Dear Family,Well It was good to hear from you today. This past week we did see some miracles which were very welcomed. Haha It was a very good week. Well We have been giving out Books of Mormon to the members for them to right their testimonies in and then to think of someone to gift it to. It's been going good. We are going to continue to give them out and now we are going to start to go back for them. We also did an activity this week. We as a district got together and came to our sector and sang christmas songs to the less active members. Well it went great. After we had a ward activity on Friday where 3 of the less active families attended. We also had 3 investigatores go to the activity. It was great. This week Elder Smith and Elder Izelo had a baptism in their ward and we were able to bring an investigator to the baptism. So we have been seeing some Milagritos (small miracles). It is really weird to be here and to see everyone putting up their Christmas trees and lights and everything. Yeah the Chileans put up a lot of lights and all that jazz. The thing I heard that they do that is different is they open all their presents at Midnight on Christmas Eve. As a mission were are going to have a almost all day devotional on the 23rd. Well I hope you guys all have a great week and remember the Christmas Spirit.
Love,
Elder Holton
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Week Fifty-Nine: December 5th, 2011
Dear Family,
Well We had a very good week. Well one of the miracles we had this week is we went to go teach a less active family with one of our ward missionaries Hno Valdivia (who had an accident over a year ago). Well the appointment fell through so we went to another less active family. They also weren't available and as we were walking back to Hno Valdivia's car there was a mother with her son in the street. The son is arround 30 years old but appeared to be handicap. Well Hno Valdivia recognized him from the hospital when he was there a year ago. Hno Valdivia was able to convince them to let us share something with them. It was incredible. We also had another miracle this week. Well we have an investigator who isn't really progressing really well and we've been thinking about leaving her for a time. Well the other day we had the idea to take one of our recent converts (Why we hadn't thought of that idea before I don't know). They seemed about the same age. Well We went over and it just so happens that they are friends from school. We have a Noche de Hogar (Family Home Evening) planned tonight. So that should be great. Well we have been working with our members really hard. Sharing Books of Mormon with them to share with others. There have even been a few who have asked for 2 haha. I have been studying a lot about faith from the Lectures on Faith. It is just amazing how excited I get just reading about it and learning about and trying to find new ways to show my faith and to exercise greater faith.
So the other day we went to a recently reactivated family. We recently heard from a different source that their son is going to be a father but is not married. We decided to go to talk about PMG and if they decided to say something about their son then we would talk about it but we weren't going to bring it up. Well We shared our lesson and at the end they did bring it up. The son wasn't there. I decided to share my experience. I shared about how hard it was but how I knew I was doing the right thing. I especially wanted to share how important my parents were to me as I had to go through the repentance process and how much he is going to need then. They were grateful and then the Mom did something very interesting. Now you need to understand I didn't share my experiences as if I was lecturing or just telling a story. I explained my feelings as if I was talking to my best friends trying to show more and more love. Well as I did that, the Mom turned to me and expressed that they too felt close to me as I felt to them. She explained that the first time we met she felt she knew me already. Then she explained that We were the reason they went back to church (I personally don't think so). President King keeps encouraging me to share my personal experiences. Just this week he said:
"Thanks for all you are doing to find new people to teach. Speak from your heart - tell them your personal story of why you are here - and you will get to their hearts.
You do have the most important message inthe world, that can bless their lives.
They too have to come to a knowledge of the truth.
Alma 23:6 And as sure as the Lord liveth, so sure as many as believed, or as many as were brought to the knowledge of the truth, through the preaching of Ammon and his brethren, according to the spirit of revelation and of prophecy, and the power of God working miracles in them—yea, I say unto you, as the Lord liveth, as many of the Lamanites as believed in their preaching, and were converted unto the Lord, never did fall away.
This truth is the doctrine of Christ and his plan for their salvation. The Most Important Thing.
Love,Pres. King
So Elder Sauceda received a package from someone in the states and a letter from someone in the states. He was very surprised and kept bugging me that I was in on it. Which I'm not. I don't know anyone from Colorado or Virginia. It wasn't from any of his past companion's families because I'm his second companion and his other comp was from Paraguay. The package had a bunch of presents with a letter. I told him he could open the letter but the presents have to wait. and the other letter he opened. They are from young women like junior in high school age. He is so confused because they are addressed to him. haha. My gut tells me that President King had something to do with it.
