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!