¡hasta pronto!

This is pretty wild isnt it? Just like that two years have come and gone. It is true what they say that it goes by super fast. It has been a beautiful experience and for sure something that i think will have a great impact on lots of things in life. 

This weekend they will broadcast the temple dedication of the temple in conception. Even though we are pretty far away it will be a great thing to see how the temple will bless the whole country. One time I heard Elder Bednar say that 'The longer you serve the less able you feel.' And that is pretty true. I have learned lots and I have been blessed a lot.

It is a pretty weird sensation to know that you go home... It is like a transfer but you already know where you are going and everything. But I am excited as well. Chile is cool but Utah is cooler.. haha. and getting cooler every day.... and colder... rip.

Thanks for all of your prayers and all your support. You are definitely the best parents anyone could ask for. I talked about you daily as I would talk to people. You have left and impact not only on my life but on the life of others all the way on the other side of the world. 

I remember that in mission prep that our teacher would always tell us that the mission was like a mini life experience. And that is so true. You are born and you know nothing and you have to depend lots on others to help you and teach you. Then you grow up a little and you kind of figure out what you are doing. Then when you feel like you have it all figured out you realize you actually dont know anything and just learn to trust on the lord.

That is what it is all about anyway, trust in him, do what he wants us to do. Because he knows everything. Especially what will make us happy. He lives and loves us. We have the potential to be like him. Pretty incredible right?

Well I will see everyone soon! 

Elder Holdstock

103

In just a week they will be dedicating the temple in concepción. That is some really exciting news for all of chile. I am sure that uncle Nathan is pretty excited. Who knows maybe one of his converts will be the temple president down there! The general conference was also exciting 12 new temples in the whole world. It sounds like President Nelson doesn't like to waste time does he? I remember when he came to our stake for a special stake conference and we got to shake his hand. He is definitley called of god.  

We are seeing some good progress with the people we are teaching and we are also finding new people as well. Like this week were found a man named francisco and his wife alicia. They listened to missionaries a long time ago when they lived in another part of santiago. They are really great and francisco went to church this sunday. We are excited for them.

funny story.. we are teaching this little colombian boy named Juan David. He is pretty cool and really wanted to go to church on sunday. So we went in the morning to pick him up but his parents had left to go to the feria... or like to the farmers market. And he was locked inside of his patio.. they had forgotten to leave him the keys. His house is inside of some pretty tall cement walls with barbed wire ontop.... But he said nah dont worry about it i will just hope over... so out of nowhere he climbed up the wall and slid down and we went to church. It was fast and testimony meeting and the whole meeting he really wanted to get up and talk. hahaha pretty funny.

Hope that everyone has a super great week!! 

conferenica genial

As always the conference was great! I feel like it went by so quickly. I remember when I was little and we would watch it at home and I always felt like it lasted forevvver. But now I realize that the session is already half over and I am sad because it goes by so quickly. I learned lots of good things. It will be great to have church for two hours. 

We also were excited because Felipe went to the conference and listened and could feel the spirit. The only bad thing is that he asked me what they were saying in the songs that they were singing... and one of my weaknesses is understanding the lyrics of songs.... but god gives us weaknesses so that we can make them strengths haha.

We watched the conference in my first chapel in the mission back in cuatro poniente. So I got to see lots of old friends and catch up a little so that was great. It is incredible how fast the time passes. Like they say time goes by quick when you are having fun.

It is good to hear that the funeral went well and everything. He sure was a great guy. We will miss him but know where he is and what he is doing. 

I hope this week is great for everyone.

Elder Holdstock

P.S. If Jeremy wants to come see me that is totally fine! that would be great. If i remember right it will be pretty early in the morning though. 

PPS And that is great that they found a house! Should be fun.

Give me a sign

I am pretty sad to hear about the news of grandpa. I am sure that he is doing well though. As I was thinking about him yesterday after president told me the news, At first I was kind of confused but then as I started to think a little more it all makes sense doesn´t it? From what I know about Grandpa Tim is that he is a pretty hard and organized worker. I remember that he always like to keep himself busy! I think that is why he was needed a little more quickly on the other side because the Lord is hastening the work and not only here.  

