Jun 11, 2018

Jun 11, 2018- 43 weeks down, 35 left

hey mom!!!

Wow, weird dream eh? haha. I’m too tired to have dreams anymore hahahaha jk

My sweet mom! Yeah, you have no idea how busy this week was. It literally flew by. It was very productive, and I learned a lot. the new responsibilities I have are exhausting, but super fun... its a whole new side of the mission, being an hermana capacitadora in the Patagonia haha 

I am happy with this new calling. Its a calling I’ll have for the rest of my mission. It’s a challenge... but I’m ready to learn! I’m just excited that I get to learn more and grow more. 

Tuesday we were in Trelew the whole day, while the missionaries were arriving for transfers. Hermana Chirinos is in Trelew! My hija!!!!!!! She cried when she got off the bus and saw me, she wouldn’t let go of me for like a minute hug. It was so sweet. I was so thrilled to see her, and that I’m her hermana capacitadora. 

We headed back to Rawson that night, and Wednesday after studies and a quick lunch we headed back to Trelew to catch the colectivo to Comodoro with the elders. We left at 3 and got there at 8 something... 

So this reunion is called Consejo. Its where the hermana capacitadoras and zone leaders meet with presidente....all.day.long. the next day, the meeting started at 10am sharp and we finished at 6 something... man oh man. 

But it was amazing!!!! My head hurt so bad after. But I learned so much and it was so great to feel a little older, a little more in charge. We even had name badges on our desk haha, I felt special. 

I got to talk a lot with Hermana Borba, because she’s also an hermana capacitadora. We talked for hours the night before the meeting. and we had a huge cena with the office and all the leaders. 

Friday morning we headed back to Trelew, helped the new hermanas get settled in, because there are two newbies in my zone... and then Saturday headed to Rawson.... finally, by Saturday, we could work in our own area hahah so sad. 

But the miracles came….

We taught like 4 lessons..... and met with Gabriel, the future husband of a menos activa.... (just like Laura and Marcelo). We had met with him before... all of his family is member but him...and we had a fantastic lesson about family history. He loved it. He told US that he wanted to be baptized.... we put a fecha with him for the 23rd. BLESSINGSSSSSS

Sunday was great, loved church. I love the relief society sisters so much. especially Hermana Barbara, Maxi and Pato’s mom, and Hermana Gladys Brandt. 

Sunday evening we went to an activity of family history in the chapel. and Gabriel and Natalia came!! It was great. I told one of the kids of the ward all about the USA.. He was asking me a billion questions a minute hahaha. 

That night, while we were planning in our pension... Natalia and Gabriel called.  They had been talking about the law of chastity... and Gabriel didn’t understand or like it... so we talked with him and explained and testified. I was nervous at first, because he was asking a lot of questions and didn’t like the answers he was getting... but I felt true power and authority as I testified and taught over the phone with him. We promised him that if they knelt down and prayed together, they would understand and feel the Lord guiding them. He promised he would do it. and today.... THEY ARE GOING TO GO TAKE OUT A DATE FOR THEIR WEDDING: THEY ARE GETTING MARRIED. They are trying to find a time on July 3... pray that they can!!!!!

This week was a blur... a ton of walking, suitcases, traveling, meetings, calendars, spreadsheets (yes mike holland) haha, conversations, cleaning.. planning... AHHHHH but i loved it°°°

I was thinking about you all on Thursday, for Aly’s graduation. HOW AMAZING. I can’t believe that she graduated. I feel so old. I missed being there with you all to celebrate. Good thing I wasn’t... those two sisters of mine are so gorgeous... and I would ruin all the pics with my chubby face hahahahaha

So glad that you got to see the family....

Poor Christy. Send her ALL of my love. I miss them and love them so much.

Everything will be fine when you drive to LV! Just say a prayer. If i can drive with Caleb from BYU to Cali, you can drive to Vegas with the kids. Don’t worry. Be safe

Send my love to Paigey and the fam

Love the pics of seminary graduation

i uploaded 25 pics 

Don’t be a nervous wreck. The chickens are not your kids. But that made me laugh out loud hahahaha you are so funny. yes, i definitely get my crazy stress nervousness from you... thanks mommmm hahahahaha 

I LOVE YOUUUUUUUUUUUU

ames

-- 

Mucho amor, 

Hermana Holt 

Jun 4, 2018

Jun 4, 2018- 42 weeks down- 36 left! 

Wow, how are you? All good? Not a whole lot of news from y’all this week haha! But hey...its alright... because I’VE GOT SOME NEWSSS

drum roll...........

I GOT MOVED UP AS AN HERMANA CAPACITADORA FOR THE MISSION!!!!!!

