Week Forty: July 25th, 2011

President King, Elder Lowry, Me and Sister King

Dear Family,
Well this week has gone good so far. Well as you might notice I am training a gringo. There were 2 gringos out of the 16 new missionaries which was quite weird that I got one of them. His name is Elder Lowry from Draper. He went to Alta high and actually knows a lot of the kids from our old ward. He also knew about Bo Pennington and his suicide. I am very excited to work with him. He is an excellent missionary and we are going to have a lot of fun together. Iris went to church and is just really progressing. We are going to try and set a baptismal date with her today. Daniel we lost contact a week ago but with finally got a hold of him and we are going to do a noche de hogar( Family Home Evening) with him and Nibaldo tonight. That is awesome with Jonathan's team. It is also good to hear about the ward. That's funny to hear about the letter. I knew they sent form letters to the missionary's family. Elder Jones got one when he became district leader. Well everything is going great here. We are both learning and growing a lot and will continue to do so as the Lord permits. So we as trainers have been given DVD players to train our Greenies. The rest of the mission will get them later. Isn't that cool. Well I hope all keeps going well. I love you.

Love,
Elder Holton

Jendhely (Iris's Baby)

The Andes Mountains!
Mas Montanas!!

Week Thirty-Nine: July 18th, 2011

Elder Jones and My last picture together!

Dear Family,
Wow what a crazy week. Well two of the days this week were despedidas for Elder Jones and then we had two full days of divisions and the Temple day for Elder Jones. It was just a very crazy week but it was good. We had two awesome lessons with Iris this week. The first one was on Baptism and on the blessings of baptism. It was awesome. She said that she has had a few doubts in whether she knows this is all true or not. We talked about the promise in the Book of Mormon. Then I was reminded of something. On another occasion we were talking about the Book of Mormon and how weird it is that if we miss a day of reading our day just goes bad and Iris was like that is so true. Well I reminded her of that occasion and she was like that is very true. Well Later we had a Noche de Hogar with Iris and a family in the ward and we watched the Restoration video. At the end we asked her how she felt and she said that she felt hope and joy. We explained that that was the spirit. It was just incredible. We haven't really had a chance to go see Daniel this week. He went out of town.
Well President called us last night. Elder Jones answered the phone and actually was talking to him for like 5 minutes. So I thought it had something to do with me. Then he just handed me the phone and asked how I was doing and then extended a calling. (Keep in mind President only calls if we are are Becoming District Leader, Zone Leader, or Training).Well I'm actually going to be becoming the senior comp and training for the next 6 weeks. I have to admit I am a little nervous. I will be training a brand new missionary. He said that he hasn't decided who and won't until he has had a chance to interview with them but he has also said that there are 12 Latins coming and 3 Americans so it will probably be a Latin. How intense is that? Well I feel completely unprepared. I'm not only become a senior comp but a trainer and I only have 9 months in the mission. Elder Jones didn't become senior comp until around 16 months in the mission and he never trained.

Well it was a very awesome week. I hope to hear from all of you guys soon.

Love,
Elder Holton

Me, Elder Jones, Michelle ana Yanette

Here we are with our home made Completos!

Elder Pena, Elder Nielson, Elder Jones and ME.
Our Home made completos! Mine is on the far right!

Week Thirty-Eight: July 11th, 2011

Dear Family,
This week has been a good week. This week we had Zone Conference Tuesday in República. It was awesome. President is so cool. The Spirit was so amazing. Well We've had a few different things happen this week. One of them being that our Zone Leaders had to change pensions. So we had to help them move. That was pretty fun and then we had a BBQ at Nibaldo's house. I've never eaten so much meat in all my life. But it was amazing. Well we had an awesome triumph in that Daniel came to church yesterday. Now we just need him to keep coming. We had an awesome lesson with Iris and Martin about the Law of Chastity. It was an awesome lesson. We taught the doctrine of the Law of Chastity and then we taught about repentance and as you all know I had something to say about that. and then we taught about the blessings or as we like to call it MIT (the Most Important Thing). It was awesome. They said that her papers were good and that they were just waiting on his papers which should only take about a week more and then they would get married. Well last Monday I checked my weight and I weigh 152 pounds with a suit on. Elder Jones says that my stomach sticks out. I guess Ineed to put a little extra effort in doing my exercises in the morning. Also Nibaldo gave me this new mate Herbs that has orange in it. I tried it this morning and it is awesome. Well That is all that has been really going on so far. Hope everything is going good. This is the last full week that Elder Jones has. Talk to you guys later.


Love,
Elder Holton

Week Thirty-Seven: July 4th, 2011

Dear Family,
This week has been a good week but not a really exciting week. It's been below zero the past few nights which has made a few of the chileans not so happy. We have had the chance this week to meet with Teresa and teach her a few lessons and now today she has to go back to work. It is just a little sad because she will be working so much that we will only be able to see her about once a week and she will only be able to go to church about twice a month. So that will be quite a trial for her. We have also had the opportunity to visit Iris and actually last week we were able to have a Family Home Evening with Iris and Nibaldo and his family. It was really good. We talked about the importance of Families and more importantly Eternal Families. She even made Martin (her inactive member boyfriend) go to church on Sunday and even more than that he had to wear a suit. We also met with Daniel. He has been going through some harder times and it looks like his wife is gone for good. But when we went by his mom was there with a fire pit in his house which was a little crazy. She is from the country. You could totally tell that the firepit was not his idea. He is doing ok. We really want him to meet with the Bishop. Well that is pretty much all that has been happening this past week and I hope all of you guys are having a good week.


Love,
Elder Holton

NEW ADDRESS:
Elder Nicholas Holton
Chile Santiago West Mission
Correos Casilla 149
Pajaritos 1229
Maipu', CHILE