Well I got to go!
Love,
Elder Holton
Well We had a very good week. Well one of the miracles we had this week is we went to go teach a less active family with one of our ward missionaries Hno Valdivia (who had an accident over a year ago). Well the appointment fell through so we went to another less active family. They also weren't available and as we were walking back to Hno Valdivia's car there was a mother with her son in the street. The son is arround 30 years old but appeared to be handicap. Well Hno Valdivia recognized him from the hospital when he was there a year ago. Hno Valdivia was able to convince them to let us share something with them. It was incredible. We also had another miracle this week. Well we have an investigator who isn't really progressing really well and we've been thinking about leaving her for a time. Well the other day we had the idea to take one of our recent converts (Why we hadn't thought of that idea before I don't know). They seemed about the same age. Well We went over and it just so happens that they are friends from school. We have a Noche de Hogar (Family Home Evening) planned tonight. So that should be great. Well we have been working with our members really hard. Sharing Books of Mormon with them to share with others. There have even been a few who have asked for 2 haha. I have been studying a lot about faith from the Lectures on Faith. It is just amazing how excited I get just reading about it and learning about and trying to find new ways to show my faith and to exercise greater faith.
So the other day we went to a recently reactivated family. We recently heard from a different source that their son is going to be a father but is not married. We decided to go to talk about PMG and if they decided to say something about their son then we would talk about it but we weren't going to bring it up. Well We shared our lesson and at the end they did bring it up. The son wasn't there. I decided to share my experience. I shared about how hard it was but how I knew I was doing the right thing. I especially wanted to share how important my parents were to me as I had to go through the repentance process and how much he is going to need then. They were grateful and then the Mom did something very interesting. Now you need to understand I didn't share my experiences as if I was lecturing or just telling a story. I explained my feelings as if I was talking to my best friends trying to show more and more love. Well as I did that, the Mom turned to me and expressed that they too felt close to me as I felt to them. She explained that the first time we met she felt she knew me already. Then she explained that We were the reason they went back to church (I personally don't think so). President King keeps encouraging me to share my personal experiences. Just this week he said:
"Thanks for all you are doing to find new people to teach. Speak from your heart - tell them your personal story of why you are here - and you will get to their hearts.
You do have the most important message inthe world, that can bless their lives.
They too have to come to a knowledge of the truth.
Alma 23:6 And as sure as the Lord liveth, so sure as many as believed, or as many as were brought to the knowledge of the truth, through the preaching of Ammon and his brethren, according to the spirit of revelation and of prophecy, and the power of God working miracles in them—yea, I say unto you, as the Lord liveth, as many of the Lamanites as believed in their preaching, and were converted unto the Lord, never did fall away.
This truth is the doctrine of Christ and his plan for their salvation. The Most Important Thing.
Love,Pres. King
So Elder Sauceda received a package from someone in the states and a letter from someone in the states. He was very surprised and kept bugging me that I was in on it. Which I'm not. I don't know anyone from Colorado or Virginia. It wasn't from any of his past companion's families because I'm his second companion and his other comp was from Paraguay. The package had a bunch of presents with a letter. I told him he could open the letter but the presents have to wait. and the other letter he opened. They are from young women like junior in high school age. He is so confused because they are addressed to him. haha. My gut tells me that President King had something to do with it.
Well I got to go!
Love,
Elder Holton
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Week Fifty-Eight: November 28th, 2011
Dear Family,
Sounds like Thanksgiving went well. Sometimes a more tranquilo Thanksgiving is just more fun. I would like the talking to people part. I love talking to people. Things are going good over here.
Well another week has gone by. This week with Francesca we had an awesome Noche de Hogar (Family Home Evening) with an awesome family from our ward. We watched the Testaments and then talked about the Book of Mormon. She told us that she knows that the Book of Mormon is true. Well after that we tried to get in with her and everytime she was busy. Well Friday we went by and her brother answered the door and told us that Francesca and Her mom got in a fight and she moved out to live with the god family of her daughter outside the mission. That was a little bit of a shock. Well we have some other investgators we are working on and we are working on refilling our investigators pool. We are actually planning on going to sing in the fleemarkets and to the less active families. So it was really an uneventful week but we're working hard. Hope you have a great week.
