July 25, 2011

Hello!

I'm so happy to hear about the baptisms! I'm glad to see that the Glayds Knight concert is still having an effect in our area! Tell the Elders congratulations for me! I'm surprised to hear that Elder Miller is still there! Isn't that almost a year he's been in Chaffey ward?

We're coming up on transfers soon, on Aug. 9, but Sister Taua and I are both pretty sure we're staying together here in Everson. We may or may not be plotting how we're going to retaliate if President does happen to try to separate us...We've heard that we're getting three new sisters this transfer, to take us from 12 in the mission to 15 total...and rumor has it that President got a call from Headquarters that we'll be getting twenty more sisters! At first we thought that meant we'd be getting a group of temple square sisters, but apparently not! Supposedly they're twenty brand new, full time sisters! We're assuming we're getting them over time over the next few transfers; we're not sure if these 3 are part of that 20 or not, but it's exciting either way! Though it will make guessing where we're all getting transferred harder, haha! Though now I have to worry if more sisters' bike areas are going to be opened....

Our "new contacts" didn't go as well this week, but we were still able to find new investigators. We started teaching an older lady that we tracted into. She's a little senile. She's very funny, but very sweet! The Elders also came to help out in our area for a little bit and they found a gang-banger dude that we were able to have a lesson with. He was interesting. We'll see if we get another lesson with him...

We had sisters exchanges this past week, so I got the items you bought for me at Disneyland. Thanks so much!

On Saturday we went to a baptism for a couple in the branch we share a building with. This branch hasn't had a convert baptism in a VERY long time; there is a church up here that has a very strong base in their area, so it's very hard for the Elders to find people to teach. They have three children, ages 5, 3 and 1. It was a really special day for the branch. President Wilson also showed up (even though he missed the actual baptism part because of traffic). It was nice to see him support this family and the elders that have been teaching them!

Later that evening we went to our stakes' Pioneer Day dutch-oven cook out. Only one of our investigators came, of all those that said they'd try to make it, but he seemed to be having a good time. This was Eric, our investigator on date for Aug. 6; he came with his girlfriend and her family.

Yesterday our ward Young Women's president asked us to teach her lesson (it was actually our "trade off" to teach her lesson, since she gave us a ride to the stake center Saturday night). We taught on obedience. Our ward only has 4 young women, and only 2 were there yesterday. We really need to find teenage girls to teach! We do have an in-active, part-member family, where the mom is a member but her daughters (15 and 13) were never baptized. The mom is really open to us coming to visit; though their schedule is really hectic with the summer and everything. We have an appointment with them this coming week, so HOPEFULLY we can start teaching them...finally!!

We're living in an apartment now. It's conveniently located right next door to the church building, and it smells kinda funky. Elders haven't lived there for over a year...you'd think we could get rid of the smell! ;) haha Really it's just that we live in cow central. Nowhere smells exceptionally good. Because we don't live with members, that means we are getting ready for apartment inspections by the housing coordinators this coming week. We had fun re-decorating our apartment; we re-arranged our living room furniture and we cut out the pictures from some old pamphlets and pass along cards that had the wrong missionary info on them and made a delightful collage on our living room wall. We probably had more fun making a collage of Christ pictures than any normal person would have, but we're missionaries, so we decided it was okay.


Love you all! Have a fantastic week!
Sister Heather Holdsworth

July 18, 2011

So this week our mission president has given us a new key indicator to keep track of: how many new contacts we make in a day. He wants us to set a goal of meeting 15 new people a day; which is REALLY HARD in such an unpopulated area, but we did pretty good this week! We got the info on Tuesday, and we had 69 of our 90 people we were supposed to meet. We even had a few people let us in while we were tracting, which never happens!

One lady didn't even wait for us to introduce ourselves, she just said "Oh my gosh! Do you want to come in?"

We didn't really know what to say to that! But we went in and asked her about herself. Apparently, she struggles with depression and she was having a really awful day, and she said she'd been praying that God would send her someone to help her. We'd just said a prayer that we'd find someone that we could help, and she was about the third door we knocked on. It was really cool, and we're really hoping we'll be able to teach her more when we stop by again on Tuesday!

