PA and update me on their lives before I get home!
Alright, now I can tell you a little bit of what is going on out here. Things are going so good! Karen is still set for her baptism on July 24th. She gets cold feet every now and then but then she overcomes it and moves forward with faith. She is great. We had a lesson on the word of wisdom last time and her only addiction was coffee. But she easily committed to stop drinking coffee and stopped it that very day. I'm so proud of her :) When people let the gospel play a role in their lives, I love seeing their countenances change to become such a happy, bright person. It's beautiful. As for Chuck though, he's still doing good and wants to be baptized. He didn't make it to his baptism date this past Saturday though because he didn't ever talk to his mom about it. So we visited with him last night and set him with a new date of August 14th and committed him to just sit down with his mom this week and just talk to her about some of the things we believe in. Megan (chuck's fiancee who is a member) is teaching Relief Society next week too, so she's going to invite his mom to church. I never ever thought that this would be the issue I saw the most out on my mission....parents who don't let their adult children be baptized. It's a huge stumbling block in people's progressions, understandably. Children love their parents so they want to respect them, but that goes for each individual. So parents should respect the children too, especially when it's for so great a cause. Sometimes I just wish I could just stand on rooftops and clear up all confusions that people have about the church and everyone would believe me. Too bad it doesn't work that way though.
Here is my last story for the week. As I was doing my personal study this past week and during our weekly planning, I felt that we should look up some former investigators to stop by and see if they are interested again. I really, really, really want to find, teach, and baptize a family before the end of my mission so I was trying to look up all the families that have been taught. We stopped by a lot and they weren't home, a lot had moved, and we stopped by one house that I had actually starred in my notes because I felt so good about it, had moved as well. But the lady who answered the door was SO friendly to us! She talked to us for a long time and her son actually told us that he had seen us before. I guess the sisters had tracted into his grandma's house a little while ago when he was there and he remembered. Anyway, as we were talking about the church, she told us that she has been looking for a church herself. (Her name is Elizabeth by the way) She has gotten on this website called beliefnet or something like that and took a quiz about the things she believes in and it gave her a list of different churches that matched up with her beliefs. Ours was on her list!!!! She was going through and studying about the churches on her list but hadn't gotten to ours yet. So we got her information so we can teach her more! She seemed pretty excited about it too. I'm pretty excited about it! I'm praying that this is legit and that she sincerely investigates!!! That would be an amazingly awesome story!
Well, please let me know everything that is going on at home! I hate not knowing how things are going! Have an awesome week! Love you all! Keep being great member missionaries!
Love, Holly
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Week 63 - State College!!!
July 6, 2010
Hello again!
How is everyone doing? Well, I sure did get transferred and it turned out exactly as I was hoping and praying for! I am now in State College (home of Penn State) serving with Sister Westbrook again!!!!! It is SOOO much fun! We were both praying to serve with eachother again and the Lord answered our prayers. This is her last transfer now! Crazy huh? Two oldies serving together, but I am grateful. There is another set of sisters that serves here too and they are both pretty young in the mission. President is doing that on purpose. He wants all these newer young missionaries to gain leadership experiences quickly so he can have good leaders all throughout the mission. There are TONS of missionaries going home this upcoming transfer so the majority of the mission is fairly young. The other sisters think it's crazy but I like the way its going! haha. Well, let me tell you a little bit about State College. We serve in a family ward and a university branch......our Sundays are super busy! I don't know how missionaries do it in Utah! I was exhausted on Sunday. But everyone around her is soo sweet and kind. This place is a little bit of the best of both worlds on my mission so far. I get the countryside again and we see a little bit of Amish people again :) And we also get to be around the young single adults and work on campus. So it is a mixture of my whole mission in one area. I LOVE it! Let's see, what else can I tell you.....the work here is going great. There is a lot of great potential with the people the sisters have been working with. We were able to set one lady, Karen Rath, with a baptism date this past week. She is set to be baptized on July 24th. Pray for her please! Her's is a little bit of an interesting story. She actually investigated in the 80's but didn't get very far with it. She ended up joining many different churches over the years, I guess none of them were really fitting her needs. She joined a Mennonite church and it's the longest she's been in a church her whole life, which has been 5 years. Missionaries tracted into her about a year ago, but she wasn't ready for it then. Then the sisters stopped by a couple months ago and I guess she was just ready for it now! :) She completely believes that the church is true and she knows she wants to be baptized. She expresses one concern though of her making sure she's doing it for the right reasons. She feels although she knows it's true, she doesn't want to do it for other reasons, like for friends and socializing. But in our lessons, the spirit is amazingly strong and you can see the light in her eyes. She's great!
