January 30, 2012

Hi Mom,

Sorry you've had such crazy weather. It's been in the 20s-30s this week, but the snow is all gone, thank goodness. One of the main roads is flooded, so that makes things a little inconvenient, but we can get around it fine.

It's been awhile since you've sent me anything from the Forget Me Not talk. I enjoyed the quotes, thank you.

Tell Michell congratulations for me!! I'm very excited for her. :D

I did get Aunt Annette's package. It was great! I loved seeing all the pictures from the two weddings. I haven't had time to write many of my birthday thank you's, but they'll all get out within the next two weeks or so (hoping). I'm really being truthful when I say we don't have a lot of time for letters.........

I'll be sure to keep Jon's test in mind all next week. Good luck to him.

My new companion is Sister McAllister. She's been out 5 months; Woodinville is her second area. She graduated from BYU with her degree in civil engineering and started grad school at BYU before she felt like she should come on her mission. She's really great to be around. We actually have some mutual friends at BYU; pretty funny. She's originally from Ohio, and has an older brother and sister, and a younger brother.

We had some pretty neat experiences though. We taught Bruce about the Word of Wisdom. He already had set his own date to quit smoking before we taught him about it, and he seems even more prepared to quit now that we've talked about the Word of Wisdom. We asked him if he would set a goal date to quit coffee and tea and he said, "Sure--how about tonight?"

Then, later, he was on his way to a meeting for his parole and he asked one of our members for a bottle of water. He said they always serve coffee at his meetings, and he expalined "The Spirit told me I should ask you for a bottle of water so that I can have something to drink tonight!"

Bruce is super excited for his baptism. He's doing so good!!

We also had one of the less active families we've been working with lately come to church for the first time today. The ward members were really excited to see them; I think they appreciated the warm, enthusastic welcome they received.

We have a few really promising-sounding referrals that we're hoping to start working with soon. It's been tricky getting a hold of them, but we're not giving up on them yet.

Anyways, I guess that's our week in a nutshell...See you next week!

Love,

Sister Holdsworth

January 23, 2012

I'm glad Mom is excited to hear about what happened this past week (lots of snow in the Everett area). I don't know if I have much to tell, but it was a week to remember from my mission, to say the least.

We aren't "not allowed to go out," we are not allowed to stay IN when there is snow, just like any other day as a missionary. The only difference is we aren't allowed to drive if there is snow or ice on the roads, which there was plenty of. So, that meant we spent about six hours a day tracting, which--in a mission which virutally never tracts, because it's so tremendously, painfully ineffective--was very discouraging and humbling and frustrating for many missionaries, including us.

So...yep. A lot of walking. A lot of tracting. I think I more than doubled the total amount of time I've spent tracting on my mission in the last week. No new investigators. Not even any potential investigators. You'd think that much tracting, at least a lot of people would be HOME...and there were tons of people home....they were just EXTRA grumpy to see us, because aside from the usual "Hey, you're a missionary and you're knocking on my door, go away" we got the "Hey, we're already STUCK HERE IN OUR OWN HOUSE, and you're a missionary and you're knocking on my door, go away."

A few people on the first day were really impressed that we were out knocking doors despite the weather, but as the novelty of the snow wore off, so did their appreciation for our dedication...even if they weren't interested.

Our mood wasn't hindered by the weather, though...we were actually pretty positive and hopeful for most of the day, each day, until it got to nighttime and we "got" to evaluate the work we'd done that day and we had nothing to show for any of it (other than nearly sprained ankles, of course).

It's just been a really frustrating/weird transfer for both of us. Over the past six weeks, our teaching pool has dwindled to two so-so/flaky investigators, and one really, super solid investigator, so needless to say, we needed to spend a lot of time finding last week either way...

I think the main frustration was that this was SUPPOSED to be our first week back to being fully functional after a two week hiatus for injury(Sister Alberts)/illness(myself)..............You'd think we could have just knocked it down to a one week hiatus, and could've just gotten sick/injured during the same week, but no...I literally got sick the DAY the doctor gave Sister Alberts the all-clear to get back to work.