We also have an investigator on date for baptism on August 6! When we went blitzing (not "splits" as we've been informed...don't ask me what the difference is) with the Zone Leaders and two of the other elders in our district Wednesday night, Sister Taua and the two elders she was with invited our investigator Eric to be baptized! The way they told it, it was a really great lesson, and he's really excited to learn more. He's never been to church or learned anything about religion, but he's dating one of our members and he's really golden. So exciting!

Our evening was...less exciting. We had a lesson with one of our other investigators that is progressing, albeit slowly. We shared with her Sister Beck's talk "Mothers Who Know" in trying to get her to see that even though her husband is the (in active) member in their family that she as the mother can lead her family in attending church and becoming active again. It went well, and the Spirit was there, but I was a little frustrated that the zone leader I was with was only interested in surface concerns that Sister Taua and I already knew about, and he just kept beating the same concerns to death; I had really been hoping that this talk would help us realize some deeper concerns that are holding our investigator back from resolving these other concerns that we already knew.

It was less helpful than I was hoping for.

Then we went tracting. We found one potential investigator that sounds like she might be pretty solid. But the zone leader I was with didn't offer me any feedback...WHICH--since the only reason we SHOULD be doing this sort of exercise would be training for me and Sis. Taua--is KIND of unproductive. =P Not to mention he had been the one complaining that we weren't spending the whole evening "finding" (which, in his mind, is apparently ONLY done through tracting...based on some side comments he made about how Sister Taua and I have been trying to work though inactives and part member families)...and then he kept acting completely un-invested in what we were doing....

Anyways...

Sorry, I'm just complaining about how much I...disliked...doing the blitz. This really has been a really good week for Sis. Taua and I though! We found three new investigators total and we met almost all of our other goals for the week! Everson is on fire!

Anyways...you wanted to know more about Sister Taua...

She's the oldest of five. She has two cousins that are also on missions right now (one in England somewhere and one in the Arizona Pheonix mission) that she's also really close with. She went to the University of Hawaii studying psychology, but she's thinking that she's going to change her major when she gets back. Her family is also dropping hints that they're considering moving to Utah, so she's thinking if they do she'll transfer to BYU. She's really happy and fun! She's also a big football fan, and she has a beautiful singing voice! She plays the piano and the ukulele (don't know if I spelled that right).

Let's see...what else is going on...This morning we made chocolate chip pancakes to celebrate p-day! That's exciting. This is really the first "real" p-day we've gotten, between district p-day and the temple trip, etc. We're excited to get to nap later today! (but we're not PLANNING it, because whenever you PLAN for a nap it never happens...)

Tell Krystal congratulations! What is her new surname? It doesn't seem like they've been engaged very long...am I just not remembering right? Hope you enjoy the sealing next Saturday!

I'm glad you were able to see so many characters all in one day! Have you seen Piglet again? When I get back we may have to go on a hunt for him like we did the fairy godmother! Did you take any pictures with the Hammonds when you met up with them? (I'm sure you did...haha)

Anyways, have a fantastic week!

Love,
Sister Heather Holdsworth

Letter July 13, 2011

Hello family! Sorry about the confusion about P-day getting moved because of our temple trip. We're on our way back to the middle of nowhere now! After the temple we went to Deseret Book to buy a new picture of Jesus to hang in our window (our current one is faded and blue and sad-looking). Then we stopped for lunch at Wendys, and we'll probably stop at a Wal-mart somewhere along the way...we have nothing out where we live, so we're taking advantage of civilization while we're still in it.

Anyways, I'm glad to hear you enjoyed meeting the Hammonds! I guess you asked them if I've been smiling...? Glad to hear they said yes....?

We've been having a good time in Everson. We have been really blessed and led by the Spirit this past week to be in the right places at the right times; we've been able to find two solid investigators by visiting less active members. We are having a lesson with each of them tonight...should be exciting! We're thinking we might even be able to have one of them on-date for baptism by the end of the night! Woo-hoo!

Last Saturday we went down to Arlington for Tad's baptism. It was great to see him and his sister again. Everything is going good with them; lots of people said they've missed me. We stopped in at Wal-mart to pick up some things we don't have access to in Everson and one of the check-stand girls even recognized me and said "oh, you're back! We missed you!" So that was nice. =)

Anyways...tonight should be interesting: for part of the time we're going to be going on splits...but not the "regular" kind of splits your thinking of. I'm going to go visit one of our other investigators with our zone leaders and Sister Taua is going to go visit one of the new investigators with our district leader/his companion...Sounds sketchy. Yes. We agree. But they got President's permisison. We're just planning on having a tearful reunion when we get to be together again! But hopefully it will be a good experience. We'll see what happens.