AND IM STAYING IN RAWSON, in my area, and my old hermana capacitadora, Hermana Molina, will be my new comp-trainer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ITS INSANE. It’s a crazy change for the mission... because there are only 4 pairs of hermanas capacitadoras in the whole mission, in Ushuaia, Rio Gallegos, Comodoro, and Trelew. But they moved the hermanas capacitadoras from Trelew to my area in Rawson, because i guess they see that we are having a lot of success, but presidente wanted me as hermana capacitadora! I’m so happy, surprised, and super super excited to serve in this new leadership role for the mission!!!

It means I'm now over all the hermanas of Trelew and Puerto Madryn. It’s gonna be a lot of traveling. I have to go on divisions with each pair of hermanas during the transfer. And this week I have to go to Comodoro for Consejo with presidente and all of the leaders of the mission!!!!! I’M PUMPED!

This week was hard...  i was just completely done with the transfer... we were struggling to work and find people, and were just so tired. It was rough. hate to say it, but i just didn’t even want to work this week. I’ve never felt like that before. 

And then Friday we went to Trelew to stay with the hermanas capacitadoras, because Hermana Avellaneda is finishing her mission and heading home this week, so we went and spent the night with her and dropped her off at the terminal the next morning. It was sad to see so many people finishing their missions, so many of my really good friends. So then as we returned to Rawson with my comp, we just felt like absolute crap. Super sad. and there are lots of other little things going on, lots of disobedience and stuff in my zone.. so we just felt awful. We got back to Rawson, asked our elders there for blessings... and it was great. In my blessing he told me that Ii have to not overthink the small things, and focus on the bigger picture. That piece of advice helped me a lot. 

We left for a few lessons, nothing went right and the lessons were basically trash. So we got back to the pensino, and I felt the need to call presidente to talk about some things. 

When I called,  I began to ask my first question, when he stopped me.

Hermana Holt, he said, First, I have a question for you

What presidente?

When was the last time you unplugged? he said

uhhhhhhhhhhhh i don’t know. never?

He then gave me a bunch of comfort and advice telling me how to unplug and when to unplug and stuff like that. Made me so happy, because even before i could ask him my question, he knew EXACTLY what was happening, exactly what my problem was.  It was evidence for me that he really does receive revelacion for us. I started crying.. and he told me that he loves me a lot. 

He then said.. Hermana holt, you know what? I’m just gonna tell you your traslados right now, because i think maybe you will have a heart attack if you hear later on.

uhhh ok

Welcome to the hermana capacitadoras club Hermana Holt. You are now one of our dear hermana capactiadoras.

EN SERIO PRESIDENTE

yes Hermana en serio. 

oh my goshhhhhhhhh graciasssssssssssss

He was laughing and like you deserve it Hermana its all good

I felt so happy, that when we hung up i just cried a bit and talked w/ my comp.

So yeah that was that hahahaha it was a ROLLERCOASTER this week mom, seriously. ups and downs. One day with 5 lessons, the next with nothing and tears. one day of lessons, the next we just feel like straight up poop.

Hahahah but Sunday came, and we went to church and I gave my testimony cause I felt the need. now, I don’t even get that nervous to give my testimony. I remember before the mission i would almost never do it, i would get so nervous. But now it doesn’t really even bother me, i just always want to give it! I gave it about the plan of salvacion.

I seriously love the plan of salvacion now. I always study it, i marked each scripture in the libro de mormon that talks about it. It’s full of scriptures! Seriously, the Book of Mormon is straight up a book about the plan of salvacion.

Pato came to church again. We had a FANTASTIC lesson with him with the elders again. He’s thinking about baptism now, and feels alot more comfortable and wants to keep learning! Huge progress! But now things will get complicated, because I’m going to be traveling at least 1 or 2 days each week, so it means less time for teaching, but more time for serving the other hermanas of the mission!!

HEY did you see that Trent had an interview with ELDER BRAGG!!!!??? HOW FREAKING INSANE mom what a coincidence. Well, there is no such thing as coincidences... but man oh man

So i hope you are all well! I’m ok  now. We just finished sending hermana lapuaho off at the terminal of buses. I’m with hermana molina now! She’s from Buenos Aires, super great. Was a comp of Hermana Borba. I’ll kill her this transfer! Haha this is her last transfer in the mission hahaha!!!!!

I love you guys. Thank you for your constant support and love. i miss you. But I love it here. This is an adventure! Its all part of the plan!!!!! I don’t wanna leave!!!!!!! Im learning so much. So many trials. So many. But I’m learning a lot.

i love you

amy

i put a ton of pics and a video of a seriously unfortunate event last night....... hahahahahahahahah you will get a kick out of it

See More from Amy Holt

-- 

Mucho amor, 

Hermana Holt 

May 28, 2018

May 28, 2018- 41 weeks down- 37 left!

Hey! whats going on mom!!!!

AW I loved your emails, and the pictures you sent me!!!! Thank you!!

Sounds like you guys had a loaded week,  but a good one! It was the same for me over here haha!!