On Monday night there was a little bit of a break in the snow, so we were able to go on exchanges with the sisters in Redmond. Sister Taua's trainee had to go home for her health, so Sister Taua was spending the last few weeks of the transfer with them too...so I got to go around with Sister Taua and Sister Northrup both for the day, while Sister Alberts stayed with Sister Northrup's trainee, Sister McAllister, in our area. It was REALLY great to see Sister Taua agian =) She and Sister Northrup are both going home in March; I'll miss them a lot. Sister Taua is applying to BYU though; she wants to do one of the vocal or piano programs, so we'll get to see each other soon.

Tuesday night we drove back, but by then the roads had become way more icy in Woodinville than they were in Redmond. Had we known that, we would have stayed in Redmond for a second night....but we made it to Woodinville safe; all five of us ended up staying the night in our tiny apartment, though. It made for a really cool companionship study in the morning, that's for sure! They stayed in our area and helped us tract (more) the next morning, and then they were able to make it back to Redmond in the afternoon.

Transfers are tomorrow. Sister Alberts is being transferred; I'm staying here. So, guess you'll get to hear about my new companion next week.

Thanks for sharing about the devotional this past Tuesday. President Wilson has given some limited approval for speeches.byu.edu if we have a specific devotional we want to print off and read, so I've been reading a few old devotionals from Elder Holland. I kind of miss being able to listen to the devotionals every week. This past one sounds good, though, maybe in a few weeks I'll see if they have the transcript up.

I'm really glad that the Manwaring's daughter told you she'd like you as a leader at girls' camp. I'm sure that really did brighten your day! =)

Love,

Sister Holdsworth

January 16, 2012

I am glad Mom had such a fun week. The concert sounds like it was lots of fun. Glad you were able to get to go up on stage like you wanted.

That's quite a lot of missionaries out from Chaffey ward. Sounds like a good sacrament meeting. Julia just wrote me and told me that our roommate Anna is on a mission now in Flordia.

We don't stay in for snow. Church got cancelled, which made our day a little more hectic, since we're not allowed to drive in the snow either, so we're pretty much regulated to walking-distance, or we have to get member rides. We set up a ride to dinner, but they decided it would be more convenient to pick us up four hours early.....and then they kind of expected us to stay at their house and let them host us...so I asked if I could wash the inside of their widows. At least we got to do some service yesterday, if we didn't get much else done.

Glad you got to go to the temple. We're hoping for a temple trip next month but we won't know for sure for a few more weeks. It's up to the temple president when the missionaries get to go.

Good luck to Jon with his driving lesson. Hope all goes well and that he drives safe.

This past week we had a really good lesson with Bruce. We read the quote from Joseph Smith about the Book of Mormon being the most correct of any book and all went around and bore our testimonies of the Book of Mormon. Bruce wanted to go first, since he has such a strong testimony of the Book of Mormon. Then his land-lady (who's a member of our ward) bore her testimony, then me, then Sister Alberts. Then Bruce asked if he could go again, since he said his "testimony changed and grew while we talked." It's been really great to watch all the changes Bruce has gone through since I've gotten here. The Spirit is working really strongly on him, and he's completely open to the Spirit's influence.

I want to say thank you for paying for my mission. I never expected to come on a mission, so I never thought I had much need to plan for one, but I appreciate being able to drop everything and go, not having to worry about the expenses. I'm really gald to be here.

Talk to you next week,

Sister Holdsworth

Happy Birthday to Me!

Hello; thank you for all of the birthday wishes. I got Mom and Grandma's packages; I enjoyed them this morning, thank you. I also got the cards from the Tiltons; thank you very much for thinking of me on my birthday! I'm sure Annette's package is on it's way too; I really appreciated her letter.

I'm glad the Rose Parade was fun and that you were able to enjoy some good weather for it. Glad to hear Oregon won. I heard from our checker at the grocery store this morning that Alabama and LSU are playing in the championship tonight. That should be a good game.

Yes. Sister Bennett came up to us at Church on Sunday. It was kind of weird. But she gave both Sister Alberts and I hugs from you.

