May 23, 2011 Letter

Hello everyone! How are you doing? Things are going great here...

WE'RE OFFICIALLY HAVING A BAPTISM JUNE 4!!! The font is reserved, she's having her baptismal interview next Sunday...It's so exciting!! I don't remember if I told you about her or not...she's been attending church with her boyfriend's family for about a year now. She decided she wanted to get baptized about two weeks ago and we've been teaching her since! She's such the sweetest girl. Last night we went to a stake cottage meeting (fireside for recent converts to share their conversion stories to investigators, returning members, etc.) and she's really excited to be able to share her own story at our next mission cottage meeting.

So...other miracles we've seen this past week...we had another "walk-in" investigator at church yesterday. She thought we were a Lutheran church she'd gotten the address off of the internet for, but a lot of the members greeted her as she came in the foyer, so she decided to stay since she felt so welcomed! Sacrament meeting was all about FHE, which I think really intrigued her since she seems concerend about her 4 year old daughter being raised righteously. She was a little overwhelmed by the different jargon we use, but she was very comfortable asking us questions, and she took a copy of the Book of Mormon and said she planned to read it before our lesson we set up for Saturday! We are still not 100% sure THIS walk-in is from our area...but hopefully she is! And hopefully she stays interested!

The two YW we're teaching attended a stake overnighter this past weekend. It sounds like they really enjoyed it from their leader's perspective; we weren't able to talk to them because they've been sick and left church early since they weren't feeling well. They are still planning on going to the ward's girls camp though! (I guess the stake doesn't have the funds to do a week girls camp, so the wards do their own long girls camp, and the stake does a one-night camp trip...)

My new companion is Sister Blackburn. She is from Council Bluffs, Iowa. We get along pretty well. She's been out about six months and this is her frist time being senior companion. We have lots of fun together, and I think we have great things in store for this transfer! =)

I guess I'm eating as well as the members feed me? haha Usually we get pretty balanced meals. It's pretty nice...it seems whenever I'm craving something the members seem to read my mind! I've been craving brocolli, for instance, and last night at our Bishops house, our Bishop's wife had some delicious brocolli for me! It was awesome! And we've been having more Mexican food since my first few weeks here (maybe word has traveled that I love it so much haha).

Our Bishop and his family are actually planning a trip to Disneyland in the summer. July 1-3 I think it was. I told them that if they're there for three days, there's pretty good odds my mom will be there at the same time! So maybe you'll run into them!

Anyways...that's most of what I'm doing here. Hope everything is going well in California! Hope the weather stays nice for you!

Love,

Sister Heather Holdsworth

May 16, 2011 Letter

Hello! It sounds like you had a good week...we did too! Sister Townsend is gone now--she's boarded her plane by now--but she left with a bang!

On Saturday we were able to (FINALLY!!) meet with the non-member girlfriend of one of the priests in the ward. Apparently, she's been attending church with this priest's family for about a year, and she's decided she wants to be baptized...so we're pretty much just teaching her the lessons as fast as possible! She's on date for June 4 (Sis. Townsend got one last baptismal invitation in, it was so sweet!). Super exciting! She's a really sweet girl, and I'm so glad we're finally able to teach her!

We also had one of our other investigators at church--the man from Taiwan. It was really cool to see Bro. Hawkins translating for him. He's progressing so well...He commits himself to everything for us! It's awesome! This past week we were teaching him about the Restoration, and we asked him if he believed it was possible for Joseph Smith to be a prophet, and he said that he just needed to read the Book of Mormon to find out if what we were teaching was true. Totally jumping ahead on us...and it was so great!!! It is such a miracle to have fuond him and to be teaching him.

The two YW we're teaching are doing well. They weren't able to come to church yesterday because their mom was getting surgery for something...but they're still going strong.

Sister Townsend forgot it even was her birthday, so the Davis' and my little surprise was an even bigger surprise for her! haha. We just got her a card and some M&Ms (her favorite candy). Later that evening we did service with a member she helped re-activate and then we stayed for dinner. She invited a few of her member-neighbors over for dinner as well (she lives on a "Celestial street" like ours) so that was fun.