Love,
Elder Holton
Sounds like Thanksgiving went well. Sometimes a more tranquilo Thanksgiving is just more fun. I would like the talking to people part. I love talking to people. Things are going good over here.
Well another week has gone by. This week with Francesca we had an awesome Noche de Hogar (Family Home Evening) with an awesome family from our ward. We watched the Testaments and then talked about the Book of Mormon. She told us that she knows that the Book of Mormon is true. Well after that we tried to get in with her and everytime she was busy. Well Friday we went by and her brother answered the door and told us that Francesca and Her mom got in a fight and she moved out to live with the god family of her daughter outside the mission. That was a little bit of a shock. Well we have some other investgators we are working on and we are working on refilling our investigators pool. We are actually planning on going to sing in the fleemarkets and to the less active families. So it was really an uneventful week but we're working hard. Hope you have a great week.
Love,
Elder Holton
Monday, November 21, 2011
Week Fifty-Seven:November 21st, 2011
Dear Family,
Well this week has also been a harder week. All of our appointments have fallen through but like 2.Things are going slow but we're not getting down. We just keep working hard. But we have hope. This week we have planned a Family Home Evening with Francesca and a family in the ward and it should be awesome. We decided to put more faith in the iniciatives and put another baptismal date with her. We asked her when she would like to be baptized recognizing that she has to go to church three times. So She said the 17th of December. Well now she has to go these next few weeks. We did have one awesome lesson with Francesca and a Hermana from our ward. It was incredible to watch this sister just connect to her on a whole other level. This week I think we are going to focus on doing more contacts and finding more news. It was an idea Elder Smith had and I like it. Well something awesome that happened this last week is we had 90 people in the chapel and it wasn't a special Sunday. They were all normal members. The new Bishopric is doing great and working hard. We had Ward Council this last week. Elder Sauceda and I are doing great. I love the Elder. I hit 13 months this past week. It is really weird. Time is really flying!
Well we found out for changes this week that we are staying the same so that will be good.
For P-day we are going to Pizza Hunt for the all you can eat buffet.
They don't do anything here for Thanksgiving so we will just have a regular day!
Well I hope you all have a great week.
Love,
Elder Holton
Thank you everyone who sent letters for Nick's Christmas package if you still want to write to him
you can mail it directly to him.
Elder Holton
Chile Santiago Oeste Mision
Casilla 149
Avenida Pajaritos 1921
Maipu', CHILE
Well this week has also been a harder week. All of our appointments have fallen through but like 2.Things are going slow but we're not getting down. We just keep working hard. But we have hope. This week we have planned a Family Home Evening with Francesca and a family in the ward and it should be awesome. We decided to put more faith in the iniciatives and put another baptismal date with her. We asked her when she would like to be baptized recognizing that she has to go to church three times. So She said the 17th of December. Well now she has to go these next few weeks. We did have one awesome lesson with Francesca and a Hermana from our ward. It was incredible to watch this sister just connect to her on a whole other level. This week I think we are going to focus on doing more contacts and finding more news. It was an idea Elder Smith had and I like it. Well something awesome that happened this last week is we had 90 people in the chapel and it wasn't a special Sunday. They were all normal members. The new Bishopric is doing great and working hard. We had Ward Council this last week. Elder Sauceda and I are doing great. I love the Elder. I hit 13 months this past week. It is really weird. Time is really flying!
Well we found out for changes this week that we are staying the same so that will be good.
For P-day we are going to Pizza Hunt for the all you can eat buffet.
They don't do anything here for Thanksgiving so we will just have a regular day!
Well I hope you all have a great week.
Love,
Elder Holton
Thank you everyone who sent letters for Nick's Christmas package if you still want to write to him
you can mail it directly to him.
Elder Holton
Chile Santiago Oeste Mision
Casilla 149
Avenida Pajaritos 1921
Maipu', CHILE
Monday, November 14, 2011
Week Fifty-Six: November 14th, 2011
Family and Friends,
Just a reminder I need the letters for Nick's Christmas package by this Friday November 18th. You can either mail them to me or send me an email or drop them by our house and I will include them in his package. Call me if you have any Questions. Thank you!