At different times during the mission I have actually taken some time to read a little bit about him just in the few pages that you could print me before I left about his conversion to the church. I am always so impressed by his story which is such an example of faith. As he was investigating the church the missionaries invited him to pray to know whether this was the true church and whether he should be baptized. Like a good investigator he accepted and then acted upon the invitation of those missionaries. Though he prayed and asked for a sign to know whether this was the true church he said that it never did arrive. Now acting on his faith he made a decision to put his faith and hope before his doubts and be baptized. He said 'how would I ever know if what they were telling me was true If I didn't do it?' 

I am sure grateful for that example of courage and faith. That decision didn't only affect his life but the life of many others including mine. 

Interesting that just this Tuesday I was teaching the plan of salvation to one of our investigators named felipe. Usually when we teach we dont go into tons of detail about the spirit world or the work on the other side because people get kind of confused and lost, but Felipe asked us.. what happens with people that never were baptized or taught the gospel on earth. So we happily explained to him how it is possible that those in the spirit world also hear the good news of the gospel. We told him that there were also faithful missionaries teaching the gospel to those that were searching it. And I am sure the Grandpa was already doing it. 

Give Grandma Janet a big hug for me! 

love,

Elder Holdstock

quick hi

hiya just dropping in a quick hello because this week has been pretty full and with just about zero time! Send my well wishes to grandpa tim.. I am for sure praying for him. I hope that he will get better quick so he can still shake the car when we leave from his house! I hope this week will be a good one for everyone!! 

Elder Holdstock

Happy Chile

Well being with a mexican companion is helping me understand the true definition of chile... which is spicy. They literally eat everything spicy.. Remember when we went to california and we bought some fruit in a cup from a mexican guy that was on the side of the road with his shopping cart? And then he grabbed out like a salt shaker and started throwing some sort of red powder on the pineapple? Yeah that is because they put chili on everything. So this week my companion bought pineapple ice cream... and we eat it with this sweet chili sauce that he brought from mexico... haha 

But we have done other things this week besides eat obviously. Lets see here.. Saturday night we did all the changes and monday night a group from the mexico MTC arrived. Early in the morning on Tuesday the missionaries from the Chile MTC also arrived and we ate breakfast with them in the chapel. President assigned them their trainers and they headed off to their sectors early so that they could enjoy 18.

18 is obviously a pretty big celebration in chile it is like the 4th of July and everyone always does barbeques and just chills our all day. There is also a big tradition of dancing a dance that is called the Cueca... it is pretty funny you will have to search it on youtube. 

Since it was 18 it was kind of hard to get our people to church because everyone went out of town but the good thing is that everyone is already coming back!

I hope this is a good week for everyone!!

Elder Holdstock

Taco

Well these last few weeks have flown by! Yesterday I was even in divisions with Elder Anderson, who was in my same room in the MTC. Today he is in the temple because he is already going home this week. So that means that the time flies when you are having fun!  

Chile is getting ready for the biggest weekend of the year! The Fiestas Patrias. It is like the fourth of July but without fireworks... so obviously not as cool. THis year It falls on a Tuesday and they always give the day before and the day after as a holiday as well. (The Chileans are pretty good at giving themselves holidays) So That means that people will have Saturday, Sunday, Monday Tuesday, Wednesday as a holiday and most people are asking for thursday and friday off of work as well to just make it a nice 10 day vacation! haha so that is good for them but rough for us because all of our investigadors are leaving santiago for like a week and a half. rip

But we still have lots of people that will be around town to be able to teach. Like Milagros and her family. Who are making really good progress, Sara as well. We met a man named Adrian in the street the other day who went with us to church this sunday. 

Fun Fact : We took two people to church this week that have pacemakers.... so thanks to president Nelson they are still alive to be able to go to church!! 

There was a house in the ward that caught on fire, and so the bishop this week in his talk talked about how we can protect ourselves against the spirtual fires. It was good! I hope that everyone has a really good week!

Elder Holdstock

P.S. we are getting into the swing of the whole mexican food thing for sure... We made our own tortillas and everything.

happy birthday

Thanks for all the birthday wishes!! Fun fact of the week, Elder Holdstock and President Woodward were born on the same day.... only like 30 years apart. haha 

This week we have been having the time of our lives. We have taught lots of people and are seeing lots of progress in so many of them. This last week we found a deaf man named Marcelo. So we are trying to learn signs... but it is hard but he is pretty intelligent and can understand what we are saying anyway. And he also speaks pretty well.

There are some pretty cool moments that you have when you are a missionary, you just have a lot of ah ha moments. Like things just kind of make sense a little bit more and it is kind of hard to explain sometimes.

