Yup, It is freezing here!

Hey Fam!

Well another week has come and gone.  I love it here.  The more I talk with missionaries the more I learn how irregular it is to be able to stay in one town for 8 months. I am so grateful to live here in Bozeman!  It really is a fantastic place to serve.  It has been crazy cold the passed few days though.. Down to single digits which is def not cool.  But on the flip side I do get to finally wear all these accessories like scarfs,gloves, and ear warmers that I have never needed my entire life :)  Life is good.

Sorry I missed last week but we did have a baptism yesterday!  His name is Randy and he actually went home to Arizona to be baptized.  He will be back after the holidays but he is another person that I am honored to be able to know.  He is Navajo and is the first of his family to be baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  

I got to spend half my week in Three Forks which was sweet!  I love going back and seeing all the people that I got to teach and get to know.  There are people there that are really having a hard time with their current circumstances but chose to accept that God gave them those trials to make them stronger.  I admire everything about them.  I love how my perspective continues to change as a missionary.  

We have another Person who is investigating the Church that has really helped me think of how we can be more like Christ.  His name is Mike.  We have been teaching him for a couple weeks and he has agreed to prepare himself to be baptized on the 7th of December.  He is making big moves towards qualifying himself for the great blessings that our Father in Heaven has prepared for him.  In teaching him I have really thought about myself.  I have been very focused on the subject of self-mastery.  I feel that to be like the Savior I need to allow myself to evolve to exactly what he has taught.  This is a process that I know will take my entire life but I understand how important it is to have a sure foundation.  I know that everything we do initially comes from a thought.  I have really been working to master my own mind and only allow those things that are pleasing to the Savior to enter it.  I had the thought the other day, Can Satan read my thoughts?  First I am so grateful for people like my Stake President , President Heap, who have studied the scriptures all their lives and can help direct me to the answers to questions like this.  He directed me to the scripture in Doctrine and Covenants section 6 verse 16, "Yea, I tell thee, that thou mayest know that there is none else save God that knowest thy thoughts and the intents of thy heart."  How grateful I was to learn this!  Wow seriously that makes it so much easier for me to know that Satan has to base what he throws at me by what I do, not what I think.  Yes I also have to take into account that in our pre-mortal existence he must have known me but from here on out he can only throw his junk at me by what I do, not what I think.  This was a powerful lesson for me and I know that it would have been near impossible for me to learn it if I did not have the desire to find an answer and the scriptures to search for that answer.  

I am so grateful for all of the many things that God has given us in these latter days to guide us.  I pray that we all may take the time to prayerfully search the scriptures for the problems to the questions we have in life.  Because of experience, I can now testify that all questions to life that we need to know can be found in the scriptures.  I have yet to have a question that I need to know that they can not answer.

I get to have Thanksgiving Dinner at President Heap's home! I'm excited and grateful.  I hope you all have a fantastic week!  I love you and am so very grateful for all you do for me.

Elder Holland