March 26, 2012

Hi!

You shouldn't be that concerned about my leg...it's just the same normal thing that I've been dealing with since high school, it just got aggravated from all the walking we were doing up these steep hills, and was getting swollen. Didn't go to the doctor, since he was just going to tell me to keep it elevated, with heat, like I was already doing. It's back to it's normal pain levels now, and it's doing just fine.

We did get to go to the YW broadcast. It was really enjoyable; my favorite talk was Sister Dalton's, focusing on the temple.

I'm glad you were able to mostly enjoy your spring break; hope everything goes well with the new doctor. Good luck with work this coming week; I'm sure all your kids have missed you this week.

Well...you asked what we had for dinner. It was fast Sunday for us, I guess it probably was for you too? Anyways...we had a really early dinner (lunch) of baked spaghetti; it was pretty good. Then we were tracting in a member's apartment complex around the time she got home from choir practice and she invited us in for some made-from-scratch hot chocolate for dinner. It was probably the best hot chocolate I've ever had....It was like drinking right out of Willy Wonka's river...

We had a really busy week this week. Lots of appointments with less active members, and a few with our investigators. It seems crazy that we're already going into week four of the transfer; it feels like I just got here! I love how busy we are though. I've probably said it every email so far but it's SO NICE to be doing more than just foundation work or clean up work again! It'd be even nicer if through all our contacting we've been doing we actually found some people that were interested in becoming investigators, but there here somewhere! =)

A lot of our time this week has been spent focusing on old referrals that were never able to be contacted....so it's pretty much been like tracting from the knocking on doors where no one is home aspect, but I personally like it much better, because at least I know who to ask for that might be interested when some one answers the door.

I also had to go to leadership training this past week...not really exciting, since I was already frustrated enough with how the scheduling had gone with it......there was this lengthy debate between my district leader and the zone leaders on whether or not I was supposed to be going or not (since I'm guess I'm "technically" a trainer, but I was never actually called as a trainer by President, and was never actually trained to be a trainer and all sorts of other ridiculous nonesense revolving around the question of whether I'm "officially" a trainer or not.........a roll of the eyes would be approperiate here...) so we only found out the day before "for-sure" that I actually WAS supposed to go and so THEN, last minute, we had to disrupt the plans of the other two sisters that were going because Sister Chudleigh couldn't very well just hang out in Redmond by herself half the day.........

We're really excited for general conference coming up. We've been inviting a lot of people to it, and our theme for all our lessons this week is pretty much going to be following the prophet and encouaging everyone we meet with to watch it. Also this week we're having Interviews with President. Should be an exciting week!

Well...that's all I can think of in terms of updates from this week. Hope you're all having a great day! Love you!

-Sister Holdsworth

March 19, 2012

Hello everyone, you can all stop laughing at me now: Sister Chudleigh and I are now the proud drivers of a delightful car. All the walking the week and a half before we got the car really screwed up my leg, so even with the car we've been really limited on what we can get around to do so it's still really frustrating in that respect, but at least we CAN get to our appointments still.

Well...the highlight of this past week was that we got to go do baptisms for the dead with three of our recent converts in the ward. They each had a really spectacular time being at the temple for the first time; Sister Chudleigh and I definitely feel blessed to have been allowed to go with them. It's not an opportunity that many missionaries get.

It was pretty neat being there with the Pritchetts especially. We were all there on time, at 7, but the youth group before us thought they had the bapistry reserved until 7:30...so we didn't get down there until 8! But Jacob took the time to walk around the grounds, and then took his wife Tiffany around to look at all the statues with him. I think it was a really good experience to help them visualize their sealing next year. =)

We had a few good lessons with our investigators and we had a lot of successful lessons with recent converts and less active members this week, but it felt like the majority of time this week was spent inside elevating my leg. Super frustrating: I finally feel like I'm in an area with tons of work for us to do RIGHT NOW and I'm stuck inside!!! :P Bah!! Sister Chudleigh and I have gotten to know each other really well, at least. Her family is also very passionate about Disneyland. She got to work at Disneyworld last summer; she told me they're doing a whole expansion to fantasy land there, with castles for Ariel, Snow White and Belle. Sounds pretty neat.

Anyways...sorry I don't have more to update you about. This week was pretty boring for the most part. My leg feels better after it's been elevated for a few hours, but if I try to hobble around for longer than an hour or so it starts swelling up again. We'll see what happens. I might be going to the doctors later today, or I might just keep resting and let it heal on it's own........guess I just needed a lesson in patience or something.

Anyways...hope you enjoy your spring break!!

Love you all!

Sister Holdsworth

March 12, 2012

(just a little note before Heather's letter, I was really missing Heather this past week so I sent an email to the Missionary Mom email group. A kind church member who lives in the Everett Mission found out where Heather was and told me...I also learned that Heather is in a bike area....Heather doesn't ride a bike?!)

Hi!

Well...you apparently already know I'm in Redmond.

My new companion is Sister Chudleigh. She is from Utah; oldest of four. There's a new training program for new missionaries put out by the Church that lasts 12 weeks instead of 6, so I'm finishing her training, as her first trainer went home last transfer. I really love Sister Chudleigh; she's super sweet and motivated to do amazing things here in Redmond. She is also very passionate about all things Disney; she worked on the Soaring over California ride at Disneyworld last summer. She's close to graduating at BYU-I after her mission; she's been studying Humanities and wants to become a museum curator.

And anyways, thank you so much: I'm really SO glad you're all having a good time. It's bad enough having all the Elders making fun of me; glad Chaffey ward and all my family can join in, too. But thanks. I'm glad you're all enjoying making fun of me so much. (I'm not really making fun of Heather, I am just laughing a lot!)