We also have another kid named Chuck who is supposed to get baptized this upcoming Saturday. Not sure if it's going to happen though. He's a young 20 year old boy who is engaged to a member of the ward. He was actually supposed to get baptized in May but he hadn't told his mom until the night before. So she got mad at him and told him to push it back. So he pushed it back but his mom is still not very happy about him joining the church so he's thinking about pushing it back even more. Who knows, but if you want to pray for Chuck to gain strength to move forward, that would be wonderful! :) haha, thank you!
The 4th of July was fun too! Supposedly State College has fireworks that are 2nd best in the nation. So we were super stoked to see these fireworks! Down at the Stadium they were having festivities and they had a HUGE cake that people could eat for free. We thought it would be a great idea to go contacting down there and talk to lots of people and get free cake too. But I made a mistake.......I forgot to bring my proselyting stuff with me (usually to church, I just bring a little church bag and my scriptures, etc) so I didn't have many pass-along cards or pamphlets or anything. So we had to go home so I could get that and our house is forever away from the stadium. We share the car with the other sisters and they had the car that day, so we didn't quite make it down there :( And then we went to the others sisters house to watch the fireworks because they have a big open back yard at the place they stay at and we thought it would be perfect to see them. But when they started going off, I guess we were too far away and we could only see about the top 1/3 of the fireworks over the treeline. Bummer! So it wasn't exactly what we were expecting, but I have to admit, it was a lot better then last year! I didn't get to see any fireworks last year!
Well, I am loving this area and I am so excited to be here! It's going to be a great 3 months ahead of me!! :) I love you all lots and can't wait to to hear how the reception went and everything. I'll be praying that it goes well and I will be there in spirit! Have a great week! Stay safe and happy!
Love, Holly
How is everyone doing? Well, I sure did get transferred and it turned out exactly as I was hoping and praying for! I am now in State College (home of Penn State) serving with Sister Westbrook again!!!!! It is SOOO much fun! We were both praying to serve with eachother again and the Lord answered our prayers. This is her last transfer now! Crazy huh? Two oldies serving together, but I am grateful. There is another set of sisters that serves here too and they are both pretty young in the mission. President is doing that on purpose. He wants all these newer young missionaries to gain leadership experiences quickly so he can have good leaders all throughout the mission. There are TONS of missionaries going home this upcoming transfer so the majority of the mission is fairly young. The other sisters think it's crazy but I like the way its going! haha. Well, let me tell you a little bit about State College. We serve in a family ward and a university branch......our Sundays are super busy! I don't know how missionaries do it in Utah! I was exhausted on Sunday. But everyone around her is soo sweet and kind. This place is a little bit of the best of both worlds on my mission so far. I get the countryside again and we see a little bit of Amish people again :) And we also get to be around the young single adults and work on campus. So it is a mixture of my whole mission in one area. I LOVE it! Let's see, what else can I tell you.....the work here is going great. There is a lot of great potential with the people the sisters have been working with. We were able to set one lady, Karen Rath, with a baptism date this past week. She is set to be baptized on July 24th. Pray for her please! Her's is a little bit of an interesting story. She actually investigated in the 80's but didn't get very far with it. She ended up joining many different churches over the years, I guess none of them were really fitting her needs. She joined a Mennonite church and it's the longest she's been in a church her whole life, which has been 5 years. Missionaries tracted into her about a year ago, but she wasn't ready for it then. Then the sisters stopped by a couple months ago and I guess she was just ready for it now! :) She completely believes that the church is true and she knows she wants to be baptized. She expresses one concern though of her making sure she's doing it for the right reasons. She feels although she knows it's true, she doesn't want to do it for other reasons, like for friends and socializing. But in our lessons, the spirit is amazingly strong and you can see the light in her eyes. She's great!
