Hey!
We seem to always get into conversations with crazy people when we are
in train stations or on the bus. I think it's because there are a lot of crazy people
in Buffalo, and we go around trying to talk to everybody, so naturally we end
up talking to some pretty weird people.
A recurring thing that happens a couple times a week is that we will meet someone
right before we get on a train or bus, and when we get on the bus or train they will
sit by us and just be ranting about something to us really loudly which usually causes
a scene of sorts. Buses and trains are usually dead silent so whenever anyone talks
everyone on the bus can hear, and when someone is talking really loudly it gets uncomfortable....pretty decently uncomfortable. It depends on what they are ranting
about though. But yah, that's just something that happens on public transportation
as we go around Buffalo.
This week went by really quickly and it's pretty blurry when I try to think about it.
As far as our main investigators, we taught the Key Mey family again. Our lessons
are pretty much family home evening lessons at this point, but they have been helping
them a lot and they have been coming to church every week. We are teaching Mark and
Jack the last few things they need to know before they are fully ready to be baptized.
I don't know if I mentioned this, but their date is the second Sunday of October instead
of late September now. We also spent time teaching an investigator that came from
the Kenmore area. The previous missionaries have had an investigator for a long time
that would have been baptized in June, but because of on going court stuff he can't be
baptized yet. Hopefully the court stuff will be wrapped up by October.
We have a new investigator named Allen. He's a 60-70 year old man that the Kenmore
Elders met tracting, and we had our second lesson with him this week. He is really cool.
He's a super nice guy. In our first lesson he was pretty hesitant, but this last lesson he
was really interested. He asks really good questions and is really straight forward which
is funny. We told him about The Book of Mormon the first time and he was like,
"Well I guess I'm going to have to read this book!" Then in our last appointment he said
"I'm going to read this whole thing....and then im gonna pray about it!". It's just funny
when he tells us that because when he says it the man means business. We have another
lesson this week which will be fun.
Besides that though there's nothing too new. Our apartment building fire alarm went off at
4:45 am one morning this week and didn't go off for 20 minutes, so my companion and I
left the building, then went back inside because no one else was coming out and it was
raining. Then 3 fire trucks showed up and came to check it out but there was nothing.
They left and then the fire alarm went off again for another 15 minutes, then turned off,
then kept turning on and off until 7:30 am, so we didn't fall back asleep which was horrible.
Oh, yah, last thing, so Gladys Knight is coming to the Rochester Stake with her "Saints
Unified Voices Choir". Apparently she will go to different stakes doing a devotional/concert
type thing that is focused on her testimony, and the whole thing is directed toward non-members,
specifically African Americans. You can't get a ticket unless you are bringing a non member
with you....luckily we know a lot of non members, so we are bringing one of our African
American potential investigators to it. It's going to be awesome. No photography though
so I won't have any pictures.
Anyway, that's it.
Love Elder Holt
Monday, September 15, 2014
Week 53
September 8, 2014
Hey!
The Buffalo Bills won yesterday. Everyone was sure to tell me that.
Buffalo for the most part is pretty depressing. It has good hospitals,
but that is the only thing it has going for it. Except, when the Bills
win. I have never seen people so happy and friendly around here. I
also learned that there is a big difference between people being drunk
for negative reasons and people being drunk for positive reasons. We
were just walking around to our appointments after church and everyone
was just stoked. People that were barbecuing on their porch were
calling us over to talk to us, and they were all telling us how the
Bills won in overtime. None of our conversations went anywhere with
them, mostly because they were all drunk, but at least they were nice
to us. Usually people that are drunk on their porch aren't very nice
at all. Cars would drive through the neighborhood with a Bills flag
and everyone around would just start yelling "GOOO BILLLLLLSS!!!" It
was pretty funny.