It happens in life as well I think.. it is like climbing a mountain. It is kind of rough there are some obstacles, obviously it is possible if you have the help you need. And as you start to climb somtimes there are parts where you can see a lot bit more of the panorama, but once you get to the top you have a whole different perspective, even the obstacles you had to overcome don't seem that hard anymore and you can see the whole picture. Pretty cool that we can live that isnt it?

We are teaching lots of really cool people. Milagros and her family. Gloria (we are trying to get her daughter who is 15 to also listen but she is a little more of a rebel), Jeff, Adrian, Nancy and her son, And the list goes on so if you want to keep them all in your prayers the more the merrier!

Sounds like school has started out pretty well! You will have to keep on working hard!

A few weeks ago I had to go do my visa again... So here is a picture of that... 10 points to whoever finds the coolest part.

Elder holdstock

PS. Thank you for the package!! I am wearing the tie right now it is pretty rad!

Happy Thursday!

Hope everyone has had a good week! It sounds like the weather is just all the opposite there. Because here it is starting to get warmer and the days are getting longer. Which is great for us because more light means more people. I guess it is true what they say about how light attracts light. 

This Sunday was pretty neat. They did a special multi stake conference from the conference center but just for chile. Elder Christopherson spoke in spanish and it was all pretty neat. It is great that the lord loves us enough to call people that are willing and able to help out all of his children, in their languange. They talked about the importance of the Sabbath day and the attendance to church. 

We are now teaching this cool little peruvian family. The mom is named Milagros.. or in english Miracles and the dad has a pretty american name.. Richard, and the daughter Nicole. They are super cool and are excited to go to church this sunday. 

I hope that you are also having a good time celebrating your anniversary and Dad's Birthday!! I sure feel lucky to have such good examples to look up to. I am sure that you had a great time celebrating everything. Happy Birthday DAD!! if mom turned 28 this year that means that you should have turned like 30 or 31 right?

Have the best week! Hope somebody makes a few goals for me this week.

Elder Holdstock

The time just keeps on flying by. Just like the kites we see in our sector everyday. That is one of the cool things about where we are is that it is a pretty humble neighborhood and so there are always just lots of things happening out in the street. But these last few weeks all the kids have started to come out with their kites and flying them. but it is a different ball game than the states. When I flew kites it was basically throw them in the air and they would fly... but here it is a process and a talent. You have to know the techniques or they wont stay up. There are also some kids that are pretty gangster and use string that has glass on it and they fly their kites into other peoples kites and cut their string with theirs so that their kite goes flying off in the wind it is serious business. 

Everything is going really well. We found a really awesome family from peru this week who are really excited to go to church. Daniella is doing well and is getting ready for her baptism. We are excited for her. We are to the part of the change that is a little bit more chill for us without so many trainings and stuff so we get to have so more time in our sector and in divisions which is relly great.

I cant believe that school has already started! Everyone is getting so old. I hope the school year started well and that everyone gets all 7's. (that is how they do the grades down here 1-7 instead of A, or B or C. 7 is the best.) 

We have also been teaching a venezuelan named carlos that is super cool. Our new ward mission leader has also been taking out the trash with all of our investigators and inviting them over to his house and stuff like that. So the invitation this week is that you can find someone for the missionaries to teach in our house. It will be hard... but not impossible. If you do it I will give everyone a big high five.

Elder Holdstock

P.S. it sounds like they can't buy the plane tickets until like 50 days before I go home or something like that... but I am pretty sure that my release date is like the 30 or so... I should be heading out from here on the 29 of october and be back the next day. I will be back just in time for halloween.

President Woodward,

Thank you for taking care of our son (Clayton Holdstock) for the last 22 months. We have seen such a spiritual growth in him. We are so looking forward to his return home. Maybe we are anxious parents, but we are wondering if he has his travel plans yet. We have family in Canada that is wanting to make travel plans to see him return home. I contacted the Missionary Travel Department and they said they did not have any travel plans in their system yet and recommended we contact you.  If you could kindly put a trunky mom’s anxiety to rest, it would be greatly appreciated. We know you might want to keep him forever, I know we do. 

Thank you for your service and great example to him. He has enjoyed training and teaching with you. We are eternally grateful to you and your wife. 

