April 25, 2011 Letter

Hello, everyone, and especially to Jon: happy birthday!

We've been busy here in Arlington. We've spent a lot of time going through our area book's list of potential investigtors--we have a backlog that goes all the way back to 2009! It's taking sooo much time to organize and travel to all these houses, but we figure we have to try all of them or else we'd feel guilty about throwing so many potential names out. We haven't had any luck so far, but we're only about half way through of one little sub-section of our area, even after working on it all week.

So much fun...

But! We have been blessed to be gettnig lots of potential investigators through other avenues! We had two of our investigators come to church on Sunday, and one brought her non-member sister, and another brought her non-member parents! We're so excited! We'd talked with the sister before, so we were pretty sure we'd be starting to teach her soon also, but it was good to see them both there. They are 12 and 15, and they already know a lot of the YW in the ward. They really said they enjoyed church yesterday, and the YW are really embracing them! It's been great to watch. The other girl is 7, she's turning 8 in may and really wants to get baptized, but so far we've only gotten verbal permissino to teach her. We're really hoping that her parents coming to church with her will give them the boost they need to allow us to baptize her when she turns 8 AND that they'll be interested in learning more as well!! This girl was introduced to the church through her grandmother, who joined the church a few months ago. It's been really good for her grandmother as well to watch how her own missionary efforts are paying off!

Then from our YSA branch we have a lot of people that have been bringing their friends to activities. A few have told us already that their friends are interested in meeting with us, and a few others sound like they will be asking/will be asked by their friends (as we lovingly encourage them, of course...) soon. We're keeping our fingers crossed there!

The weather has been pretty crazy here, too. On Saturday it was up to the 70s with clear blue skies...but then today it was back down to the 50s and rainy. It's nice when the sun is out. We were able to give some service to the members that we're living with on Saturday; we helped get their garden beds ready for planting.

On Wednesday we've organized a district service project at the senior center in our area. They called us earlier last week and asked if we could bring anyone to help weed, and then we were talking to one of the older members that lives at the center and she said they've already had several churches turn them down when they asked for service. She also said that quite a few of her neighbors don't think very highly of the Church and it's members, so she's really hopeful that our example will help them see that she's not crazy for being a member!

Sister Townsend is doing well. She's trying hard to stay focused and not worry about everything she needs to get ready for when she goes home. But we're looking forward to the treats that should be arriving soon! Thanks for sending those!

We haven't really had any funny or exciting incidents yet...though Sister Townsend keeps telling me about Paradise Valley or someplace that is apparently the meth capital of Washington. At the moment it's still a sister's area...and she's got some really good stories from there, so it sounds promising. Her best one involves the SWAT team.

What can I say, she's lived an exciting mission life!

As for the other sisters that mom asked about, I met most of them on the first day I was here, briefly...?

I'm excited to hear Dad has another gig. That should be fun playing for Relay for Life. Which band is playing?

Anyways...overall, things are going really well, I'd say.

Miss you all, and love you all!

Sister Heather Holdsworth

April 18, 2011 Letter

Hello everyone! I hope this email finds you well!

This week has been great! We've been really praying for member referrals, and we've been getting several each day! Most of them haven't been working out, but we were able to get four new investigators--three for our ward and one for our branch. What a blessing! I really enjoy teaching, though this week I've really started to see the holes in my MTC training...but oh well. I guess I can't hold it against my teachers; they did a good job with what they had, and I know a lot of their time was taken up with them trying to get us unified as a district.

Don't know how well that worked, but it's all on me now, either way.

Right now we're living with the Davis family. They were recently married (Bro. Davis' first wife passed away a few years ago, and Sis. Davis is divorced). All four of their daughters are grown, but I've met a few of them. They are really generous and concerned for us. They really make a huge effort to help us feel welcomed. Friday they had work off and so they cooked us breakfast with eggs, sausage, and hash browns--delicious!

I've never been one for breakfast...but I think it might become my favorite meal since it's the only one I get to cook! We have dinners with members, and so far we've only had one or two cancellations, so there's not much need for us to purchase dinner foods (so when we do get cancellations, no cooking usually happens...usually the Davis have leftovers they let us eat =) ). For lunch, we usually come home, but we're so hungry we just want to throw a sandwich together and eat as fast as possible!

General Conference was great. I think some of my favorite talks this conference were Elder Oaks, Elder Scott, and Elder Holland. I've also been able to watch a bit of the priesthood session (we are allowed to go on mormon.org/lds.org an hour a week) and I've really liked President Utchdorf's and President Monson's talks from that. During the priesthood session, the sisters watched the Young Women's Broadcast. I really enjoyed Sister Dibb's talk, and was really glad we got to see it. A lot of the sisters weren't thrilled though, since they just thought they weren't in young women's anymore, so "it didn't apply to them." What can you do, I guess?

