Week 41 - DOWNTOWN, things will be great when you're, DOWNTOWN

January 25, 2010

Hi family!How is everything doing? It's pretty good here in Pittsburgh but I feel like I'm still adjusting to city mission life. It's a little rough! We have to pretty solid people we are working with right now but trying to get more people to teach. Our first one I may have talked about last time is Steve. He is soooo cool. We originally set him to be baptized on Feb. 6th, but then we found out that a ward temple trip is that same day. A lot of people are going and won't be able to see him get baptized. So when we talked to him about changing the date, he was thinking about moving his baptism date up so he can go on the temple trip too! Pretty cool huh? He's thinking and praying about it right now and we will meet with him again on Tuesday to see what he wants to do. Either way though, he'll probably go. It will just be if he goes in or goes to the visitors center that will be different. The other sisters that share the ward with us had a baptism this past weekend. His name is Brandon and he is so solidly awesome too! He is 20, going to the University of Pitt in Bio Physics or something like that. He wants to be an Oncologist when he grows up. I saw him walking down the hall at church yesterday in his white shirt and tie and he had a backpack on. He looked like such a missionary!!!! Even though he is new to the gospel, he seems like he's been a member his whole life. He's such a little stud, I want Kelsey to date him if I could get them to meet somehow, hahahaha. Sorry Kel, I'm trying to set you up with everyone!Nicole will take a little more time before she really starts progressing. We did set her with a baptism date for March 6, but she still needs to figure out of the gospel is true. But she said she definitely would get baptized once she recieves her answer. Yay! You can see she wants it so bad too. She just needs to act on it.Other then that, we have been doing a lot of finding! It can be pretty rough trying to find new people to teach, but this week all of us sisters in the city are doing a "finding blitz" and we are going to pray our guts out, try to get referrels, street contact like none other and get creative to try to find people. So please pray for us that we will all be able to find those people the Lord had prepared and who is ready for us!!! :) Thank you family! I love you all! I hope you have a great week, can't wait to get your emails next week too! Miss you!Love, Holly

Week 40 - PITTSBURGH

January 19, 2010

I'm sure you can tell from the subject of my email that my new area is DOWNTOWN PITTSBURGH!!!! Such a change from the country amish living of Lititz. It's a different lifestyle and missionary lifestyle, but it's been fun so far. Almost like I'm starting a brand new mission all over. To tell you a little bit about this area, we are serving in a Young Single Adult ward and basically just work with the young kids. In our area, there are two major colleges, University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University. Then some smaller colleges too. No more tracting either, hahaha. We walk around the colleges and just talk to the students all day long and ride the bus everywhere. Plus since we work with the young single adults, we get to go to FHE, institute twice a week, and an articles of faith class on Wednesday nights. It's so different but I am really liking it so far. Plus my new companion, Sister Sorensen is awesome! We just clicked right away and we teach really well together. There is also another set of sisters in the ward, so we basically work together all the time!! I love it. It's going to be such a good transfer. We already had interviews with President and he basically told me to get comfortable and unpack my bags because I'll probably be staying here for a while. Wow. Now as for some of the people we are working with, first of all, there is Steve. He is so cool because he found the church all by himself. The Sunday before I got here, he just showed up at church. So the sisters set up an appointment to teach him and he has been solid. He comes to institute and loves getting to know everybody. In our first appointment with him, we set him to be baptized on Feb. 6th. :) So please pray for Steve!!!!! Another person we are working with is a girl named Nicole. She was referred by a member and is basically awesome. She already lives an LDS lifestyle and gets frustrated that her friends and people around her get upset with her for keeping high standards. She feels her calling life is to be a wife and a mother and wants to feel like her relationship with God is very close. She hasn't recieved her answer about if the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith are true yet, but she'll get there. I'm so excited for her to learn more!! :)Now here is my new address:613 Copeland St. Apt. A2Pittsburgh, PA 15232I'm excited to get some good letters and packages and fun stuff!!! Thank you for all you do for me. Please keep praying for the mission and my area and that we can have lots of people to teach! Have a good week, and I love you all lots and lots! Miss you!Love, Holly

Week 39 - Transfer time again!

