Week Forty-Nine: September 26th, 2011

Dear Family,
This week we had a good week. We had one miracle with a less active family named Martinez. We have been working on them for a while but the dad just has the weirdest doubt. He believes the Book of Mormon is true and the Church is the church of God. He just doesn't believe in the way it came about. He doesn't believe in Joseph Smith or the Restoration. Which doesn't really make sense. How can you believe in the Book of Mormon without believing in Joseph Smith. So we've been working on that doubt the past few weeks. Now this week something happened. We went over to their house to go teach and their son came out (He has been meeting with us and is a really good kid) and said that his dad wasn't home and that we would have to reschedule. So we were just like "hey if it is ok can we just meet with you?" Just to see how he was doing and to make sure he doesn't have any doubts. So we got in and asked if he has any questions about the gospel. He said that he wanted to know more about the commandments. So we just went through them. He knew most of them. Well just as we started the Word of Wisdom the Dad came home and just sat down and joined in the conversation. He basically gave a description of the Word of Wisdom. After He explained that he has a problem with tabacco and that is the biggest reason he doesn't go to church. He also explained that he knows it is wrong and has tried and tried to stop but he can't and he doesn't know what to do. We explained that in times of old when Jesus would give people blessings he always explained that it depended upon their faith. We then asked him if he had faith enough to be healed. He said yes. So we gave him a blessing. It was a very emotional lesson but it was really good. We also had Angela come to church. That was so awesome to see the ward just embrace her. She is awesome. So this past week we had the power go out one night at like 8:30 pm so we went home because the cell phones weren't working. It was really funny because the lights turned back on at 10:00 pm when were are supposed to be in the house. So that was kinda dumb but nothing bad happened. Well I hope you guys have a good week and I'll talk to you later.

Love,
Elder Holton

Week Forty-Eight:September 19th, 2011

Dear Family,
Things have been going good.Well we haven't had a chance to see any of our main investigators this week. So that is kinda lame right? That is awesome to hear about the Utes. That is quite a blowout. That's awesome. Now I won't have to worry about getting any crap from anyone for another year haha.Yeah the weather has been warming up here. This area is so completely different from the area I came from. The needs in this area are completely different. But we are working hard.The meals are a little smaller but it's all good.Thanks for the package. They always make my month haha.


Well I hope you have a good week.

Love,
Elder Holton

Week Forty-Seven: September 12th, 2011

Dear Family,
Things are going great. My companion Elder Crane is from Calgary. We have been having a great time with the other two Elders that live in the same apartment with us.We have been really working hard. This week we have set a few baptismal dates. We have set one with Gabriel, Erik, and Angela. Gabriel is awesome. It is so cool to see how much he understands and loves the gospel. His only problem is smoking. He knows it's wrong and wants to stop but he smokes a lot. We have promised many blessings and have explained that as he strives to break this addiction he will have the power to overcome it through Jesus Christ. We will find out how he has been doing tomorrow. Erik is awesome. I have only taught him once but he is awesome. We are just working on seeing him more often. Angela is awesome also but as with Erik it is hard to find her and talk to her. But she is awesome also.

It is really hard to get a hold of people in this sector. We haven't had a chance to meet with Rodrigo again. You asked is we have had any service opportunities and we have been looking but no body will let us. We receive new initiciatives every month and this month we got some harder ones. One of those has been to invite to be baptized on the first lesson. We've been trying to follow with the new initiatives and it has been going well. It hasn't been easy but we have been doing all that we can. Well I hope you have a good week.

Love,
Elder Holton

Chile Santiago West Mission
Correos Casilla 149
Pajaritos 1229
Maipu', Chile

Also its free to send me a letter on dearelder.com

I would love to hear from everyone!

Week Forty-Six: September 5th, 2011

Dear Family,
I have been transferred to Maipú. So now I am pretty close to the mission office. I'm in one of the richest sectors in the mission. I'm sending a link of a map of the area. I love my new area. My new companion is Elder Crane and he is awesome and I'm way excited to work with him. He is an excellent Elder from Canada and only has 4 1/2 months in the mission. We have been having a blast. Well as far as the sector has been going I still haven't met most of our investigator pool but I have been working on getting the sector down. We did have an awesome lesson yesterday with what appeared to be just a recent contact. We talked with this guy named Rodrigo and his wife. They were awesome. They kept espressing their desire for La Vida Eterna. So as we went through lesson one we just put ephasis on La Vida Eterna. It was just an awesome lesson. Rodrigo kept saying that we really know our scriptures because everytime they had a question we had an answer with the scriptures. I personally think it was just the spirit. Rodrigo also said that it is funny because with other churches they would run out of things to talk about and get bored but with us they could talk for hours. Well I hope you guys are doing good and will talk to you later.
Love, Elder Holton

PS: This is a map of our sector:
http://maps.google.cl/maps?saddr=Alfredo+Silva+Carvallo&daddr=-33.5303195,-70.7986163+to:Valle+de+Los+Reyes+to:Valle+de+Los+Reyes+to:-33.5247539,-70.7870191+to:Tres+Poniente+to:Tres+Poniente+to:Pdte+Gabriel+Gonz%C3%A1lez+Videla+to:Cerro+Blanco+to:Francisco+Pizarro&hl=es&ie=UTF8&sll=-33.532917,-70.784569&sspn=0.009605,0.013154&geocode=FaZVAP4dUufH-w%3BFTFeAP4d6LLH-yml82hCQ91iljGwDCxeFQAx3A%3BFaBeAP4dCrLH-w%3BFcxyAP4d2LPH-w%3BFe9zAP4dNeDH-ykTckaGON1iljF8K2ywz7LWDQ%3BFc50AP4dov7H-w%3BFYBZAP4d5g_I-w%3BFQBNAP4dn-nH-w%3BFThRAP4dzuHH-w%3BFZZUAP4dSOfH-w&vpsrc=0&mra=mi&mrsp=9&sz=16&via=1,4&z=16