801-942-3467 home
801-455-4987 cell
Kendra Holton
3193 Granite Woods Lane
Sandy, UT 84092
atholton@msn.com
Dear Family,
This has been a good week. We have some good investigators but they are just struggling to progress. They all just have a hard time getting to the chapel. For the most part they are reading and everything but they are just not getting to the chapel and for that they are not progressing. We had an excellent lesson this week with Ricardo and Aurelia. We took and MAC and shared the first lesson. It went really well. We are going to start doing more contacting and get this Preach My Gospel Program going with our members. This week we also had a change of Bishopric. So we are going to pass by with our Ward Mission Leader to meet with the new Bishop to get him up to speed and what we are working on. We had divisions this week and we had a great time with Elder Izelo from Mexico. We also got to do a service project this past week taking wall paper off at a house getting it ready to paint. Today we had a district activity where we made pizza for Elder Mackie and Elder Gonzales's birthdays. It was fun!
Well I hope you guys have a great week.
This has been a good week. We have some good investigators but they are just struggling to progress. They all just have a hard time getting to the chapel. For the most part they are reading and everything but they are just not getting to the chapel and for that they are not progressing. We had an excellent lesson this week with Ricardo and Aurelia. We took and MAC and shared the first lesson. It went really well. We are going to start doing more contacting and get this Preach My Gospel Program going with our members. This week we also had a change of Bishopric. So we are going to pass by with our Ward Mission Leader to meet with the new Bishop to get him up to speed and what we are working on. We had divisions this week and we had a great time with Elder Izelo from Mexico. We also got to do a service project this past week taking wall paper off at a house getting it ready to paint. Today we had a district activity where we made pizza for Elder Mackie and Elder Gonzales's birthdays. It was fun!
Well I hope you guys have a great week.
Love,
Elder Holton
Santiago!Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Week Fifty-Five: November 8th, 2011
Dear Family and Friends I am getting a package together to send to Nick for Christmas and I think what he would like most of all would be to hear from all of you so I am collecting notes and letters to include in his Christmas package so it would be great if you could either email or mail me one ASAP! atholton@msn.com
or
Kendra Holton
3193 Granite Woods Lane
Sandy, UT 84092
Dear Family,
This week has been a good week. We have been working hard on our investigators and are starting to work on finding new ones. Francesca is doing good. We finally were able to bring some members with us to visit her. We have been working on that for awhile and everytime we brought someone she wouldn't be there. So we finally were able to visit her with a member. We are really working on getting to teach her and we really want to do a Noche de Hogar (Family Home Evening) with her and another family in the ward to help her feel more comfortable. We also are teaching Franco. He is a youth of 14 years and he is part of an inactive family and for whatever reason he didn't get baptized. He is way cool. He knows all the doctrine and everything. It's just a matter of getting him to go to church. He is really cool. So we are going to see what we can do to get him to church. We also found out some really cool news this past week. This Sunday we had a special class in church we gave. We had a joint Priesthood and Relief Society meeting and we gave the lesson with our ward mission leader. We first focused on the importance of Missionary work, second we tied it into home teaching and how they are really the same thing. Then we tied in that Preach My Gospel is written to meet the needs of the missionaries and that if the members and the missionaries are in the same work they have the same needs and thus they need to start utilizing PMG. Then we finished it off by sharing about the Atonement and that the more of a testimony we have about the Atonement the more we are going to want to share it with others. It was awesome. I think that Preach My Gospel is a powerful tool for just being a member. I encourage all of you at home to go and get one and to use it. I promise you find answers to questions that you didn't know you had. Well Another exciting event that happened is on Saturday we got to go and listen to Elder Steven E. Snow from the Presidency of the Seventy. It was an awesome talk. Also another exciting event is we were able to go to the Zoo today and for that they allowed us to have Pday today because the zoo isn't open on Mondays. It was way fun. Well I hope you guys have a great week.
Love,
Elder Holton
Our District at the Zoo!!
Ths is our whole Zone at the Zoo!!
You can see our reflection in the glass!!
Week Fifty-Four: October 31st, 2011
This is the email from last week that somehow didn't get sent so we got it this week!