January 11, 2010

Hi!So transfers are here again. President called us last night to tell us personally what is happening. So, here it is, drum roll please...........Sister Ferguson is training for her very last transfer and I am being transfered. I'm excited for her to train, it is her first time and she has always wanted to train. But I'm sad too. I love Lititz WAY too much! We have a lot of great things going on here. Kyleigh is set to be baptized on the 30th, and we have the Lay children who we just started to finally teach, and some other awesome investigators we are working with and awesome less-actives that are coming back to church. This is the hard part about missionary work! Leaving everyone that you love. haha, I grow too attached to people. But I know, it's the missionary life and awesome things will be ahead too. Plus, the new greenie will come into an area that is on FIRE! :) Great way to start! Sooooo, if you send anything to me for now on, make sure to send it to the mission home address until I get you my new address of where I am. 2589 Washington Rd, Ste 410Pittsburgh, PA 15241Like I was saying earlier, things have been really great here! Greg has been so happy! You can see such a change in him! He is soon going to have an interview with the bishop to get a calling and the Aaronic priesthood, YAY! And we had an amazing lesson with one of our less-active families, the Carr's. They were married in the temple and everything but have gotten a litte lazy. We had a lesson all about covenant making and the importance of them. Then at church yesterday, sacrament meeting was all about the covenants we make at baptism and the importance of sacrament meeting. Sister Carr came up to me afterward and was talking about how much she thought about our lesson after we visited and how much she felt that sacrament meeting was just for her! I just love seeing people change their lives for the good! They promised that they would go back to the temple too. Even though I won't be personally working with these people anymore, please continue to pray for them! I love them and don't want to see or hear of them slipping back!One other thing I needed to mention, HAPPY HUMP DAY TO MEEEEE! Of course I celebrated it on Friday with pregnant belly's and everything :) Now the time is going to fly by even faster, oh man!I hope you all have a wonderful week! I'll let you know where I am and how I'm loving the new area next week! Love you all so much!
Love, Holly

Week 38 - Happy New Year!

Monday January 4, 2010

Hey guys!So there is a lot of fun exciting news to update you on. First off, Happy New Year!!!! :) 2010, we're getting very futuristic here, aren't we?!? Us missionaries had to be in at 6:00 of course, so we wouldn't get hurt by crazy people out there. So I made Sister Ferguson have a little fun with me. We popped some homemade popcorn, got some cheese and crackers and some sparkling cider, and had a game in our apartment called spinner that we played. You've got to ring in the new year with some fun right? Well, we did end up going to bed at the normal time but atleast we got to have some fun before hand. Before we had to be in, a member invited us over with one of our investigators to make some cookies and carmeled apples too. But here is where the REAL great thing comes in. We definitely rang in the new year with a bang because on the 1st is when Greg got baptized! :) YAY!!!! It was a great baptismal service too. He was so nervous when he got there, hands clammy, feeling sick. But the spirit was so strong, it was so good!! After he was baptized, Sis. Ferguson sang a beautiful song for a musical number that made the spirit in the room 10x stronger! Then I had to follow that up by giving a talk about the holy ghost. Hard to beat, but it was just a great day! Thank you for all your prayers for him! It really helped! He had a lot of adversity at him, but he was able to stay strong and stick to what he knew was true. Our other investigator, Kyleigh, is still set to be baptized. Hers has to be pushed back though because the bishop had an interview with her father and he wanted him to wait a couple weeks. Since he has been less-active, he of course needs to be worthy to baptize her. But he has a great heart and is trying to be better about coming so he can baptize his children. This is really a great family! I love them! But sadly........since it is being pushed back a couple weeks, that will be in the next transfer. So I might not be able to see it. My district leader told me today that I should bet on me leaving. I don't know how he knows or if it is a for sure thing, but I was kind of getting that feeling that I would. So expect A LOT of boxes of my stuff being sent home soon! I've gotta de-junk!Well, Happy New Year family! I love you all and miss you all so much! Have a great week!Love, Holly

Week 37 - Last email of 2009

Monday December 28, 2009
"Hi Family!This is going to be really short because I am running VERY short on time! Sorry about that. But it was really good to talk to all of you on Friday! I hope your christmas was as stinkin awesome as mine was! It was a great one, and I was very happy to get to talk to all of you! I was happy I got to talk to Kristin too! That was a fun surprise! :)We had 3 dinners on Christmas and I was WAYYYYYY full! On Saturday there were a couple baptisms that we had Greg go see. I think he really, really liked it! The spirit was extremely strong and I really think it helped motivate him to make it to his too! :) I'm so excited. Please keep praying for him!Kyleigh is still strongly set for Jan. 9th :) We visited with her and her parents on Saturday and they are ready for it. We have to meet with her a lot these next couple weeks to get all the lessons taught, so good thing it's christmas break and she doesn't have school! :) WE can get it all done. I was going to send some pictures from Christmas to you guys, but I only have about 3 more minutes left, which isn't enough time to attach. So I promise I'll send pictures next week! There are some fun ones!I love you all, thanks for talking to me the other day. I hope you guys have a GREAT AND HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!! LOVE YOU LOTS!!!!!!!!!!!Miss you!Love, Holly

Week 36- Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays!!