Anyway, this week was good. We had zone conference on Tuesday, and
right after it ended, Elder Rawe left with President Francis and the
AP's to go home. I was pretty sad to see him go but he's going to
BYU Idaho so I'll hang out with him at college. Our zone conference was
good, and we had a training on how to use family history to find
people. Other missionaries had tried it out, and apparently it got
them in homes that normally would never let missionaries in. Me and
Elder Clinger thought we'd go try it out on some super nice streets in
the north of our area, because that's where the nice suburbs are with
rich people.....that did not go well (haha). We were all excited about
it, but I don't think I have had quicker rejections my whole entire
mission. We decided to shy away from telling people we were
missionaries because when we did that they would just immediately
close the door, so we just started by asking people if they knew about
family history, but apparently it doesn't really matter what you're
going to say, they just want you off their porch as quick as possible.
That was about the only thing that was different about the week. We
saw Mark and Jack again, and we are teaching the commandments so that
they can be prepared for their baptism. They are still excited about
it and super willing to keep any commitments we extend to them. Our
other appointments didn't happen because they canceled on us,
so we should get in contact with them all this week.
Cya!
Love, Elder Holt
Hey!
The Buffalo Bills won yesterday. Everyone was sure to tell me that.
Buffalo for the most part is pretty depressing. It has good hospitals,
but that is the only thing it has going for it. Except, when the Bills
win. I have never seen people so happy and friendly around here. I
also learned that there is a big difference between people being drunk
for negative reasons and people being drunk for positive reasons. We
were just walking around to our appointments after church and everyone
was just stoked. People that were barbecuing on their porch were
calling us over to talk to us, and they were all telling us how the
Bills won in overtime. None of our conversations went anywhere with
them, mostly because they were all drunk, but at least they were nice
to us. Usually people that are drunk on their porch aren't very nice
at all. Cars would drive through the neighborhood with a Bills flag
and everyone around would just start yelling "GOOO BILLLLLLSS!!!" It
was pretty funny.
Anyway, this week was good. We had zone conference on Tuesday, and
right after it ended, Elder Rawe left with President Francis and the
AP's to go home. I was pretty sad to see him go but he's going to
BYU Idaho so I'll hang out with him at college. Our zone conference was
good, and we had a training on how to use family history to find
people. Other missionaries had tried it out, and apparently it got
them in homes that normally would never let missionaries in. Me and
Elder Clinger thought we'd go try it out on some super nice streets in
the north of our area, because that's where the nice suburbs are with
rich people.....that did not go well (haha). We were all excited about
it, but I don't think I have had quicker rejections my whole entire
mission. We decided to shy away from telling people we were
missionaries because when we did that they would just immediately
close the door, so we just started by asking people if they knew about
family history, but apparently it doesn't really matter what you're
going to say, they just want you off their porch as quick as possible.
That was about the only thing that was different about the week. We
saw Mark and Jack again, and we are teaching the commandments so that
they can be prepared for their baptism. They are still excited about
it and super willing to keep any commitments we extend to them. Our
other appointments didn't happen because they canceled on us,
so we should get in contact with them all this week.
Cya!
Love, Elder Holt
Week 52
September 1, 2014
Sup!
This week has been a little chopped up. I was on an exchange with Elder Whatcott from my district on Tuesday, and then Wednesday we went to zone meeting and I left after that with one of the zone leaders for an exchange up in Amherst. I didn't get back to my area until the next night. So Tuesday through Thursday is all a blur, but we did stuff and we taught people, that's all I know (haha.) Sup!
Alright, cya later!
Love, Elder Holt
Week 51
August 25, 2014
YO!
The past couple weeks have been filled with a bunch of stuff, and we've been pretty
YO!
The past couple weeks have been filled with a bunch of stuff, and we've been pretty
busy working out the kinks with our area almost tripling in size. I'll try and hit
the main stuff that we've been doing though.
There's a 33 year old lady named Isabel that called us out of the blue two weeks
ago. She met with missionaries before, but because of pressure from her family
she stopped visiting with them and backed off. But then after a year of thinking
about it and reading The Book of Mormon, she decided that she shouldn't care
what her family thinks and do what was right for herself, so she called us and told
us she wanted to meet. We met her that night, and she was the most prepared person
I've ever talked to. She's read all The Book of Mormon, knows it's true, and wants to
be baptized. We met with her twice that week and she loved everything, and she
came to church and loved it too. We set a baptismal date with her, but then this week
we texted her to remind her about our appointment, and she said that she needed some
time to do some "soul searching" and she said she'd call us back when she was ready.
time to do some "soul searching" and she said she'd call us back when she was ready.