We also have another kid named Chuck who is supposed to get baptized this upcoming Saturday. Not sure if it's going to happen though. He's a young 20 year old boy who is engaged to a member of the ward. He was actually supposed to get baptized in May but he hadn't told his mom until the night before. So she got mad at him and told him to push it back. So he pushed it back but his mom is still not very happy about him joining the church so he's thinking about pushing it back even more. Who knows, but if you want to pray for Chuck to gain strength to move forward, that would be wonderful! :) haha, thank you!
The 4th of July was fun too! Supposedly State College has fireworks that are 2nd best in the nation. So we were super stoked to see these fireworks! Down at the Stadium they were having festivities and they had a HUGE cake that people could eat for free. We thought it would be a great idea to go contacting down there and talk to lots of people and get free cake too. But I made a mistake.......I forgot to bring my proselyting stuff with me (usually to church, I just bring a little church bag and my scriptures, etc) so I didn't have many pass-along cards or pamphlets or anything. So we had to go home so I could get that and our house is forever away from the stadium. We share the car with the other sisters and they had the car that day, so we didn't quite make it down there :( And then we went to the others sisters house to watch the fireworks because they have a big open back yard at the place they stay at and we thought it would be perfect to see them. But when they started going off, I guess we were too far away and we could only see about the top 1/3 of the fireworks over the treeline. Bummer! So it wasn't exactly what we were expecting, but I have to admit, it was a lot better then last year! I didn't get to see any fireworks last year!
Well, I am loving this area and I am so excited to be here! It's going to be a great 3 months ahead of me!! :) I love you all lots and can't wait to to hear how the reception went and everything. I'll be praying that it goes well and I will be there in spirit! Have a great week! Stay safe and happy!
Love, Holly
Monday, June 28, 2010
Week 62 - Baptism of the century!
June 28, 2010
Hello to all my favorite people in the world!
What a great, great week! And I'm sure you can guess why. Erin's baptism!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :) (I think that's 20 !'s, that's how exciting it was) There was such a wonderful spirit there, again, it was just awesome. There were A LOT of people there to support her too. After two years of waiting for this moment, it finally was able to happen, so a lot of people wanted to be there for her and I'm SOOO glad that I got to be a part of it. During her actual baptism, since it's so short, usually I'm just like "yay for them, they are baptized!" But with hers, during the actual ordinance, the spirit was just sooo strong! I felt like I was being lifted and just filled with so much joy. It was so great to see. And then when she came up, she just gave the guy who baptized her the biggest hug! She did it!!! Hooray! I just can't even express to you how great it was, despite me saying it all the time. I wish you could have been here to witness it too. President and Sister Summerhays came too. They have also been very involved in her life over the past 2 years. Whenever they would see her, they'd just give her words of encouragement and sometimes President would call us up randomly and just say "I was thinking about Erin and I think you need to share this with her to share with her mom." It's been cool. Everyone loves this girl. She is going to be such a great instrument in the hands of the Lord! I know that He has special blessings just waiting for her!
