Week 9

Hey People!

This week was good. It was a little weird at first because I suddenly had to plan everything with my new companion, but its normal now. My companion is a really good missionary, I've learned a lot from him so far. I don't think I have too much to report though.

 

We went and saw JP again. It was exactly the same as every other visit has been with him lately. He did agree to read the Book of Mormon, if we read the New Testament though. Its funny because he's  trying to convince us that the Bible is true and we're like, yah we know. We'll read the New Testament if it gets him to read the Book of Mormon. Our other investigator, Ed has been stuck in some other city because his van broke down. We couldn't see him all week which was a bummer because I was really excited to meet with him. Hopefully he can make it home this week.

 

We also met with out investigator Chuck. I don't know if I told you guys about Chuck, but he owns an antique shop, and for months he's told the missionaries that he would read the Book of Mormon "when he has time". We were finally able to get an appointment with him to read, but he had already read 10 pages and just asked questions the whole time. It was great because he apparently has two history degrees or something and he kept on saying "its amazing how much this just makes sense and fits in with history". It's funny because thats the first thing he noticed when people usually wont pick it up at all because they think its historically inaccurate. He really likes reading it so far and he wants to read more and then have us come back to ask questions. I'm excited about him. Oh also, we met this lady tracting a few weeks ago. her name is Marie, and she said that she didn't want us to "preach" to her, but she said we can come back to see if she needs any service. Well we went back this week, and she weirdly invited us in and fed us these danishes she was making and gave us milk, and then invited us back for pies on Friday. We were a little weirded out because we thought we might have a Hansel and Gretel situation on our hands, but it turns out she is just ridiculously nice. she really likes having us over and she's also becoming more curious about us so thats great. Besides that we just did service and did normal missionary stuff. It snowed this week so that wasn't cool. 

 

Alright BYE

Elder Holt

Week 8

Hello family, friends, and other people,

SOOOO Big news. My companion was just called to be a zone leader, and he was only 6 weeks into training me. I'm pretty sad about it since it was really unexpected and I really like him, and also he was training me so I'll have to figure out how to function without him. I'm getting a new companion and he'll have to finish training me, but he's never been in this area so I guess I kind of have to lead for a few days. That will be weird. 

 

Anyways, I just got back from playing 27 holes of golf with 3 other elders. They had a deal where it was 20 bucks for unlimited golf with a cart, so of course I was going to spend the rest of my money for the month to play. It was pretty fun, except it was the worst round of golf of my life.

 

So last week was fast. We did more service, like painting and mowing and raking, we saw JP for like 15 minutes in his shop and he once again just went and talked to his pastor about everything he told us and then got a world religions book so he could read about Mormons. Its like he's doing everything to learn about Mormons and find out what we believe except reading the Book of Mormon. We have another "Bible study" (thats what he calls it) scheduled with him on Wednesday so we plan on going over the restoration again and then re-encouraging him to read the Book of Mormon. We also went over the Ed's once. We did some service for him too and I think he said we can teach him a lesson this week so we'll do that too.

 

So after we saw Ed last week, Elder Allen wanted to go see a less active lady that lived near by. She is old and hasn't been seen in a while, so we went to the address and as we pulled into the drive way we saw four really angry looking pitbulls chained up to various parts of the house. We both screamed "nope!" and then drove away. We called her house though and her number had been taken by someone else so we don't know what happened to her. 

 

So I think that's about all the interesting news from this week. I wish I had more to tell you, but I can't really think of anything else. Anyways, I love everybody, and don't be shy to write me a letter, physical letters are fun. K BYE

 

Elder Holt

Week 7

OY!