December 21, 2009

To My Favorite People in the Whole Wide World:

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

First and most importantly, let me tell you what time I'm going to be calling on Friday.....I'll probably end up calling at about 10:00 a.m. your time (noon, mine). I'm so stinkin excited, you have no idea!! This christmas is going to be just amazing! :) I have high hopes for it. Sister Ferguson and I are invited to a members home (The Fitzsimons) for breakfast and present opening and for phone calls. Probably lunch too. Usually they have the missionaries over all day long, but we promised other people that we would come by as well. Then dinner with another family and then we promised the Rodriguez family (who we had thanksgiving with) that we would come over in the evening. It's going to be a great day! I'm so excited to talk to all of you!!!!!!! And so excited for Christmas, haha, I love this time of year. And another great thing going on.....the day after christmas is Greg's baptism! He is finally set and finalized and going through with it! I can't wait! He is so excited to have a fresh start too. So keep praying for him! We all know this is when Satan works his hardest. But what a great christmas present for him, right? :) From the email from mom, I realized that you guys don't know much about Greg. He is 50 years old, divorced for a couple years now and has one son who is about 16. His wife doesn't let him see him though. Greg has made a lot of awesome leaps and bounds in his life! From overcoming drugs and alcohol (before we met him) and now he is completely done smoking! He really wants this fresh start, he loves church, loves the people and wants to make it a permanent thing. He's awesome. And then as for other investigators, Kyleigh is a 12 year old girl who is going to be baptized on Jan. 9 and the two kids from the less-active family (now activated) we will begin teaching after the holidays. They are in Florida, so we will start when they come back. We are also beginning to teach a man named Bobby Kennedy, who's wife is a member and his dad joined the church before he died. His sister is also a pretty active member, so we are excited for him too! I honestly love this area!!! If it was my choice, I'd stay at least another transfer, but I have a feeling I'll probably go somewhere new.
Anyway, about that winter storm we had over here. It really wasn't too bad. Bad for the first big snow fall of the year, but later on in the season, this kind of snow won't be bad. We did wake up to it snowing and it snowed all day long (I think it was about 11-12 inches and ........we were snowed in all day long :( Our district leader told us to stay in, so we had to do a lot to keep ourselves sane! haha. I've been working on some projects for lessons, put together your christmas package (it will probably be late, but it is coming), went out and built a snow man and snow angels, and went to bed way early! Man, I never want a day in like that again! Seriously, when I eventually get home, you guys are going to have to keep my busy like none other because I can't sit still very well! haha. Oh and along with the crazy snow, church was cancelled on Sunday. Luckily they had a sacrament meeting later in the day and we could go out and work. But no real church.
Sorry, I have made this long enough! I need to keep things to share with you when I talk to you on FRIDAY!!! Yay, I can't wait! I love you guys and hope you have the best christmas ever!!!!!!
Love, Holly

Week 35- no subject

December 14, 2009

Hi Everyone! :)
Thank you for all the birthday packages and birthday emails! I loved it! I think Sis. Ferguson was getting a little jealous because I was getting a package almost everyday for 4 days! haha And letters in the mail. I've been pretty spoiled with the mail lately, so thank you!!! If you want, you can keep bringing it! :) My birthday was very good! I couldn't have asked for a better birthday on the mission. It started out with Sis. Ferguson making me a pancake breakfast and then at district meeting the district leader made a cake! It was a banana spice cake, and it was the first one he has ever made! And surprisingly, it was way good. We also went out to Applebee's for lunch. They are such a good district, probably one of my favorites! Then that night, we had a Relief Society Progressive Dinner. No one knew it was my birthday, but by the end they caught wind and everyone sang happy birthday. I thought it would stay underwrap, but one of our less-actives we are working with came and she brought me a little present (mary kay items!) so that's how it got out. But it was a fun way to spend my birthday. We had an investigator come, a couple less-actives, and tons of members to spend the evening with.
Now as for the work, we had an amazing experience. Sister Ferguson and I had been reallly really worried about Greg. He had gotten pretty sick and we hadn't been able to contact him for over 2 weeks. We tried calling and stopping by, leaving messages, but nothing! At interviews, President Summerhays told us to back off for a couple weeks and wait til he calls us. You can probably imagine I didn't like that advice! haha, especially since his baptism is set for the 19th. But he's my mission president, so I decided that I would listen and exercise a little faith. We would pray our guts out that Greg would contact us. Then, this past Friday, he DID call us!!!!!! Finally, oh my goodness I was SO happy! He asked us to come over that night to see him. Luckily our other appointment fell through so we could. He told us that on top of being sick, he got antied by a LOT of people. He really felt like he was being picked on for the decisions he was making. But, he is a lot stronger then that. He decided that he likes the feeling of being at church and learning from us a lot better then the feelings he gets when he is with these other people. So he wants to continue moving forward to his baptism and to be surrounded by church people! I am so thankful for him!!! And so thankful for Heavenly Father working with him to overcome all the adversity he has had. And that he chose to follow the spirit! We are pushing his baptism back a little bit, but he's still all for it! :)
We also are working with an over-aged youth. Her name is Kyleigh and she is such a cute girl! She was actually baptized when she was 8 but somehow her records got lost and they have no way of proving the date she was originally baptized. So the bishop wants us to teach her again and baptize her. She comes from a less-active family who is starting to come back, so this should be really good for them! We are hoping that through this, we can help the family get to the temple to get sealed too! I love this family (the Walmer's) and can't wait for their progression.
I hope everyone has such a great week! Good luck with everything going on and a good holiday season!!!!!
I GET TO TALK TO YOU IN JUST A WEEK AND A HALF! I can't wait! :) Love you and miss you all. Merry Christmas!
Love, Holly