Sad news though.......I'm getting transferred tomorrow. I was kind of expecting it and preparing myself for it, but when President actually told me on Saturday night, it became a reality. I'm really leaving Pittsburgh! I was half thinking that I was going to end up dying here (in mission terms). I've really, really, really enjoyed the 6 months I've had here and have just come to love the whole ward I'm serving in. I'll miss them all so much. But I know that good things are coming ahead of me. So I'm excited to see what the next 3 months have in store. It's a bittersweet moment. I'll let you know in my next email where I end up going to and the address of where I'm at. So if you happen to send anything in the next week, send it to the mission office address. Thanks! :)
Just a little update on Sam and David. We had a lesson with Sam on Wednesday and we brought Erin with us to share her testimony and conversion story because he was really wanting to talk to someone who was a convert. Her testimony was so strong and Sam really opened up to her and asked her a whole bunch of questions. The spirit was really strong in that lesson, probably one of the top 5 spiritual lessons I've had on my mission. Then we all bore testimony of the Book of Mormon and how it brings us closer to the Savior. I'll never get to see him again :( But I know that he is in good hands with the Lord and with Sister Anderson. She's an amazing missionary and she will try her hardest to get him baptized too! Same with David. David actually came to Erin's baptism and really liked it. Then he came to church yesterday and stayed for a linger longer the ward had. He's a really social guy and just goes up and talks to everybody so he pretty much made friends with the whole ward. They love him! haha. He's getting more and more serious in his investigation with the church so I am hoping and praying that he recognizes his answer and knows exactly what to do to act on that answer. Again, he's in great hands with Sister Anderson and I can't wait to hear about when he gets baptized! :)
Well that's about all the exciting news of this week. I'm going to miss Pittsburgh. So many great memories and miracles here. I hope you all have a great and wonderful week and I can't wait to hear about all that's happening at home next week! I love you all so so so so so so much!
Love, Holly
Hello to all my favorite people in the world!
What a great, great week! And I'm sure you can guess why. Erin's baptism!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :) (I think that's 20 !'s, that's how exciting it was) There was such a wonderful spirit there, again, it was just awesome. There were A LOT of people there to support her too. After two years of waiting for this moment, it finally was able to happen, so a lot of people wanted to be there for her and I'm SOOO glad that I got to be a part of it. During her actual baptism, since it's so short, usually I'm just like "yay for them, they are baptized!" But with hers, during the actual ordinance, the spirit was just sooo strong! I felt like I was being lifted and just filled with so much joy. It was so great to see. And then when she came up, she just gave the guy who baptized her the biggest hug! She did it!!! Hooray! I just can't even express to you how great it was, despite me saying it all the time. I wish you could have been here to witness it too. President and Sister Summerhays came too. They have also been very involved in her life over the past 2 years. Whenever they would see her, they'd just give her words of encouragement and sometimes President would call us up randomly and just say "I was thinking about Erin and I think you need to share this with her to share with her mom." It's been cool. Everyone loves this girl. She is going to be such a great instrument in the hands of the Lord! I know that He has special blessings just waiting for her!
Sad news though.......I'm getting transferred tomorrow. I was kind of expecting it and preparing myself for it, but when President actually told me on Saturday night, it became a reality. I'm really leaving Pittsburgh! I was half thinking that I was going to end up dying here (in mission terms). I've really, really, really enjoyed the 6 months I've had here and have just come to love the whole ward I'm serving in. I'll miss them all so much. But I know that good things are coming ahead of me. So I'm excited to see what the next 3 months have in store. It's a bittersweet moment. I'll let you know in my next email where I end up going to and the address of where I'm at. So if you happen to send anything in the next week, send it to the mission office address. Thanks! :)
Just a little update on Sam and David. We had a lesson with Sam on Wednesday and we brought Erin with us to share her testimony and conversion story because he was really wanting to talk to someone who was a convert. Her testimony was so strong and Sam really opened up to her and asked her a whole bunch of questions. The spirit was really strong in that lesson, probably one of the top 5 spiritual lessons I've had on my mission. Then we all bore testimony of the Book of Mormon and how it brings us closer to the Savior. I'll never get to see him again :( But I know that he is in good hands with the Lord and with Sister Anderson. She's an amazing missionary and she will try her hardest to get him baptized too! Same with David. David actually came to Erin's baptism and really liked it. Then he came to church yesterday and stayed for a linger longer the ward had. He's a really social guy and just goes up and talks to everybody so he pretty much made friends with the whole ward. They love him! haha. He's getting more and more serious in his investigation with the church so I am hoping and praying that he recognizes his answer and knows exactly what to do to act on that answer. Again, he's in great hands with Sister Anderson and I can't wait to hear about when he gets baptized! :)
Well that's about all the exciting news of this week. I'm going to miss Pittsburgh. So many great memories and miracles here. I hope you all have a great and wonderful week and I can't wait to hear about all that's happening at home next week! I love you all so so so so so so much!