We still have no idea what happened, we haven't heard anything from her since that text.
We also contact a lot of mormon.org referrals in the city, because a bunch of people
google free bible, and mormon.org comes up first, so we always are going around
delivering bibles to the people that requested them, and we are usually able to
get a return appointment with them. We had one referral this week for a guy named
Jonathan, and we delivered the bible and he turned out to be a 15 year old kid. He said
we could come back and teach him, so we went to go see him on Saturday.
Apparently, he had requested a bible with no outside influence. His family is not religious,
he doesn't have a church that he goes to, and all he said was that he thought the bible was
a good place to start to get closer to God. We had a sweet lesson with him and talked a lot
about The Book of Mormon, and he was really excited about it and said he'd read it,
so that was pretty cool.
We haven't been able to see April, but the Key Mey family has come to church 5 Sundays
in a row which is awesome. We haven't been able to have the skype lesson with them
with one of the members from the Karen Branch in Salt Lake, but we're working on it.
Anyway, we have tons of other stuff going on. It makes missionary work fun being busy all
the time.
the time.
Oh and we also went to the temple this week, which was the bomb. Love the temple.
I've got to run.
Love, Elder Holt
Tuesday, August 12, 2014
Week 49
Yo!
We had transfer calls last night, and our district got slashed. Before last night it was Elder Rawe and Elder Detlor in Eggert, Elder Klumker and Elder Giroux in Kenmore, and me and Elder Clinger in Buffalo. We used to have sisters here a couple transfers ago so it was 3 sets covering 4 areas, but Elder Klumker and Elder Giroux both got transferred out and Kenmore is being closed down, so now we have two sets covering 4 areas. Elder Rawe is going home in 3 weeks in the middle of the transfer so he can get back to school, so Elder Eggert will be in a trio for 3 weeks, and me and Elder Clinger are the same. Elder Rawe is district leader right now, but after he leaves I'll be made district leader, so that will be interesting. So the next transfer will be crazy because we have to realign our boundaries, and we have to take all of Kenmores investigators, and we still only have our bikes to get around. It will be fun being super busy, but probably pretty stressful too.
Our week was good though. My birthday was fun. I was on an exchange with Elder Rawe, and a couple in our ward took us out to Anchor Bar for wings which was the bomb. We had a couple really good lessons, one particularly with April. I think I talked about her a while ago, but we were finally able to see her again and teach the Plan of Salvation, and she loved it a lot. Our lessons always go so awesome, but then we won't be able to see her for like 3 weeks. We should have a regular Thursday appointment with her now though. Also, with the Key Mey family, we found out there is a Karen/Karenni/Burmese branch in Salt Lake, and we were able to get a hold of them, so we can skype in a member who knows English and Karen so they can translate with the family. This is actually a super big deal, because we can finally teach them and they can actually understand what's going on. Also, on Sunday they showed up to church again for the third week in a row, even though every week I ask them where they are going to church and they say their Burmese church. I asked them why they decided to come and they never understand what I'm asking. We will have our first skype lesson with him this week which will be super awesome.
That's about it for our investigators. Me and Elder Clinger have our new tradition of "Sunday Night Tracting" which is usually pretty fun and kind of effective. Oh also, they have a General Mills Cereal factory in South Buffalo, and every couple days the wind will be blowing into the city from the south, and the whole entire city will smell like Lucky Charms. Those are always great days. But yah, that's all I got for this week. Cya later!
Love Elder Holt
Friday, August 8, 2014
Week 48
Sup!
Everything's going good here. I couldn't get an email out last
week so I guess I have 2 weeks to catch up on. I've been doing that a
lot lately because our p-days have been packed.