You did mention that Eddie's son was in Woodinville (or now taht I think about it maybe Grandma did in one of her cards...). There are three wards in the city of Woodinville. Maybe Eddie's kids are in our ward; who knows!? Maybe we'll meet them.

Your lesson sounds like it was good. I hope you're enjoying teaching Relief Society. We didn't go to our Relief Society (Sister Albert's has been really sick all week, so we left church early) so I don't know what our lesson was on.

This week was mostly spent inside. We did get a few lessons in at the start of the week, but for the past few days we've been inside trying to get Sister Alberts healthy again. I did a lot of reading from past issues of the Ensign...read a lot about the Law of Moses in the Old Testament...colored a few pictures from the Friend...caught up on a lot of letters I needed to write...caught up in my journaling a little bit...One of our investigators dropped.

Nothing all that fun planned for today. We'll probably meet for chair soccer like always since Sister Alberts is really going crazy being stuck in the apartment. We're only allowed to meet up with our district on p-days; Sister Beckstrand (she shares Heather's birthday) is on the exact opposite end of the mission. Unless one or both of us get transferred this transfer somewhere closer to each other we probably won't see each other until after my mission (she goes home in March). President Wilson did text me "happy birthday" this morning, so that was nice.

Congratulations to Jon on getting his drivers' permit. Hope everything goes well with driver's ed!!

Didn't read much from the Conference issue. There was a really good article on faith, hope and charity from one of the seventy that I enjoyed in one of the Ensigns I read; it was about how hope has a more important role than we give it credit for. He said that hope is an essential aspect of faith, and that without hope we wouldn't be able to even develop or comprehend faith.

I love you, thanks again for all the birthday wishes,

Sister Holdsworth

January 2, 2012

Hello!

We were in at 6 pm on New Year's Eve. We didn't do much. Planned for Sunday....sat around and talked...we decided we were allowed to go to bed early, since we weren't doing anything, so that was our favorite part. Usually when we're in early for holidays, they'll give us an assignment to read a talk or something, but nothing for New Years Eve or Christmas Eve....Sounds like both our New Years were pretty uneventful.

Sounds like it was a good game (BYU vs. Tulsa). Oh...and you might like to know: Mark Wilson is in our ward. Haven't met him personally yet though...our ward is HUGE...Sister Alberts doesn't even know everyone, and she's been here six months! It's ridiculous!

Congratulations to Michelle!!! Anyways, that's great to hear! Woohoo!

Sounds like Disneyland for 24 hours would be pretty fun. Are they going to have special characters out for it too?

Yes, I agree: Church history is pretty easy to learn. I think it'd be great if we spent a few years studying Church history like we spent the past two studying out of Gospel Principles.

We have church at 1 now. Sounds like you had a good sacrament meeting though. Ours was mostly about temporal welfare. And kids screaming in sacrament meeting. It was interesting.

I probably read 2-3 conference talks a week in my personal study. This week I read Elder Cook's and re-read Elder Anderson's. Right now I'm in Exodus in the Old Testament, and Jacob in the Book of Mormon. I'm reading the Old Testament for fun, and reading the Book of Mormon studying the Christlike attributes listed in PMG. I love my personal study time. Wish we got more of it.

We haven't gotten our January Ensign yet, but I'm sure it'll be great.

Good luck winning the HGTV Dream Home!

Good luck to Jon starting driver's ed. Don't crash Pepe (my car). Sister Albert's 17 year old brother has wrecked her car twice in the past two weeks.....just sayin'. ;) I'm sure Jon will do great though!

Have fun at the Rose Parade...I heard from one of our members it's Oregon and Wisconsin right? Should be a good game too. Who are/were you rooting for? Who's in the other BCS bowls? How did Utah do in the Pac 12 (that's still weird...)? I've heard rumors we've been invited to the Big East???

Thanks for sending the birthday package. I look forward to getting it! =)

This past week was much better than the week before. People actually wanted to talk to us now that Christmas was over... this is a pretty great ward, and we've got some really good work going on. ANYWAYS, that's about all the time I've got...I'll talk to you later!

Love you!

Sister Heather Holdsworth