Week 65

Hey!

So I'm training now! Elder Anderson got transferred and I went up to pick up my 'son' at transfer meeting on Tuesday. His name is Elder Bates and he's from Pocatello, Idaho. He's young, just out of High School.

Training is definitely different than what I was expecting but I'm liking it so far. 

No one could meet with us this week because they were all busy with Christmas stuff or with family. We also had a couple training meetings to go to so we didn't have too much proselyting time. We did do a little bit of tracting though. I knocked a couple doors and then it was Elder Bate's turn to do his first one, and he was nervous about it and didn't really know what to say. He knocks on the door and two seconds later this lady answers and before Bates can say anything she says "Guys its cold out there come inside!" which never ever happens. (I've been let inside only once my whole mission.) It turns out that they have good Mormon friends and that elders helped them move from Pennsylvania 10 years ago. They were super nice and we gave them a "He is the gift" card. They were pretty set in their own church though. 

Also on Saturday the other elders in our district drove up to our area and we went carol tracting. We went to Rite Aid to buy Santa hats and the employees wanted us to carol for them in Rite Aid so we did, haha. That was fun. Then we just went around to some less actives in our area to carol and it was actually super awesome. We were going to do all the less actives and then carol random doors but we didn't have time. One of the families let us in for hot chocolate so that was cool too. 

I think that's about it for the week. Last night I got the 24 hour stomach flu AGAIN, and it was horrible. Just thought you should know. Ok cya!

Love, Elder Holt

Week 64

Hey Everybody!

I don't have much time so this is going to be a quick email. Two weeks ago we had Zone conference and Thanksgiving and we helped someone move so there wasn't too much to say there. This week was pretty standard. We tracted a little bit, Visited with some less actives, and found more addresses on the ward list that have had vacant houses for a couple years. All of our investigators have illnesses so it's hit and miss whether we will have good appointments with them. We were able to give Mary a blessing though. She is so promising but she has been sick and can't meet with us. She really liked the blessing and we set a return appointment with her, but then her granddaughter snuck out the night before so when we called her she was out with the police.

We (our district) write an email every week to the ward council and just put in what we've been doing and how investigators are coming along, so I'm just going to copy and paste the paragraph we wrote about Victor.

"We saw Tony and Victor again this week. They are an interesting situation because Victor is probably the most interested and Tony is indifferent. We've been trying to figure out how to teach them without ignoring Tony, but also still focusing on Victor progress. As it turned out Tony was asleep when we stopped by so we were able to teach just Victor for an hour. He told us he's been praying to know if Joseph Smith was a prophet, but hasn't received an answer. He hasn't been reading the Book of Mormon though, so we had a really good lesson about the Book of Mormon and answered a lot of his questions, most of which had to do with why the gospel had to be restored. We committed him to read at least a page of the Book of Mormon every day so hopefully he can combine that with his prayers and receive an answer!"

Here's the picture of our second flat tire that I forgot to send two weeks ago, and then the first one too. 

k bye!

Love Elder Holt

Our 2nd flat tire

Our first flat tire

Week 62

Hey!

Elder Anderson and I got our second flat tire together this week. It was the same tire that went flat last time, so it was a brand new tire that got popped. It wasn't a shard of metal this time, it was just a nail, but we had to change it while it was snowing, so that was fun. Then we went to Firestone and sat there for two hours like we usually
do, and we had to reschedule our appointments for the day, fun stuff.

Anyway, I'm sure everyone's seen all the crazy snow in Buffalo on the news. In case you were wondering, the area where I'm in got like 4 inches. We missed all the fun stuff. Some Elders I talked to said they
were stuck in their apartment for 2 days. But we just had a normal week. It would have been cool to be in an area where all the snow is because shoveling snow for people is the greatest finding activity of all time.

This week we had a lot of good visits with less actives. We also might be teaching this less active ladies daughter and boyfriend pretty soon, and the daughter is moving a couple neighborhoods over this month so if we could help her move that would be perfect. We also had a sweet lesson with the Headquarter referral we got for the Book of Mormon. His name is Lennie and we taught him the Restoration and about the Book of Mormon. He wants us to come back and teach the same lesson to him and his girlfriend on black friday which is sweet. I
forgot where he said she is living but she's just coming into town for Thanksgiving weekend. That's about the extent of what we did this week!  This upcoming week is going to fly by because we have zone conference all 
day Tuesday. I'm going on exchanges with the zone leaders on Wednesday, and then Thanksgiving  is Thursday and other stuff this weekend. Should be fun! Cya!

Love Elder Holt

Week 61

Yo!

I think I mentioned in my last email about a sweet lesson we had
tracting a couple weeks ago with this lady named Mary and her
grandkids. Then she dropped us the next week over the phone. Well 
we decided to just stop by to see how she was doing, and she said she 
was hesitant because her pastor had told her the Book of Mormon would 
confuse her. She believed him and told us she didn't want to meet anymore 
on the phone, but then she realized that she needs to stop taking peoples 
word on it and find the truth for herself wherever it comes from. She said 
we could come back and continue teaching her and her family, so we are 
going to have another lesson with her this week! That was pretty cool.

Other than that, It has been a little slow. We've been trying to meet
with less actives that really need visits. Work really slows down in
the winter which is super annoying. It's been getting dark at 5 pm so we
can't really tract or anything when its dark, plus its been
snowing and getting a lot colder. People around here do not like to
open the door in the winter because it lets heat out of their house,
and they don't have much sympathy for whoever's at the door. 

We've been trying to work with members more so hopefully we can get some
referrals. Oh and we got a sweet headquarters referral this week for a
guy and his girlfriend that went to the Washington D.C. temple visitors center
and they requested two Book of Mormons. We called him and we have an
appointment for Tuesday, so that should be sweet!

We had Stake conference this week, so that took up our Saturday night and 
first half of Sunday because of the driving to get to the stake center. We 
went as a district to the temple on Saturday too,  which was awesome. Maren, 
who just got back from her mission a month or two ago, drove us up which was 
super nice of her. I'll try to attach some pictures.

These are my sweet new sunglasses

Our District has trouble taking functional pictures

This is how I usually report numbers on Sunday nights

Jonathan and Me

Oh and I keep on forgetting to attach the picture of me and Jonathan,

who I taught in Buffalo and was baptized a couple weeks ago. He's the
bomb. K bye!

Love Elder Holt