There is a kid in our ward named Kombi. He is 13, and he
and his family immigrated from Congo a few years ago. He is one of
the coolest kids and has been bringing his friends, Mark and Jack to
church for a couple months. The Young Men's leader took
them all to the pageant and after seeing it Mark and Jack said that they
would feel comfortable taking the missionary lessons, so last Sunday
we had our first lesson with them and it was sweet. We taught them the
Restoration and Kombi was able to sit in with us and bear his
testimony. It went well. Mark and Jack are both really good kids
that sincerely want to learn. English is their second language too but
I'm not sure where they are from. We're excited to teach them.
With the Key Mey family, we have been trying to re-teach them the
lessons in more creative ways so that they can understand better. We
taught them the Restoration using cups to build a pyramid and
represent the apostasy and that went really well. They are still
coming to church every other Sunday and we visit them every week.
We have hit a slow spot with them. The kids want to be baptized, but Key
Mey is not ready, so we won't be able to do much until we can help him
gain a testimony. That's the hard part because he can't speak English. We
are trying to figure out how to best help him to progress.
Everything's going good here. I couldn't get an email out last
week so I guess I have 2 weeks to catch up on. I've been doing that a
lot lately because our p-days have been packed.
There is a kid in our ward named Kombi. He is 13, and he
and his family immigrated from Congo a few years ago. He is one of
the coolest kids and has been bringing his friends, Mark and Jack to
church for a couple months. The Young Men's leader took
them all to the pageant and after seeing it Mark and Jack said that they
would feel comfortable taking the missionary lessons, so last Sunday
we had our first lesson with them and it was sweet. We taught them the
Restoration and Kombi was able to sit in with us and bear his
testimony. It went well. Mark and Jack are both really good kids
that sincerely want to learn. English is their second language too but
I'm not sure where they are from. We're excited to teach them.
With the Key Mey family, we have been trying to re-teach them the
lessons in more creative ways so that they can understand better. We
taught them the Restoration using cups to build a pyramid and
represent the apostasy and that went really well. They are still
coming to church every other Sunday and we visit them every week.
We have hit a slow spot with them. The kids want to be baptized, but Key
Mey is not ready, so we won't be able to do much until we can help him
gain a testimony. That's the hard part because he can't speak English. We
are trying to figure out how to best help him to progress.
Last week before zone meeting we went out for district lunch at the famous
"Anchor Bar". It's the most popular wings place in Buffalo and is apparently
where the first buffalo wing was invented. It's a place you have to go to if you
ever visit Buffalo (except I don't know why anyone in their right mind would take
a getaway to this city). We bought a hundred wings and they were sooooooo
good. The best chicken wings I've ever had. The BBQ wings were the best.
Since I'm talking about food, Elder Clinger and I also went to one of the most
popular pizza places in town. "La Nova". Since Buffalo is so big into chicken wings,
the pizza places around here make the best chicken finger pizza ever. It's
the pizza places around here make the best chicken finger pizza ever. It's
just a Buffalo chicken wing in pizza form. Really, all Buffalo can offer to people is
pizza and wings, but at least they do it right.
pizza and wings, but at least they do it right.
 |
| Elder Newold and I went down to the harbor to see these warships |
 |
| Lake Erie |
Alright, cya!
Love Elder Holt
Monday, July 28, 2014
Week 46
Yo!
So last week was pageant week! President Francis said we could go 3 times, once
with a member, and twice with an investigator. The problem is that we are all the
way in Buffalo, and none of our investigators have cars, so we couldn't go with any
investigators.
We went on Wednesday night with the Hunts though, and it was sweet! We showed
up, and all the Anti's were standing in their designated areas right in front of the
entrance. I was expecting much worse. It was kind of disappointing, there was just
one guy on a mega phone saying stuff, except he wasn't even saying anything that
bad or controversial. It was actually pretty funny, and then there were people passing
out pamphlets. We passed by them and then you walk through the entrance and
everything completely changes.
One of the Elders in my district says that walking into pageant is probably exactly like
walking into the spirit world, because the cast members are high fiving you, and there
are people everywhere and you get to see a bunch of people from your old areas, and
you can talk to elders you haven't seen in a while, and everyone is super happy. It's
kind of hard to explain, but I guess it's sort of like going into Disneyland, except better.
