Just Chill....

This week went by so fast. I feel like it was just Pday yesterday! Last Pday was cool. we had a bonfire with our zone and ate rice (storie of my life) Ill send some pictures...This week was great. Im a Little sad because there is now only two americanos in my zone and Elder malloy is now in the misión office (he was my homie) but im excited to meet our new zone! Im sitting here trying to even remember what happened this week....haha

ISABEL is amazing. We still have been Reading the Book of Mormon with her family everyday and we taught her about the law of tithing on saturday which i was super nervous for because i know she doesnt have money. I mean they dont even own two pairs of pants. but on Sunday she was at the chapel with her tithing. I was so happy i couldnt stop smiling! she asked if she could change her baptism date for the 10th of march because that is her birthday but we talked to her about it and decided to make it a goal to get the the temple on the 10th of march to do baptisms with Ronaldo! so we are still on for saturday! im just so happy and excited for her and her family I cant stop smiling about it! the change that i have seen in her in the last two weeks is amazing. Ronaldo passed the sacrament for the first time yesterday which was really cool as well.

Thursday I had lunch at the misión home and got to talk to presidente. Hes so cool. I feel like i easily have the best misión president ever. They have a bunch of picture books of his family at lake Powell and their cabin so obvisouly i thought about our family! His assistants told hermana andia that my spanish was really good...which she of course didnt tell me until today but that made my whole week haha nothing beats a compliment about my spanish! We arent going to have a pensionista this month i guess so we are eating with the members (pray for my stomach) haha. Im actually fine with it because i dont know how many more hot dogs i can eat for breakfast haha.

one thing i learned this week is to just chill...haha i get super up tight because peruvians are lazy and hard to work with sometimes. like you can NEVER depend on them. So i just need to be like the peruvians and chill out. I dont get latins and i probably never will haha me and my compañera have so many differences but thats just part of the misión. like she always has to walk infront of me (i dont get it) and today she told me that all of my clothes are fading... like i think she was trying to insult me but idk...the other day i told her she looked alot younger in a foto and it offened her so much...haha i dont get it. but its whatever! anyways this week was great!

one scripture I loved this week was Ether 12:6. Sometimes it takes the really hard weeks to appreciate the good and see the blessings in your life. i really am so so so blessed. I love you all so much!

xoxox

HH

This is just a little something Kinzie shared with me today while we were emailing:

I just wanted to share a Little bit of what I studied this week with you....I was Reading in 1 Nephi 7 verses 17-18. i loved it because it talks about how nephi prayed to have the strength to break the bands from laman and lamuel but in verse 18 it says that the bands were "loosed." God didn't give him exactly what he prayed for but he did help him! I was thinking about when we pray for things diilgently and think like "what the heck, why hasnt he helped me or why hasnt he given this to me?" but sometimes we just need to take a step back and look and what he has done. Sometimes we look past the things that he does give us. idk i really liked this. You could apply it to many different things, anything.

 This is the first day I have been able to wear reg clothes. First day to wear jeans, it was awesome.

 All of the homes and buildings behind the field are my area.

My zone.

Kinzie said it has rained for 3 days this week. They have a giant hole in the roof of their bedroom :(

Much Better Week....

ayyyy familia,

Hermana Andia and I are still laughing at the bus ride on the way to internet this morning. It was something like the movie fast and furious but in a bus...haha he didnt even stop to let us off it was sort of like a tuck and roll. hahaha. Peruvians....Anyways this week was SO much better holy moly. Hermana Andia and I agreed that we dont ever want to repeat last week haha. This week flew by for me! This week is the first transfer I have in the field but I obviously wont be going anywhere (probably for like 6 months) but our zone is changing a little and its sort of sad! I love all of the elders we are with! our zone leader is finishing his mission on tuesday so we are having a big bon fire tonight in some ghetto field I guess? Im excited about it. Our pensionista told us she is moving in Febrero so we are on the hunt for a new pensionista! im sort of sad about it because they are like my family here! que mas que mas...We started reading the book of mormon every day with all of Ranaldos family! and Isabel (ranaldos mom) has a baptismal date for the 31st! its amazing. Im just so excited for her! we have seen such a big change in their family just this week! at first it was hard to get them all together to read and participate but now they are ready every day at 6:30 with their libros! I love it! they ask questions and are just way into it! I think eventually we will get the whole family to commit! 

For part of my "training" here we have to watch the district videos (again) and I just laugh everytime because a mission in South America is NOTHING like the videos haha.....You wake every morning to the sound of dogs fighting outside your window and a lady walking down the street screaming "tamale tamale" and then you sit up and hit your head on your ceiling and risk your life climbing down the most ghetto bunk bed youve ever seen. then your companion starts rapidly talking in spanish at 6:30 in the morning and youre just so confused because just five minutes ago you were dreaming in english....haha idk its just hilarious! Another funny thing that happened this week (well i think its funny) was Andia and I went to take a picture in the cemetary this week because theyre super cool here and we were making a card for the elder that is leaving this week because he is (dying) in the misison field. anyway we took the picture and left the cemetary...well first off you should know that latinos believe in ghosts like crazy. my companion talks about them all the time. Ill probably see a few on my mission... haha but after we left my companion started freaking out and made us go back and apologize to all of the tombs (idk how to spell that) that were in our pictures and ever since then every night she prays that we will be safe and that no spirits will follow us. haha its funny for me but its really serious for her. well yeah, this week was great. idk what else to say haha! i love everyone so much and appreciate all the prayers and love! i know i say that every week but I really am so grateful! 