We haven't received transfer calls yet, but we're all pretty sure I'll be staying here. We took Sister Townsend down to the mission home last night, and one of the sisters from the tri-ship down in that area came back up with me for today and tomorrow. Her name is Sister Beckstrand. We get along really well. We found out we have the same birthday, and our experiences with deciding to serve missions are pretty similar. I'd love to serve with her longer, but they only told her to pack for two days, so she'll probably be going back to that area. Perhaps in the future; she still has about 9 months left of her mission.

In other news...I'm really hungry for lunch. And I feel like I just had breakfast! hm. And one of the librarians here sounds exactly like Sister Davis. (As a further side note, Sister Davis herself says I do a wonderful job of cleaning up her kitchen...just saying. haha)

I really enjoy living with the Davis family, though. Last night we had to leave right after church to take Sis. Townsend to Mill Creek, and so when it came time that we got back to Arlington around 6:30pm I hadn't eaten since 8:30am, other than a granola bar (our blocks overlap...). I was STARVING and I thought I was just going to have cereal to eat...but the Davis' actually had some of their kids from the area over for dinner and they pulled out a place for us to join them before we were even half way in the door! They're so generous and I really appreciate everything they do for us. :)

Now that my last two paragraphs were about food...I guess that just means I'm out of stuff to say today haha. I hope you're all doing well. Keep me updated on everything you're doing! Love you all!

Sister Heather Holdsworth

May 9, 2011 Letter

Hi. I think I missed out on most of what you all were saying...I couldn't hear exactly what you were saying about the weather (but I didn't think that was too important...), couldn't really hear what Dad was saying about Jimmer or Cam Newton...and I missed most of the prayer...but oh well, at least you all could hear me fine. (This was from our Mother's Day conversation, we had the entire Tilton family over for dinner. I talked with Heather for a few minutes and then we tried the "speaker phone" feature. We heard her but I guess she didn't hear us much. It was so good to hear her voice, she really sounds happy. Our conversation ended with a family prayer, it was a great way to spend the evening on Mother's Day 2011)

During our phone conversation Heather mentioned that she would love more snail mail.... you can write, send cards etc to Sister Heather Holdsworth, Everett WA Mission, POB 13390, Mill Creek, WA 98082. If you want to send a package you send it to Everett WA Mission 16124 35th Ave SE, Mill Creek, WA 98082.

I hope girls camp goes well! Our two teenage investigators are planning on going to our ward's girls camp. (I'm not sue if it's before or after their baptism.) So...yay girls camp!

So things are going great! This past week we were able to put three investigators on date to be baptized! The two teenagers we've been teaching for the past few weeks will be baptized on June 18th (so relieved we got their mom's permission!!). The other girl we were teaching actually lives in Bellvue, but we put her on date for June 11th. Looks like the Seattle Mission is getting a *really* golden referral!

This past week we had sisters exchanges. Sister Townsend and I went up to the Everson area and spent most of the day in Peaceful Valley. Apparently it's the drug capital of Washington. I'd probably believe that statement.

We ended up just going around all day with the other two sisters. All four of us made for some...very interesting door approaches...It was an interesting day. We spent a lot of time doing service for a less active, cleaning up her yard. We smelled SO BAD after moving all of her rotting garbage. (Literally...it was all rotting and moldy because it'd been out in the rain for who knows how many years...) I don't know how someone collects that much...GARBAGE in their yard!

It REALLY made me appreciate all the pleasant weeding we've been doing so far in our own area.

Apparently, the last sister Sister Townsend trained, she trained in Everson. Let's just say, I'm very grateful I am getting trained in Arlington/Marysville!!

This past week we also started teaching a man from Taiwan. The Hawkins family in our ward speaks Mandarin; Bro. Hawkins usually comes to translate for us, and so far the two of them seem to have become really good friends already! He says he believes it, and he's been really eager to make more appointments with us, so we hope to committ him to a baptism date when we meet with him this week! How exciting!

As a side note...It looks like the last person that used this computer sneezed on the screen...Gross, right?

Anyways, tonight we're having an Inventational FHE with our YSA Branch, to encourage the members to bring their non-member or less-active friends. We're teaching the lesson. I'm really hoping it turns out well! Our branch mission leader and branch missionaries have been putting a lot of effort into making it a success!

So...yep. That's my life.

Have a good week! Love you!