Anyway, I saw some people from my old areas, and I also talked to Randy Francis for a
while. That was the first time I've seen him since he got back. It was fun to talk to him.
We had sweet seats for the play and it was awesome. It was really well done. My favorite
part was the soundtrack. I'm sure you can find scenes of it on youtube so you should look
them up.
I think the coolest thing that happened this week was our lesson with April. April is
So last week was pageant week! President Francis said we could go 3 times, once
with a member, and twice with an investigator. The problem is that we are all the
way in Buffalo, and none of our investigators have cars, so we couldn't go with any
investigators.
We went on Wednesday night with the Hunts though, and it was sweet! We showed
up, and all the Anti's were standing in their designated areas right in front of the
entrance. I was expecting much worse. It was kind of disappointing, there was just
one guy on a mega phone saying stuff, except he wasn't even saying anything that
bad or controversial. It was actually pretty funny, and then there were people passing
out pamphlets. We passed by them and then you walk through the entrance and
everything completely changes.
One of the Elders in my district says that walking into pageant is probably exactly like
walking into the spirit world, because the cast members are high fiving you, and there
are people everywhere and you get to see a bunch of people from your old areas, and
you can talk to elders you haven't seen in a while, and everyone is super happy. It's
kind of hard to explain, but I guess it's sort of like going into Disneyland, except better.
Anyway, I saw some people from my old areas, and I also talked to Randy Francis for a
while. That was the first time I've seen him since he got back. It was fun to talk to him.
We had sweet seats for the play and it was awesome. It was really well done. My favorite
part was the soundtrack. I'm sure you can find scenes of it on youtube so you should look
them up.
 |
| Hill Cumorah Pageant Set |
I think the coolest thing that happened this week was our lesson with April. April is
someone we met about a month and a half ago on the street. She had talked with
missionaries before, but when they were transferred she was never met with again.
We had an appointment a while ago but she wasn't there. We decided to try her house
again since we hadn't tried in a while, and she answered and we were able to set an
appointment up for Monday night. We met with her on her porch and it started out kind
of awkward, especially because she didn't seem too excited to meet with us, but as we
missionaries before, but when they were transferred she was never met with again.
We had an appointment a while ago but she wasn't there. We decided to try her house
again since we hadn't tried in a while, and she answered and we were able to set an
appointment up for Monday night. We met with her on her porch and it started out kind
of awkward, especially because she didn't seem too excited to meet with us, but as we
started asking her questions she really opened up. She talked about how she just isn't
happy with life and we were able to talk about the Book of Mormon, especially Alma 7
(that's my go to in lessons. I think I use it 95% of the time). She didn't really have a
religious past but we testified that God is real and that life has more purpose than we
think. It turned out really well and we have another lesson with her tonight!
happy with life and we were able to talk about the Book of Mormon, especially Alma 7
(that's my go to in lessons. I think I use it 95% of the time). She didn't really have a
religious past but we testified that God is real and that life has more purpose than we
think. It turned out really well and we have another lesson with her tonight!
Besides that we just went less active hunting. That's going alright. Most of the people
on the ward list have moved. Also on Tuesday we had an AMO by the senior couple in
charge of housing, the Rays. AMO stands for 'apartment makeover', and they do one
once a year for each apartment. We requested one since our apartment is full of leftover
stuff from years of missionaries. AMO's take up all day, and the Rays literally go through
everything in our apartment with us. We got rid of sooooo much furniture that we didn't
need, and now our apartment is the bomb. It's so clean. Anyway, I have to go!
on the ward list have moved. Also on Tuesday we had an AMO by the senior couple in
charge of housing, the Rays. AMO stands for 'apartment makeover', and they do one
once a year for each apartment. We requested one since our apartment is full of leftover
stuff from years of missionaries. AMO's take up all day, and the Rays literally go through
everything in our apartment with us. We got rid of sooooo much furniture that we didn't
need, and now our apartment is the bomb. It's so clean. Anyway, I have to go!
Love Elder Holt
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