The devotionals and firesides weren't that exciting, truthfully. They were good, but nothing all that special. Via Sekeheima (I probably completely spelled that wrong...the BYU football player from way back...?) spoke at the last fireside. He had a convert of his come with him, so it was cool to hear them tell the story together...but that's pretty much all it was...

Anyways...I'm looking forward to this upcoming week. Hopefully we'll be able to maintain the investigators we found last week, and be able to find even more.

I hope you're all doing well. I got Grandma's, and Kelly's letters this week, along with a letter from Allison (my roommate). I love hearing from you all! I'm not sure why you haven't gotten Jon's letter yet, but it's on it's way...? It sounds like Grandma is keeping busy with traveling, and that the Tiltons had a fun spring break! Allison is back from her study abroad in New Zealand, and it sounds like she's really loving teaching. I'm sure she's going to love getting back into it in the Fall!

Thanks for supporting me on my mission! It means a lot to me to know I can count on you to be praying for me and loving me from California!

Love,

Sister Heather Holdsworth

First Day Notice from Mission President

Received this from Heather's Mission President, her first day and companion.

First Letter from the "Mission Field"

Hello everyone! Life in Everett is going well!

Sorry I wasn't able to call from the airport. We were allowed to but we were running late to catch our flight 1) because the lines for check in were SUPER long that morning, and 2) we got a late start from the MTC because MY companion lost her wallet, so she didn't have money for her luggage. She refused to check her luggage for it, so instead we had to run around to every building we'd been in the day before looking for it. I felt bad for the security guard that we had to keep going back to get to unlock doors for us. We never found it, so she had to get a voucher from the travel office, which also took forever and a day, because no one knew how to do it (since, you know, they tell us to have cash for it...). I'd bet anything she found it in her luggage when she got to Anaheim.

My trainer's name is Sister Townsend. She is from Canada (I guess I have a thing for internationals) and this is her last transfer. We're serving over the Lakewood Ward and Amar YSA Branch in the Marysville/Arlington area. It's really pretty up here...it's a weird mix of country/suburb...This past week we've gotten to eat fresh farm eggs from one of the members' chickens for breakfast. Delightful!

So far I've met a lot of people. Our ward seems really nice, and our branch is really proactive about missionary work. Right now, we have two investigators for our branch: Shelby and Sian. We just began teaching Shelby this past week, and she sounded really excited about everything we were teaching her. We committed them both to come to Church on Sunday, but they were both no-shows. Sian wasn't too much of a surprise (she's always interested when we can actually get in to see her, but she doesn't seem to keep appointments very well...) but I felt disappointed we didn't see Shelby. Her mom joined the Church in January...hopefully with just a little more time we'll get her there!

I'm really enjoying the work we're doing here .A lot of our time this past week was spent following up on potential investigators, tracting and street contacting, looking for investigators for the ward (and more promising investigators for the branch), and we have a lot of really good contacts to look forward to this week.

We found April, an inactive member, and her non-member husband and 9 year old son, while tracting. She sounded like she'd really been thinking about coming back to Church recently, so we have an appointment with her. We also have appointments with Mallarie, Lyn and Maureen. So here's to this week!

Yesterday at Church we had a really cool experience as well. One of the brothers in the ward came to us during sacrament meeting and said he had someone outside to talk to us. This 20-ish girl said she and her mom were new to the area and were looking for a Christian church to attend. Well...that's just perfect, right? We got their information and made an appointment to meet with them, but they called back later and said they only wanted to go to a church that worked with their Sunday work schedule. Our ward meets at 11, and they have work from 12-7 apparently. But it turns out they're not even in our area...but we got it figured out where they're supposed to be and what 9am ward they can meet with. So...hopefully that will work out for them and the Elders we handed them off too!

Another recently re-activated member, Ryan, was meeting with us yesterday, and he said he finally received his own confirmation that the Book of Mormon is true. He said he was so happy he "went outside, barefoot, and climbed a tree all the way to the top!" So...I guess that's a pretty good measure of happiness: foot-covering-status, and tree-climbing-heighth? Haha, he was really excited though, which was definitely a good thing! He's made a lot of progress, even in just the short time I've known him.

Tell Paul congrats! I'm sure Hilary isn't too far behind him ;)

I did get Jon's letter; I'll write him back later today...but I guess you haven't gotten my letter yet? I wrote you with the mailing address...but here it is again:

Sister Heather Holdsworth

POB 13390

Mill Creek, WA 98082

Anyways, I think that's about everything. I'm glad to hear everything is going well for all of you. I hope the Tiltons and Grandma are doing well, and that you enjoyed Dad's birthday celebration.

Talk to you later!

Love,

Sister Heather Holdsworth