AHHHLOOO (that´s how you get people to come to the door in chile)

This week was great! We were able to have a visit from Elder Packard of the 70 this past week and he gave us some great trainings. He served as a mission president in Spain a long time ago and just taught us things that will help us be better teachers and better missionaries. He and his wife both speak spanish so that was fun that they were able to talk to everyone themselves without a translator. One of the things he talked about was helping investigators connect the dots. Like in a dot to dot. The gospel of Jesus Christ is like that. There are lots of principles we teach but every principle has a reason and a connecting line that helps create the image of eternal life and exaltation. 

Yesterday in the Gospel principles class they were talking about baptism and a recent convert named San Louis was there. He is haitian and just a funny guy. Anyway the teacher was talking about how when she got baptized she had to use both of her hands to plug her ears because for some reason she cant let water into her ears. But when he heard that he just thought it was so funny for some reason and just died laughing and he has a laugh that is super contagious and so of course the rest of us died too. We were there like 5 minutes just laughing... If you didnt laugh this week you gotta do it again because laughing is life.

Karina got baptized this last week as well! Her mom is a member of about 3 years. She used to be Adventista I am not really sure how to say that in english but you get the idea. But this week she finally felt ready to take that step and get baptized so that was awesome to see her make that decision.

Elder Donoso has also been hard at work. He was with a family this week named the nuñez family and the mom used to be a sister missionary in washington dc so she speaks pretty decent english but we were in their apartment building and we had just finished up teaching a lesson and were coming down the stairs when I saw hermana nuñez outside a door and she just looked at me and said élder this lady wants to receive you guys. She decided that her and her daughter would just take out elder donoso and start knocking a few doors in her building when she found this young girl who has been passing through some hard times and invited her to listen to us. I was blown away that this lady just went out and started knocking doors in her apartment building to find someone for us to teach. We are going to have a lesson with her new friend this week. 

We are also teaching another man named Fabiano who is the dad of a family of members. he is from Rio De Janeiro and is such a homie. He used to never go to church with his family but has started to go just recently. He always wears a beanie so we are trying to find out if he can just wear a white beanie when he gets baptized. haha just kidding but he is awesome he just has a little bit of fear about making a commitment and not being able to keep it or falling after he has been made clean. But that is the best part about Jesus is that everytime we come to him with a sincere heart he will help us and lift us up.

We have so many great people here in our sector and so many people that are already changing their lives and becoming better people. That is what the great part about being a missionary is. Seeing how people change based on their love for our savior. He loves us and he only asks that we give a portion of that love back to him. 

I hope everyone has a great week! 

Elder Holdstock

Miracles

This week we were blessed to see lots of miracles and lots of tender mercies. At the end of last week were a Little bit out of breath we felt like we had done all we could and just hadn't seen the fruits of any of our labors. But this week we just decided to refocus set new goals put our faith in the lord and do are part. It is incredible how the lord will always bless us with what we need in the very momento we need it. Not when we always think we do but when he knows it is prudent.

We have been teaching a girl named Karina for over a change, she is the daughter of a convert and has been coming to church for a while now. She used to be Adventist but has been receiving the lessons from us.. We didnt feel like she had a ton of interest though and didn't really know what we could do to help her even progress at all. But this week we went and had a lesson with her and it is one time in my life that I can say that I don't remember what we said but it felt good and she accepted everything we had to invite her to do. It was a miracle to see how the lord Works in his own time.

Margot came to church this week which was awesome it has been four or five weeks of trying to get her to come and something always would happen and she wouldnt be able to. But this time she got there. I am certain she had the time of her life. after sunday school I told her she had to go to another class with all the women and she just said 'oh how fun'. 

Sometimes I cant remember what I have told in my emails and no so sorry if I ever repeat things.. RIP. but our first day together we met a menos activa named gabriella. And the best thing about menos activas is that sometimes they have kids who arent baptized. We were actually looking for someone else when we found her and she helped us find where we were going and we started to converse with her and found out she was a member. She told us her husband was in the hospital and about to have surgery and really sick. She asked if we could go give him a blessing unfortunaltely we couldnt because it was outside of our misión but we told her we would have someone from the Ward take care of him. The bishop sent one of his counselors to give the blessing to this hermano. Anyway we went and visited them and we met the guy that was sick and he told us he was completely healed that they did surgery and the next day he was healed. Hermana Gabriella has come to church two sundays in a row now and is a great example to her family.

Just always remember that with prayers of faith and action God will bless you and lift you beyond the potential that you know but he will lift you to the potential he sees in you. Hope everyone had a swell week!!

Elder Holdstock

Happy Mother's Day!!!

Yesterday was the bomb.com!! Everybody looked so great and so much older and a little bit wiser too!! 