Sister Heather Holdsworth

May 2, 2011 Letter

Hello! I got the package--thanks for sending everything! Toothpaste was even on my shopping list for this week--so thanks for that! I loved the photobook, and Sister Townsend and I are really excited for new music. =)

The two teenagers we found last week are progressing really well. We have them on date to be baptized May 28th...the trick is going to be getting their mom's permission (and figuring out if their dads have any legal rights over them...they're in a really disfunctional family situation...so it might not even be their mom we should be working on. Who knows). It's been great to see the ward embrace them.

Another of our investigators surprised us by coming to church yesterday with her member husband. People seemed to really be welcoming towards them. We have another appointment with them tonight, so we'll see what she thought. Her main problem is with Joseph Smith, but I don't think she'sreally reading the Book of Mormon to find out if it is true. She already has a lot of LDS beliefs, but I think she's just read too much anti stuff and she's not willing to let the majority of that go yet. Hopefully church yesterday and our meeting with her tonight can help her with that.

Things are going really well in our YSA branch. One of the elders in the branch introduced us to his girlfriend, and she is SO prepared!! She's already read Our Search for Happiness, and she already believes everything she read in that, so pretty much we're just making sure she understands everything and having her read the Book of Mormon. She says she had a friend growing up that was LDS, and they've been talking a lot. I'm sure her friend is so excited for her; I know I am! She definitely already has the "look" and--miracle!--she currently is trying to get Sundays off at work, and sheunexpectedly got work of yesterday, so she also surprised us at church yesterday! So many wonderful surprises!

One of our investigators has been really sick since our first lesson with her, and we were contemplating dropping her, but we were finally able to meet with her again! She still sounds interested, and our lesson went really great. She was completely ready to come to church...and then she got sick again! !

But! Thankfully the Elders in her home ward are working with her recent-convert mom a lot still, so they're able to stop by and see her pretty often (the YSA branch is over two stakes, so she lives quite far away from our ward area...) and they keep us updated. They referred us to her, so they're really interested in her conversion as well. It's great to have their help.

So something different we did this week was the district service project at the senior center. That was quite fun; I really got to know the Elders in our district better. Mostly we talked about BYU sports. We came to the conclusion that we are all severely deprived of sports news...did any of the BYU players get drafted? Did the Colts get anyone good? Where did Cam Newton end up going? How did the labor agreement work out? Also...has there been any news on where Jimmer's going?

Let's see...I'm trying to think if there's anything exciting I can tell you. Last night we joined the YSA branch for their break the fast potluck and watched the CES Fireside. The General Primary President spoke (I don't know if you watched it/recorded it). She spoke on what we need to do to strenghten our testimonies and how to follow the Lord's plan for us. I thought it was quite enjoyable! You should definitely look it up if you didn't watch it.

Afterwards we went with a recent convert of the branch and a few other branch members to our mission Cottage Meeting--a handful of recent converts speak on their conversion and their testimony and missionaries are invited to bring their investigators or newly returning members or people they want to encourage to do missionary work. Our recent convert spoke--he was another one that was REALLY prepared...like, he quit smoking and drinking on his own a month before he met the missionaries for (what he then thought was) no reason...amazing!--and he brought his 17 year old sister...and she wants to meet with us now! She was really luke-warm about being there at frist, but she's definitely excited to learn now that she's heard her brother's story and the stories of the other converts that spoke last night. It was a really awesome meeting--everyone that spoke was really prepared, and the underlaying theme seemed to be that the Lord really does have a plan for us and that He really does have us in mind at all times. She's not in our ward, but we'll probably meet with her at first. So exciting! Yay!

Anyways...I had a small request. Do you think you could look on the BYU Faculty Directory and get me the office addresses for Dr. Stan Knapp and Dr. Jason Carroll? They're some of the professors that I got to know really well, and I'd like to send them a quick note telling them about how I'm doing.

I hope everyone's doing well! Later today we're allowed to do a quick 5 min. "pre-call" home...Sister Townsend is getting her haircut at 2:30, and then we're going to be calling after that probably, so hopefully you'll be home! On Sunday I'll be calling around 7pm and I'll be able to talk for about half an hour.

Thanks again for the package! Love you all and talk to you this afternoon...if not, Sunday!

--Sister Heather Holdsworth