Love, Holly
Week 61 - And we'll have fun fun fun....
June 21, 2010
Hi again everyone. It was a great week for us. Lately, it's been pretty rough on the weekends with not a lot to do, but this week it totally changed around and it was a little rough in the middle of the week and SOOO much to do on the weekend! Ready for some stories? Good, I knew you would be.
Let's start with David first of all. As we met with him this week, we talked to him about the Word of Wisdom...which was probably a little premature because he's not sure if he has a testimony of the restored gospel yet.....but it truly was inspired because it helped us know what he needs. When we committed him to live the WOW, he said "Probably not" So that led into a whole lot of other stuff. Basically we told him that if he's only meeting with us just to learn and not to progress towards baptism, then we would have to drop him (not that harshly though) and then he got a little worried and was like "well, I want to learn more and I want to really understand this stuff." Oh ya, he also told us that he knows there is truth in the Book of Mormon but as he has prayed he feels he should stay in his church. That's why we talked about dropping him. So, since he got all worried about it and WANTS to progress, we told him to pray about if he should still meet with us, with him completely understanding our purpose. He called us later on in the week and said he really wants to understand and learn more about the foundation of the church and told us that after thinking about it for a while, he will try to live the word of wisdom. hahaha, he's so funny. He KNOWS the church is true, he's just so scared. I hope this can help him get passed it all.
We had a great day at church yesterday too! Our investigator, Sam, came to church and brought one of his best friends, a girl named Jessie. She is so super cute and they both really liked sacrament meeting! Since it was fathers day, they had to leave right after sacrament meeting, but they both said that they liked it and were excited to come back again. Yay, they also both said that they would try to come to FHE tonight to play volleyball with us (we play volleyball every monday night for the activity....I'm getting better! haha). I'm excited for them! And praying that Jessie wants to learn more about the church too. One of our members (Kira) also brought one of her friends to church. Her name is Liz. Kira has been telling us about Liz for a little bit, she's from Rhode Island and here for the summer and wants to make friends. Kira brought her to FHE last week and then Liz volunteered to bring cookies to FHE for this week. Cool! And she came to church yesterday. We are trying to get Kira to be her missionary and invite her to take the lessons. That's what we have been trying to get the members to do, to get brave enough to make the invitations. She hasn't yet, so I don't know if we'll have to step in but Liz is awesome and we want to teach her too. And then Samantha also brought one of her friends to church. Her name is Maria and she is from Pakistan. Maria has been able to see all the changes that Samantha has made throughout her conversion and she always states to her how much happier she is now and how she wants to find out why. So she came to church, enjoyed it, and told her that she wants to come again. Yay!!!! Prayers are being answered!!! I've been praying to teach some more girls, because I feel like we've been teaching so many guys lately. And now there are 3 potentials! Thank you Heavenly Father.
Last little thing I wanted to mention. We had zone conference on Friday and it was probably one of the top 3 I've had so far! In the beginning, President was talking about the last couple days that led up to Joseph Smith's martyrdom and then he sang acapella to "A Poor Wayfairing Man of Grief" Wow, it was wonderful! The spirit was so strong in the room! He gave us all a copy of his talk to us too, so now I can remember it forever! Now here's the final funny thing I'll write about today that happened at zone conference. Every zone conference after lunch, Sister Summerhays does scripture mastery with us. She says a reference, whoever raises their hand first gets to recite it, then the companionship gets a candybar each. I usually get very competitive with this! :) So we had won quite a couple candybars and then the final one came. Sister Summerhays just asked " Who wants to do something amazing?" Sister Dewey raised her hand and said "me and my companions will say the Living Christ proclamation" hahaha. so we all did (we say it every morning in companion study) and after we got done, President got up and gave us $20 and said "Wow, good job! I'm buying you lunch tomorrow!!!!" hahahahahahahaha, Sister Anderson gladly ran up to go get it! It was so funny! Good things come to those who work hard!! :) We also all got another candybar too.