I hope everyone has a great week! 

xoxo 

HH 

 They just built this bridge in our area and i thought it was cool because it actually looks nice.

 My life everyday on the bus!

My comp thinks there is a ghost in the pic in the window under me. IDK

U.S.A.

I am trying to think of a way right now to put my week into (positive) words haha. This week was just....so hard. I dont even know. It all started on Tuesday when my companera decided she wanted to make food from her country (Bolivia) which i felt obligated to eat of course but every time I think about it I get sick. Tuesday and Wednesday I thought I was for sure dying. I dont think I have ever been that sick in my whole life. Im pretty sure it was from her food. BUT it does not matter how sick you are when you are a gringa. We were still out working. Wednesday was the same. and Thursday I woke up with a cold haha. Friday and Saturday I had no voice but on Saturday night I taught my first English class here. LOL. five people showed up but I think it went well. People here want to learn english SO bad. my companera is getting pretty good at english and wants to extend here misión so she can learn more. Sunday me and hermana Andia got to church a Little early because we couldnt get macarena to get out of bed. No she is not getting baptized this week. We dont really know what to do with her because every Saturday she promises she will attend church but every sunday morning when we show up at her house we cant get her to come. We told her we cant continue teaching her until she comes to church so we will see what happens. But anyay we got to church a Little early on Sunday and the obispo asked Hermana Andia to speak in sacrament meeting but she decided she didnt want to sooo ya. I had to. I sounded like a man because of my voice and the whole thing was a blure but hermana andia said she understood about half so i mean thats good.

I decided my least favorite words in spanish that come out of my companions mouth are ´¨como dijo hermana Holt" which means "like my companion said"..and then she repeats everything i just said but in better spanish. haha i hate it.

well sunday night after church we taught two lessons and then my companion decided she was tired of my spanish and she couldnt teach anymore. so we went back to our cuarto and sat in the dark while my companion layed on her bed frustrated with me. I think I can say that is the lonliest I have ever felt in my life. I had no idea what to do. SPANISH IS SO FRUSTRATING.

I knew coming on a misión was going to be so challanging. but it challanges you in ways you never even thought of haha. There is times when you feel like Heavenly Father kind of just left you alone. But its a chance to really put your faith in him and have the faith that he will carry you through. because I KNOW He will.

This week is going to be better. its a chance to start over and work harder and be better. Im so grateful for all of your prayers and love. I love all of you so much!

xoxox

HH

Read the BOM!

Hellooooo,

This week was....good. The holidays here are a little rough for a missionary because absolutely no one wants to listen to you and everyone is crazy drunk for like five days straight. I have never seen so many drunk peruvians passed out in the street in my life haha. They go hard! New years we had to be in our houses at 9 because things get wild haha. Me and Hermana Andia bought this confetti launcher on Albolino (dont know how to spell that) for like 5 soles on Tuesday to launch at all of the elders on Wednesday and we were so excited haha we hid it in the bishops office. so the next day we go to do it and one of the elders in our zone was looking at it and it went off in the hall with no one around instead haha it was sooo funny but so sad. all the elders thought someone got shot or something because it was so loud haha so yeah thats how my new years was! anyways, new years day was so great! we got together as a zone and read basically the whole book of mormon in spanish (my brain was fried). after that we had a testimony meeting about the book of mormon which was so great. the spirit was so strong. this year we are focusing and strengthening our teaching on the Book Of Mormon. Hermana Andia and I wrote our testimonies in a bunch of BOM and gave out as many as we could this week. it was great! we found 6 new inv.!! Were really excited about that. I just want to talk about one inv. inparticular. Remember Ranaldo (got baptized 2 weeks ago) well his mom, Isabel, wanted nothing to do with the church. she thought it was fine her son joined the church but she didnt want to listen to the lessons. well on friday night we went with ranaldo to get some church clothes because he is getting the priesthood this week (so cool) and after we returned to his house his mom and sister were there. We ended up teaching them both that night. it was probably the most spiritual lesson I have been in so far (i know not many) but it was awesome. she is a single mom and runs a buisness out of her home. She has a lot of stress and worry and she kind of just broke down in our lesson and told us she wants to know more. THEN sunday she even came to church. it was so awesome! I am so excited for her! Our other inv. that is supposed to get baptized this week (Macarena) didnt show up for church on Sunday so we have to move it again to next week. So that was kind of a bummer. One thing I know for sure though is how much my Savior loves me. I dont know why but this week especially i felt so overwhelmed by His love. He is carrying me through the hard times here i know it. Im grateful for the comfort that we can recieve through Him. through prayer, fasting, and being obedient. One scripture I read over and over again this week was Alma 38. I dont know why. we all get something different out of scriptures but it really spoke to me this week. 

It rained here yesterday which was a miracle i think because it hasnt rained here in over a year. El Misty had some snow on top of it this morning. i took a picture ill try to send it! umm Friday night in Albilino someone tried to rob me haha it was hilarious though because all they got away with was a couple of pens. its cool. Albilino is just this CRAZY market place. you should look it up. anyways, now when we go there i wear my back pack in front of me haha just in case. it was super funny though because i was like twice his size. he ran away real fast. Me and Hermana Andia started dream journals this week (El Libro De Suenos) its hilairous though because ever since we started is both of us havent remembered our dreams haha. its weird how excited i get to go to bed and dream. haha 

anyways, This year i just want to challange you all to start reading the Book Of Mormon a little every day! I know we get asked to do that alot and its something we should always be doing but make a goal for this year to really do it. read the Book of Mormon. 

 I love you all! thanks for your prayers and support! have a great week! 

xoxox 

hermana Holt