So myldsmail.net wasn't working for the first half hour of my writing time today, so I'm pretty much out of time. I'll try to write a good letter next week though! We had a lesson with JP about the plan of salvation and it went pretty good. He's still stuck on some stuff with his religion though. We'll see where he goes, we basically just said, "stop googling stuff and pray about it" so hopefully he does. We have a new investigator whos name is Ed. We were driving to someones house for dinner, and we had all 4 elders in the car, and we saw someone on the side of the road and it looked like he was having car troubles. We pulled over and he was just checking his oil for some reason, but he's a really sensitive guy and was grateful that we stopped. He said we could come visit with him, so Elder Allen and I went over there on Friday. He's a really lonely guy with health problems. he said he's open to new ideas though so he agreed to read the Book of Mormon and we thought he would come to church on Sunday, but he couldn't make it. Anyways I gotta go, but everyone should watch this video: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5FxdCgD-qI

Alright till next week!

Love Elder Holt

 

Week 6

Hey Everybody!

Once again, uneventful week. Conference was sweet, though! I loved it. It was the quickest GC of my life because I was so into it and it just flew by. I got so much out of it. Everything is going great.

We mostly did a lot of service this week and we went back to talk to JP. He didn't read but he said we can set up appointments with him right when he closes his barber shop so that's great!

I'm cutting it short this week because time is low and I want to attach these pictures.

Elder Bailey, me, and Elder Hart in front of the Provo Temple. (While still at the MTC) It was sunny so we were squinting.

Elder Hodson and I (one of my best friends in the MTC)

The is the view from the deck of one our our branch members homes. It's fall so everything is colorful. (Springville, NY)

Our sick risk game we played today.

 Alright, I love everybody,

Elder Holt

Week 5

HEY Everybody!

Weird week. Not a lot going on. I actually don't remember a lot of it. We had days taken up with service and we had a specialized training meeting that took all day too. We went back to JP, the barber shop guy, and we thought that a good way to get more comfortable with him would be for me to pay him to cut my hair. So I paid him 16 bucks and he gave me the works, which was great because I have never been to a barber. He put this hot foam stuff on my neck, and it was like a hot tub just for my neck. He hasn't read from the Book of Mormon yet, but he promised us he would read before we came back so we're gonna go see him tomorrow. Besides that though we just had random stuff going on, and we filled the rest of the time with tracting but no one was interested. We had a crazy old guy yell at us and tell us to "GET" and that was pretty funny. Most people just open the door and say "I already believe Christ is my Savior, we're (input religion) so we're all set." Anyways, sorry for the short letter but this coming week we should have a lot more going on. We currently have a big risk game to get back to at the apartment, so I gotta get going.

 

Love,

Elder Holt

Week 4

YO!

 

Hello everybody. This week flew by, because there was a lot to do. We did a lot more service. We went and shoveled out goat poop out of a pen for a less active person in our ward. It was great, but I found out I'm also allergic to goats. Add that to the list of animals I'm allergic to, which is like, all animals. Anyway, as usual I don't have a ton of time, so I'm just going to tell you about a couple of the people we've been interacting with.

 

I don't know if I mentioned this, but a couple weeks ago we went to the Springville auction, which is  right across the street from our apartment. It's like a giant yard sale and people come and set up their spots. Oh and by "we" I mean all four of us that live in our apartment, Elder Allen (my companion), Elder Knudson, and Elder Klumker. We've had to do some 4 person visits this month because we are low on driving miles. Anyway, we walked around and I asked this one random guy how he was doing, and he was like "not good".  All four of us were taken aback because no one actually says "not good" to that question, so we talked to him and he had recently fallen off a two and a half story roof, while he was roofing, and he broke a wide variety of bones in his body. He also has had a bad past with ALOT of drug and alcohol use, so he is currently trying to get off of those. Also he told us that through his recovery he's been trying to "find God" and he went to a random church that he didn't really feel right about. What a coincidence huh? So he was very open to missionaries coming over to talk to him. Since we had to split the area though, the other two missionaries took him as the investigator, but Elder Allen and I have gone over with the other two a couple times. Long story short, he has a baptismal date for November 2nd, if he can get himself off of alcohol by that point, which will be hard because he's a functioning alcoholic, but he really wants to be ready by that date and I think he will. 

