Week 70

Hey Everybody!

Sorry, it's been a few weeks. Transfer calls were this morning and 
I'm being transferred to Pittsford to serve as a Zone leader with Elder 
Ryser. 

It was unexpected since I was in the middle of training Elder Bates. 
I'm excited, but we had a sweet week and taught new people and I 
was totally stoked to keep teaching them, so I'm sad about that. 

Pittsford is over by Rochester, where I've never served before. I've 
been in the Buffalo area my whole mission and I feel weird about going 
there because Buffalo is like, my home. I know it so well and I know all 
the elders really well, and now I'm going to a completely different side 
of the mission, where I don't know anyone. I know Elder Ryser is a cool 
guy though so it should be good.

This week was way sweet though. Mostly because of one wicked sweet
appointment we had. So the other elders in our district have been
teaching this family. The mom is named Stephanie and she is being
baptized in February. She was talking to her parents who live in
our area, and she was saying how this church was different from
anything she's ever felt. She asked if her parents wanted the
missionaries over, and they said yes! So we went there and we taught
them about the Restoration and it was such a good appointment. They 
will totally be able to go to Stephanie's baptism and they have all these
family connections and its going to be sweet. I won't be here to see it
all happen though.

We got a few other new investigators this week, and we have some sweet
teaching appointments set up for this week that I was really excited
about. This areas teaching pool is growing and I'm excited to hear what
happens with the people we are working with. 

I'm sure I'll have a lot to say next week in my new area, and I will have 
pictures! I didn't get around to it this week because we didn't go to the 
library, but hopefully next week I can get those sent! 

OK, gotta get running, cya!
Love Elder Holt

Week 67

(From Jan. 5, 2015)

Hey!

Happy New Year all you crazy people. This week was good! Except I got sick all day Tuesday so we couldn't do anything, and then Elder Bates got sick all day Wednesday so we couldn't do anything either. Then we moved our weekly planning to New Years Day because we wanted to have Friday open so we could actually see people, Friday and Saturday were good! 

Our Stake is thinking about doing a once a month Sacrament Meeting in Niagara Falls because there are a lot of people that don't come to Lewiston because they don't have cars, so we've been put in charge of going through the ward list in Niagara Falls and trying to see if people will come to our mini-branch sacrament meeting. There are a TON of people on the ward list from Niagara Falls, so we've been going through every single name. It's been pretty fun though! We've been able do some finding as we go so it's been pretty productive! 

We usually park in Niagara Falls and then walk around to all the addresses that we have on 'lds tools'. That's what we did on Friday and Saturday. Saturday was crazy because there was freezing rain, so we got really wet and then all of the sidewalks were just ice. We found a new investigator though! We went to an apartment building to look for someone on the ward list, and a lady started asking about where we were from and who we were. She had recently started going back to church, so we talked a little about the restoration and she wants to meet next week! Woo! Her name is Alisha and she's really cool.

Most of the addresses that we go through have people that have moved. I would say there's a 30% chance with every address that we go to that the house has been vacant for a few years. We will go to a house and all the windows are broken and there's 3 or 4 city orders of cleanup stapled to the front door from 2011....but we always knock, haha. I'm guessing it looks really funny, and we get weird looks, because we will go up to the porch of these houses and knock when there is absolutely no chance that anyone has lived there in years, and then we'll turn around and people will be walking by giving us looks that are like "what the heck are you doing?" I can't remember if I've mentioned this but Niagara Falls is pretty run down. It has a worse crime rate than Buffalo, and I would say there are worse looking parts here than in the bad parts of Buffalo. So, yah, it's a fun time. 

That's all I've got for this week. We're going to go play soccer with some other elders today, but I don't know how it will go, because it's really really cold outside, but we're still going to try. 

OK, bye!

Love, Elder Holt

Week 66

(From Dec. 29, 2014)

Hey! 

It was Christmas this week! We did a lot of cool fun stuff. On Tuesday we went caroling with the Romero's, a family that we have a weekly dinner appointment with. Wednesday was our mission wide Christmas Eve Party, which was sweet because we never get together as a whole mission except on Christmas Eve. It was the bomb. We had a white elephant give exchange ( I got an old picture of a fish that I promptly threw away) and lunch was catered by a local Mexican Restaurant, and then we were able to just hang out. 

There was a talent show too, which was pretty cool. Elder Haines and I performed a song that I wrote about orange juice. I played the piano while he played the harmonica and we both sang, and we pretty much rocked everyone's socks off. Well sort of, haha. But anyway, Christmas was way fun. We went to a couple members houses and got fed a lot and then we skyped our families and it was awesome. Then our district went to Denny's for Christmas dinner. It was more crowded than you would think, plus they don't let you order off the normal menu, so you have to order off of their expensive holiday menu. 

The next couple of days we couldn't really do much because everyone was still with their families, so it was pretty slow. Things will pick up after the holidays are over. I can't wait for that. The holidays are like missionary kryptonite! Cya later!

Love, Elder Holt