So, on that note, I have a lot of things I need to buy today to be able to ride a bike (bike shorts, reflectors, etc.) so I'm probably just going to put it all on my wells fargo account. Next week can you check my balance and send it to me, just to check that I've been keeping track of everything right? Thank you.

'Glad Jon had a good average this season with bowling. When does the next league start up? Look forward to getting his letter.

Also; I'm glad to hear that all of you are enjoying your video games "together." I hope Mario Party is as good as the last one. It's time to get some new minigames (hopefully none like the monkeys though). Congratulations on finishing the yearbook.

Yes, the Bothell stake did get a new stake presidency my first week with Sister McAllister. I'm in the Redmond stake now...

Four new sisters arrived last week.

Things are pretty good here in Redmond. We had three investigators baptized last transfer (I'm glad I got to go to all of their baptisms because Sister McAllister was my companion) and they're all super amazing. One is a senior in high school, Kierra (we are now teaching her father, Ben, who we're pretty excited about), and a couple, Jacob and Tiffany (they have three kids, all under 6). Yesterday, Jacob was ordained as a Priest, which was super spectacular. He was completely excited about it!! =D

This week, we got special permission from President Wilson to go to the temple with all three of them to do baptisms for the dead. That NEVER happens!!!!!!!! Usually you can only get permission, MAYBE if your recent convert is receiving their endowment or being sealed......so, needless to say, Sister Chudleigh and I have been dancing around like crazy we're so excited to be able to go. We're suspecting it's because THREE recent converts are going isntead of just one, but we're not asking questions, that's for sure!

I did get the Rose Parade book; it was very nice. I appreciate being able to see pictures of what's going on with you. We were quite jealous of the sunshine. Sorry I haven't been able to send any photos in awhile; my last area didn't have anywhere with instant photo printing. If we can find somewhere here I'll send you some, though!

Have a good week! Hope your back gets feeling better soon!

Love,

Sister Holdsworth

March 5, 2012

Hi! Glad you were finally able to make it to Disneyland. I don't think Sister McAllister believes me as much that my family practically lives at Disneyland as much as my other companions have...

Good news for transfers: I'm being transferred out of Woodinville 3rd! I've been feeling really positive that I'm getting transferred, but 2-transfer stints in a single area are getting really rare for sisters (President has said he wants to keep us in areas longer, and 6 months seems to be the new average) so I thought that I was just going crazy....but nope! Off to somewhere else! I'll have the update next week of where I am and who I'm with. We have one newer sister named Sister Hepworth...I think we should be companions so that we can confuse everyone! (I don't know HOW many times I've been called "Sister Holdstrom" or "Sister Hollingsworth" or SOMETHING other than "Holdsworth." I didn't ever think I had a difficult name until I came out on my mission. If I already confuse people, might as well just completely throw them for a loop! haha)

On pet hair: everyone in Washington has pets, it seems like. It's very rare to find a family that doesn't, and since the weather is so bad up here, most of the pets are indoors. And most of the pets aren't very well-trained about what "lie down" means. There are tons of houses that we come out covered in pet hair. Sometimes we use lint rollers, but most of the time we just know we're headed to another house with another pet, so we just give up.

The play sounds like it was fun. Glad to hear that the drama program at LOHS is still going strong. One of the laurels we're teaching the lessons to is looking into going to a fine arts school for theater, and she's hoping she can get into BYU's musical theater program. We went to YW/YM a few weeks ago and they were doing some improv comedy (like Who's Line games) and she did a great job performing. I think BYU would be perfect for her, so I hope she gets accepted!

This past week went really good. We've strated having shorter but more frequent lessons with Bruce. He fasted yesterday for help to quitting smoking, and by the time Church was over he'd made it a full 24 hours cold-turkey. He's made a few attempts before this one; his longest was five days with a nicotine patch. I think the fast really helped him though; plus he got a priesthood blessing for help the night before. He seemed to be doing okay at Church. It'll be sad to not be able to teach him more, but he's definitely got a really solid testimony; he's doing so great, I'm not worried about him at all!

We also had our sister's luncheon ("sisters training" as we now call it, I guess some Elders were complaining that they don't get an "Elder's BBQ") on Tuesday this past week. It was really great to see all the sisters that left today (Sister Taua and Sister Beckstrand, two of my companions in Everson, and also Sister Northrup and Sister Felt, who I wish I had gotten to be companions with). We had some great training about how defending the family unit is part of our purpose of helping people come closer to Christ. It went perfectly with my talk from last Sunday.

Then, Saturday night we got to go back to Sister McAllister's old area for the baptism of a couple she taught. I actually got to teach them twice while I was on exchanges in their area, so I was really happy to see their baptism as well! =) Originally, just the wife was going to be baptized, and her husband was going to be baptized later in the month, but he decided he could give up coffee faster and sooner than he thought, so he moved up his baptismal date as well! They have three small kids; Jacob, the husband, and I were talking afterwards about how excited he is to be able to be sealed as a family next year, and how much he's looking forward to being able to baptize his own kids in a few years. It was just a whole week themed about eternal families, and eternal families to-be! So awesome!

I felt like I should put Grandma Donna on the prayer roll when I was at the temple two weeks ago; sorry to hear she's not doing well right now. I'll keep making sure to include her and everybody else in my prayers.

Did Dad get an iPad too, or does he share with Jon? Are you one of those snazzy High Priest Group Leaders that use their iPad during ward council meetings? In the Woodinville 3rd ward, I feel so out of touch, because we're practically the only ones in the entire room that pull out our physical scriptures during the Bishop's opening spiritual thought; everybody else just brings it up on their iPads or whathaveyou.

I hope Rod's birthday dinner was good, too; happy birthday!

Love you all! See you next week from somewhere new!

Love,

Sister Holdsworth