 

So as I said we had to split the area because there were only 2 missionaries here but now there are 4. So basically, it was easiest for the other two missionaries to take all of the existing investigators in the area, which means Elder Allen and I have started from scratch pretty much. I actually really like that because now its not like Elder Allen knows everybody and I don't. We're both on the same level. So we have been going out and proselyting and talking to people on the street, and last week we talked to this guy sitting on a bench outside of his barber shop. His name is JP, and he has had major drug problems too, but went to a religiously based rehab for two years, and now he is extremely spiritual and even has an addiction recovery program that he runs. He was really open to us, so we taught him a brief version of the restoration, and we went inside his barber shop for like an hour and half. He just reopened his barber shop because he's been gone for 3 years recovering from drugs and he doesn't have his customers back so he had time to talk to us. He's pretty young, and super cool. We left him with a chapter in the Book of Mormon to read and we're coming back next week. The cool thing is, is that while he was talking to us, he was telling us about this friend that he has, and he was like "yah my friend he's had a tough time, he fell off a roof a couple months ago". He was talking about Christian, and apparently Christian had talked to him about the Mormon missionaries meeting with him, and that got JP curious so he had googled Mormonism and that's why he was pretty open to talk to us. Its just kind of funny (and really cool) how the Lord has people prepared. Like how we talked to Christian right as he is trying to be more open to religion. There was no way he would have listened to us before his accident. That's what I've realized more this week, is that missionary work is about having the faith to find the people that are already prepared to hear the gospel, instead of trying to just convince people. Anyway, I will try to send pictures next week. I forgot my camera. Alright, till next week!

 

Love, Elder Holt

Week 3

HEY EVERYBODY

So crazy week but also a cool week. Oh and I appreciate all the emails! I'm having problems having the time to write everyone back, so send me your mailing addresses because I have more time to write letters during the week.

My current address is:

Elder Jared Holt

366 W Main Street Apt. #14

Springville, NY 14141

Alright anyways, so I flew to Rochester on Monday. I got up at 1:30 am, flew from SLC to Dallas, got on my Chicago plane, which was then delayed so we sat on the runway for an hour. I got to Chicago and missed my Rochester flight because of the delay, so I had to sit in the airport for 7 hours waiting for the next flight. Did I talk to any strangers? No, I was thinking about it but I wasn't in the happiest mood so there you go. I got to Rochester at like 12:30 at night, where President and Sister Francis picked me up. It was great to see familiar people pick me up. (Sidenote; I don't want to forget but happy upcoming birthdays to Brookie, Audrey, and Sammy) Anyways, the next day we got up (there were 5 other visa waiter missionaries assigned to Rochester), went to the Hill Cumorah,  Joseph Smith's house, and the Sacred grove. That was a really sweet experience. Then I had transfer meeting, got my companion (who I really like) and we drove with 4 other missionaries down to Springville, New York. Its 2 hours away from Rochester, and 40 minutes south of Buffalo. It's a really small town, everyone farms, and everyone is actually pretty nice to us. I'm in an apartment with 2 other elders. The next day, Wednesday, we went to this auction (its like a giant yard sale) where they had classic east coast cider donuts. That was really, really sweet. 

Alright so basically the rest of the week was taken up by meetings and service. We had to go back up to Rochester once for a training meeting, stuff like that. We do a lot of service, because everyone around here still heats their houses with wood, so they need help picking up wood, moving wood, other wood stuff. I'm running out of time so I'm just going to write the rest of my letter in bullet form. 

-Everyone calls me a city slicker

-The sky is bigger here. I don"t know how to explain it, but its huge

-I'm out in the country, so there are pretty rolling hills and plenty of farm land

-It is ridiculously green. Not just here, but everywhere in this part of New York. Like for reals. 

-Our branch is really small. I think only 60 people show up each week

-We spend a lot of time visiting less actives, because everyone gets offended by stupid stuff out here, and there is a lot of branch drama,  so people will stop coming to church to get attention, stuff like that

-I met a lady who was baptized in our Lynnfield ward in like 1989, she knew Bishop Chopelas. 

Alright well I really have to go. I wish I could tell you all way more but I don't have time. The Gospel is true. 

Love,

Elder Holt

President and Sister Francis and I