It's been a great week. This next week is Sister Dewey's last week of her mission so we are praying hardcore to have the best week ever for this transfer! If you would like, please pray for us as well. Please pray that we can find 5 new investigators this week and have 5 member present lessons and stay busy all week long! Thanks for all your help. I sure do love all of you! Have a super week yourselves! And keep spreading the gospel to everyone!
Love, Holly
Hi again everyone. It was a great week for us. Lately, it's been pretty rough on the weekends with not a lot to do, but this week it totally changed around and it was a little rough in the middle of the week and SOOO much to do on the weekend! Ready for some stories? Good, I knew you would be.
Let's start with David first of all. As we met with him this week, we talked to him about the Word of Wisdom...which was probably a little premature because he's not sure if he has a testimony of the restored gospel yet.....but it truly was inspired because it helped us know what he needs. When we committed him to live the WOW, he said "Probably not" So that led into a whole lot of other stuff. Basically we told him that if he's only meeting with us just to learn and not to progress towards baptism, then we would have to drop him (not that harshly though) and then he got a little worried and was like "well, I want to learn more and I want to really understand this stuff." Oh ya, he also told us that he knows there is truth in the Book of Mormon but as he has prayed he feels he should stay in his church. That's why we talked about dropping him. So, since he got all worried about it and WANTS to progress, we told him to pray about if he should still meet with us, with him completely understanding our purpose. He called us later on in the week and said he really wants to understand and learn more about the foundation of the church and told us that after thinking about it for a while, he will try to live the word of wisdom. hahaha, he's so funny. He KNOWS the church is true, he's just so scared. I hope this can help him get passed it all.
We had a great day at church yesterday too! Our investigator, Sam, came to church and brought one of his best friends, a girl named Jessie. She is so super cute and they both really liked sacrament meeting! Since it was fathers day, they had to leave right after sacrament meeting, but they both said that they liked it and were excited to come back again. Yay, they also both said that they would try to come to FHE tonight to play volleyball with us (we play volleyball every monday night for the activity....I'm getting better! haha). I'm excited for them! And praying that Jessie wants to learn more about the church too. One of our members (Kira) also brought one of her friends to church. Her name is Liz. Kira has been telling us about Liz for a little bit, she's from Rhode Island and here for the summer and wants to make friends. Kira brought her to FHE last week and then Liz volunteered to bring cookies to FHE for this week. Cool! And she came to church yesterday. We are trying to get Kira to be her missionary and invite her to take the lessons. That's what we have been trying to get the members to do, to get brave enough to make the invitations. She hasn't yet, so I don't know if we'll have to step in but Liz is awesome and we want to teach her too. And then Samantha also brought one of her friends to church. Her name is Maria and she is from Pakistan. Maria has been able to see all the changes that Samantha has made throughout her conversion and she always states to her how much happier she is now and how she wants to find out why. So she came to church, enjoyed it, and told her that she wants to come again. Yay!!!! Prayers are being answered!!! I've been praying to teach some more girls, because I feel like we've been teaching so many guys lately. And now there are 3 potentials! Thank you Heavenly Father.
Last little thing I wanted to mention. We had zone conference on Friday and it was probably one of the top 3 I've had so far! In the beginning, President was talking about the last couple days that led up to Joseph Smith's martyrdom and then he sang acapella to "A Poor Wayfairing Man of Grief" Wow, it was wonderful! The spirit was so strong in the room! He gave us all a copy of his talk to us too, so now I can remember it forever! Now here's the final funny thing I'll write about today that happened at zone conference. Every zone conference after lunch, Sister Summerhays does scripture mastery with us. She says a reference, whoever raises their hand first gets to recite it, then the companionship gets a candybar each. I usually get very competitive with this! :) So we had won quite a couple candybars and then the final one came. Sister Summerhays just asked " Who wants to do something amazing?" Sister Dewey raised her hand and said "me and my companions will say the Living Christ proclamation" hahaha. so we all did (we say it every morning in companion study) and after we got done, President got up and gave us $20 and said "Wow, good job! I'm buying you lunch tomorrow!!!!" hahahahahahahaha, Sister Anderson gladly ran up to go get it! It was so funny! Good things come to those who work hard!! :) We also all got another candybar too.