I love the story you sent about grandpa.. thank you. That touches me. It makes me feel so happy. I plan on teaching them the gospel the minute my feet hit North America again. haha. 

Wow, you told me so many things, that I don’t even know how to reply to it all! that makes me sad that buddy was sad that one of his little birdies died. Poor guy. 

Soooo you wanna hear a little  bit of my week? if I can even remember what happened haha.. so much happened…

First of all, my pics will explain this week well.  I uploaded a ton, and videos too....

I’ll start with today and work backwards

So, we are writing late cause we had the BEST PDAY EVER. we toured the Patagonia. not even kidding. at 9am we took a little bus that presidente helped us rent for the day, and we went up to a private beach in PuertoMadryn, in the MIDDLE OF NOWHERE. we explored caves, ran, played, ate chorizo (and i tried morcilla), and it was AMAZING. I was a normal human being again (well, almost) for a few hours!!!!! 

AND WE SAW WHALES. We purposely went to this beach, because its where the whales pass by. and they came! And were jumping out of the water, and squirting water and everything!  It was amazing.

Then we toured a few other places in Madryn. (the bus was my zone, 19 missionaries. they are all my buds). We went to one part of one beach... where we were walking and all of a sudden my friend yells out Hermana Holt VENGA AHORA (Come here now!) HAY PENGUINOS (THERE ARE PENGUINS) and I go running., and sure enough, I hop up  onto this rock , and theres a freaking penguin swimming 20 feet away in the water. I was so happy I think I screamed like a little girl. I was so happy that I even forgot to take a picture hahah,. SO COOL.

And THEN we saw lobos marinos (i don’t remember the word in English). (Sea lions?) SO COOOOLLLLLL

Then we just got  back to Trelew. we drank terere and mate in the bus all together, so Argentine, and so sick. i LOVE ARGENTINA. 

Yesterday, Lucia, Santiago, Sebastian, and Maxi were all confirmed members of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. It was a glorious day. Turns out, last Sunday Lucia lost her phone, her job, the light and electricity in her house. so everything hit her at once, and that’s why she didn’t go. poor thing. So she’s good now, we passed by 830am Sunday morning and a hermano drove us to church. it was a wonderful wonderful day. we had lunch, coorelacion, studies, and headed to Trelew to stay the night and do planeamiento with the hermanas capas. So that was great

Saturday was a miracle. we had been making plans with Elder Comisario and Fellows to go visit Pato, the brother of Maxi who got baptized. because Pato was gonna get baptized too, but then he changed his mind, and we hadn’t seen him since. And then his stupid friend sent him a video of the endowment session on youtube and he got super sketched out and mad and scared. So we went with the elders on Saturday, with ice cream and had a really great talk. He’s 15. He opened up a ton with the elders and I shared your conversion story with him, and he loved it. I asked him if he thinks he can gain his own testimony, and he said yes, he thinks so. So one of the elders put as a goal with him a baptismal date of this Saturday, and he said he thinks he can arrive. (like, spiritually arrive... sorry, english is hard haha). So we are super super pumped. and then Sunday, HE CAME TO CHURCH!!! I was SO happy. Seriously. 

Thursday and Friday were normal, went by fast

Tuesday morning we headed out for Comodoro Rivadavia for conferencia!!!!!!! IT WAS GREAT. we stayed in a hotel, the hotel i stayed at when i arrived at the mission 9 months ago. Sweet memories. 

I loved the conference. we learned so much. I sat up front so i could answer questions and participate. and I did! and Presidente Packer appreciated my answers. He’s super old, super sweet, and pretty direct. His Spanish is funny, because he served as mission presidente in Spain. Also, you wont believe this, but I sang in a choir of 8 people, and had the alto part... I was so scared. Oh Esta Todo Bien. it actually turned out great!!!! I felt the spirit. 

We learned a lot about the importance of sharing family history. So we took his advice the minute we got back to our areas, and i taught the Sunday gospel principles class about family history. And we taught 2 of our investigatores about it too. 

My interview went well, a lot shorter than the one with Elder Bragg. He asked me some questions that caught my attention. He asked if there is anything that impedes the spirit from working through me? I told him no, because I can feel it working through me often. he asked how my family is doing, and to please send my thanks to you guys from the presidency for supporting me in my mission and for the sacrifice.

In the conferencia, half of the mission was there. I saw so many old friends. The group that I arrived with to the mission was all there. and Elder Beltran from Ushuaia. and lots more. and I talked to presidente, and I can really feel his trust with me. He was up on the stand at one part, and i looked up at him, because i was in the front row, and he looked at me and smiled and winked. its simple, but it made me feel happy. 