Brian Holdstock
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear Brother Holdstock,

The secretaries have already reached out to buy your son's plane tickets. His group is scheduled to depart from Chile on October 29th.  His release date is October 30.  The exact time of his departure is still not known, but we will let you know as soon as we know. We are glad that you have reached out to us for this information. Elder Holdstock is one of the best missionaries in the mission. If not the best. Tell his mother that she doesn't need to worry or get trunky he still has a while left. If there are any other questions please let us now. We thank you for your good parenting and your understanding. 

Sincerely,
Elder Holdstock

HOLA

HIYA  

Sorry For such the late response we just got back from the zone conferences out in El Quisco! So that was way fun. We got to go back home for a minute. This change we are focusing up on the power we have as missionaries and transmitting that in the way we talk and interact with people. It has been really fun because it has been a pretty joint effort with president to put this one all together. He taught us a lot of really great things. He is pretty big on making sure we dont sound like weird when we talk to people, that we use words that are not really formal instead that we speak so that people understand what we are talking about. Because not a lot of people really understand what exaltation or things like that even means. We just focus on how we have a message of happiness that we are confident in. And that pretty much sums it up. The Gospel is simple. It makes us happy even though sometimes we aren't going through happy moments. We have hope because of what Christ did for us and thanks to the incredible plan that our loving father prepared for us.

Mercedes got baptized and confirmed this weekend and she was really happy. Her family also went to see her. She said that she was thankful that god had chosen her. We hope to make some progress with the rest of her family. We are also working with a little family a mom and her daughter Margarita and Daniella. They are great and are progressing like champs. 

We actually have to go visit them right now!

Keep it real.

Elder Holdstock

happy weddings

Wow sounds like everyone has had a really busy week this week with lots of activities! That is so cool that you got to see elder holland! I hope everything went well with the flowers and everything like that. We have had a pretty eventful week as well. This change there were 20 new missionaries that arrived to our missions. The interesting thing is that pretty soon they will be closing the MTC in Chile so we have already started to receive missionaries from different MTC's all around the world. We received missionaries this change from Mexico, Chile, Argentina, and Brazil. We are pretty excited though because that means that we could open up like 5 sectors that had been closed! We got to see a lot more of Santiago as well because the drivers of the vans that took us to president's house went right through the heart of the city. It is pretty cool actually.  

Mercedes is doing really well. She had her baptismal interview this Tuesday and it was great because president woodward actually got to do it for her! So he has been pretty involved in her whole process. She is doing so well and just wants so badly that her family also starts going with her. Actually this sunday her daugther named Rocio went with her. So that was great.

We have also been teaching a little family that is really fun. Named Mauricio and Gloria. They are just funny but it is fun to teach them because they dont really have that much of a religious background and so everything that we teach them is pretty new to them! They are really loving it. Hope that this week is the best and that everyone has a good time at all the weddings this weekend!

Elder Holdstock

P.S. I have a new companion, his name is Elder Gallardo he is from Mexico. I am pretty excited to start working on my mexican accent before I head back home. Also for sure we will be eating some mexican food.

you can call me assassin

That is because this week we will oficially be killing my good ol' friend Elder Marsh. He has already had his last interview with president and is ready to head off to the US of A. We have had a really good week though, and seen lots of little miracles. For example: Last week we contacted a lady that was hanging up her clothes outside to dry. She had a back problem so we said 'why dont you just let us do that for you'. She was grateful and told us to go back another day. We went back and she wasn't home but her daughter who is about 23 opened the door. I could just tell from her eyes that it was kind of a rough moment from her. We started talking about life and about god´s plan for us and she just burst. She has lots of worries and lots of fears and problems in her life right now and she felt like it was an answer to her prayers. Unfortunately we couldnt go in because they were alone but we invited her to church and she showed up! She told us she loved it and felt a lot of peace. So god is in charge. Isnt that just a great thing to know? 

Mercedes and Rocio are also doing really well. Mercedes will be getting baptized here quickly and Rocio is there taking the little steps she needs to so that she can be ready. 

This is already the last week of the change and so next week will be pretty wild to see who my new companion is and to organize all the transfers. 

One fun thing we did this week is in the night time we made some choripanes on the grill we had out back. The thing is that in chile there arent gas grills, you have to do them with charcoal. But it takes a hot minute for the charcoal to start up, so we decided to do it gringo style and brought out my companions hair blow dryer (shout out to nate) and we used that to get it to light up quicker. 

Sounds like it was a great week down in saint george and playing soccer! Hope everybody scores at least one goal for me this week. 

Elder Holdstock