Week Eighteen: July 19th, 2010

Hello Everybody,
So this week has been pretty good. We have been really working on a Flia Gonzalez. They have at least 5 grandchildren that are old enough to be baptized. 4 boys between the ages of 9 to 12 and a girl who is 15. It is really fun to watch them read and pray and progress in the gospel. They are so amazing. They all leave with their parents and grandparents. There have 16 people living in one house. It´s crazy. The grandparents and their kids are all baptized but the grandchildren aren´t. The grandmother somehow got offended and so they decided to stop going. It´s crazy how open the boys are to the gospel. They all have their own book of mormon and we come back and asked them what they think and they were all like it´s good and we´re like well did you pray about and they are all like yeah and they know it´s true. So we have been really working on them and we have also been working on Karina sister of Krishna. She has a baptism date for the 7th of August. Well the bishop got a hold of us that Charlie apparently has pictures of girls in his room and was wondering if we could help out. So we went over and taught the law of Chastity. We´ve been really working on him. His baptism date is 31st of July. So I believe his interview is coming up. So my doctor sent me to another doctor last Monday and she subscribed me 4 different creams. 2 for my hands and then 2 for the acne on my face just to be nice. So I called my doctor and he said that the hand creams the church will pay for no problem but the acne only if it´s not over $50. So we went to go pick them up and they were only about $30 so I´ll be picking those up this week because they have to be compiled. Also last week we had my final greenie meeting. It was awesome though. We got free pizza which was a sight for sore eyes. Well everything is going good here. I hope all is well you guys.

Love,
Elder Holton
Elder Young and me with some of the families we have been teaching!

Elder Young, Lizardo the ward mission leader and me with some investigatore

Week Seventeen: July 12th, 2010

Well Hello Everybody,
Well I have a lot to talk about today. So starting with Tuesday, We took Elder Young to a specific chapel where everybody that has changes meets and our President talked for a minute and then they put the lists up of who is going with who and where. So my new companion is named, Elder Van Buren. He is from Ogden, UT and has been in the mission for 16 months. He is really cool. So we took a taxi back to our house and got all settled in. Elder Van Buren loves the Fleemarket here and apparently we have a really big one which is pretty sweet. This week has been a different week because where as before I was the follower now I´m the leader and to be perfectly honest I feel like I´m teaching him which is way weird. Every night for planning I just do it all because I´m the only one that knows everybody. It´s just strange because like before Elder Young would carry the conversation but now that the members only know me they look to me too carry it which is fine because I´ve gotten to the point where I usually have a pretty good idea of what is being said and I have no problem responding so that´s good. It´s just hard because whenever an appointment falls through I feel like it´s up to me to figure out what to do and I don´t know the area that incredibly well. One good thing though is we haven´t gotten lost yet which is a really good sign. So yeah this has been one of those slow weeks but it´s all good and we´re still trying hard. Hopefully our success will continue. Sorry this is a shorter email but I don´t really have as much to say. I love you all.

Love,
Elder Holton

Week Sixteen: July 5th, 2010 PICTURES!!

Hello Everybody,
Well this has been a very full week I must say. Wow. So we are just going to start from the top. Monday night we had FHE (we do it everyweek and sometimes twice a week) with our next door neighbors (Part member family). The lesson went really good and then we made some home made completos. Talk about amazing. Food is awesome. Tuesday: Well to be perfectly honest nothing incredibly exciting happened Tuesday. All our appointments fell through which is a usual thing. Also on Tuesday the owner of our House kinda randomly showed up at 9 PM to fix all of our stuff but we convinced him to come back tomorrow. He lives in argentina and he is basically a 52 year old hippie that loves to talk. Wednesday: We had district meeting like usual (PS Mom whenever I get letters, Packages, or dearelders it´s at that meeting) and we got the testaments movie I bought from the Distribution Center. Then the owner came by and went to work on our roof. It kinda stunk cause we had to cancel most of our appointments. I hate cancelling appointments on our behalf but what can you do right? Thursday: Was an overall good day not much happened though I guess haha. Friday: Now this was a huge day. First off We had to go meet our new Mission President. We had to leave the house at like 7:45 to be there at 8:45 and we were still five minutes late. He is huge. He´s 6 foot 5 inches and he is as broad as Ed Kehl just ripped. It was kinda hard to give him a hug. Plus He has an incredibly deep voice. His Wife I´ve actually already met in the MTC. She´s pretty cool too. The interview went good. After that we had to go buy my companion a better ankle brace because the one that the Doctor gave him wasn´t good enough. Saturday: Well it first started off with cleaning the house and the owner coming over to finish the roof. Then At like 1 we had to go start filling the font. We had Almuerzo with the Bishop and had Chinese food which was a little piece from home in a sense. Then we went back to the Chapel to get all the chairs ready and everything and the water level was at mid shin so we got two big pots and started boiling water. We only had time to do that twice.Once everyone got there we turned it off. The meeting went good. The bishop conducted. Then we headed to the font. When I got in it was only up to my knee. Haha darn Then when she got in she said that it was way to hot. I asked her if she wanted us to turn on the cold water but she said she was ok. The water was up to her mid thigh which isn´t very high. So I basically just dunked her as fast as I could so that she could be fully imersed. Her feet pomped up after but the witnesses said that I was good so sweet. I fell kinda bad though. After that we had refreshments but the ward could pay for them so it came right our of my pocket. Oh well. After all that we changed and talked with the family and everything. Then we changed again and played some soccer and then went home. Sunday: We did the confirmation. It was my companions first confirmation. I think he was just a little nervous but it went all good. After that we had Almuerzo with Ward famiy and had Tacos. We did really well on appointments though and were able to hit most of them. We had family night with a Family where the Mom just got reactivated and she wanted us to come and get her husband baptized. We started off talking about different churches and he told us how he has been surrounded by so many churchs. So then we decided to teach about Joseph Smith and tell his story. It went really well. He was very receptive and interest. His wife shared her testimony. It was very good. Well Sunday night came and we had what is called Changes. It´s where we receive the phone call to see if and who is changing. In our Zone only 4 people are changing. Normally a trainer will stay with his trainee for 2 changes (12 weeks) but my companion has also been in this sector for 5 changes already (30 weeks) So the chances were he was going to be transfered. Well that is what happened. So on Tuesday he packs up and we go to the Mission Office where I receive my knew companion and he gets his. It´s kinda sad. He said I was his favorite companion. I´m just thankful for the time we had together. We had a lot of fun and a lot of success. We had our high times and our low times. But life goes on. Today we will be visiting some of his favorite families. I´m really glad though that I´m not changing. Lets see one more thing I forgot about. One day during my Personal study I found some thing very interesting. It´s called a Chiasma. I heard in the MTC that they existed in the Book of Mormon but no one knew where. Well I found one. It´s in Alma Chapter 36. A Chiasma is like for example the word racecar. You can read forward and backward and you´ll get the same thing. Well I found something like that but with principles. It teaches a bunch of principles in a certain order and then goes in reverse and teaches them again. Check it out. Well I hope all of you are doing well and working hard. I´ll talk to you all soon

Love,
Elder Holton

My first Baptism Krishna is 9 years old.

Me and President and Sister Jones!

At the Air Museum!

The BEST!! Completo!

Completo! (a smothered hot dog! YUM!!)

This is where we live!

This is our kitchen

The bunk beds we sleep in

The extra room. Check out our weights!

The extra room we study in.

Sister Jones, President Jones, Me and Elder Young

My first companion Elder Young from Arizona
Elder Christensen, President and Sister Jones, Elder Monsen, Elder Holton
My plane getting ready to leave Utah!
The Airport in Salt Lake City