We have transfers this week, idk what will happen... i'll know on Saturday

i love you so much

I’m happy, feeling way more comfortable with the missionary life now. I’m learning to be a more relaxed person. Everyone tells me to chill and relax, because apparently I’m high stress all the time haha. so I’ve learned that better now. I’ve made some really great friends, going to be my friends for life.

i love what I’m doing

Also, my new favorite scripture in Doctrina y Convenios is section 138. Makes me cry to read it. Go read it!

I LOVE YOU MOMMMMMMMM

ames

May 21, 2018

May 21, 2018- 40 weeks down- 38 left!

hi mom!

aww i love the pictures. The chicks ARE SO CUTE!!!!!!! oh my goodness! Bandons first mutual! So many firsts!!

haha aww glad your week went well! I seriously love all of the pictures!!!

How are you? doing good? i miss you lots!!

This week was good! well, I’m not in Comodoro. Turns out we are leaving tomorrow morning at 9am. but I’m in Trelew again, we are going to stay overnight with the leaders. 

Soooo...... we had a baptism on Sunday! MAXI! The son of hermana Barbara. it was kind of a surprise baptism, cause we were waiting for confirmation from Barbaras future husband Brandon, who lives in Utah, to come down, because he wanted to be the one to baptize Maxi. So i think it was Wednesday, Barbara tells us that he bought the plane ticket and was on his way! So we scrambled and finished up everything that we had to do so that Maxi could be baptized (he’s 8 years old), and he was baptized Sunday night! WOWOWOWOW!!!! Poor thing, was so nervous... he’s kind of scared of going under water , so after the baptism when he came out of the water he was so scared poor guy haha. I gave the talk on the holy spirit. So sweet. Such a sweet miracle. He doesn’t count for the missions numbers, since he is only 8 years old, but he counts 100 percent for me! 

This week absolutely FLEW mom... like it scares me how time is passing now... I hit 9 months last week.... and its almost June..... what the heck. i don’t even remember what else happened this week. I know it was a short week, with all the planning and the meetings in Trelew and everything, we couldn’t teach a lot. But we still had miracles. 

For us, an average number of lessons with members would be like 3 to 5 in one week. and in 2 days, we have 5 lessons with members!!!!!!!!! We were so happy, so grateful. it was truly a tender mercy for us!!!!

Alsoooo i decided i needed a change... so today, about an hour ago, a hermana from the church died my hair blonder... haha makes me feel good to have a change. love this hermana! i love talking with her, she’s so great. she even drove us to Trelew today, and its like a solid half an hour!!!!!

Been getting along pretty well with the comp.. until this morning she had a little explosion and i got ticked too cause I cleaned the bathroom and she didn’t like how i cleaned it so she recleaned it and made us late in leaving... ugh. ugh ugh hahahah but oh well. 

The one big bummer of the week, thats still got me sad... is that Sunday morning ( Sunday during church Lucia and her kids were going to be confirmed members of the church) we passed by Lucias house to walk with her to church... we got there, she took like 10 minutes to answer, and when she did, she was all dressed ready to go. but she told us No no hermanas I’m not going today.   

wait what why not.. its your confirmation

Because its really cold outside and I don’t want to wake the boys up

Butttt you walked to your baptism in the rain last week

But its super cold so we will go next week

But its your confirmation, you cant miss it

I know

ummmm

...

...

...

This is really important Lucia

I  know, sorry, next week.

Closed door.

Welllllll so we walked away, super dumbfounded... stopped and said a prayer. i felt like i had to call the asistentes to president, Elder Signh from Cordoba. i called and told him, and he said i should go back and say a prayer with her 

So we went back, knocked, she answered the door confused and slightly annoyed

we asked if we could say a prayer with her, and she said

no no no i said I'm not going today, the boys are asleep

(and right when she said that, someone walked past her behind her, i couldn’t see who it was, but i think one of the boys)

See you later hermanas 

Adios.

ummmmmmm

So then we walked to church, super tristes, and had to tell the bishop that it wouldn’t be today.

Buttttt tthen we had a miracle... Gabriel, the boyfriend of Hermana Natalia, came to church!!!!!! and stayed all 3 hours and loved it, asked a lot of questions. It was great!!!! 

Also, Saturday night,we had a capilla abierta... open house? We were in charge with my companion of the room about Christ, we had to give our testimonies to each group that came in. it was great. We saw a lot of people (well, like 40 within 3 hours) and received a great reference of a girl that has 17 years. 

Andddd that was my week. i feel great, happy, tired and worn out, but great. i feel old in the mission now haha. I’m super excited for conference tomorrow seriously

And guess whattttt!

I HAVE BEEN CHOSEN TO HAVE A PERSONAL INTERVIEW WITH ELDER PACKER OF THE 70, JUST LIKE WHEN ELDER BRAGG WAS HERE!!!! I’m one of like 5 people in the mission!!!! WHATTTTTTTTTTT I’m so stoked!

Anyways i love you, answer soon, 

you are my world!

amy