It's been a great week. This next week is Sister Dewey's last week of her mission so we are praying hardcore to have the best week ever for this transfer! If you would like, please pray for us as well. Please pray that we can find 5 new investigators this week and have 5 member present lessons and stay busy all week long! Thanks for all your help. I sure do love all of you! Have a super week yourselves! And keep spreading the gospel to everyone!
Love, Holly
Week 60 - Fun adventures in PA
June 14, 2o1o
Hi again!
It's your favorite sister missionary! :) I'm excited to tell you all about the crazy week we had!!! Brace yourself. Just kidding. It actually was a bit of a poopy week. Our mondays and tuesdays are usually really really good days, but then the rest of the week just slides down a hill of yuckiness. From Wednesday to Saturday, we pretty much had all of our appointments cancel on us, so we had to be creative in what to do for our backup plans. I'm excited to share two of our backup plans we had, haha, it was actually quite funny. First of all, there is a girl in our ward, Amber, who we haven't been able to see at church or activities for a few weeks. She hasn't answered her phone calls either so we decided to go stop by her house and heart attack her door with cute little messages on pink hearts. (haha, such a girl thing). Unfortunately though, it was raining and her front door doesn't have a porch covering like most front doors do in Pennsylvania. So when we went to tape up the hearts, we noticed that all the messages were fading because of the rain. So I took one off just to see if there was something else we could do and here's where the adventure comes in..........her white door was dyed pink from all the hearts we put on!!! hahahahaha, oh man! We are idiots. Sister Anderson luckily had a Tide-to-go pen in her bag and I ran to all the neighbors houses trying to ask for cleaning supplies. BUT no one was home and the one man who did answer looked at me like a crazy fool and said he didn't have any cleaning supplies. Then, to add to it.....Amber opened her door and we found out that we had woken her up from her sleep because she had worked the night shift that night prior. You can imagine how terrible we felt. The tide-to-go pen worked pretty well though. We are going to go back and take a magic eraser or something to get it all off though. That was our first adventure.
The second was a girl in our ward-Kelda-has kind of a lot of health problems got admitted into the psychiatric hospital. She's doing well but every now and then she has an emotional distruption and needs to go. So she called us and asked us to come visit her. Sooooooo..........I took my first trip to a mental hospital!!!!! Oh wow, it was crazy! We walked in and there are doors and windows that seperate the waiting area and the area where the patients are. When we got in there, there was a women on one side of the window yelling at a lady on the outside. Good first impression, right? To get in, we had to ring a doorbell and tell the people we were visiting Kelda. At first they weren't going to let us because it wasn't during visiting hours, but we told them we were ecclesiastical and they let us in. But first, a nurse had to come out and meet us, we had to put our bags in lockers and we had to be scanned with a metal detector. THEN we were allowed to go in! What a process! But it was quite an adventure for me! haha.
Anyway, let me get back to some good stuff about the work. On Tuesday we met with our investigators, Sam and David. In Sam's appointment, he told us that at first going into the lessons, he just wanted to find out what the differences were from other churches. He said he soon found out though that we are a lot closer to Christ then any other denomination. So that was cool to hear. He still has some troubles knowing for sure if the Book of Mormon is true though. Then for David's appointment, we watched the Restoration DVD and he totally felt the spirit! We asked him afterwards if he knew that it was true and he said yes. haha, then Sister Dewey said, "well, you know what that means, right?" then he got all scared and tried to take it back saying he knew that joseph really thought he saw that vision. Funny kid, he's scared to move forward. He did tell us though, "Man, it's dangerous hanging out wit you three!" hahahaha, he knows it's true, he's just scared to admit it! He's super involved in his church and is scared of what will happen when he admits he knows its true. Everything will be just fine though, we'll help him understand that. And as for Erin, she is in Texas right now visiting her family. Please pray for her and pray that her mom will get along with Erin while she's home and that she'll still be strong to be baptized on the 26th! Well my family, I love you all. Have a super awesome week! Cant' wait to hear all the things going on next week! Keep up the member missionary work over there in Boise! :)
Love, Holly
Hi again!