There isn't much to tell you about the area: we're in the middle of nowhere....I think the only street light I've seen was when we went into Bellingham for an oil change last week...I'm not complaining...there just isn't much to tell??? I don't know what else you want to know? It's a nice area, and the members are really great and generous to us...but truth be told there's just no way I'd ever want to permantly live in such a rural area!! It's also a little bit frustrating because they want us to set a goal of having 15 new contacts a day....and people are just so spread out here and tracting isn't the...smartest thing to do in most neighborhoods in our area we're not really sure how we're going to pull that off. We got 12 yesterday though; the first day trying it out. we'll see how that goes! We're being optimistic about it and trying our best!

I got the pictures from the cruise! It looks like you had lots of fun! Sister Taua and I also appreciated SO much how you were rubbing it in that you've seen Pirates and been riding the new Little Mermaid ride....But we loved looking at the pictures! I'm hoping that I'll be able to develop some pictures to send to you later-on today. I love getting mail! (I'm starting to pander and beg for mail!)

Let's see...things I've learned from my scripture reading? I've been reading in Alma lately. One of the things I've noticed is that when Ammon is teaching King Lamoni and Aaron is teaching his father the first thing after they rise from their slumber is that they're (King Lamnoi/'s father) the first ones to testify and teach those assembled around them, and then the missionaries provide the second witness. That was something interesting that stood out to me this past week.

Anyways! I'll talk to you later! Hope everything is going well this week!

I love you!

-Sister Heather Holdsworth

July 5, 2011 Letter

Hello family! I hope you're having a fantastic week!

Well....I'm not really *supposed* to be sending you a full length e-mail...but we ran out of time yesterday to write letters because it was district p-day and so I figure if I'm taking extra time to write you a letter anyways I might as well just send you an email now....

Anyways...I've been transferred to the Everson Ward in Everson. It's a very large area--the biggest in the mission. We're right up against the Canadian border. Our area includes the towns of Peaceful Valley, Sumas, Wickersham, Acme, Nooksack, Everson, Maple Falls, Kendall and a little part of Bellingham. It's very...rural. But I'm not on a bike! =)

My new companion is Sister Taua. She is Samoan, from Hawaii. She and I get along practically perfectly. We both just finished really difficult transfers with really difficult companions, so we're BOTH relieved to be companions with each other!

Yesterday for the Fourth of July we were supposed to go into Blaine to see a parade....but the elders in our district were misinformed as to what time the parade started. So instead we just wandered around the street fair that was set up. So, basically, we didn't do anything. But Sister Taua and I were able to just laugh at how ridiculous the entire situation was. We came home at 6 and made ourselves hot dogs and then walked to the church (we live a block away...definitely an upgrade from being 10 miles from the building) and had a picnic. We stayed outside for planning and watched some of the fireworks that were starting up in the neighborhoods around us. They were pretty impressive for just being neighborhood fireworks!

We don't have very many solid investigators. Apparently over the past transfer, they ended up dropping 20 investigators because they weren't prepared to keep commitments or didn't want to be baptized yet. So, we're finding, but we have a few potential part member families that we might be able to start working with. The main problem in this area seems to be the area...lots of people think it's too far or too long to travel to the church building, or they don't have money for gas or they don't have a ride or something along those lines. We're focusing a lot on reactivation right now. Hopefully this transfer will see a big turn around in this area; I'm hoping so, since Sister Taua and I get along so well we'll really be able to work well and make a big difference here.

This Saturday we are going back down to Arlington to be at Tad's baptism; so that will be exciting!

Anyways, I hope that Jon's service mission goes (is going?) well! That is really exciting that he gets to do a mini-mission! (I was planning on writing him personally about it, but...like I said...we ran out of time for letters yesterday...)

Well...I should spend some time on mormon.org this morning, but it was good to read your emails! I love hearing from you and all about what you are doing. It sounds like Jon had a really good weekend bowling! Hope he keeps it up!

Love you all!
Sister Heather Holdsworth