This week was a good one we had stake conference and like I told ya last night they asked me to play the piano... I have played the piano in church just about every sunday I have been here in chile. And they usually just choose whatever songs they want and so dad asked if I had learned any new hymns and I have because I try to just play whatever they ask me to.. haha I am getting a lot better at sight reading I think Grandma Smart would be so proud!

This week was a good one. We committed our russian orthodox investigator Romina to go to church every sunday with us and read and pray with all her might so that she can get an answer from god. We went to church with an haitiana friend who was excited and getting ready for baptism when she told us that this week she will be moving to another neighborhood that is not part of our sector. But we will for sure send the missionaries to her house to finish what we started. 

 Today was a crazy day because I had to go do my visa... I had to go become legal. So we ran around like crazy and waited in lots of lines. in one of the buildings they would only let me in alone becuase my companion was not doing his visa so he had to stay outside. So I was alone for the first in my mission. But it was ok because I made friends with some people from venezuela next to me and like two people infront of me was a colombian who is a member we all started talking about the book of mormon... and then an haitiano asked me what the difference was between Jehovah and Jesus Christ so I explained to him how we believe Jesus Christ is the Jehovah of the old testament but it was just really cool that there we were in the middle of these huge lines and like ten of us were just all talking about the gospel. They all left with pass along cards and I for sure took down their addresses.

I hope this next week with soccer goes so great and everyone wins. I pray for you all on the daily and hope that youre doing wonderfully. Don´t forget to say your prayers because that is the most important.

Keep ripping it up!

Elder Holdstock

SpANgLisH

SpANgLisH on the upppppp this week. haha That is no joke it is so hard to keep all your good spanish habits when you are with another gringo... But I thought I would just start off by telling you a little about my new companion Elder Lunt. You know how I said that I have already had a Nate companion in the mision? And i was waiting for a tanner companion?? Well... i am still waiting but Elder Lunt is my Jake Graves companion. Haha they are so similar it is not even funny. We started this week by just going to town and talking to literally every person we ever saw. It has been a good week in total! We have had a lot of good lessons with lots of great people. That is one thing that I have learned on the mission is how to love people and how to see them as Christ sees them as the precious souls that they are.

They are ripping apart our chapel so we now have to go to a chapel outside of our sector which we thought was going to mess us up but we were happy to see lots of people at church with us!! Even our Russian Orthodox investigator came to church for the first time with us in her life. 

Shoot it is crazy that soccer is already over!! It sounds like despite the results everyone at least had a good time! There is a soccer stadium in the middle of my sector and they play games every weekend.. I dont get tronky until we walk by the stadium at night and the lights are all on a fight breaks out in the middle of the field. (tronky is what we say when somebody is thinking about something they miss at the house.) So just enjoy your time playing soccer deal?

Thankfully I haven't gotten any fleas yet and I am not planning on it. I have been in pretty nice houses so far and I have been enjoying all the rice and chicken that we have been eating.

I love you all and hope this next week is just the best!! Is it getting hot yet??

Elder Holdstock

P.S. I think we are going to be able to skype this Sunday at like 6:30 our time like chile time... I lost track of how many hours apart we are but I know dad is intelligent and he will be able to figure it out.

Shake and Bake

This week as I am sure you heard on the news it has been pretty shakey here in chile! But I have only felt when little temblor. Nothing has happened but everyone is predicting that an earthquake is coming! RIP. It was funny when the first temblor happened. We were in a lesson with an old man called hector. It started to temblar a little bit and I wasnt really sure if it was real or not but then my companion looked at me and said esta temblando... which means this is a temblor. He is chilean and he was more nervous that I was he was like yeah lets go outside. but hector just laughed and told us that that was nothing. He wasnt about to get up out of his chair to move outside. all in all it lasted about 45 seconds! The other ones we didnt feel because we were walking out in the street and when you are moving you dont really feel them. 

We had changes yesterday! That is one of the reasons i didnt get to write home yesterday because we had changes and because it was a holiday yesterday and nobody works on holidays here so the computer places were all closed. I am now with Elder Lunt from Utaaah. He is my first gringo companion! We actually lived together for like 2 weeks in my other sector but now we are working together! 

We finished this week teaching Margot who is the mom of Raul I cant remember if I told you guys about her or not. I think I might of but its ok I will tell you again. She has a book of mormon that one of her friends gave to her over 30 years ago but she never read it. Because she thought it was an american book... and she has hard feelings towards america but I think she is starting to like me at least a little bit. She has started to read the book of mormon and loves it! 

The book of mormon really is awesome and it is the best way we have to learn and receive a testimony that the church is true. there is now way that the book of mormon was written by men that werent inspired of god it just is to complex and too perfect. 

I hope the soccer games are all going well. and everyone is scoring lots of goals!! It is crazy that the soccer season is already ending!!

Hope everyone is so so good!!

Elder holdstock