Cambios

Well our first change here in Amengual went by wicked fast!! Today we had changes and Elder Manrique will be receiving a new companion and Elder Inofuente and i will be heading to the other half of the ward. But it has been a really awesome change and full of blessings and miracles. We are excited to get working again and to see what else we can do this next month and a half.

We are really excited for all the people we are teaching as well because they are all progressing really well. We think that a few of them should be getting baptized in these next few weeks. I am happy to hear that we beat the peruvians in soccer!! haha what hurts is that they are going to the world cup and we arent.... but whatevs. There are a lot of peruvians in this ward! So I have been eating a lot of pervian food which is really really good. A close second to thai food I might say...

Laura and Javier are doing great! Laura is dying to get to go to the temple (in a figurative sense....) to do baptisms for the dead and so this week she will be having some family history classes and things like that. The other Laura and her son Edison are also getting excited to do the same.. Edison should be getting the priesthood this week and will be able to start passing the sacrament.

Being a missionary is pretty great! But always remember that all of us are missionaries. Maybe you have never had a nametag.. or maybe you have and dont anymore but we are always able to make a difference in someone. We can always pray to know who God needs us to reach out to and how we can help them come to know the truth. 

lots of love!

elder holdstock

Greetings from Amengual!

This week has continued to be really full of activites which is great! We had lots of divisions lots of interviews and lots of people to teach as well. One of our little miracles has been Laura and Elison. They are from bolivia and are going to get baptized this weekend. They have really been so prepared and are really excited to be able to get baptized. I think that Elder Manrique will get to baptize for his first time so that will be really awesome! I have really gained a testimony of how the lord is always guiding us and preparing the way for us. Like it says in Nephi that the lord will never give commandments before preparing the way. And it is so true. Sometimes we think that we know the way or that the path is already indicated but we see that the will of the lord is not always the same as ours and when he shows us the path and we trust in him and we walk on it then we will be able to know that he is guiding us. So never forget to just take whatever life throws at you because in one way or another god is preparing the way for you.

We will see what happens this week because we are going to have changes. It looks like we will be receving another missionary that will be companions with elder manrique so we will only have to worry about one sector because for the last two weeks we have been working in both of them. But who knows...!

In one of our divisions this week we taught this lady who said elderes I dont know if I can do this whole living the gospel thing... because I cant forgive people. She had had some difficult things happen in her life and had some big grudges against a few different people. We always talk about forgiveness with the people but in a different way. We always talk about how Jesus is alway willing to forgive us. But hardly do we talk about how we should forgive others. But she locked on to this idea and it made me think a lot about the importance of that. Jesus wants us to be like him. And he is a perfect example of the perfect forgiver so we should forgive those who have wronged us even though that is hard. We should learn to forgive ourselves even though that might be harder. Because Christ won't ever think twice about forgiving us... so we shouldn't either.

It sounds like everyone is doing super well back home! I am rooting for Sam's team against the peruvians! I have one companion that is named Diego Inofuente he is from Trujillo and another one named Rodrigo Manrique and he is from Lima. so maybe you will run into someone who knows one of them who knows.

Well keep on keepin on.

Elder Holdstock

Super

ALLOOOOHA 

That is pretty crazy that the super bowl happened this week! Everyday I realize just how out of the loop I am.. rip. But that is also a good thing! The mission has taught to learn what is actually important in life because without the distractions of everyday stuff, The spirit helps us understand a lot more of a lot of goodness.

This week has been pretty crazy and busy but good. We have had to work in both sectors in our ward so we have had quite a lot to do. And on top of that Elder Inofuente and I have had some meetings and other things like interviews we have had to do. But all in all we have managed it. This week as well we saw some miracles as well. A family from Bolivia searched us out, the daughter is a member but her mom and her brother are not. We passed by to visit them and they were really excited to go to church and accept the gospel. So right now we are working with them Laura and Edison. Edison is 12 and likes to make robots and stuff like that!

Laura got baptized this weekend! I will see if I can get a picture to load... But it was a great experience! She was super excited and Javier did a great job baptizing. Their next goal is the temple so they are already on the right track. They invited a lot of friends to the baptism as well so we were able to make some contacts and we will be visiting some of them later this week.

I might lose my chilean accent here in this sector though... because there are so many foreigners that it is crazy. I am starting to pick up a little bit of a venezuelan accent.. dale pues. and learning words that tanner is using out there in the DR. as well as learning more creole. We can now teach a lesson pretty much in creole. it is not perfect but we are working on it! 

This week Elder Packard also visited us from the 70 to do a leadership training. He got us super excited with the changes that need to take place in the missionary work so that we can continue to progress as a church.

I hope that all is well back home and that you dont come across any more mice.

Elder holdstock

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Emergency

we need your help. we want to make nachos, but we need a recipe for cheese sauce. 

not actually that much of an emergency... but ya know. ;)