10-31-11
Dear Family,
We had a good week this week. We have been working hard and contacting all the names from the cosechon that we did a week ago in our sector. We have a few appointments set with them and hopefully we can get some more investigators. We have been teaching Francesca and we have been really trying to teach the importance of the Book of Mormon and Baptism. She is doing really good. She just needs to go to church. We have been working on having a Noche de Hogar (family home evening) with some other members so that she can feel more welcome. We also have been working on Erik and Paola. They are doing good but it is super hard to find them and then to teach them. Something exciting that did happen yesterday is three less active families we have been working with finally went to church yesterday. That was awesome. We also have a lot of new plans with reactivating the ward and helping our members realize the joy in missionary work. We also got to have a meeting with Elder Zeballos this week from the Presiencia area de Chile. He came to do a mission tour and I guess it was a big deal. Our zone was asked to form a choir and Elder Silva asked me and Elder Smith to sing a duet. We sang "Divina Luz" or "Lead Kindly Light". Elder Smith sang the first part, then I sand the second part. The Hermanas sang the next part and then we all sang the last verse. It sounded pretty good for having only one day to practice. It was awesome! I'll send some pictures!That happened at zone meeting and then Elder Smith and I had divisions. We were able to teach a little girl that wants to be baptized. The lesson was really good and the mom listened and was so excited to go to church and support her. After that we went to comfort a hermana who's sister had just passed away. We gave her a comfort blessing and she has been calling to thank us ever since.
Well I hope you guys have a great week!
Love,
Elder Holton
"Today we threw a really cool birthday party as a district for Hermana Moya. We got together and made german pancakes, french toast, coffee cake, and a weird fried banana thing that tastes like french fries. We decorated a room and had a really good time. Hermana Moya loved it and I could tell that she was really grateful. We have such an awesome district with a lot of unity. While we were there, the office was having a little lunch party, so we grabbed a picture with President King and his family in their Halloween costumes. haha It was a fun morning."
German Pancakes or we call them MONSTERS in my family!!
Happy Birthday Hermana Moya!!
Our District with President King, his wife and their daughter!
Don't you love their costumes! Milk Duds, Tootsie Roll and Elephant!
Our District having fun making breakfast together!
10-31-11
Dear Family,We had a good week this week. We have been working hard and contacting all the names from the cosechon that we did a week ago in our sector. We have a few appointments set with them and hopefully we can get some more investigators. We have been teaching Francesca and we have been really trying to teach the importance of the Book of Mormon and Baptism. She is doing really good. She just needs to go to church. We have been working on having a Noche de Hogar (family home evening) with some other members so that she can feel more welcome. We also have been working on Erik and Paola. They are doing good but it is super hard to find them and then to teach them. Something exciting that did happen yesterday is three less active families we have been working with finally went to church yesterday. That was awesome. We also have a lot of new plans with reactivating the ward and helping our members realize the joy in missionary work. We also got to have a meeting with Elder Zeballos this week from the Presiencia area de Chile. He came to do a mission tour and I guess it was a big deal. Our zone was asked to form a choir and Elder Silva asked me and Elder Smith to sing a duet. We sang "Divina Luz" or "Lead Kindly Light". Elder Smith sang the first part, then I sand the second part. The Hermanas sang the next part and then we all sang the last verse. It sounded pretty good for having only one day to practice. It was awesome! I'll send some pictures!That happened at zone meeting and then Elder Smith and I had divisions. We were able to teach a little girl that wants to be baptized. The lesson was really good and the mom listened and was so excited to go to church and support her. After that we went to comfort a hermana who's sister had just passed away. We gave her a comfort blessing and she has been calling to thank us ever since.
Well I hope you guys have a great week!
Love,
Elder Holton
"Today we threw a really cool birthday party as a district for Hermana Moya. We got together and made german pancakes, french toast, coffee cake, and a weird fried banana thing that tastes like french fries. We decorated a room and had a really good time. Hermana Moya loved it and I could tell that she was really grateful. We have such an awesome district with a lot of unity. While we were there, the office was having a little lunch party, so we grabbed a picture with President King and his family in their Halloween costumes. haha It was a fun morning."
German Pancakes or we call them MONSTERS in my family!!
Happy Birthday Hermana Moya!!
Our District with President King, his wife and their daughter!
Don't you love their costumes! Milk Duds, Tootsie Roll and Elephant!
Our District having fun making breakfast together!
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