It's your favorite sister missionary! :) I'm excited to tell you all about the crazy week we had!!! Brace yourself. Just kidding. It actually was a bit of a poopy week. Our mondays and tuesdays are usually really really good days, but then the rest of the week just slides down a hill of yuckiness. From Wednesday to Saturday, we pretty much had all of our appointments cancel on us, so we had to be creative in what to do for our backup plans. I'm excited to share two of our backup plans we had, haha, it was actually quite funny. First of all, there is a girl in our ward, Amber, who we haven't been able to see at church or activities for a few weeks. She hasn't answered her phone calls either so we decided to go stop by her house and heart attack her door with cute little messages on pink hearts. (haha, such a girl thing). Unfortunately though, it was raining and her front door doesn't have a porch covering like most front doors do in Pennsylvania. So when we went to tape up the hearts, we noticed that all the messages were fading because of the rain. So I took one off just to see if there was something else we could do and here's where the adventure comes in..........her white door was dyed pink from all the hearts we put on!!! hahahahaha, oh man! We are idiots. Sister Anderson luckily had a Tide-to-go pen in her bag and I ran to all the neighbors houses trying to ask for cleaning supplies. BUT no one was home and the one man who did answer looked at me like a crazy fool and said he didn't have any cleaning supplies. Then, to add to it.....Amber opened her door and we found out that we had woken her up from her sleep because she had worked the night shift that night prior. You can imagine how terrible we felt. The tide-to-go pen worked pretty well though. We are going to go back and take a magic eraser or something to get it all off though. That was our first adventure.
The second was a girl in our ward-Kelda-has kind of a lot of health problems got admitted into the psychiatric hospital. She's doing well but every now and then she has an emotional distruption and needs to go. So she called us and asked us to come visit her. Sooooooo..........I took my first trip to a mental hospital!!!!! Oh wow, it was crazy! We walked in and there are doors and windows that seperate the waiting area and the area where the patients are. When we got in there, there was a women on one side of the window yelling at a lady on the outside. Good first impression, right? To get in, we had to ring a doorbell and tell the people we were visiting Kelda. At first they weren't going to let us because it wasn't during visiting hours, but we told them we were ecclesiastical and they let us in. But first, a nurse had to come out and meet us, we had to put our bags in lockers and we had to be scanned with a metal detector. THEN we were allowed to go in! What a process! But it was quite an adventure for me! haha.
Anyway, let me get back to some good stuff about the work. On Tuesday we met with our investigators, Sam and David. In Sam's appointment, he told us that at first going into the lessons, he just wanted to find out what the differences were from other churches. He said he soon found out though that we are a lot closer to Christ then any other denomination. So that was cool to hear. He still has some troubles knowing for sure if the Book of Mormon is true though. Then for David's appointment, we watched the Restoration DVD and he totally felt the spirit! We asked him afterwards if he knew that it was true and he said yes. haha, then Sister Dewey said, "well, you know what that means, right?" then he got all scared and tried to take it back saying he knew that joseph really thought he saw that vision. Funny kid, he's scared to move forward. He did tell us though, "Man, it's dangerous hanging out wit you three!" hahahaha, he knows it's true, he's just scared to admit it! He's super involved in his church and is scared of what will happen when he admits he knows its true. Everything will be just fine though, we'll help him understand that. And as for Erin, she is in Texas right now visiting her family. Please pray for her and pray that her mom will get along with Erin while she's home and that she'll still be strong to be baptized on the 26th! Well my family, I love you all. Have a super awesome week! Cant' wait to hear all the things going on next week! Keep up the member missionary work over there in Boise! :)
Love, Holly
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